Arraya Insights

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Microsoft’s Ignite conference got underway earlier this morning and it didn’t take long for the updates to start flying in. Couldn’t make it to Atlanta to experience Ignite for yourself? Don’t worry. micro-ignite-day-1A few members of Arraya’s Microsoft Practice are in attendance and we’ll be posting updates right here all week to keep you in the loop with what they’re seeing at Ignite.

Here’s a rundown of some of what was unveiled during this morning’s keynote address, including the latest product releases, new features, and more.

  • Microsoft targeting a “Secure Productive Enterprise”
    • Windows 10 is already helping to power 400 million devices, helping Microsoft and today’s organizations realize this ideal by allowing servers and devices to work together.
    • 70 million Office 365 licenses have been sold and there are presently $1 billion in EMS licenses, positioning each of these solutions at the forefront of security for apps and data.
  • New features coming to Office
    • Microsoft is seeking to increase productivity by blurring the lines between physical paper and digital paper.
      • Now in Office, you’ll be able to use a pen to strike out text in a doc and it will be deleted.
      • Also, you’ll be able to take any hand drawn math equation and turn it into intelligent math that will solve the equation.
  • A new activity pane will reduce confusion for employees collaborating on a document from afar as it will allow them to see edits in real time.
  • MyAnalytics Goals has been called a Fitbit for productivity as it will enable you to analyze how you work and set goals for improvements in different areas.
  • Stormboard, a new app for Surface Hub devices, was introduced.
    • This app was built to better enable project and task planning activities.
    • It’s total work flow design allows users to dive in even deeper than they could using Microsoft’s previous offering in this space, Project.
  • Microsoft also announced the debut of Windows Defender Application Guard.
    • This utility will help make the Edge browser the most secure browser for today’s enterprise.
    • It will do this via hardware-based isolation technology
    • Can partner with Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection to prevent many common machine attacks including password theft and phishing.
    • Windows Defender Security Guard will be available in the next few months to Windows Insiders.
  • Microsoft initiated a public preview for its brand-new service, Azure Monitor, which seems to be either an evolution of or compliment to Log Analytics.
    • Metrics can build charts based on APPS or services and data within them
    • Alerts can let you know when issues or events occur
  • Miscellaneous News and Notes
    • Adobe will now be using Azure to power all of their cloud-based solutions
    • Improvements are on the way for Security Center in Analytics.
    • Tech Preview 2 of Azure Stack is now available.
    • Windows Server 2016 to include commercial version of Docker free.
    • Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 are both now Generally Available
    • Development in VSTS is expanding to all languages and platforms, making the dream of “Any language, Any platform” a reality

Stay in the loop with the latest from Ignite 2016

Be sure to check back here for more updates from Ignite 2016 provided by our Microsoft team throughout the week. Also, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook for even more.

 

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In 1994, I was a senior in high school. I hadn’t really entered the workforce beyond working at the local pool, JCPenney’s, and, just before my senior year, I worked to sort archives in the garage of matts-dads-office-bldgmy father’s office building. My father owned an actuarial firm in Allentown, located in the Corporate Plaza right downtown.

One snowy morning in February of that year, I woke to the news that the building where his offices were had started falling into a sinkhole. It hadn’t fallen yet, but it was sagging and unsafe to enter. That weekend, I remember going over to a nearby building with my dad, his business leaders, and law enforcement, all of them trying to figure out what to do.

For me, that’s when disaster recovery was born. At the time, my father had a mix of hard copies and a mainframe as well as computers. They all resided in that location and our entire lives hung in the balance. Luckily, it was determined a team could go in and rescue the equipment and files.

When this disaster struck, the risk was as great as it is today. It wasn’t common practice to move your data offsite for protection because who wanted to pay a premium on protecting it? In the subsequent years, we’ve seen the reasons why this is so critical – terrorist attacks, unusual weather, and malicious hacks have become common place.

Disaster Recovery has evolved over the years. Companies used to ship files and tape backups offsite to companies like Iron Mountain. Recovery times were deemed too slow though and, with the massive growth of data, this became unwieldy to maintain. As network speeds increased, technology like storage replication and co-located data centers (or secondary data centers) became the norm for disaster recovery.

