With the release of SCCP 2007 I've now been through two complete product cycles of what started out as a little research project called " Indy " -- and that seems like more than enough! So I've moved over to the Performance Engineering team in Microsoft's Developer Division. The division's...

We're pleased to announce the beta release of System Center Capacity Planner 2007! SCCP 2007 provides sizing, architectural guidance and best practices for customers to plan their deployments of Operations Manager 2007 and Exchange 2007. Essentially, it can predict how much hardware you'll need for...

We’ve had these bits bouncing around for way too long, but now they’re finally linked to from the SCCP home page . So revel in the glossiness of An Introduction to Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner 2006 :)

The great thing about Microsoft webcasts is that they’re archived. So even if you miss the upcoming live webcast on “Implementing SCCP 2006”, you can still watch it at your leisure (well, as long as your leisure includes a broadband connection). This also means that you can also watch all the previous...

Just a quick note that in 3 weeks, Chris Henley will be hosting a public webcast about SCCP 2006. Click on the link to register - it’s free! Implementing System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Monday, June 26, 2006 11:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M. Pacific Time Join us and get the information and guidance you...

I’m easing back into blogging after taking 6 months off – the good news is this means I’ve got a big backlog of topics… I’d like to start off by thanking Neil Hobson for writing a great two-part overview of System Center Capacity Planner on MSExchange.org. He gives the reader a walkthrough of our...

Short answer: System Center Capacity Planner is on TechNet disc 0422, which went out this month. We’re actually “featured content” — I think this is what we get in return for exclusivity! System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) ships this month and is only available to TechNet Subscribers. SCCP employs...

The Indy team just handed over our final bits for System Center Capacity Planner 2006 . Barring any last-minute mishaps or recall-class bugs – memorably defined by our test manager as “causing the death or permanent disfigurement of small furry animals” – there’ll be an official RTM email later this...

I’m helping out on the SCCP booth at Exchange Connections in San Diego this week, and we’re handing out hundreds of CDs with our beta refresh bits . To give feedback after trying it out, you should be able to pull down the help menu and see a little “Community Forum” link, that would take you straight...

A week ago we updated the public beta of System Center Capacity Planner. This “beta refresh” of SCCP is now dependent on the release candidate of .NET Framework 2.0, instead of being dependent on their beta 2 release. Shipping this refresh took a lot of effort from the SCCP team, and causes extra...

Thanks to everyone who's blogged about our beta! Special kudos to Eileen Brown , Graham Chastney , Ian Blyth , and Marcus Oh for various combinations of "totally getting it", "kicking the tires", and "bugging us to do more", but I also want to thank Anderson Patricio , Bernd Kruczek , Blake Handler ...

The eagle-eyed will have noticed that the name of our product has changed from System Center Capacity Manager 2006 Express Edition — which is a classic example of a Type 2 Microsoft product name — to System Center Capacity Planner 2006 — which is still a type 2 name, but thankfully easier to say in one...

Marketing fluff follows. This is my baby. Grab the bits and kick the tires. Then tell us what to change :) System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Beta release is now available We are proud to announce public availably of the latest addition to the Microsoft System Center family of management products...

Just a quick note to say that, like many other product teams , we'll be at the MVP Summit here in Redmond this week. Specifically, we’ll be showing off the latest builds of System Center Capacity Manager to the Windows Server System MVPs at the RedWest cafeteria tomorrow night. This is all official with...

In the days leading up to a major US military operation, there's supposed to always be a noticable spike in pizza orders from the Pentagon . This is a classic example of information leakage via a side channel — and one shared by Microsoft. Put another way: if your favorite Microsoft blogger stops blogging...

I have an entire category about capacity planning , so it's probably time to define what capacity planning is. Here’s what current Microsoft literature has to say: “Developing a Capacity Plan, analyzing the current situation, and predicting the future use of the IT infrastructure and resources...

Yesterday was naming day! The Project Formerly Known As Indy is now: System Center Capacity Manager We already have a nice little placeholder page on microsoft.com, and you can see Sabrina McBride giving our demo starting about 43 minutes into Kirill’s keynote video: 56 kbps , 100 kbps , or 300...

Best. Conference bag. Ever. I think we hit a home run on this one. It’s your typical nerdy backpack, but with two important differences: It’s actually big enough to hold all your conference swag plus your laptop — very important for that first day before you can do some swag triage in your hotel...

If everything had gone according to plan I'd have arrived in Las Vegas by now, with a couple of hours to check into the hotel and then an evening of prep sessions and rehearsals. Of course, nothing ever quite goes according to plan, and a hydraulic leak in our plane's nose-wheel means that a bunch of...

As you can tell from the title, I’m starting this series of blog posts a little earlier than planned – in fact, I’m not even in Las Vegas yet. But our PR machine is cranking into action, and so journalists are already reporting on what we’ll be showing next week: Microsoft to unveil a capacity...

…worth more than my job to tell you what it is. You’re going to have to wait until MMS 2005 to find out, on orders from marketing. Unless of course marketing decide to leak it to a select journalist or two in advance, in which case I’ll blog about its publication with a suitably non-denial denial. ...

I’d already posted a list of sessions for the “criss-cross” pre-event day at next month’s Microsoft Management Summit. Now I’ve found more details about what those sessions actually involve! Including the first-ever marketing blurb for our new product... New Session added! – Indy Product Preview...

A reader asks : What about those of us that cannot attend MMS? Is there anything available that describes what Indy does? Hmmm, let’s see. Right now we’ve got no official web presence, partly because we don’t have a name. Both situations should be remedied within the next month, and I think...

Ok, so we still don’t have a name , but we did just hit feature-complete for our product’s first milestone. And we’ll be flaunting our stuff (i.e. demo’ing all our cool features) at MMS 2005 in a month’s time. In fact, if you’re a systems integrator and you’ve signed up for the Crisscross Pre-Event...

If ever I get to work on a product that has its own brand , I’m going to fight long and hard for a verbable product name – something that people can naturally use in everyday conversation to describe the action of using the product. This gives legal team fits – both Hoover and Xerox will officially hate...