Chris’s Blog

Today I attended the SEC208 session with Jamie Sharp which really provided a great overview of Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG). If you use and like ISA server, you’ll love TMG.

Some of the great new things we can look forward to are web filtering, URL filtering and it also has built in Exchange Edge Server functionality which means if you have an Exchange Edge Server role deployed and also use ISA server, you can now consolidate these into a single server. Another cool thing is, like Exchange Server 2010, TMG will only be available in 64bit.

TMG is currently available as beta3, click here to download it. It is expected to be RTM towards the end of the year.

If you are attending tech-ed, make sure you get your Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) account setup.. I have been most impressed by BPOS.

What’s BPOS? click here

So you’ve arrived in the Gold Coast, checked in, unpacked, visited the gym and checked out the pool (right?) now what? I was planning which sessions to attend over the next few days and thought it would be a good idea write a post about it.

Firstly, I would definitely recommend that you get to registration as soon as possible to avoid the rush! Registration will be open until 9pm tonight and then again from 7am tomorrow morning. Once registered you can also pick up your HP Mini Notebook (of course I am writing this post on it!), there is an “unpacking area” in the convention centre if you would like to dispose of the box and packaging.

There is a welcome reception at the exhibition hall betweenn 6pm and 9pm and the opening keynote is tomorrow at 08:15am. All this info is in the mini-guide.

As far as sessions go, here are some of the ones I am looking forward to attending:

Wednesday:

09:45am – 11:00am UNC201 – Introduction to Exchange 2010 with Johann Kruse and Roger Lawrence

11:30am – 12:45pm UNC302 – Exchange 2010 Architecture with Scott Schnoll

Thursday:

08:15am – 09:30am UNC305 – Exchange 2010 Voicemail with Mario D’Silva

5:00pm – 6:15pm UNC309 – OCS 2007 R2: Overview & Architecture with Derrick Buckley and Craig Pringle

Friday:

08:15am – 09:30am SEC310 – IAG… the success story with Jean-Pierre Simonis

11:30am – 12:45pm – UNC311 – Telephony in OCS R2 with Brendan Carius and John Smith

There are of course other events going on, one of which is Sydney UC and Melbourne OCS User Group get together on Thursday. click here for more info

Cant make it to tech-ed this year? no need for tears… many sessions are available on live meeting, click here for more info

and finally, yes, of course I will be tweeting all week! be sure to follow me on twitter!

I first saw this at a Quest Software presentation a little while ago, fascinating stuff:

Yesterday I attended the IBM Lotusphere Comes to You event here in Sydney. I was excited to see what the IBM Unified Communications strategy would be and ended getting a lot more than I had bargained for.

The event covered a large part of their portfolio from Messaging and Collaboration, UC and Web Portals to Cloud Computing. As a consultant, I have always taken an interest in what “the other guys” are doing, but, being honest, the last time I saw Domino was back in version 6.

I was most impressed with how slick the Notes 8.5 client looks and the fact that they have integrated everything into a single client whether it be IM, voice & video, document libraries, opening and editing MS Office docs with Symphony, even SAP integration, it can all be done via the Notes 8.5 client.

One of the themes that became immediately obvious was value.. ROI is important, especially in today’s economic climate and IBM seem to be on top of that, a great example is Lotus Symphony which is a free, MS Office compatible suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet editor and presentation editor. I was also impressed by the fact that IBM have realised that (as predicted by Gartner) Apple’s market share in the desktop space is growing and that Windows may not always be the desktop OS of choice, and I think they have catered for this really well by making their software platform independent so it will run on Windows, OSX, and Linux.

In the Cloud Computing space, LotusLive is their solution to online collaboration and it is available now, offering online meetings, hosted email and more.

So, what about UC and more specifically, voice stuff? does “the pbx killer” a.k.a OCS R2 have some competition? IBM are calling it UC² and, well.. I liked what I saw, they certainly have some innovative little features, very easy to use and will certainly make collaboration “child’s play”. They are certainly working with an impressive list of business partners as well. I would say though, that with the maturity of OCS R2 and the fact that it is available now I think IBM may just have missed the boat a little. UC² will be available “later this year” and given the momentum OCS already has, it’s going to be interesting..

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications

Those of you who frequent my blog (or follow me on twitter) will know that I am strongly to any form of internet censorship. Here in Australia the government is currently trailing new ISP level filtering which threatens to reduce our internet to a state comparable to China, read more here

In New Zealand, they have recently pass some crazy copyright law that calls for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny. This is due to come into effect on February 28th unless immediate action is taken by the National Party.

Join thousands of New Zealanders (hey, I am not even kiwi!) already against this law by blacking out your Facebook photo, your websites, your Myspace pages, your Twitter account, in protest against this unjust new law that may come into effect on February 28.

I have "blacked out" my blog and twitter avatar to show my support!

for more info and to sign the petition, click here

THE Federal Government’s internet filtering plan has been compared to censorship in China by one of the participants in its blacklist trials. Read full article here

Check out the NO CLEAN FEED website here

Conroy announces filtering trial participants. "The initial round of ISPs are Primus Telecommunications, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1" Read more here

check out the NO CLEAN FEED website here

"Labor’s ‘deafening silence’ as web censorship trials delayed" read full article here

I am a little surprised that there has not been more noise made about this.. thought I would do my bit as I am a totally against internet censorship..

The Australian Federal Government is pushing forward with a plan to force ISPs to censor the Internet for all Australians. I can think of several, non-technical reasons why this is a really bad idea.. for all the info, including a call to action, check out the NO CLEAN FEED website here