Broadview Networks Earns the Microsoft Unified Communications Solutions Competency

Broadview Networks Earns the Microsoft Unified Communications Solutions Competency Broadview Networks adds the Microsoft Unified Communications Competency to our growing list of Microsoft Partner Program accomplishments – our 9th Microsoft Competency!

Making Vista Deployment Easier

Microsoft Deployment is the fourth generation deployment accelerator from Microsoft and the next version of Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007. This toolset can help make Vista deployment easier for systems administrators.

Virtualization Delivers on Server Consolidation Goals

PlateSpin Ltd provides solutions that empower enterprises to manage and optimize the data center with tools that can migrate server workloads over the network and allow remote discovery of data center server hardware and software assets, improving management, operation, and forecasting.

Simplified Server Management in Server 2008

The Server Manager interface in Windows Server 2008 is a new interface that provides a single stop for administrators who are configuring, managing, and monitoring a Server 2008 system.

Broadview achieves the Company's 9th Microsoft Competency!

Winnipeg, MB - July 24th - Broadview Networks announces the accomplishment of another Microsoft Partner Program Competency - Unified Communications Solutions!

This competency award recognizes qualified Canadian Microsoft Partners who have established expertise in streamlining communications through Microsoft unified communications technologies, including Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server. Qualification for this solution competency requires depth in staffing and achievement of certification with Microsoft Unified Communications products. Broadview Networks is pleased to provide multiple customer references that meet Microsoft's specified requirements to qualify for this designation.

Microsoft Competencies are designed to help differentiate a technology partner's capabilities with specific Microsoft-based technologies to customers looking for a particular type of solution. Each competency has a unique set of requirements and benefits, formulated to accurately represent the specific skills and services that technology partners bring to the industry.

The Company's Ninth Microsoft Competency!

Broadview Networks is extremely proud of our achievement in the Microsoft Partner Program, and the Unified Communications Solutions competency brings the company's Competency Program achievements to a total of nine! Few other Canadian Partners are recognized with this number of Microsoft competencies.

Broadview Networks specializes in advanced IT infrastructure as well as Microsoft CRM solutions for a wide range of clients in North America. The company is a Gold Certified Partner, and since June of 2007 has been a member of the Microsoft Gold Partner Excellence Program.

Broadview Networks holds competencies in:

• Advanced Infrastructure Solutions
  
• Networking Infrastructure Solutions
  
• Security Solutions
  
• Data Management Solutions
  
• Information Worker Productivity Solutions
  
• Licensing Solutions
  
• Microsoft Business Solutions
  
• Mobility Solutions
  
• Unified Communications Solutions

About Broadview Networks

Broadview Networks is one of Canada's leading advanced IT infrastructure companies. The company is recognized as one of the fastest growing businesses in Manitoba and is also acknowledged as one of the top Gold Certified Microsoft Partners in Canada. Broadview Networks has a distinct focus on simplifying complex technologies for clients across Canada, ranging from SMB, Mid-Market and Enterprise organizations.

Anyone involved in rolling out a new desktop operating system in a business networked environment would rarely call that process easy or simple. Desktops can be extremely complicated when hardware and applications across systems in use vary, and there are always exceptions and potential end user issues to deal with. But at some point in time, an upgrade becomes necessary in order to benefit from improved security, manageability, and new features found in the latest desktop operating systems.

The Windows Vista operating system was designed with manageability as a core component of the OS, and while deployment isn't easy, there are Windows Vista features and supplementary tools and guidance that make a Vista rollout easier than past Windows operating systems!

There are tools and resources available to make Windows Vista deployment easier, no matter the size of your organization. Microsoft Deployment (the successor to Business Desktop Deployment) can make the deployment process manageable; here are some ways to make your job deploying Vista easier.

1) Lite Touch Installation

For organizations without a software distribution infrastructure like Configuration Manager 2007 or SMS 2003, Microsoft Deployment provides a "Lite Touch Installation" (LTI) option through the Deployment Workbench, a component of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. The Deployment Workbench also includes guidance and a number of free tools help you through the deployment process while automating many tasks in the process. Microsoft Deployment provides predefined task sequence templates that support the implementation of multiple client and server deployment scenarios.

2) Lite Touch Installation and Multicasting

Windows Vista operating system images are typically around three to four times larger than Windows XP images. If you are deploying an operating system image to hundreds of targeted computers, the old model of one OS image sent per targeted computer can take its toll on the network. For example, one 4GB image to 100 computers requires 400GB of data to pass over the network.

With multicast support available in updated Windows Server® 2008 Windows Deployment Services (WDS), you can dramatically eliminate the number of times that OS image is passed over the network. The new system allows targeted PCs to join at any phase in the file transfer. Further, any files missed at the beginning of the transfer can be applied in a second loop of the process. A 4 GB image to 100 computers using multicasting can reduce the total 400GB data transmission to an 8GB to 16GB load over the wire in most cases.

