Management News - April 2006
Windows IT Pro Cover is Online
"Microsoft is finally providing a consistent management UI and experience throughout the Windows stack. Karen Forster explores this strategy in an interview with Microsoft's Kirill Tatarinov."
Windows IT Pro Magazine – Karen Forster
Gates on the speed of Windows updates
"Nobody ever said software development was easy. In the wake of Microsoft's decision to delay the widespread release of Vista, Chairman Bill Gates met with CNET News.com and discussed the software company's struggle to ship Vista, the burden of backward compatibility, and how new features will be constantly added to Windows. Below is an excerpt: ...The one nice thing we've seen with consumers is they really use Auto Update, and so we're sort of their IT department in terms of updating. It's more complex for businesses. But even there the progress over the last four years of getting SMS (Systems Management Server) to be deployed and used and understood – how they take the updates in and when they pass them along to their systems – we've done super well on that, but it's not as simple as somebody just choosing to have Auto Update come from us."
Ina Fried – CNET News.com
A practical approach to delivering ITSM
"[...]From a process perspective, Microsoft fully supports the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITIL is a widely accepted approach to IT service management, providing a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices associated with systems management. In keeping with ITIL’s spirit to “adopt and adapt”, Microsoft has developed the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). MOF extends the ITIL code of practice to support distributed environments, and extends the ITIL guidance into practical operational application. One of the aspects provided by MOF is the definition of 21 service management functions (SMFs) describing the series of management functions that are performed when operating an IT environment, and detailing the ITIL-based best practice approach for how to perform these functions."