This iteration of disaster recovery isn’t without its challenges. They center on cost and the hardware refresh cycle. Consider what this solution looks like. You need a network pipe large enough between your datacenters (or a co-location), a replication technology, double the servers and storage capacity, and possibly an entire other location. Every few years, you need to refresh this technology as your workloads modernize.

This solution has been out of the reach of the typical business due to the cost and complexity. The latest shift in Disaster Recovery is underway right now and it involves data being driven by the cloud, creating DR as a Service.

The cloud is the perfect vehicle to bring disaster recovery to the masses and lower complexity for enterprises currently doing disaster recovery. With the cloud, you no longer have to deal with secondary hardware, maintenance contracts, or pay for racks and space in another data center that you may never use.

Microsoft has made this even easier through their Azure Site Recovery offering, which can bring disaster recovery capabilities to your servers whether they are Hyper-V, VMware or physical. By pricing it per server, you have the flexibility to scale out quickly without having to re-architect or grow out a physical solution.

Azure Site Recovery also allows you to test much easier than with a physical disaster recovery solution. When you test a traditional disaster recovery, there are often a team of folks ready to go to switch networks and perform the failover. Testing disaster recovery is an “all hands on deck” event, usually with a managed runbook and a meticulously scheduled weekend.

With Azure Site Recovery, you can isolate the environment off and spin it up at your leisure. Of course, you do have to pay for running the environment during the test, but you aren’t investing capital in keeping equipment idle “just in case.”

With Azure Site Recovery, you are protected whether your datacenter falls into a sinkhole or even during a regional outage, depending on how you configure it. Nothing like this was possible just 22 years ago as I watched and wondered how long it would take my dad’s office building to collapse.

There are a number of ways to begin with Azure Site Recovery and Arraya recommends a pilot to get started. Of course, our Managed Services Practice can bring more value by managing the environment and even perform tests periodically. Contact mssales@microsoft.com to learn more!

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How has your company’s thought process around IT changed during the last eight years? Considering the speed at which technology moves, that’s basically a lifetime or more. As a business’ peter-kress-imagetechnological vision changes, so too can the partners it relies on to help execute that vision. Building long-term relationships, while beneficial, can be tough – unless a partner is flexible enough to support evolving technology ideals.

Let’s flash back eight years. Back then, the iPad was two years away from making its debut and many still thought of the weather when they heard the word “cloud.” Acts Retirement-Life Communities, Inc., a large not-for-profit owner and operator of continuing care facilities, was in need of an extra set of hands to support a growing infrastructure footprint. Acts turned to Arraya Solutions for help, with the idea of staffing a resource temporarily to cover storage and infrastructure. The initial commitment was for 2-3 months, but the relationship grew and carried well past the intended timeframe. Arraya delivered onsite support every week at a level above and beyond traditional staff augmentation. In addition to ongoing tasks and maintenance, Arraya provided recommendations and insight on upgrades, management and future investment.

After nearly two years, Acts’ IT vision shifted. In place of onsite support, Acts wanted remote support a la Managed Services. At the time, this was relatively new territory for Arraya. However, we had the resources in place to work with Acts to make it happen. At first we handled patching and storage support. As our service matured and Acts’ faith in us grew, we expanded. Within a year, we’d added application support for SQL and SharePoint.

But as is often the case in IT, another change wasn’t far off.

During the third year of the Managed Services agreement, Acts grew interested in moving away from a traditional data center model to decrease their tech footprint and reduce management complexity. In its place, Acts sought to migrate business applications and support to the cloud.

Also, this would allow Acts to give all employees an email address. Even though it’s a rarity in the continuing care space, Acts saw great value in providing employees with a reliable and efficient way to communicate and stay updated. Acts addressed this with Office 365, which includes Exchange Online. Arraya was asked to assist during the initial cloud migration and amend the Managed Services contract to include Office 365 support.

