System Center

Rod Trent from myITForum just left me a note that System Center Configuration Manager 2007, the artist formerly known as Microsoft SMS, has been released.

KB 940848 will most likely become a required preinstallation checkpoint for SCCM 2007 due to the following issue with the current shipping versions of MMC with Windows Server 2003:
Some items on a shortcut menu are missing when you right-click an item in an MMC snap-in.
For example, when you right-click the Task Sequences node, the following menu items are missing:
*New*
*Import*
*Create Task Sequence Media*
*Give feedback*
These menu items appear only if you right-click this node again.

It also fixes an issue with unexpected termination of MMC.EXE with a generic Visual C++ error as the only indicator of a problem.

Either way, if you are going to deploy SCCM 2007, request KB 940848 beforehand. It will save you some headaches.

To slightly misquote the originator/creator of these documents:
"These are the first of several cookbooks to help consultants get up to speed to deploy virtualization solutions in record time. These are step-by-step, one-stop documents with all the details, tips/tricks to build a working solution".

You can read about them and download them from here.

You can also download them directly from here as PDF files courtesy of Windows SkyDrive:

Hosted Backup and Recovery Solutions for Service Providers using DPM and VS
Simple Offsite Backup and Recovery of virtual machines using Data Protection Manager and Virtual Server
Simple Onsite Backup and Recovery of virtual machines using Data Protection Manager and Virtual Server
High Availability with Virtual Server and Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Server Clustering
Application Isolation and Operation in Branch Office Using Virtual Server

Sort of like Autopatcher, but not really.

Check out the new Update Catalog website, and read more about it here.

Noteworthy (to me) Feature list

1. Search for updates - Download them to your machine, regardless of whether the update is applicable to your machine.
2. Import updates - WSUS 3.0, System Center Essentials 2007, or System Center Configuration Manager 2007 supported.
3. RSS feeds - Save your searches in RSS and get notified when new updates match your criteria.
4. “Shopping basket” feature - Select multiple updates and download them together.

I don't have much to add to this other than it is nice that it is in one centralized place. I suspect/expect that Viridian/Hypervisor related materials will eventually make their way here.