Cloud OS Week - Empower People Centric IT

As part of the Microsoft Cloud OS Week, Thursday will be the day for learning about everything "desktop" related and how Microsoft can help you shift from looking at managing devices to how you can empower your users with self-service and a seamless experience across devices.

I've been lucky enough to be asked to help out on the day and take over the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2012 session.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7530739645/es2/?rank=1

If you're not already signed up to attend the session, I definitely recommend signing up quick and attending as it's sure to be a brilliant day packed full of information from some brilliant MVP's!

MBAM 2.0 plus other MDOP updates

The Redmond machine really is in high gear at the moment as lots of other products and solutions start to recieve tweaks and new features, mainly in preperation for Windows 8 and Server 2012.

One set of tools getting some love is the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP).

Microsoft had already previously announced that MDOP was seeing a new component being added called UE-V which along with App-V makes MDOP a desirable solution to have in any environment looking to have a fantastic dynamic desktop, but today MS announced MBAM will also be getting some new features.

The Microsoft Bitlocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM) will be updated to include new options such as:

• Used Space Only Encryption where only the part of the drive containing data will be encrypted instead of the full disk to save time
• Integration with hardware encrypted hard disks
• Complex PIN enforcement
• Self Service Key Recovery (I would prefer to see some SCSM integration here)
• Management of fully FIPS compliant configurations/designs
• Some SC 2012 Configuration Manager integration for reporting

Microsoft have also promised another update to UE-V very soon but so far during my tests I've seen no issues other than some poor documentation around its setup/configuration (hint... watch out for Offline Files or rather the lack of...)

App-V 5 is in Beta with new features such as shared cache which is amazing for VDI infrastructure.

Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) 4.0 SP1 beta is also available with mainly bug fixes and Windows 8/Server 2012 support rather than new features.

DaRT is also getting an update, again mainly to support Windows 8.

MDOP just got even more attractive

Microsoft today announced that along with the next major update to App-V taking it to version 5.0 they would also be adding a new solution to the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP) called UE-V.

From the brief blurb from Microsoft that talks about allowing user and application settings to follow the user across multiple devices, it sounds similar to other user setting/state virtualisation products such as those from AppSense, ResSoftware and Citrix etc.

Microsoft have called it User Experience Virtualisation (UE-V) and from the brief video on the Windows Team Blog, it looks like it can synchronise application level setting changes, without the need for logging on and off, fixing the biggest problem of last write wins and roaming profiles.

UE-V also looks to have settings roll back capability for individual applications, meaning if the user messes up an app by fiddling, the service desk can quickly revert it without affecting the whole system, along with other apps by using something like system restore which would.

A more in-depth explanation of UE-V can be found here on the SpringBoard blog.

I must admit, this is looking like a really compelling reason to have MDOP, finally making it something more than App-V with a couple of possibly interesting extras.

This will be going straight into the testlab when I get back from MMS 2012 and I'll make sure to do a full blog post on the installation and usage since this ties in so nicely with the mantra of ensuring a seamless end user experience that I promote to customers when I talk to them.

Oh, Microsoft have also announced that they will be dropping AIS from the MDOP package due to (rather unsurprisingly) low demand and customers preferring enhanced in house services (ConfigMgr, SNOW License Manager, FrontRange Discovery etc).

UE-V Beta Download

App-V 5.0 Beta Download