Far from reducing the need for traditional Managed Services, Acts’ cloud journey has opened up new opportunities. For example, Acts recently increased the scope of its agreement to include the network. This ensures high-performing wireless and network performance to accommodate the influx of connected devices becoming essential to how employees do their jobs.

Adjusting how we think about service delivery

The transitions taking place at Acts are a microcosm for what’s gone on in IT over the last decade or so. Previously, capital expenses were tied up in equipment which was housed onsite, in data centers. At the same time, businesses would hire onsite resources to install, configure, and support that equipment.

Just as businesses now see the cloud as an alternative to those monolithic data centers, so too have they begun to see similar value in Managed Services. Rather than have resources onsite, businesses can utilize an “as-a-service” model, calling down the expertise of IT pros when necessary. Instead of hiring, providing training, and tending to HR duties, businesses can entrust those details to an offsite partner, minimizing the time spent on activities outside of their core mission.

Over the past eight years, Acts’ vision of the perfect IT environment has grown and evolved alongside the industry itself. A more static partner may have helped Acts through one of these iterations before a change was required. However, Acts has counted on Arraya through four generations of IT-thinking and nearly a decade of service because of the quality of the service we provide and our willingness to grow and evolve with our customers. Click here to view a first-hand account of Acts’ experience from its VP and Chief Information Officer, Peter Kress.

Learn more about Arraya’s Managed Services

To strike up a conversation about how Arraya’s Managed Services can help your business reach its IT goals, now and long-term, please go to: www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. Our team can also be reached through social media. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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Several of our team members made the trek last week from Arraya headquarters to Harrisburg. Drawing them towards central Pennsylvania was the promise of some good conversation around0o1a7910-2313-small one of the hottest of hot button IT topics: cybersecurity. The venue for this discussion? The PA Chamber of Business and Industry’s IT Security for Executive Leaders event.

Now, considering the importance of cybersecurity in today’s business landscape, any conversation on that subject is one we want to participate in – which is why we decided to sponsor the day in the first place. However, this event also appealed to us because it acknowledged that, on the subject of cybersecurity, a communication gap often exists between those at the top of a business and those in IT. Building connections between teams and individuals within an organization is something we’re all about at Arraya and so we were eager to hit the road.

As a way of further generating conversation when attendees visited our table, one of our team members hung up a large, blank piece of paper. On it, attendees were invited to write their top IT concern – cybersecurity related or not. The result was a collage of responses covering a wide range of topics. While not scientific, the exercise still provided a portal into the IT issues that are troubling folks from all sides and levels of the business.

The human side of cybersecurity

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most popular response we received on our list of concerns involved people and their ability to influence cybersecurity. While, the human element factored into the majority of the responses we received, attendees approached it in different ways.

  • Employees lack security awareness – Even if they’ve never experienced them firsthand, IT is intimately familiar with the impact of things like ransomware and data loss. Per our findings, those outside of the department often don’t share that familiarity. Tip: Everyone has a role to play in cybersecurity, regardless of job description. IT can help ensure everyone plays theirs by spreading news, updates and best practices through the company intranet, regular emails, or some other platform.
  • Employee training issues – The subject of training was another one which attendees approached from different directions. For some, it was a matter of not having the skill sets and personnel on staff to manage the latest threats and solutions. For others, it came down to IT staff not knowing how to use the solutions they already have at their disposal in the most effective way possible. Tip: If rising workloads are keeping IT staff from attending training on the latest solutions or tactics, it may be time to offload some work onto a managed services provider.
  • Too little support from executives – This concern makes sense considering it echoes the event’s theme of a chasm between IT and business leaders. It’s doubtful executives wake up each morning with the intention of ignoring IT’s thoroughly-researched suggestions. What’s more likely is the message is getting scrambled somewhere between IT’s mouth and executives’ ears. Tip: Wherever possible, strip out the technical jargon. Keep the focus on how a particular cybersecurity solution would benefit a given executive’s team. If this isn’t clear, pick the brains of that executive’s direct reports to find out what he or she has been devoting time to lately and use that to guide your pitch.

Cybersecurity: What’s driving you crazy?