Updates to Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) used with WDS, reduce network congestion and control data flow compared to other multicast solutions. This feature will save you time, bandwidth and help ensure other services are running as needed.

3) Zero-touch installation

Microsoft Deployment integrates with other recent Microsoft deployment technologies to create a single path for image creation and automated installation. Using Microsoft Deployment with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 or System Management Center (SMS) 2003 allows you to perform deployments in less time and standardize images.

If your organization uses Configuration Manager 2007, Microsoft Deployment makes automating the deployment process a lot easier. By using the built-in OS deployment capability in Configuration manager, along with specific functionality included in Microsoft Deployment, you can now perform "Zero Touch Installation," which automates the deployment of Windows Vista. These tools help to guide you through all of the steps involved with performing a fully automated Windows Vista deployment, including ensuring the appropriate infrastructure exists, preparing the deployment environment, configuring resource access and the ZTI OS image, creating the ZTI OS image installation CD, and deploying the OS to client computers.

For companies using SMS 2003, you can perform Zero Touch Installation using the Operating System Deployment Feature Pack with Systems Management Server 2003, along with Microsoft Deployment for additional functionality and process guidance. Microsoft Deployment can also be used to create reference images.

4) Task sequencing

The task sequencing model in Microsoft Deployment offers even more flexibility than the BDD 2007 implementation of 'builds', and it provides a more direct way to manage task configuration. All of the task sequence configuration information is now maintained within the task sequence itself, not in the 'general' and 'settings' tabs. For example, you can specify the disk configuration directly within the disk partitioning task. You can organize and perform pre- and post-deployment tasks in one interface with minimal scripting effort.

The deployment process is now the same as the new operating system deployment feature in Configuration Manager. It provides complete integration into the Configuration Manager 2007 admin console and task sequencing capabilities. You can speed Configuration Manager 2007 operating system deployments using one wizard to create needed task sequences and packages. With Microsoft Deployment, you can extend the Configuration Manager 2007 task sequencing capabilities with new actions.

5) Project, process, and guidance

Microsoft Deployment offers detailed project management guidance and job aids for all deployment roles. It also separates technical documentation for the products and technologies to facilitate automation tasks. Tasks are divided into logical groupings and tools are provided where automation is required. Microsoft Deployment provides project management knowledge and tool integration.

To assist with the integration of key tasks and team collaboration, Microsoft Deployment provides tools and guidance specifically designed for many of the roles in the deployment process, including Release Management, Infrastructure Remediation, Image Engineering, Application Management, Migration, Security, Deployment, Operations Readiness, and Testing. Job aids and templates are provided for Deployment Business Case, Project Plan, Vision Scope, Functional Specification, Assessment Template, Inventory Template, Test Plan, Pilot Plan, Migration Plan, Risk Plan, Training Plan, and Communications Plan.

Bringing it Together

For companies who are upgrading their desktop environment to Windows Vista may be challenged with the complexity of the undertaking. Microsoft provides considerable guidance and support with the Microsoft Deployment tools and processes that can reduce the risk involved and can make the job easier. No matter the size of your organization, there are benefits to be found in utilizing these tools to simplify the process.

If your organization is looking for additional information or assistance with your Windows Vista deployment please contact Broadview Networks.

In the late 1990s, we saw many organizations decentralizing their IT organization, spurred in part by the availability of inexpensive and powerful x86 servers that could meet the processing needs of departments and branch locations. Beginning in the early 2000s, we saw a reverse trend in which organizations began to move back to a more centralized IT structure in order to obtain cost savings, increased operational efficiencies and control, standardized processes and improved agility.

As a result, most enterprise data centers today are very large and getting larger. It is not uncommon for data centers to grow by hundreds of servers per year, gobbling up precious floor and rack space and creating shortfalls in power and cooling resources. To address the issue of server sprawl, as well as ease system management and lower data center costs, server and data center consolidation has rapidly emerged as the number one priority for IT managers. New technologies like blade servers and virtualization show great promise in helping data centers combat the problem of server sprawl.

The green computing movement is also driving consolidation initiatives. As organizations look to reduce the environmental impact and overall carbon footprint of their IT operations, consolidation is a logical first step. The cost savings and environmental benefits of consolidation and virtualization are closely aligned. By consolidating servers into more energy-efficient virtual machine hosts or blade servers, organizations can retire old, power-hungry hardware and optimize underutilized servers to achieve significant savings in space, power and cooling requirements.

Successful consolidation initiatives require upfront planning and a thorough understanding of the server workloads that will be consolidated. A poorly planned consolidation effort can result in complex configurations and increased IT overhead. In some cases, physical server sprawl is merely replaced with virtual machine sprawl.

