September, 2011

The Australian carried an interesting story last week, that I have only just come across. It talks about the growth in the use of the Microsoft Cloud, and specifically the use of the Windows Azure Cloud computing system in Australia - quoting growth in customers ‘from a handful a year ago to several hundred’. What I liked about the article was that it specifically focused on the use of the Microsoft Cloud in education, quoting a researcher from Curtin University, who’s been using the Windows Azure cloud for genome sequencing.

In the past, researchers would have needed access to a big bank of high performance supercomputers to do the kind of projects which can now be delivered using the Cloud. What that means is a complete reduction in capital costs, and an ability to switch computing power on and off - keeping costs under close control, whilst giving researchers the power of a massive datacentre.

Read "Blue Skies for Microsoft's Azure Cloud offering" in the The Australian

We’re co-hosting a free ‘Business Intelligence in Universities’ event in Melbourne on the morning of the 12th October, at our Freshwater Place offices. It will be a focused roundtable event, where you’ll be able to learn from the experiences of other universities, as well as the speakers from Microsoft and CALUMO.

Senior executives from both Finance and ITC will benefit from attending the event.   It’s an opportunity to learn what your peers are doing, have achieved and the lessons learned.

CALUMO, who are specialists in applying effective Business Intelligence at Higher Education Providers, will bring you up to date on trends and achievements in the Higher Ed sector, including

• Top BI implementation lessons for Universities
• Exposing Load Planning from out of the ‘black box’
• Course profitability – is it a dirty word(s)?
• Issues around Research Reporting and compliance
• Making budgeting and forecasting useful to everyone involved
• How to trust your data
• How the value of the Finance & IT Teams were recognised in previous projects

The Microsoft speakers will provide updates on the key capabilities and the next evolution of the MS offering, including;

• The current version of MS SQL Server 2008 R2, and what’s coming in the next release, code named “Denali”
• Data Mining to better understand trends and relationships (for Alumni donations, student planning, learning analytics)
• Master Data Management and BI Symantec layer – Cleaning and managing data
• Statistical forecasting and predictive analytics
• Enhanced visualisation for information delivery.

We will also discuss how Universities are managing Cost Reduction, obtaining extra value from existing licensing arrangements and delivering at lower cost to the Uni.

The best value from the briefing will be achieved through having an attendee from both Finance and IT, so that both the user-perspective and the IT-services perspective can be discussed.

If you’d like to get an invitation to this briefing, then drop an email to Mike Henegan at Calumo, who will provide full details for event, which is from 9:00AM to 11:00AM on the 12th October

Email Mike Henegan for more info

As most Australian schools are on holiday this week, we’re not running the education-specific Tech Tuesday this week or next. So for a fortnight, the only webinars to note are general technical ones - although they are not specifically focused on education ICT, the subjects they cover will be of interest to IT managers across education.

All of the timings for the webcasts are AEST (Australia East Coast time).
See ** below for more details on how the webcasts work

This week’s webcasts

Microsoft Visual Studio Tips and Tricks

Learn how to become a Visual Studio coding guru! In this fast-paced session, learn to write code faster than a speeding bullet, leap around large projects in a single bound, and become more powerful than a locomotive with the debugger. We take a wild ride through C# and Visual Basic IDE features in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and indispensible out-of-the-box solutions that will help you get your job done better and faster.
This webinar is mainly for software developers!

Tuesday 27th September 2-4PM AEST - Register here

Ten Must-Have Tools for Windows Azure

Any platform, by its own nature, creates an ecosystem for third-party tools and helpers. Windows Azure is no different. In this session we look at a variety of the third-party tools available in the Windows Azure ecosystem. Included are tools for both developers and IT professionals. We look at tools that will help manage storage and resources, migration, scaling, diagnostics and software components that will help you build cloud applications.
This webinar is suitable for both IT managers and developers.

Tuesday 27th September 2-4PM AEST - Register here

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012: Deployment and Infrastructure Technical Overview

Configuration Manager 2012 is now in Beta 2! A strong engineering investment has been made in optimizing the site and hierarchy architecture for the Configuration Manager 2012 release. This session examines those changes and provides guidance on how best to design and deploy an optimized Configuration Manager 2012 infrastructure. This session covers topics such as site server roles, boundary management, Role Based Administration, Discovery, Inventory, content deployment and changes to Collections.

Friday 30th September 2-4PM AEST - Register here

Future webcasts

** By running them as webcasts, our aim is to allow you to get the latest news, without travel costs, or event fees. And with all of the advantages of being able to watch an online webcast whilst also being able to do other things if necessary.

All of the free webcasts this week are one hour sessions, and combine presentations and live demonstrations.