We’re very pleased with how this experiment turned out and it’s something we hope to emulate at future events. It’s given us great insight into where organizations may be struggling – and how we can be of assistance.

Do any of the above challenges sound familiar? What are some of your other biggest IT challenges? Let us know by visiting www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. Or reach out to us through social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook.

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This summer is still winding down, but it’s never too early to start looking ahead to next summer – especially for businesses who rely on Cisco’s UC Manager. On July 31, 2017, UC Manager dsc_6178-2317-2versions 8.5 and 8.6 will each reach their end-of-support date.

Life won’t be easy for businesses caught still using either of those unsupported versions of UC Manager come August 2017. Let’s explore some of the difficulties business using outdated UC Manager deployments could encounter – as well as look at why now is the best time to upgrade to the most modern version (Cisco’s UC Manager 11.5).

  • End of Cisco support – Once July 31st hits, that’s it for Cisco support. If something goes wrong with their aging UC Manager deployment, companies will be on their own. The only way to ensure there’s a safety net waiting in case of trouble is to upgrade to a modern, supported version.
  • Maxed-out licensing – When 8.5 or 8.6 licenses are no longer available, organizations still using those versions could freeze up. IT won’t be able to add the necessary equipment to its environment to support a growing user base or company. Simply put, growth of any kind will demand upgrading away from 8.5 or 8.6.
  • Multi-platform communication crunch – The communication crunch mentioned above extends beyond phones, impacting IM and presence as well. This won’t be an issue for modern licenses – which also represent a significant cost-saving opportunity. IM and presence have both been included at no additional charge as part of the basic phone license since UC Manager version 9.0. All IT needs to do is stand up a server to support those features.
  • Endpoint support shortfalls – Whether an organization is on version 8.5 or 8.6, it lacks support for the latest endpoints. With each subsequent iteration of UC Manager adding support for new endpoints, upgrading to 11.5 will open the newest options for businesses to further mobilize their workforce.
  • Administration headaches – UC admins know a thing or two about the challenges presented by managing aging deployments. In versions such as 8.5 and 8.6, spinning up new tools or making changes used to have them reaching for the Advil. That’s not the case with Version 11.5, which comes complete with free, stress-reducing, management-simplifying tools such as Prime Collaboration Deployment.
  • Rising TCO – Sticking with an aging solution may seem like a way to preserve the budget, but that’s often not true. Instead, going with a recent version can reduce costs by providing more robust virtualization support, and shrinking the data center footprint. Also, the addition of features such as Single Sign On, the self-care portal, and VPN-less endpoints can reduce the volume of calls fielded by the help desk, allowing IT as a whole to operate more efficiently.

Leveraging a UC partner who’s been there before

At Arraya Solutions, our Cisco team has spent years guiding customers through communication and collaboration upgrades. For us, it’s not strictly a matter of knowing the tech – although our team members are experts in that area. It also comes down to understanding the customer. We take the time before an engagement to learn all we can about the customer’s existing environment and dependencies. Then we work with customers to distill our findings into an actionable upgrade plan, one that keeps downtime to a minimum.

After we execute a project, our team won’t disappear. Instead, they’re available to provide post-cutover support to ensure complete satisfaction.

To learn more about why Cisco UC Manager upgrades can’t wait, or to or to open up a dialogue with our communication and collaboration experts, visit: www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. The Arraya team can also be reached through social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Be sure to follow us to stay in the loop with our latest company news, special events, and industry insights.

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Microsoft’s Ignite conference is fast approaching and with it comes the release of the company’s latest server OS, Windows Server 2016. Between the new security features and the cloud-readiness,young multi ethnic business people group walking standing and top view there are plenty of reasons for folks in IT to be excited about the impending release. Hyper-V admins in particular have a lot to look forward to in the newest version of Windows Server.

6 new features coming to Windows Server 2016

Here are six of the features soon to rank among the favorites of Hyper-V admins once Windows Server 2016 officially launches at Ignite, which runs from Sept. 26-30 in Atlanta, GA.

