On the Next Manager Tech Talk: Confidence in the Cloud

Posted April 23rd, 2012 . No Comments . Manager Tech Talk Tags: assurance, cloud, cloud computing, privacy, security

Recent surveys indicate that while cloud computing is a top priority for Canadian CIOs, assurance in cloud services remains the principle inhibitor for adoption. 2012 is proving to be the year of accelerating adoption as organizations gain a deeper appreciation of cloud services and how they can be adopted in a trusted manner. Join Ruth Morton, myself, and guest, John Weigelt, National Technology Officer for Microsoft Canada, as we explore the security and privacy considerations of Cloud Computing.

May 10, 2012 – 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM ET

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Featured Guest

John Weigelt
As the National Technology Officer for Microsoft Canada, John Weigelt is responsible for driving Microsoft Canada’s strategic policy and technology efforts. In this role, Mr. Weigelt helps business and governments innovate with technology while avoiding the unintended consequences that might arise. He leads Canadian outreach for Economic Development, Environmental Sustainability, Accessibility, Privacy, Security, Critical Infrastructure Protection, Government 3.0, Interoperability and other policy related activities.

Prior to joining Microsoft, John held the position of Senior Director of Architecture, Standards and Engineering at the Chief Information Officer Branch of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. John is also a board member for Supply Chain and Logistics Association Canada and is also a member of the Science and Technology Advisory Council of Innovacorp. He holds a Master’s Degree in computer and communications security engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada.

About the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk series

The AlignIT Manager Talk is a monthly live streamed video series hosted by Ruth Morton (LinkedIn) and Jonathan Rozenblit (LinkedIn). Each Tech Talk episode airs on the 2nd Thursday of the month from 12:00pm to 12:30pm EST. The show focuses on a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers and is interactive, taking questions via a live chat and providing answers on air.

AlignIT Manager Tech Talk #10: Managing Your Private Cloud with System Center

Posted April 8th, 2012 . No Comments . Manager Tech Talk Tags: IT Manager Podcast Series, manager tech talk, private cloud, System Center, systems management

There’s no denying that virtualization has transformed our datacentres and redefined how we do IT, giving us more capacity and savings. Now, private cloud capabilities take us one step further providing the agility IT needs to truly provide IT as a service.

The beauty of a private cloud is that it takes characteristics of a public cloud (resource pooling, elasticity, self-service, and pay per use) and combines those characteristics with management and security built on dedicated resources to provide services to a select group. System Center 2012 brings you that single pane of glass you need to manage your applications and services across your public, private, hybrid or traditional infrastructure. Within the System Center suite, Endpoint Protection provides give you control and security while Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 provides world-class virtualization through Hyper-V.

In this Tech Talk, Ruth Morton and I are joined by Islam Gomaa, IT Manager for E-Academy, Inc., and William Bressette, Network Architect for Horn IT Solutions, to discuss the challenges of managing a private cloud and the capabilities of System Center 2012, an integral part of Microsoft’s Private Cloud solution.

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Resources

Download Private Cloud evaluation software (System Center 2012 + Window Server 2008 R2) http://aka.ms/sceval
Find free online training modules on Private Cloud http://aka.ms/mvacademy

About our guests

Islam Gomaa
Islam Gomaa is a Data Protection Manager MVP from Ottawa, Canada, specializing in System Center Products, disaster recovery and system infrastructure running on the Microsoft server technology stack. Islam brings over 12 years of expertise in helping organizations align their business goals using Microsoft technology and deploying Microsoft-based solutions for the private and public sector. He is also a member of the Windows Springboard Technical Expert Panel [STEP] for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 having delivered STEP presentations in Ottawa.

He has authored several webcasts on Data Protection Manager 2007& 2010 including "Protecting Applications with DPM2007" and "DPM and Opalis Automation for Disaster Recovery". Islam presented at TechEd 2011 in Atlanta Georgia, and the I365 Worldwide summit in Salt Lake City. He is a frequent presenter for both OWSUG in Ottawa and MITPRO in Montreal.

Islam has a B.Sc. in computer science from Montreal University, and holds several Microsoft technical designations. He is an active member of the IT community. Islam enjoys sharing his adventures and ideas about system administration through his blog at http://owsug.ca/blogs/islamGomaa.

