A new (free!) service became publicly available on Quest OnDemand – Quest Site Administrator for SharePoint Reports.

This is a great free service which provides some pretty neat reports on your intranet SharePoint environment. You go to the site and it launches a nice Silverlight client. Then all you need to do is provide a URL of your site collection (e.g. http://myserver.mydomain.corp/sites/super) and get insight on what is posted at the site:

What is neat is that no data actually leaves your environment. All stats are calculated and displayed locally. Quest web server only supplies the client and Silverlight UI which then run locally on your premised. Thus, it is kind of the best of both worlds: data never leaves the building, but you don’t have to maintain the tool and always run the latest version from any computer you want:

You can read more about this service from this post by Joel.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

This Wednesday was probably the first day on the (potentially long) path to Adobe Flash decline: the most popular video site out there – YouTube – started offering videos in Flash-less mode for browsers which support HTML 5 and h.264 video codec.

This means that today the option is available for Chrome and Safari. Then at some point they will likely add the Ogg codec and support Firefox, or help Firefox get native h.264 codec support. And then IE9 ships and all latest browsers will play videos natively. Flash will no longer be required for video, and why would anyone want it then?

The whole story of Flash in retrospect is going to be an interesting one. Adobe had 95-98% penetration in PC market for years and could not expand its adoption beyond video. They tried: kept improving the tools, added offline, even tried open-sourcing it, and getting to the mobile market – but Flash has not become an application platform – video is what most people use it for, and this exact segment is now under the HTML 5 fire.

Can anything help Flash now?

If Flash failed, does Microsoft’s Silverlight have a chance? So far they are basically following Adobe’s path of pushing it to consumers via video streaming websites while beefing up the developer story. As far as I understand, Microsoft’s thinking is that they can succeed because their development story is much better and their development community much bigger.

I guess we’ll have the answer within next couple of years.

Security and data protection are key concerns for any cloud solution. I truly believe that this is also one aspect that you cannot just improve over time. No matter how agile you are security needs to be there by design.

Unfortunately most cloud vendors/SaaS-providers still don’t tell enough about the way they protect customer data – which we know is a bad idea.

From that perspective you might find this case study which Microsoft has just posted worth reading: Systems Manager Offers Security-Enhanced, Hosted Solutions with Programming Framework. The case study lists some of the technologies used in Quest OnDemand – Quest Software’s Systems Management as a Service product family.

There’s more to security than just encrypting internet traffic. The case study discusses how latest technology such as Windows Identity Foundation and Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 helped us make sure that customers are always in control of their data, which includes not just protecting data from those who should not have access (including Quest’s own engineers!) to it but also a convenient and secure way to delegate access to those who should.

I hope this helps you get a good overview to one of the approaches to cloud security. Read the case study here.

Ben Riga posted a video recording with a fairly detailed discussion we had at Microsoft PDC about Quest OnDemand (Quest’s Systems Management as a Service offering):

In that discussion we have covered quite a few topic which I hope you will find interesting:

• What is Systems Management as a Service and how it is different from all other *aaS offerings,
• How SaaS can increase market penetration,
• Quest strategy in SaaS vs. on premises products,
• Why and how we picked Windows Azure as our platform,
• Which code from existing on-premises products could be re-used and which had to be developed from scratch,
• Some details on the product architecture including security and multi-tenancy.

One thing I could not help noticing is how the UI of the service itself changed between this shooting in November and the way it looks today. I guess this is a testimony of how SaaS model lets vendors innovate fast.

Check out the video here.

Last week at Microsoft PDC we launched our Systems Management as a Platform offering with a few of the services going into private beta.

Now you can actually see a quick demo of one of these services and read some of the media coverage.

You can see the product demo if you watch the recording of Kim Cameron’s identity keynote session (the Quest OnDemand demo starts approximately at the 35:00 mark). If you don’t have Silverlight, here are the recording files in downloadable format:

• MP4 Video
• Windows Media Video
• Windows Media Video (High)

In addition to watching the demo, you might want to read what media had to say about this service:

Network World – Microsoft adds identity to cloud

InformationWeek - Quest Launches Cloud Services Based On Microsoft Azure

Lawrence Wilson/SaaS, Cloud Computing and Virtualization Review: Quest Software Offers Software as a Service (SaaS) Windows Management Solutions

Kelly Higgins Jackson/DarkReading: Product Watch: Microsoft Unveils Windows Identity Foundation

Forefront Team Blog: Available now: Windows Identity Foundation for building more secure, simplified access to cloud applications

Read, watch, and sign-up for the beta.

Systems Management as a Service (is there an acronym for this yet?) is finally becoming a reality. Today at Microsoft Professional Developer Conference we have announced beta launch of Quest OnDemand our online IT management services.