  • Nested Virtualization – This feature is a bit like a Russian nesting doll of virtualization in the sense that it allows Hyper-V to run within a Hyper-V virtual machine (VM). Virtualizing the Hyper-V host in this way opens up a few interesting use cases for admins and developers. For example, deploying a Hyper-V lab in an environment that is already virtualized or executing multi-machine test scenarios without the need to have each subject supported by individual hardware. Another interesting aspect of Nested Virtualization is that it makes it possible to containerize Hyper-V itself.
  • Shielded Virtual Machines – Most organizations have taken steps to protect VMs against fellow VMs should they be compromised. What about protecting VMs from compromised hosts? Windows Server 2016 addresses this need through Shielded VMs. This feature encrypts VMs using Bitlocker, gives them a virtual TPM, and makes it so they can only run on select, healthy hosts. Shielding VMs prevents a compromised host from wreaking havoc within an environment. It also ensures that, should a VM find its way outside of an approved environment for any reason, it will not run.
  • PowerShell Direct – Previously, Hyper-V admins had essentially two types of tools at their disposal to connect a VM on a Hyper-V host. They could use either remote management tools (i.e., PowerShell) or VM Connect. Each option had its advantages and disadvantages. Windows Server 2016’s PowerShell Direct feature provides a best of both worlds approach, joining PowerShell’s scripting and automation with VM Connect’s zero-configuration. The result can eliminate the need to configure firewalls and connect to the network in order to use Hyper-V VMs to automate processes.
  • Failover cluster rolling upgrades – Any admin tasked with upgrading from Windows Server 2008 R2 up to Windows Server 2012 likely remembers what a process it could be. First, all resources had to be moved off the server, which then needed to be completely rebuilt. This included making a new cluster with new storage. The good news? Upgrading from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2016 should be a much more streamlined process. Resources will still need to be live migrated off a server, however, from there it works like a regular Windows upgrade. There’s no need to create additional storage volumes or new clusters.
  • Storage Replica – Disaster recovery and business continuity are all about peace of mind and Windows Server 2016’s Storage Replica feature provides exactly that. Storage Replica generates that peace of mind through SAN-style volume replication. For the first time, Windows Server will be able to synchronously protect data across racks, buildings, locations, etc. After disaster strikes, admins can rest assured their data will still be available to them. Should they catch wind of a problem early, admins also have the power to manually switch workloads over to a more secure location, again addressing the data loss concerns.
  • Storage Spaces Direct – PowerShell Direct isn’t the only new feature promising Hyper-V admins the “best of both worlds.” Storage Spaces Direct lets admins build highly-available, flexible storage out of their existing local storage. This feature lets admins join together local hosts. Once connected, Storage Spaces Direct will then protect the data contained in those newly created storage systems. In this way, Storage Spaces Direct combines the benefits of shared storage with those offered by cost-effective local storage while eliminating the risk of local disk failures.

Is Windows Server 2016 right for you?

Microsoft is investing heavily in Hyper-V and in 2016, Microsoft appeared as a leader in Gartner’s x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure Magic Quadrant. Hyper-V is, after all, the technology behind Azure.

Microsoft has developed a new licensing program to incentivize customers to move to Microsoft, so if you were thinking about making the jump, now might be an excellent time. Regardless of whether you want to stay on-premises with Hyper-V or move some of your workloads to Azure, Arraya’s Microsoft team can help.

Reach out to a member of Arraya’s award-winning Microsoft team today at mssales@arrayasolutions.com. They can also be reached at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. They’re ready to work with you to devise an upgrade strategy that makes sense for your businesses’ unique needs.

Keep up with all of our latest industry insights and company news by following Arraya on social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, and, Facebook.

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The second day of VMworld 2016 has come and gone. However, we have some business to take care of before we can officially say goodbye to day two of VMware’s conference. So let’s check in with halim vmworlda member of our virtualization team (who will be onsite all week) and get his thoughts on some of the most noteworthy moments from day two.