William Bresette William Bressette
With Horn IT Solutions since 2007, William is an award-winning member of their team (2010 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award and of the "Impact Award 2008" for Infrastructure Design). William is responsible for implementing and managing Horn IT Solutions participation in the Microsoft Partner Program and for Horn achieving Gold Certified membership Level with 5 competencies: Advance Infrastructure, Network Infrastructure, Infrastructure Worker, Licensing and Security solutions along with Small Business Specialist.

As Network Architect William performs Network and Data Center Design for medium sized organizations across Canada, implements network monitoring tools for customer sites and creates and manages IT Policy for customer locations. His excellent project management skills are applied to small and large customer projects as he manages technical services as well as development and management of the Microsoft Packages Service Program at Horn IT.

He graduated from Georgian College in Barrie in 1996 with a major in mathematics.

Podcast

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About AlignIT Manager Tech Talk series

The AlignIT Manager Talk is a monthly live streamed video series hosted by Ruth Morton (LinkedIn) and Jonathan Rozenblit (LinkedIn). Each Tech Talk episode airs on the 2nd Thursday of the month from 12:00pm to 12:30pm EST. The show focuses on a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers and is interactive, taking questions via a live chat and providing answers on air. Add this series to your calendar >>

About the AlignIT program for IT managers

The AlignIT program is dedicated to keeping IT leaders informed about what matters in business and technology. We do that through in-person events, web casts, our blog, newsletter, the Tech Talk video series and the IT Manager audio podcast series among other things. You can find more information about the Align IT program at www.alignit.ca. If you have comments, suggestions, and ideas for future topics please let us know by connecting with us via email, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

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On the next Manager Tech Talk: Making the Case – Development Platform vNext

Posted March 27th, 2012 . No Comments . Manager Tech Talk Tags: alignit, barry gervin, dave lloyd, manager tech talk, objectsharp, visual studio, visual studio 11

February 29^th was a big day for Microsoft. Both the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Visual Studio 11 Beta were released. Development teams around the world were taken aback with the new possibilities in application development.

While it’s great for the developers to get excited about all the shiny and new features, you now have to make the case for upgrading your organization to the next version of the development platform. You may have just upgraded to Visual Studio 2010 or you haven’t and are still using an older version. This is the time to evaluate your options and see why and how to bring Visual Studio 11 into your organization when it releases.

With upcoming pricing changes and discounts available now for upgrades, you are probably contemplating whether or not you will go ahead with making a case for an upgrade. What will you gain by upgrading and what will it mean to you, to the development teams, to the infrastructure teams, and to the business stakeholders? What are the pros and cons of making this move and do they make it worthwhile? Make the right decision for your team.

Join Ruth Morton, Jonathan Rozenblit, and guests, ObjectSharp partners Dave Lloyd and Barry Gervin for the debate.

April 12, 2012 – 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM ET

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Featured Guests

Dave Lloyd

Dave Lloyd
Dave Lloyd is a founding partner of ObjectSharp. He has 25+ years of experience in the IT industry designing and building software solutions for a large number of clients in varying industries. Dave is a seasoned project manager with a great deal of experience implementing process into development teams, from small and large ISV’s to in house development teams. Because of Dave’s experience in the many roles of a software development team it’s only natural that he would gravitate toward Team Foundation Server and the ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) world. A lot of Dave’s assignments involve helping teams with their development process and to better utilize Team Foundation Server to enhance their Software Development Lifecycle. Dave has received the Microsoft MVP award for ALM.

Barry Gervin
Barry Gervin is a founding Partner of ObjectSharp. As a Principal Consultant and Instructor with ObjectSharp, Barry provides technical leadership to his valued clients, staff, and the development community. Over his 17 year career in the IT industry, he has helped many development teams architect and successfully deliver large software projects within tight schedules and budgets that consistently perform for their end users. He currently holds several technical designations including MCSD.NET, MSF Practitioner and MS Certified Trainer. Barry currently serves as a MS Regional Director in Southern Ontario and has received the Microsoft MVP Award for Solutions Architecture for the past 3 years.

About the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk series

AlignIT Manager Tech Talk #9: Your Enterprise on the Go

Posted February 15th, 2012 . No Comments . Manager Tech Talk Tags: .net, enterprise, system center 2012, windows phone

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on the Canadian IT Manager’s blog about the change that’s happening within organizations and how employees are bringing technology from home to make themselves more productive at work. IT departments are scrambling to support these devices and keep workers productive, while figuring out how to manage the devices and keep company information that might be accessed or stored on them secure. At the same time, organizations are looking to extend the capabilities of their line of business applications to these different form factors and mobile devices. But can this be done without a major investment of time and resources?

