RunAs Radio

Richard and Greg talk to Mark Russinovich, PhD, Technical Fellow and all around smart guy about Azure. In 2010 Mark moved from the Windows team to the Azure team, recognizing that the future of Microsoft lay in the cloud. Also, look for a quick conversation about Zero Day, Mark's upcoming cyberthriller novel.

Hey, it's the 200th show! Richard and Greg invite Kim Tripp and Paul Randal to share a celebration of the past 200 shows. This may not be the most technical show we've ever done, but hey, you only do 200 shows once! Topics range over SQL Server training, water cooled PCs, bursting aquariums and some of the history of RunAs Radio. The show ends with an oddly serious discussion on performance tuning. Thanks for listening!

Richard flies solo to talk to Peter Schmidt about federation in Exchange 2010. While federation has been around for awhile in Exchange, the 2010 version gets away from connection Active Directory together and into a web services model that allows simple, limited visibility for other Exchange 2010 users into your calendar and contacts. If you've ever wanted to give a third party the ability to see when you're available without emailing you, you need federation! Check out Exchange 2010 Federation at TechNet.

Richard and Greg talk to Karri Alexion-Tiernan, director of Product Management for Desktop Virtualization. Karri digs into desktop virtualization in general and application virtualization specifically. The conversation digs into some case studies with BMW and others to show the advantages of virtualization on the desktop. Check out the Springboard Series on Desktop Virtualization at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/gg276319.aspx and the Application Virtualization TechCenter at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/appvirtualization/default.aspx.

Richard and Greg talk to Doug Splinter from avtex about Microsoft Lync. Lync is the new name and new version of Office Communications Server. Lync, like OCS before it, pulls together telephone, instant messaging, email and collaboration into a common interface and address book. Check out Lync at http://lync.microsoft.com/En-us/launch/Pages/launch.aspx.

Richard and Greg talk to Brian Randell about Microsoft Lab Management. Lab Management is a tool aimed at the development crowd, bundled with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. But as Brian explains, Lab Management is also a powerful tool for IT Pros, making it easy to stand up a group of servers that emulate the production environment and do testing. You can get a copy of Lab Management as part of Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional edition as well. Check out Lab Management at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee712698.aspx.

Richard flies solo to talk to Pam Lahoud about SQL Server performance. Not just fighting slow queries, but planning in advance for poor performance behavior. The conversation digs into techniques to anticipate where performance problems will occur. Pam provides a list of great tools to use for understanding your performance problem in SQL Server, including SQL Nexus (http://sqlnexus.codeplex.com/) and PAL (http://pal.codeplex.com/).

Richard and Greg talk to Brad McGehee about the challenges of working remotely. The conversation ranges over getting your home office set up right, negotiating with the family over work time and convincing your boss that you're actually working.

Richard and Greg talk to Susan Bradley, the SBS Diva! Susan digs into the new features of Small Business Server 2011. Check out the Microsoft SBS site at http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/products/servers/Pages/sbs_overview.aspx. Susan also talks about the balance between SBS "on-premise" and the cloud offerings of Azure, BPOS and Office 365. Check out the SBS forums at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/threads. The conversation also explores the kinds of internet connections small businesses are going to need in the connected and cloud-enabled world. Susan is a Small Business Server Specialist, and points to http://www.microsoft.com/sbs/en/us/find-partner.aspx to find a specialist in your area if you want help setting up and maintaining Small Business Server.

Richard and Greg talk to Joel Oleson from Quest Software about Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 is Microsoft's cloud based offering for Office, Exchange, Sharepoint and Lync.

Richard talks to Amit Agarwal from Quest Software about Project Lucy. Projecy Lucy is a free Azure-based utility that analyzes SQL Traces to find performance bottlenecks and other problems. Check out Project Lucy at http://www.projectlucy.com/.

Richard talks to Ned Pyle from Microsoft Directory Services support. Ned, with his associate Ted Stephens, developed FRS2DFSR, a utility for assisting administrations migrating from File Replication Services (FRS) to Distributed File System Replication (DFSR). Check out Ned's blog post on the subject, with links to the white paper, the tool and operations guides on the subject at http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2010/05/27/frs-to-dfsr-migration-tool-released.aspx.