Looking back on day two of VMworld 2016

Tuesday’s general session centered around three main areas: Enhancements to Horizon, Windows 10 Unified Endpoint Management, and a vRealize Network Insight introduction and demo. Here’s a closer look at each of those topics and what they could mean for businesses:

  1. Horizon Enhancements

Blast Extreme display protocol was at the center of a number of the changes coming to Horizon. The feature, which was introduced earlier this year with the release of Horizon 7, will undergo a 6x reduction in image bandwidth consumption and a 15% reduction in audio streaming bandwidth. This will result in an improved user experience and performance gains.

The list of validated client devices for Blast Extreme has also been expanded to include some very low cost thin and zero clients from leading vendors such as Dell, HP and IGEL. DIY enthusiasts can even experiment with the new technology preview support for Blast on Raspberry Pi devices. There has never been a better time to replace, rather than repurpose, existing legacy PCs when deploying or expanding a virtual desktop environment.

While we’re on the subject of hardware, newly validated hyper-converged appliances have been announced for Horizon Air Hybrid mode from several vendors, including EMC. These cloud-managed appliances are the fastest and easiest way to dive into desktop virtualization, and can easily scale to hundreds or even thousands of desktops in a fraction of the time it took in the past.

  1. Windows 10 Unified Endpoint Management

In his “Mobile and Endpoint Strategies Primer for 2016,” Gartner analyst, Chris Silva, argued “the future of endpoint management lies in consolidation of management tools that manage traditional PCs and mobile devices as a common management framework evolves across the two.”

This theme was echoed in VMware’s announcement of its Windows 10 Unified Endpoint Management tool. Essentially, it’s a consolidated management device that delivers a less complex, more streamlined way for IT to manage devices, including Windows 10 PCs and mobile devices. Configuration management, software distribution, patch management, and security are all part of the new VMware Unified Endpoint Management technology. For more information, see http://www.windowsuem.com/

  1. vRealize Network Insight

Network security can be a complex challenge, especially as businesses delve into virtualized private clouds, public clouds, and network virtualization technologies (such as VMware NSX). Getting a handle on applications and their network security requirements isn’t just time-consuming, it can also be painful, considering the ever-present risk of breaking major application functionality if mistakes are made when configuring firewall rules.

However, VMware’s recent acquisition of Arkin has led to the development of a tool called vRealize Network Insight. This is an application-focused tool that provides deep insight into network infrastructures. It can reduce the time required to plan and configure application security by 70%.

vRealize Network Insight uses a unique visual interface that allows IT to see which servers and applications are communicating with each other. Then, it can automatically generate a list of recommended security policies for the application, which can be quickly applied by the NSX firewall.

FYI: Arraya will be offering a free NSX Network Assessment in the near future, based on vRealize Network Insight, to help businesses gain a better understanding of how network traffic flows within their datacenters, where security vulnerabilities may exist, and how performance can be improved by virtualizing the network.

The next best thing to attending VMworld

Couldn’t make it to Las Vegas for this year’s VMworld? Check back here all week for the latest conference updates from our virtualization team. Also be sure to follow us on social media – Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook – for more from VMworld 2016.

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Thousands of attendees from around the world converged on Las Vegas yesterday to kick off VMworld 2016. Taking center stage during the company’s annual four-day conference will be its latesthalim vmworld 2 virtualization and cloud innovations.

Unable to make it to this year’s event? Arraya has you covered. A member of our virtualization practice will be onsite throughout the conference to provide firsthand coverage of everything new and notable taking place at VMworld 2016.

The highlights from Day 1 included:

Looking at the trends affecting today’s IT pros

Transformation was at the forefront of the address by VMware’s CEO Pat Gelsinger. Digital transformation in particular has become one of the hottest things going in IT as of late. However, this is no mere buzzword. It’s a trend which, if properly applied, can have a profound effect on the present and future for businesses, rivaling even the Industrial Revolution in terms of transformational impact.

Gelsinger stressed that the foundation of digital transformation is the cloud, technology which is only going to become more important in the years to come. He predicted that by 2021, 50% of workloads will be in clouds, with 30% in public clouds, and 20% in private clouds. He went on to state that by 2030, 52% of workloads will be in public clouds alone.

