Hi all, first blog post in a while (sorry!).

Just to remind all of you that were hot on the heels of downloading and installing Windows 7 RC (build 7100) – your time is almost up. Starting on 1st March 2010 users with this RC release will experience their machine shutting down every 2hrs, messages warning that the copy of Windows is not genuine.

On June 1, 2010, if you are still on the Windows 7 RC, your license will expire and the non-genuine experience will be triggered. Your wallpaper will be removed and "This copy of Windows is not genuine" will be displayed in the lower right corner of your desktop, above the taskbar. Starting on February 15, 2010, Windows 7 RC should actually start giving daily prompts to remind you about the expiration, but just in case two weeks’ notice isn’t enough, we’re letting you know a month in advance.

If you have enjoyed using Windows 7, upgrade to it! It’s brilliant!

Upgrade sooner rather than later to avoid issues in the future.

Monday 7^th December – 9 a.m. until 11.30 a.m.

Gardner is please to present the first of our “No Brainer” IT consultancy days. Now that the worst of the recession is hopefully behind us, what are the obvious IT strategies and tactics we can adopt to improve and grow our businesses at last? Our presenters will be drawn from current industry leaders who will give you the best advice on how to get the best from your IT, with specific reference to the significant technology changes taking place in 2009/2010.

If you are just a bit confused or bewildered about what it all the challenges mean to you, then come along and have things explained simply. Our agenda will include:-

• Microsoft “The New Efficiency” including Virtualisation, Business Management
• NetApp Storage Efficient Technologies
• IBM Energy Efficiency Servers
• Hosted Services
• Cost Effective Security through IP cameras
• Power and cost saving tools including PC PowerDown and DocSense

The venue is the Blue Planet Aquarium in Ellesmere Port. The only sharks present will be those in the aquarium! Much of the advice offered on the day is around energy and cost saving, so we will all be doing a lot towards saving the planet. The session will finish around 11-30 am, leaving you plenty of time to network with the advisors or just take the opportunity to wander around Blue Planet and add to the enjoyment of your morning.

http://www.blueplanetaquarium.com

If you are interested in attending this event please register here

Over the last few months Gardner Systems have been working hard with its technology partners evaluating and working with them on new releases , especially with Microsoft, with a new wave of technology, now included in the Microsoft “New Efficiency” campaign.

Our Network Manager Alan Eves said “ we have been so impressed with the quality of the products, but more importantly with the efficiency is running costs and importantly business practices that these new products are bringing to us”

Alan has been involved in transforming a number of the day to day operations at Gardner by heading up a SharePoint roll out across the business, “this has revolutionised the way Gardner interact with not only each other, but also our customers and event attendees”. As part of the new technology migration Gardner are looking to enhance their event management and customer interation further by deploying Microsoft CRM.

Other technology products currently rolling out across the business include;

· Windows 7 on all desks

· Server virtualisation programme, using Microsoft Hyper-V and managed with the System Centre Toolset (Virtual Machine Manger, operations manager and config manager)

· Exchange 2010

· Online Services (integrating on premise solutions with online Exchange, OCS and Live Meeting)

“these technologies are transforming the way we are operating out business, as an example the deployment of Hyper-V R2 is going to greatly reduce the physical server count, reducing both out power and cooling requirements” Alan Added.

Alongside the Microsoft technology, Gardner are also taking advantage of their NetApp storage platform as well, to allow for a hugely efficient delivery mechanism for their new virtualised infrastructure . “The NetApp storage technology is very important in our virtualisation programme, we believe it bar far the most efficient storage technology on the market, with its deduplication and cloning technology, allowing both massive space savings as well as incredibly efficient machine creation, letting us create new Windows servers in a matter of a couple of minutes. Both technologies have positively impacted what we are doing, allowing us to be much more cost and time efficient” Alan Added.

If you want to see more about what Gardner’s are doing, contact Alan to arrange a demo alane@gardnersystems.co.uk

On 24th September 2009, Gardner Systems and Microsoft will be presenting Essential Business Server 2008. This event is free to attend and runs from 9am – 1pm (including lunch).