This is one of the projects which have been consuming most of my time for the last year so I am extremely excited that we reached this roadmap.

We demoed one of the services – our Active Directory backup and recovery (Quest Recovery Manager OnDemand for Active Directory) – on stage at PDC (will hopefully be able to post a link to the recording in a couple of days) today – and there are 2 more down the line: InTrust OnDemand (event log management) and Site Administrator Reports OnDemand for SharePoint (SharePoint reporting).

We will not be able to let everyone sign up immediately. Instead, if you want to participate, you need to go to the Quest OnDemand web page and fill out the beta nomination survey. After that you will be contacted by our product management and granted access to the beta.

This is a huge step for Quest as a Systems Management company, and in my opinion, a big step forward in cloud computing and SaaS adoption. We hope these services will help a lot of administrators out there manage their IT environments more efficiently and really looking forward to the feedback we get from the beta.

More news to come. Congratulations to the whole team involved in developing and launching this service!

Here’s when and where you can find me in Berlin this week:

Microsoft Online Services booth (Unified Communications area) in the TLC area (3.2)

I’ll be there tomorrow (Tuesday) during the evening reception – 6:15-8:00 pm. Obviously, I will be happy to answer any questions on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, LiveMeeting, OCS Online and sign

And then, both Tuesday and Wednesday:

For developers:

BOF10: Developing on Azure: Stories from the Trenches
Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 12:20-13:00 (lunch break)
Interactive theater 5, Yellow – Hall 3.2

Have you given Windows Azure a try? Whether it was just kicking the tires or you are deep in the enterprise application development, let’s get together and share the lessons we learned on the way.

For IT Professionals:

BOF13: Going to the Cloud: Are we crazy?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 12:20-13:00 (lunch break)
Interactive theater 6, Pink – Hall 3.2

Are cloud services about efficiency or negligence? About being able to outsource commodity services and concentrate on core competence or loosing control and risking getting out of compliance? Which IT services can be safely moved to the cloud and which should stay in house? Let’s get together and discuss the present and the future of Software + Services use in our companies, share success stories, lessons learned, discuss concerns and best practices.

And you can obviously contact me by email or twitter. So if you are at TechEd Europe 2009 – I am looking forward to seeing you this week!

Quest Connect is a big online conference put together by Quest, Microsoft, , Dell, NetApp, Vizioncore, Scriptlogic, Techrepublic, Oracle Magazine, Redmond Magazine, and The Code Project. The agenda is packed with a lot of useful material on Windows Server 2008 R2, AD, Identity Management, Exchange 2010, Virtualization, Cloud Computing, SharePoint, SQL, Oracle – see full agenda here – and they include some sessions specifically on cloud computing and Microsoft Online Services.

Here are a few:

Here or Way Out There? Should Your Active Directory Management Be In Cloud?

Available the whole day on-demand

Dmitry Sotnikov, New Project Research Manager, Quest Software

Spend a few minutes learning how to leverage the Cloud Computing Craze in your environment. During this session, Dmitry Sotnikov will demonstrate provisioning for cloud directories and review Quest’s soon-to-be-released SaaS solution for AD backup and recovery. You can even sign up for the beta!

Exchange 2010 and the Cloud – Migration and Management Best Practices

Live: 12:00 pm BST/7:00 am EDT/ 4:00 am PDT – then recorded on-demand
Add this Webcast to my Calendar

Keith Ridings, Product Manager, Exchange Migration; and Rob Sargent, Product Manager, Exchange Management – Quest Software

Exchange 2010 and the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) are designed to help organizations achieve better business outcomes while controlling the costs of deployment, administration, and compliance. But adopting these innovative Microsoft technologies can be one of the most complex, labor-intensive projects an organization can undertake. However, it does not have to be. With the proper planning and execution, you can successfully migrate to and proactively manage Exchange 2010 and BPOS and minimize the impact on your users and your help desk. Join Quest product managers Keith Ridings and Rob Sargent as they share best practices for maximizing the value of your next-generation Exchange investment.

Reach for the Cloud: Seamlessly Migrate to Microsoft BPOS

6:00pm BST/1:00 pm EDT/10:00 am PDT – then recorded on-demand
Add this Webcast to my Calendar

Keith Ridings, Product Manager, Notes and GroupWise Migration – Quest Software
Matt Fangman, Director, Unified Communications – Microsoft

In a time of diminishing IT budgets and headcounts, hosted e-mail and collaboration services are an increasingly attractive alternative to on-premises platforms, offering reduced costs, increased protection from outside threats, and enhanced operational efficiency. Many organizations are choosing Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS): a set of hosted messaging and collaboration solutions including Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office Communications Online. In this webcast, experts from Microsoft and Quest will discuss how to ensure a fast and seamless migration from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.