Richard flies solo in a discussion with Kevin Kline about PASS and all things SQL Server. The conversation ranges over business intelligence, OLTP, SSDs, you name it! Check out the upcoming PASS SQLRally at http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/.

Richard and Greg talk to Alan Sugano about migrating from VMWare ESX to ESXi. VMWare announced that the next version of ESX is the last one, only ESXi will be developed further. ESXi is a far lighter weight version of ESX, lowering the security risk, memory consumption and a host of other advantages, but in exchange you give up a lot of the tools you're used to working with in ESX. Regardless, this is the direction that VMWare is going, so give a listen to how Alan has solved these challenges.

Another Connections conference show, Richard talks to the one-and-only Mark Minasi about his keynote at the conference. Mark aims his sights at cloud computing, asking the important questions about pricing, reliability and implementation challenges.

While at DevConnections, Richard talks to Jeremy Moskowitz about what every IT person needs to know about troubleshooting group policy.

Richard and Greg talk to David Mills about System Center Essentials (SCE). SCE is the core parts of the System Center suite aimed at the small to medium businesses. David digs into how SCE fits into your organization, how it works with existing infrastructure and the path to grow beyond it.

Richard and Greg talk to Clint Huffman about Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) 2.0. PAL makes the performance counters in perfmon far more manageable - by providing a breakdown of important counters and reasonable values. With PAL you turn on perfmon, collect a log and use the tool to find important numbers. Check out PAL at http://pal.codeplex.com. You can find Clint's blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/clinth/.

Richard and Greg talk to Sean Deuby about issues around identity in the cloud. The conversation explores both the consumer and enterprise aspects of identity in the cloud. Where Facebook and Google are helping things for consumers, the needs of the enterprise are more complex. The acronyms come out - oAuth, OpenID, ADFS and more!

Richard talks to Jeff Stokes about xPerf. xPerf is part of a suite of tools called the Windows Performance Analysis Toolkit (WPT). WPT digs into Windows where PerfMon leaves off, utilizing Event Tracing for Windows to see exactly how applications are behaving, even during bootup and shutdown. Get more information on WPT at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/cc825801.aspx. Also, check out Jeff's blog at http://blogs.technet.com/b/jeff_stokes/.

Richard and Greg talk to Don Jones about PowerShell. The conversation starts off with a discussion on the fundamentals of PowerShell, but then dives into specific techniques and tools to make folks more productive with PowerShell. The show wraps up with exploring some favorite PowerShell projects. There's a ton of great information about PowerShell at Don's web site shellhub.com.

Richard and Greg talk to Adam Hall about Opalis, the latest product addition to System Center. Opalis provides automation and integration for IT tasks between the various products in System Center (Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, etc) and third party management tools like OpenView, Tivoli and the like.

Richard and Greg talk to Jose Barreto from the File Server Team at Microsoft. Jose talks about File Replication Services, Distributed File System and other technologies for file servers.

Richard catches Alan Burchill while at Tech Ed New Zealand. Alan digs into the new Group Policy Preferences features introduced with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 but available for XP, Vista, even Server 2000 and up! The conversation explores how group policy can now be used to map drives, printers and other features, leading to the virtual elimination of login scripts. Check out Alan's web site at http://www.grouppolicy.biz/ for videos and information on this and other group policy techniques.

Richard talks to Rhonda Layfield during Tech Ed Australia about her work with Microsoft Deployment Tools (MDT). Rhonda goes over the relationship between MDT and Windows Deployment Service (WDS) as well as the Windows Automation Installation Kit (WAIK). All these tools are free and make image-based deployment tools look wasteful and inefficient. The conversation tears off into deployment in virtualization just for fun. Rhonda mentions AppDeploy.com as a key resource for the MDT user, helping with all the details around configuration applications for deployment in MDT.

While at Tech Ed Australia, Richard caught up with Chris Jackson to talk about the latest problem in application compatibility - web applications dependent on IE6. When released ten years ago, IE6 was a paragon of web standards, but the world has moved on and now IE6 is a pariah. Chris talks about how web applications dependent on IE6 are actually blocking XP to Windows 7 upgrades, but that ultimately the reason to move your applications off IE6 is a web standards issue.

Richard flies solo to talk to Stephen Rose from Microsoft about the latest around Windows 7. The discussion roams around Service Pack 1, the new Microsoft Intune Beta (http://www.microsoft.com/online/windows-intune.aspx) and his experiences on the Get on the Bus tour down the eastern seaboard in spring 2010.