You’ll need to register in advance, and you’ll then receive a Calendar note as well as info on how to join the Live Meeting online. All of the timings given are for Australia East Coast time.

Every now and then you’ll read that Australia has done well/badly/averagely in the “PISA tests” - and there’s often an assumption about what that means (Variously: schools are doing well/badly/averagely; teachers need more help/money/inspiration; learners can/can’t read/write enough etc etc).

So I like this YouTube video produced by the team who created the PISA tests - and in very simple language sets out the answer to your question of “What are the PISA tests?”. So I’m not going to tell you anything more about them - just hit play:

Yesterday, I ran a '”Business Intelligence (BI) in Education” webinar - which included a number of examples of system-wide dashboards around the world. But the highlight (once we’d managed to sort out his microphone) was hearing from Rod Colledge of StrataDB - and ideas of how data could be made more useful by clever visualisations for teachers and school leaders. He was able to share some of the story of what he’s been developing, and how the different Microsoft technologies are going to help them to make a more powerful system for BI in education.

Yesterday afternoon Rod sat down with his software one more time, and recorded a demonstration of it in real-time, which he’s put onto YouTube. It’s a ten minute video, and worth watching right to the end.

• About a minute in there’s a great example of a school dashboard in SharePoint (good for a snapshot in time)
• At 4 1/2 minutes you get a demo of the ability to animate charts over time in the next version of our SQL server (really useful for longitudinal data)
• And around 7 minutes in, you’ll see how StrataDB have used PivotViewer to present data visually that will immediately make sense to every classroom teacher and school leader

For more about the work that StrataDB have been doing in Brisbane Catholic Education, take a look at my previous “BI in Education” blog post, or email Rod directly (I know he’d be really happy to answer questions, or arrange to show you more of StrataDB’s work)

There's plenty more on this blog about "BI in Education" - click here to find all related info

This is the final part of a series, covering the Education sessions at the Microsoft Australia Partner Conference.
Start at part one (The Microsoft Australia Education Team) here...

We’re at the end of the write-up of the Education session from the Australia Partner Conference. At the conference, we packed all of these last nine blog posts into a 45 minute session, and yet this series has already run to 7,000 words - boy, we must have spoken quickly at APC

Anyway, on with the final section, expanding on the story we shared at APC. Now it’s looking back and forward at the Microsoft product and service opportunities that exist in the education marketplace in Australia.

Key successes of the last year

Over the last twelve months, we’ve seen a number of key opportunities for our partners. The slide summarises them, but here’s some more commentary for each of the bullets:

• The Cloud: Education customers continue to adopt the Microsoft Cloud services with enthusiasm, including the shift to the Live@edu email service and new adoptions of the Windows Azure cloud service for building more flexible ICT services within schools and universities.
• Windows 7 & Office 2010 deployments: These also continue across all sectors. Customers who have made the switch are discovering the increased manageability of their systems, and the cost-savings possible through reduced helpdesk support and reduced power usage. As part of the switch, many customers are exploring how to use better virtualisation - either of applications, or of the complete desktop - in order to reduce ICT management costs, and increase flexibility and mobility for users.
• SQL Server: Another of the things we’ve seen in the last year is customers running projects to move key databases onto their Windows SQL Servers, from other platforms. In the case of Oracle databases, this has often been driven by the aim of reducing cost, whilst maintaining their service levels. And for critical workloads, there are examples of institutions moving their student management systems and learning management systems across to their SQL servers.

Looking ahead to next year

If those are the things we look back on, we also talked about the things we’ll expect to look back on in a year’s time with you - a forecast of the successes of 2012. Obviously, a bit trickier to do, but we thought it would be valuable to try and put some ideas down on a slide… Many of them are linked to cost saving opportunities for customers, as well as continuing to move their ICT infrastructure forward.

• Office 365: Continuing the move to the cloud, the next wave will be implementation and advice about Office 365 for education - helping customers to understand where it fits within their infrastructure and how to use it to reduce their on-premise ICT costs.
• Voice: As ageing PBXs come up for replacement, there are more and more customers who have realised that using Lync for their voice system, instead of a conventional PBX, helps save money as well as improving collaboration between staff across campus - as well allowing new models of teaching and learning.
• Windows 7 and Office 2010 deployments: This will continue to be something that customers will value the support of partners for, as they continue to migrate their installed base of computers, as well as extend out their use of System Center and Forefront to replace other software. And as customers realise that one of the best ways to prepare for the next version of Windows is to complete the deployment of Windows 7, this will continue to accelerate.
• Private Cloud: If ‘Cloud’ was the buzzword of last year, then ‘Private Cloud’ and ‘Public Cloud’ will be the next year’s two buzzwords. We expect to see plenty of partners asked to support migration to Hyper-V, either to virtualise existing physical servers, or to reduce the cost of virtualisation compared to other virtualisation solutions.
• CRM: Despite the fact that education has one of the most complex customer-relationship maps of any industry sector, it has been one of the slower sectors to adopting the use of CRM systems. However, what we’re now seeing is that that’s turning around fast (accelerated by changes in the marketplace, like the Bradley Report). The ideas that are popping up aren’t just confined to conventional CRM (like student recruitment) but also for managing some of the internal processes and events that institutions run.