Many data center managers now view consolidation as an ongoing IT strategy with long-term benefits for the organization. New technologies have emerged that support this view by making it easier and faster to monitor, move and consolidate workloads onto the systems where they will run most efficiently - whether physical or virtual. These technologies are making continuous server consolidation and optimization a reality.

Today's data center is a heterogeneous mix of different servers, operating systems, applications and data. The outlook is that the data center will only continue to get larger, more heterogeneous and more complex unless IT management philosophies begin to change.

The majority of servers in the typical data center are under-utilized. Under-utilized servers translate to wasted resources while the hardware continues to consume costly computing, power and cooling assets - not to mention specialized IT staffing resources and maintenance cycles. Over-utilization of servers is less common, but may occur when workloads grow more rapidly than expected. Depending on the business-critical nature of the workload, an over-utilized server puts business continuity at risk.

There are different types of consolidation scenarios that can be employed to address optimizing resources, and successful initiatives typically include a combination of the following:

Physical Consolidation

Physical consolidation involves migrating and/or combining workloads from multiple physical servers onto larger or newer physical hardware configurations such as blade servers. Blade server technology aids physical consolidations by allowing organizations to make the most of data center floor and rack space. Factors driving physical consolidation may include:

• The retirement of legacy or end-of-lease hardware.
• Data center relocations for savings.
• Post-merger or acquisition IT consolidations.

Physical consolidation requires the movement of workloads between hardware platforms via physical-to-physical (P2V) workload migration. Consider a multiplatform workload migration solution that supports different hardware configurations and server technologies to accommodate future changes in server infrastructure.

Virtual Consolidation

Virtual consolidation involves migrating workloads from physical servers to virtual hosts running virtualization infrastructures provided by VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, Virtual Iron or XenSource. Virtualization allows more efficient sharing of physical resources to deliver higher CPU utilization rates. It also reduces the total number of servers needed to run the business, as multiple workloads can be combined and hosted on a single virtual machine host.

Server consolidation through virtualization requires the movement of physical workloads to virtual platforms via physical-to-virtual (P2V) workload migration. This task may be performed over a local network (LAN) or across greater distances using a WAN. In cases where bandwidth or lack of connectivity between sites is an issue, staged workload migrations may be required in which workloads are captured to image archives, redeployed on the virtual hosts at the remote site and then synchronized to capture any changes that occurred during the move.

Site Consolidation

Decreasing the total number of data center sites reduces the costs associated with running data centers that remain. Data center site consolidations typically involve a combination of physical and virtual consolidation and require both P2P and P2V workload migrations.

Previously, data center site consolidation efforts required the shipping of existing physical servers to new locations or manual rebuilding of new systems from scratch including the installation of operating systems, data, applications and drivers. New hardware is typically rebuilt from an image that is captured on disk and shipped to the new location.

Tools to bring it all together

Advanced workload migration tools reduce the manual effort and logistics involved in completing a site consolidation by streaming workloads over the network to both physical and virtual hosts at the consolidated data center site. These solutions also help to mitigate the business risks associated with large-scale data center site consolidations by allowing workloads to be moved to a test environment for thorough testing prior to a production move. Consider a solution that enables workload transfer without taking production servers offline to preserve business continuity during test and production workload migrations.

Broadview Networks recommends tools from PlateSpin to assist with the consolidation projects.

PlateSpin PowerRecon allows organizations to remotely discover server hardware and software assets cross the entire data center - regardless of the various virtual machines, operating systems and hardware platforms deployed.

With support for Windows, UNIX and Linux platforms, PowerRecon collects detailed information for each server in the network such as operating system, installed and running applications or services, patch levels, CPU, memory, network and disk resources. PowerRecon also identifies workloads and monitors utilization data over days, weeks or months to determine utilization trends. By collecting the key data points needed to assess and match workload sizes and resources, PowerRecon helps ensure that the data center is continuously optimized. System performance data can also be imported directly into PowerRecon from HP Operations Center and Microsoft Operation Manager (MOM). In addition, PowerRecon also provides integration with VMware VirtualCenter to provide greater visibility into virtual data center environments.

PowerRecon provides the most advanced scenario modeling, forecasting and planning capabilities available for data center initiatives. Create scenarios for distributing workloads across servers to maximize utilization and minimize resource contention. Use powerful what-if modeling to determine different combinations of hardware and virtual hosts and proactively account for future growth by using forecasted workload and utilization values. Enter your own standard hardware builds for experimentation in order to compare and cost-justify different scenarios based on power and cooling, total cost of ownership, consolidation ratio and rack space needs. Based on this detailed analysis, you can properly group and size workloads according to their resource requirements in order to generate a successful consolidation or recovery plan.