Other trends IT will want to keep an eye on:

  • The growth of Internet of Things (IoT) – Gelsinger noted there could be more IoT devices connected to the Internet than human devices by Q1 of 2019. Instead of shrinking IT size, Gelsinger believes this will allow IT to expand due to the efficiency of cloud technology.
  • Shadow IT isn’t going anywhere – The cloud has made it considerably easier for everyone, including folks outside of IT, to invest in technology resources, resulting in so-called “shadow IT.” The overall motivations – users want to choose their services; IT desires greater control to ensure security – will not change. As such, organizations will have to find a way to address this “control vs. freedom” debate.
  • Virtualization growth explodes – During his presentation, Gelsinger pointed out that roughly 80% of compute workloads are now virtualized. Software-defined solutions NSX and VSAN are growing at a remarkable 400% adoption rate, rivaling the growth of server virtualization from a decade ago. He believes NSX and VSAN will continue to bring the OPEX and CAPEX advantages realized by server virtualization over to networking and storage.

Breaking news at VMworld 2016

Several key announcements also helped to set the tone for Day 1 of VMworld. Some of the biggest include:

  • The availability of zero downtime migration to vCloud Air.
  • Cross-Cloud Architecture – Provides freedom and control across different clouds. Two major components of this are the VMware Cloud Foundation and Cross-Cloud Services.
    • VMware Cloud Foundation – This takes SDDC components and combines them with the new Automated Lifecycle Manager, making private clouds easy to deploy and maintain.
      • IBM is the first partner for VMware Cloud Foundation
      • This makes the VMware SDDC available as a service
    • Cross-Cloud Services – This includes new SaaS-based offerings for private and public clouds including Azure, AWS, and Google. Cross-Cloud Services gives IT a new set of tools to manage workloads across different clouds, creating a layer that can span across public and private clouds.
      • Networking and Security configurations can be synchronized across multiple public and private clouds
      • Workloads can be replicated and moved between clouds as well

See what VMware and Arraya can do for your business
Have a question about the latest news and offerings from VMware? The members of our virtualization practice stand ready to help. To start a conversation, visit us at www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ or reach out to us on social media at: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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Last month was Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference. In case you missed Erin Steinmetz’s newbie post, it was a great time and focused on more than just the latest technology. Under all the打印 altruism and camaraderie, there was another message underpinning the conference and Microsoft believes it has the power to transform your business.

Digital Transformation was the biggest theme at WPC 2016. While this just seems like it might be the latest industry buzzword, it actually is one of the biggest differentiators between industry leaders and those just surviving or on their way out. So what is Digital Transformation?

In November 2015, IDC held a webcast called Futurescape: Worldwide CIO Agenda 2016 Predictions. In it, they posited that CIOs and IT organizations will be using technology as a differentiator in the marketplace. This new use of technology will drive IT and business budgets and priorities for the next few years.

Businesses are now getting to the point where IT will transition from a support organization into a business driver that provides actual value, instead of just keeping the lights on. Through this new use of technology, IT is now in control of the next evolution of business.

Consider this simple example of using technology to increase profit.

A farmer has all kinds of concerns – water consumption, soil quality, and seed distribution. Imagine what a farmer could do with data analytics on these items. He could intelligently plant more seeds where the soil is rich and less where the soil is poor. He can adjust his water usage accordingly and perhaps enjoy a much larger yield.

Let’s take this example further. If we gave the farmer a tool like machine learning, he could automate the process further and add intelligence. Machine learning can help adjust water usage by being plugged in to local weather patterns. By monitoring the soil, it could check whether rain had actually come through or if the weatherman was wrong and make adjustments accordingly.

The cloud is what makes this technology both accessible and affordable to just about any business. The value you derive could be what pays for the solution. In some ways, the cloud has become the great equalizer, allowing the smallest business to compete in a global marketplace. By leveraging the cloud properly, you could discover new revenue streams, increase customer satisfaction, transform products and services, or develop process efficiencies and yield better results, as in the example of the farmer.