A Complete Notes-to-Microsoft Migration

2:00am BST/9:00 pm EDT/6:00 pm PDT – then recorded on-demand
Add this Webcast to my Calendar

Tim Fountain, Systems Consultant, Notes Migration Solutions – Quest Software

For organizations looking to migrate from the IBM Lotus platform, Quest offers the industry’s most complete set of transition solutions for seamless, cost-effective migrations of Notes mailboxes to Microsoft Exchange/Exchange Online, application content to SharePoint/SharePoint Online, and Sametime users to Office Communication Server. Learn from experts at Quest and Microsoft the best ways to analyze the Lotus environment, rapidly rebuild complex applications and allow the Notes and Microsoft environments to coexist throughout the migration.

Speed and Simplify Your Notes Migration to Exchange Online

Pete Caldecourt, Solutions Architect, Quest Software

There is also quite a few sessions related to Private Clouds: virtual datacenter management, VDI, end-user experience monitoring and so on.

In-between the sessions you can hang out in the conference lobby or booth area and discuss the topics with other attendees.

See live session list here and on-demand list here.

This online show is a great learning alternative if you cannot make it to TechEd and other face-to-face conferences this year. Register for the event here. Virtually see you tomorrow!

Pundits talking about how Windows 7 is all about Microsoft competing against Apple, recovering with Vista consumer adoption disaster, or getting people off of XP, are missing one other – extremely important – part of the Windows 7 story. Windows 7 and its server counterpart – Windows Server 2008 R2 – are actually the first real step in Microsoft’s Windows Cloud Story. Before Windows 7 Microsoft could offer some services (such as Exchange Online) from the cloud – but could not provide full enterprise directory, security and so on – now they can.

Microsoft has always called their SaaS plan Software + Services, emphasizing that they can enable rich Windows and application experience over the internet. The reality however has been that in most cases these have been limited to a few web-enabled (e.g. Outlook) or pure web (e.g. SharePoint) applications. Most Microsoft systems and their whole enterprise security model rely on Active Directory and intranet network connectivity – neither of which work should the directory be located in Microsoft’s datacenter.

Now Microsoft has actually quietly added a few key features enabling this scenario:

• Offline Domain Join – customers can now have add their computers to Active Directory without ever having them in the same network (by importing special security key they get from whoever is running their domain.)
• DirectAccess – end users can log into their domain and access any services (including even file servers) without having to VPN into the network and there is a way to automatically enforce their patch and antivirus level using Network Access Protection (NAP – the feature they added in Vista which now really shines when added to DirectAccess).
• Active Directory Management over Web Services – even administrative tools: both graphical and command-line – got revamped to work over web services instead of traditional direct connectivity.
• To say nothing about much improved Remote Desktop Services, application streaming, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and so on. There’s definitely some pattern here!

With these technologies, Microsoft will actually be able to run your entire environment in their datacenter, yet let users securely connect to that environment from their own Windows machines.

This is a pretty important step in fighting the Web 2.0 approach of Google and the like which are suggesting that all your applications are going to be replaces with in-browser web counterparts like Google Apps. And obviously Microsoft’s approach has the potential of providing a much more familiar and evolutionary way of outsourcing your IT than radical “we’ll find everything on the web” way.

It is also fascinating to see that Microsoft is not yet positioning these technologies as hosting enablers. Their documentation lists them as advances for enterprise own administration. Yet, administrators find them quite hard to discover and set up. My guess is that this is because, as I mentioned above, these feature are not really for customers but are for hosters – most importantly Microsoft – and Microsoft is simply not ready yet to publicly announce their next generation services which make use of the features.

My gut feeling is that we will hear about them pretty soon. Time will tell.

There are two cloud-related sessions in the “community” section of Microsoft TechEd Europe 2009 and you need to vote for them here if you are attending the conference (and obviously if you want them in the agenda).

Basically, both are on cloud computing: one for developers and the other for IT professionals:

Going to the Cloud: Are we crazy?

Are cloud services about efficiency or negligence? About being able to outsource commodity services and concentrate on core competence or loosing control and risking getting out of compliance? Which IT services can be safely moved to the cloud and which should stay in house? Let’s get together and discuss the present and the future of Software + Services use in our companies, share success stories, lessons learned, discuss concerns and best practices.

Developing on Azure: Stories from the Trenches

Have you given Windows Azure a try? Whether it was just kicking the tires or you are deep in the enterprise application development, let’s get together and share the lessons we learned on the way.

Both topics are near and dear to my heart, and as a matter of fact, will be moderated by me should they get into the agenda.

So if you want these sessions in Berlin this November, please cast your vote here.