Will this really be the list that we look back on next year, and say “Yes, these are the successes of 2011/12”? Well, although we don’t know, you can at least hold us to account by asking us to put the slide back and up and reviewing it!

Four webcasts to know about this week - one education-specific one (the Tech Tuesday) and three general technical ones.

All of the timings for the webcasts are AEST (Australia East Coast time).
See ** below for more details on how the webcasts work

This week’s webcasts

Microsoft SQL Server Code-Named "Denali" AlwaysOn Series, Part 2: Building a Mission-Critical High Availability Solution Using AlwaysOn

In this session we walk you through the steps to deploy a high availability solution using AlwaysOn. This is a demo-heavy presentation and the experts from the product development team walk you through a high availability solution architecture and deployment, explain key architectural concepts and recommend best practices that will help you achieve the required level of availability for your mission critical applications. It is highly recommended that you attend the first part of this series since the new concepts are introduced in that session.

Tuesday 20th September 2-4PM AEST - Register here

Microsoft Lync 2010: In the Cloud

Lync Online is Microsoft’s cloud communications service and a key component of Microsoft Office 365. Come to this session to understand which Lync capabilities will be available in the cloud. The session covers IM, conferencing and voice in the cloud, as well as a comprehensive overview of hybrid cloud and on-premises deployment options for Lync and Office 365.

Tuesday 20th September 2-4PM AEST - Register here

Understanding How Microsoft Virtualization Compares to VMware

This is a must-see session for anyone who is comparing VMware with Microsoft's virtualization offerings. We will review Microsoft's technology compared to VMware, focusing on what differentiates the two technologies. The session will also cover effective strategies for integrating Microsoft virtualization into datacenter environments, and review one company's experience with implementing Microsoft virtualization. If you need to know how the Microsoft virtualization stack compares to VMware's, this is the session for you!

Friday 23rd September 2-4PM AEST - Register here

Tech Tuesday - Business Intelligence in Education

A look at how to get the most from your school data. We’ll start this session by taking a look at how data is being used in a number of international examples, and then focus down on some ideas of work that’s being done today in Australia. This session isn’t designed to provide all of the answers, but to provide a starting point for your own exploration!

Tuesday 20th September 11-12AM AEST - Register here

Future webcasts

** By running them as webcasts, our aim is to allow you to get the latest news, without travel costs, or event fees. And with all of the advantages of being able to watch an online webcast whilst also being able to do other things if necessary.

All of the free webcasts this week are one hour sessions, and combine presentations and live demonstrations.

You’ll need to register in advance, and you’ll then receive a Calendar note as well as info on how to join the Live Meeting online. All of the timings given are for Australia East Coast time.

A quick guide, if you are planning events or marketing activities with schools, on the remaining school holidays in Australia 2011 - state by state.

So, if you're planning any activities with schools, then the blackout period this month is effectively from 16 September to 14 October, and then for the summer holidays, you’ll need to get any activities completed before Friday 16 December.

The list is in completely random order, mainly because of my poor searching skills!

Only two webcasts to know about this week - and they are both education-specific ones. There’s the Microsoft Mondays webinar on Lync, and the Tech Tuesday one for school IT managers and elearning leaders, about the work that Janison have been doing in online assessment.

All of the timings for the webcasts are AEST (Australia East Coast time).
See ** below for more details on how the webcasts work

This week’s webcasts

Microsoft Monday - How to 'Lync-up' with Colleagues and Students

Using Lync as the enterprise equivalent of Skype, Kirsten Gilbertson will walk through the benefits of instant messenger as a productivity tool.
Monday 12 Sep 2-3PM AEST
For: University and TAFE lecturers and support staff

Monday 12th September 2-3PM AEST - Register here

Tech Tuesday - Microsoft Partner story - Janison

Janison won the Microsoft Australia Education Partner of the Year Award 2011, for their online examination project for the NSW Online Science Assessment.
For: School IT teams and eLearning leaders

Tuesday 13th September 11AM AEST - Register here

Future webcasts

** By running them as webcasts, our aim is to allow you to get the latest news, without travel costs, or event fees. And with all of the advantages of being able to watch an online webcast whilst also being able to do other things if necessary.