In February’s Manager Tech Talk, Ruth and I were joined by one of our teammates, Paul Laberge, whose focus is Windows Phone. The discussion revolved around how Windows Phone can be leveraged to extend line of business applications and enable a more productive mobile workforce.

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Resources

See it for yourself. Download the SDKs, samples, documentation, videos, etc.
To learn more about Windows Phone, deeper content, etc, check out TechDays Online.
Learn more about Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012

About Paul

Paul Laberge is a Developer Advisor with Microsoft Canada, based in Mississauga, Ontario. Paul brings over 12 years of technical experience working with some of the largest North American Fortune 500 companies to the role and has been with Microsoft for almost 5 years. His experience includes being a lead developer, development manager, lead application architect and IT management for a wide variety of technical solutions. Currently, Paul leads Microsoft’s developer engagement around Windows Phone 7 and in that role, he can be found working with mobile developers of all walks of life, speaking at events, providing information on various social networks and, of course, driving the great Canadian developer ecosystem to building amazing Windows Phone apps. Paul is also passionate about Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy and HTML5 as a way to drive great cross-platform experiences. In other words, if you have a question about Microsoft’s leading edge platforms, Paul is someone you can talk to.

Podcast

This episode is also available as an audio podcast.

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About AlignIT Manager Tech Talk series

In case you’re not familiar with the AlignIT Manager Talk, it’s a monthly live streamed video series hosted by Ruth Morton (LinkedIn) and I. Each Tech Talk episode airs on the 2nd Thursday of the month from 12:00pm to 12:30pm EST. The show focuses on a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers and is interactive, taking questions via a live chat and providing answers on air.

Add the series to your calendar >>

AlignIT for IT managers

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On the Next Manager Tech Talk: De-Risking Your Windows Deployment

Posted January 5th, 2012 . No Comments . Manager Tech Talk Tags: alignit, deployment, manager tech talk, managers, ruth morton, windows, windows 7

With any big change to your IT infrastructure comes risk, but of course you’re hoping that the rewards will out weigh those risks. In fact, you’re doing more than just hoping – you’re planning, strategizing, and putting your organization in a good position to mitigate those risks.

Deploying a new operating system throughout a company can be disruptive and complex because so much is dependant on that OS – the applications running on top of the OS, the drivers that allow peripherals like printers to work, to name but a few. If all goes well, the operating system should be invisible to the end user but if all doesn’t go well…well, we’ve all been there. It sucks.

A good plan that’s well executed can result in an organization having use of technology that can help achieve higher productivity, better collaboration and more opportunities for innovative ideas. That’s what this month’s Manager Tech Talk is all about – putting together a good plan for Windows deployment success.

Join Ruth and I as we talk with Dave Kawula, Senior Consultant with 1E, about the benefits and challenges of deploying Windows 7. We’ll cover what tools are available to you, what “gotcha’s” to watch out for and hear tales from deployments past. Join us live to ask your questions and have them answered during the broadcast.

Thursday, January 12, 2012
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM ET

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Featured Guest: Dave Kawula

Dave Kawula is an MCSE and CNE with over fifteen years of experience in the IT industry. His background includes data communications networks within multi-server LAN/WAN environments. He has experience with project management, network strategic planning, network design and integration. He has led the architecture for NT, SMS/SCCM, Exchange and Internet Gateways, including managing migration paths and issues as well as implementation. He has supported a variety of network infrastructures as well as architecting and defining technical standards.

About AlignIT Manager Tech Talk


	The AlignIT Manager Talk is a monthly live streamed video series hosted by Ruth Morton (LinkedIn) and Jonathan Rozenblit (LinkedIn). Each Tech Talk episode airs on the 2nd Thursday of the month from 12:00pm to 12:30pm EST. The show focuses on a range of topics for both infrastructure and development managers and is interactive, taking questions via a live chat and providing answers on air.

This post also appears on the Canadian IT Managers Connection.

AlignIT Manager Tech Talk – Empowering Your Team with Knowledge

Posted December 26th, 2011 . No Comments . Manager Tech Talk Tags: 2011, alignit, developers, manager tech talk, managers, personal development, training

It is that time of the year. You are most likely sitting down with each of your team members and are helping them with their personal development plans. On this episode of AlignIT Manager Tech Talk, Ruth and I talk with Stuart Ngai about the importance of training as part of personal development, as well as when and how training can and should be weaved into employees’ busy schedules.