PlateSpin PowerConvert provides a single, cost-effective solution for streaming workloads between any host in the network including physical machines, blade infrastructures, virtual hosts and image archives.

PowerConvert supports all of the leading virtualization solutions including Microsoft Virtual Server, Virtual Iron, VMware and Citrix XenServer, as well as multiple operating systems, hardware configurations and imaging technologies. Easily move workloads between dissimilar hardware models or between different virtual infrastructures.

PlateSpin PowerConvert enables enterprises to move and protect workloads locally or across geographically dispersed sites in any direction between physical and virtual infrastructures. PowerConvert's Live Transfer capability enables users to move workloads across the local or wide area network without taking production servers offline. PowerConvert also enables live testing with no disruption to source systems to ensure that workloads will run as expected in the virtual environment. Once testing is complete, PowerConvert's Server Sync™ feature briefly shuts down the source to perform a final synchronization to the target virtual host. In addition to minimizing downtime, Server Sync provides a fast and efficient solution for long-distance migrations by reducing the total volume of data that must be sent across the WAN.

PowerConvert provides a range of workload protection alternatives in a single product for maximum flexibility. Data centers can choose between flexible image backup and hardware-independent restore or consolidated recovery using virtual infrastructure and whole server workload replication. By using virtualization as a recovery platform, organizations can protect a larger share of data center workloads without having to invest in costly duplicate hardware and software. In addition to standard file-based replication, high-speed block-level transfer enables enterprise customers to protect transactional workloads, such as mail and database servers, where point-in-time transactional information, configuration settings and data must be maintained. Efficient incremental transfers ensure that only changes to source data files are replicated to the target environment, minimizing network usage. Enterprises can also augment existing recovery plans with flexible, platform-independent full, incremental and differential images.

Together, PlateSpin PowerRecon and PowerConvert provide the only solution that automates project assessment, planning and execution from start to finish. Organizations can accelerate data center initiatives by using PlateSpin PowerConvert to execute PowerRecon plans and stream physical servers into virtual environments. Consolidate and protect servers using virtual and blade infrastructures and maximize consolidation ratios by leveraging intelligent workload-based resource configuration. Minimize resource contention and the overhead of ongoing migration by optimally balancing workloads across target servers.

Contact Enterprise Sales at Broadview Networks for additional information or to request an evaluation. Phone (204) 984-9897.

Windows Server 2008 includes an entirely new management interface called Server Manager. This enhanced management console is a one stop shop for configuring, managing, and monitoring the Windows 2008 Server system. While past generations of Windows Server have also included management consoles, in the Server 2008 era, systems administrators will find that the default Server Manager console is really useful - it is something that we can and will use every day for managing Server 2008 systems!

Managing Roles and Services

From the Server Manager console, you can install Server Roles like DNS, DHCP, and Active Directory Services. And when a Server Role and any related Role Services are installed you will find a fantastic feature of Server Manager - the MMC consoles for the services installed on your server are automatically installed inside Server Manager. Gone are the days when you have to create your own MMC's for the roles and features on your server!

Event Viewer and System Diagnostics

Improvements for managing and monitoring Windows Server 2008 continues inside the Diagnostics node of Server Manager. Here, the Event Viewer provides access to the Windows logs; Server 2008 Event Viewer provides access to logs for Application, Security, and System events, just as previous versions of Event Viewer has provided. What is new and changed now, however, is the ability to see events for other applications and services installed on the computer, under the node of the same name.

As well, for administrators who have a need to maintain a specific view of Events based on common filters (Event Level, by Log, by Source, or Task Category or Keywords, for example), you can use the Custom Views node to construct a custom view. This new feature has the potential to save a lot of time for administrators who perform repetitive specific queries on their Server 2008 servers.

And the final new node in the Event Viewer is Subscriptions, which allows you to collect Event Log information from other systems in your network. Filters can be applied to this information, and with some time spent customizing the information being collected from systems in your network, it is possible to build a homemade monitoring solution using built-in tools! While not as sophisticated as System Center solutions for monitoring and managing your network, the capabilities out of the box in Server 2008 provide a sufficient starting point to monitor networked systems.

Easier for Configuring, Managing, and Monitoring

Whether you are configuring, managing, or monitoring your Server 2008 system, it is likely that most, if not all, of the day-to-day administrative tasks can be the handled inside the Server Manager console. Across all the 3 common activity areas, it is important that administrators become familiar with the console; whether you are setting up Server 2008, adding or managing features and/or services, or if you are responsible for monitoring a Server 2008 system, the Server Manager console provides the tools that you will need to get the job done.

If your organization is looking for additional information or assistance with Windows Server 2008, please contact Broadview Networks.