All of the free webcasts this week are one hour sessions, and combine presentations and live demonstrations.

You’ll need to register in advance, and you’ll then receive a Calendar note as well as info on how to join the Live Meeting online. All of the timings given are for Australia East Coast time.

This is part eight of a series, covering the Education sessions at the Microsoft Australia Partner Conference.
Start at part one (The Microsoft Australia Education Team) here...

How Microsoft Academic licensing helps Microsoft partners

One of the questions that new partners often ask is “How does your licensing work in education?”. When they sell software solutions to education customers, they often rely on (or include) some Microsoft software components. For example, if a partner is selling a business intelligence solution for education that uses the capability of Windows SQL Server 2008, they will need to work out whether an education customer already has the server licence, or needs to buy a new one.

So to help, during our Australia Partner Conference session, we gave a quick overview of how education customers in Australia license their software - and which software. It’s general guidance only, rather than specific for an individual customer - so treat it as an introduction!

What Microsoft licensing is common for public education institutions?

For public schools, TAFEs and state-funded universities in Australia, it is common for most customers to have a subscription agreement for their Microsoft software. Normally this is negotiated at state or national level (to get the best pricing) and covers all of the organisations below the main body. The common licensing agreements are:

• Public Schools: Normally covered by a School Agreement or an Enrolment for Education Solutions (EES) agreement, that covers all of their computers.
• TAFEs: Are normally covered on the same basis as schools
• Universities: They’ll normally have an individual agreement, called a Campus Agreement or an Enrolment for Education Solutions (EES) agreement, that covers all of their computers.

With these agreements, it normally means that the customers has licences for the Microsoft Education Desktop - which includes the latest Enterprise versions of Windows, Office and one of two Client Access Licences (CAL) suites:

• Microsoft Core CAL - The Core CAL pack includes Windows Server Standard CAL, Exchange Server Standard CAL, SharePoint Server Standard CAL, Lync Standard CAL, Forefront EndPoint Protection Suite CAL and System Center Configuration Manager CAL.
• Microsoft Enterprise CAL - Includes all Core CAL Suite components plus Active Directory Rights Management Services CAL, Exchange Server Enterprise CAL, SharePoint Server Enterprise CAL, Lync Enterprise CAL, System Center Client Management Suite CAL, and Forefront Unified Access Gateway CAL

In addition, most customers also license their servers through their annual subscription agreement, using an option called ‘Enrollment for Application Platform’ (or EAP). This gives them server licensing for the products they choose.

Which means that…

So all of this means that you can assume your customer has licences for Windows 7, Office 2010 and also access to SharePoint, SQL server and Lync for IM and collaboration etc. And if they use the EAP option, they’ll also have the licences they need for Windows/SQL servers - although you will still need to check they have the right version licensed (for example, if they are using their SQL Server for Business Intelligence they will need the Enterprise version of the licence - see my overview about other reasons you need SQL Enterprise versions).

What Microsoft licensing is common for private schools?

For private schools in Australia, it’s also common for schools to have a subscription agreement:

• Many Catholic schools will switch this year into a new national Enrolment for Education Solutions (EES) framework agreement. It simplifies licensing for the schools, because all they have to do is count their FTE staff, and they are then licensed for all of the computers they own (except for those that are given to a single student under a 1:1 scheme, which are licensed separately). And being a subscription, they always have the licences to the latest versions. There are still some buying their software under a Select licence, but this will reduce over time as they realise the immediate and long-term cost advantages of the EES scheme.
• Independent schools may be on any kind of licence agreement - Select, Open, School Agreement and EES. Often it may be because they’ve not heard about how EES works, so it will be worth discussing it with them (as they would be likely to save money by using it).

Which means that…

Where a customer has an EES or School Agreement, you’ll find the customer will be licensed for the Microsoft Education Desktop - which includes Windows 7 Enterprise, Office 2010 Professional Plus, and one of two Client Access Licence (CAL) suites (see above). 

If the customer buys their software through a Select or Open agreement, then they are less likely to have the licences for the latest versions across their whole school, and you’ll need to check more closely what they already have.

How does this help partners?

With many Microsoft customers in the commercial market, our partners will have to get involved in a deep discussion about the licences needed for a particular business solution to be implemented. But the situation tends to be much easier in education. Subscription customers are automatically licensed through their subscription for the latest version of key software, and many will have licensing for servers already sorted. As a partner, it means your discussion can focus on your own software and services, rather than their Microsoft licences. And where they do need additional licences, they will often procure those separately through their existing Microsoft Academic licensing agreement.

You can find out more about our licensing for schools, TAFEs and universities on the Australian Microsoft Education website

Part Nine - Key successes of the last year, and next year