Preparing for your cloud journey

Arraya is working to bring this story of Digital Transformation to business through an engagement called Azure Ready. Over several days, we meet with multiple levels of your organization to uncover how you can leverage the cloud to enable Digital Transformation.

  • DISCOVERY — We begin with a focus on your business, specifically your product/service offerings, revenue goals, go-to-market strategies and competitors. This information helps us present use cases from customers with a similar digital footprint who have used Microsoft Azure to support their business objectives. From there, we explore the applications and services that your business relies on and use this information to build an interactive service map.
  • ANALYSIS — Using the service map as a guide, we dig deeper into those applications and services with business line owners. We target characteristics that are important to the business, including accessibility, security, integrity, elasticity and portability. This helps us develop a high-level services framework to correlate functional pain points with potential target workloads.
  • TRANSFORMATION — With application profiles in-hand, Arraya will present solution paths that business leaders and business line owners can incorporate into their strategic plans. We provide an executive summary of our findings that includes a list of target workloads, ROI, and any data we collected during the analysis. This information provides a foundation for developing a transition road map.

Through each stage, we hold sessions with executives, business unit owners, business application owners, and IT to have unique conversations around Digital Transformation. By the end of the engagement, we will deliver our results with recommendations to get you on the path to transforming your business.

Are you ready?

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Big changes are coming to the patching process for Windows 7 and 8.1 this fall. Microsoft recently announced that, starting in October 2016, admins will no longer be able to pick and choose which patches they want to apply. Instead, patching will be conducted using a cumulative, Windows 10-inspired approach. The list of pros far surpasses the cons but, as is always the case with changes ofClose-up of hands of boss at workplace with laptop and hands of two females near by this scale, it has stirred up anxiety.

Under the new approach, rather than receiving dozens of patches from Microsoft every Patch Tuesday, businesses who haven’t migrated off older versions of Windows will receive just one. Contained within that lone patch will be fixes for multiple bugs. From a management standpoint, it’s hard to argue against having one patch for 30 bugs in place of 30 patches for 30 bugs.

From Microsoft’s point of view, the value of this change goes beyond management simplification. They see this move as increasing the quality of the updates they provide to customers, thereby making customers’ environments more secure. Meanwhile, eliminating a grocery store approach to patching (“I want this one and this one,” etc.) saves organizations from sync and dependency errors and reduces testing complexity and scan times.

Concerns drummed up by Microsoft’s announcement

Again, the list of pros is long. What’s troubling IT admins is the perceived inflexibility of this new process. Admins aren’t happy with the prospect of installing every update contained within a pack, as opposed to skipping over those they deem risky or unnecessary. Also, while the peace of mind that comes with proper patching is obviously attractive, there is concern about the time and network resources that would need to be devoted to these larger updates.

Let’s start with that second area of concern. Businesses who use Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), or the Microsoft Update Catalog as their source for finding and deploying patches will be able to select from one of two types of updates. The first is the full update, called the monthly roll-up or a security-only update. There’s also a security-only option which works exactly like it sounds. Businesses who choose this option will only receive updates directly tied to security. Performance and other fixes will be excluded, minimizing the size of the update without hindering security efforts. This option will not be made available through Windows Update.

What about having to install updates that could cause problems for your environment? This is a rare occurrence according to the Arraya Microsoft team. Rare is reassuring, but it’s not as reassuring as impossible. Even if, say, fewer than 1 out of every 100 updates causes an issue, that won’t do much to reassure the IT pros left dealing with the cleanup.

Preparing for the future of Windows

That’s where our team can help. We can assist organizations still using Windows 7 and 8.1 better understand the risks associated with this change and how it will impact their existing Windows environment, including with SCCM deployments.

This may also be a good time, if you haven’t done so already, to kick start internal conversations surrounding migrating off of aging solutions like Windows 7 and 8.1 and onto the most secure, modern option around: Windows 10. Arraya’s Microsoft team can discuss best practices surrounding this and help draw up migration plans.

To learn more about what the end of pick-a-patch could mean for your organization, or to start a conversation about Windows 10, reach out to us at: www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/. Our team can also be contacted through social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.