This is the perfect opportunity for you to come and speak with Microsoft and Gardner Systems about how your IT infrastructure can save you money. Save money by providing an easy-to-manage technical solution which can address issues you are currently experiencing in your business.

EBS has been specifically designed by Microsoft for the mid-market to address the following issues:

If you wish to attend the event or to find out more click here

Gardner Systems are pleased to announce that we have been carefully selected by Microsoft to deliver Microsoft Essential Business Server to the mid-market within the UK. Microsoft are working with only 5 UK partners out of 36,000 on a special LightHouse programme to help deliver EBS in the UK.

 So what is EBS I hear you ask…

EBS in Microsoft’s own words is:

“Windows Essential Business Server 2008 is an enterprise-class server solution designed and priced for midsize businesses. Windows Essential Business Server 2008 provides a unified Administration Console to manage an integrated IT infrastructure with the latest versions of management, messaging, and security server technologies.  By helping to improve IT manageability and reliability, Windows Essential Business Server 2008 turns a midsize IT infrastructure into a strategic asset, boosting productivity and growth”

We at Gardner Systems met with Iain Frew, Principal Program Manager for EBS last week to discuss what it can bring to the typical mid-market business. Throughout the slides we were shown it was clear to that Microsoft has realy studied what a potential customer could want when producing EBS. It includes key technologies such as Exchange 2007, forefront security, SQL server 2008, hyper-V, system centre essentials and many more.

Gardners are presenting an event around this topic here in Liverpool on the 24th September 2009. This event is free for anyone to attend and will consist of us demonstrating EBS with Microsoft key speaker and Principal Program Manager, Iain Frew. A perfect opportunity for you to come and meet with Microsoft.

Visiting the Essential Business Server website this product is usually shown on multiple (3/4) servers with one per function-Management Server, Messaging Server, Security Server. This can, according to this document be virtualised onto less hardware to provide “infrastructure in a box”.

Many companies are now choosing to embrace the wonder of Microsoft SharePoint, we at Gardners certainly have. SharePoint gives the ability to have document management in a nice looking Web Browser based user interface which allows documents to be edited in Microsoft Office. With the added ability to use Workflows to automate common business tasks its no wonder why SharePoint 2007 is a hot seller.

New Features

In an attempt to unify all MS product user interfaces the well known icon based ribbon toolbar is being developed for the SP2010 web interface. From here users can perform common SP tasks such as checked in and out documents, emailing on links to locations etc etc.

Site customisation is going to be a big part of SP2010, for those of you not keen on the icon ribbon toolbar then you can simply turn it off or make your own. Customising the look and feel of the web interface is also easier than the current SharePoint designer setup now. The site can be edited by the owner as if the page was a typical MS Office document.

For those of you already using some of the more advanced features of SharePoint no doubt you would have heard of the “Business Data Catalogue”. In SP2010 this is renamed to “Business Connectivity Services” and gives users the ability to manipulate data in business databases. The end result of this is that users have the ability to read, write, update and delete records in databases (such as SQL) from MS Office documents and InfoPath forms.

-this sounds a lot easier than using the Web Services which are available now.

Administration

Management of SharePoint is going to get easier with a whole host of new admin tools to monitor server performance, farm status, fix common problems and view usage stats.

MS have announced also that Firefox 3.x, Safari and IE (all versions over 6.0) will be supported.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218500775&subSection=News

Specs

In an attempt to aid budgeting and planning the preliminary server specs have already been released:

64 bit architecture only (there is no 32-bit version)

MS Windows Server 2008 or MS Windows Server 2008 R2

SQL Server 2005 / 2008 (64-bit only)

What if I Want to Upgrade?

1. Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit.  Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
2. Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update.  The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
3. Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
4. Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
5. Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
6. Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.

Below are a few common Q&A’s (which we’ll add to as required)

Advantages of 64-bit hardware and software (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

Migrate an existing server farm to a 64-bit environment (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

We’ll keep you posted on more information as it is announced