Richard and Greg talk to Adam Gent about Office Communications Server (OCS). OCS brings the PBX into the PC, so that email, instant messaging and telephone are integrated together. Adam digs into the details of what it takes to get going with OCS, where to find effective cost savings, and the overall plan of being successful with the product. Check out Adam's blog at http://blog.misthos.com.

Richard and Greg talk to Doug Finke about the OData PowerShell Explorer. The OData PowerShell Explorer makes it easy to make OData part of your PowerShell scripts. And with OData providing access to all sorts of data, the combination opens huge possibilities. Check out the OData PowerShell Explorer at http://psodata.codeplex.com/.

Richard talks to Adam Machanic about parallelism in SQL Server. Executing queries in parallel has been in SQL Server since version 7, but with the number of cores in servers rising dramatically, parallelism is more and more important. Adam digs into the details of how to make parallelism in SQL Server work effectively. Check out Adam's blog at http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/.

Richard and Greg talk to Isaac Roybal, late of Microsoft, now with Cisco, about the Unified Computing System. The Unified Computing System (UCS) is Cisco's hardware designed for virtualization, using blade-based hardware to create SAN-driven servers that can move seamlessly from machine-to-machine.

Richard and Greg talk to Dana Epp about finding and fixing a security vulnerability. Dana tells the story of how a customer found a bug in one of Scorpion Software's products that surfaced a weakness in a Microsoft security API. Ultimately Dana describes how they altered their application to protect their application from a whole class of exploits.

Richard and Greg talk to Kim Tripp and Paul Randal about how people can learn effectively. The discussion ranges over the different vehicles of learning, including user groups, training classes, conference sessions, and so on. Kim and Paul have taught in all these mediums and have great pointers for what you can do to select the right sort of medium and things you can do to get the most from it.

Carl Franklin drops into RunAs to host an episode where the guest is none other than Richard Campbell! Richard talks about the differences between IT Pros and developers. Lots of stories get told along the way, and maybe some ideas of how we can all work together better.

Richard talks to Mark Minasi about the things that Windows 8 is really going to need. It starts with getting rid of reboots and goes crazy from there. A significant part of this show is a discussion of where desktop virtualization is going. Got some thoughts on what should be in Windows 8? Send us an email at [email protected].

Richard talks to Mark Minasi about Office 2010. Mark talks about his frustrations with Office (mostly Outlook). The conversation spends more time on PowerPoint than you would think possible, leading to talking about presentation style and value. Ultimately, this is a conversation about how people learn, and how folks like Mark can make that work better for you.

Richard talks to Robert Smith from Premier Field Engineering about what the IT Pro can do to debug crashes. The focus of the conversation is on blue screens, but any application crash can be debugged with similar techniques. Check out http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx for the tools Robert talks about for debugging in Windows!

Richard flies solo to talk to Vijay Tewari about the new features being added to Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. The beta of Service Pack 1 was announced at Tech Ed US for release in July 2010. Vijay talks about two key new features being added to Hyper-V: dynamic memory and remoteFX. The conversation also explores the future directions of virtualization. You can read Vijay's blog at http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization.

Richard flies solo to talk to Joel Oleson about upgrading to Sharepoint 2010. Since Joel was last on the show (#27!) he's left Microsoft to work with Quest, but still focused on Sharepoint. In the conversation Joel talks about the importance of using the pre-checker provided with Sharepoint 2007 Service Pack 2 to check the state of your sharepoint installation as well as it's preparation for migration to Sharepoint 2010. There are numerous changes to the deployment environment of Sharepoint 2010 that can make an upgrade very challenging. Joel is also publishing a book on upgrading to Sharepoint 2010 with O'Reilly. You can look at the rough cuts at http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781449390457/.

Richard and Greg talk to Alex Payne about the online products at Microsoft. The focus steers toward the enterprise side of things with Exchange Online, specifically comparing it to the offerings that Google has. Office Online is also explored. Alex also points to whymicrosoft.com.

Richard and Greg talk to Daniel Parker, a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer, about integrating Linux servers into Active Directory. The conversation not only digs into what's possible, but the huge range of choices that people have when making Linux and Active Directory interoperate, from LDAP to Kereberos to Samba.

Richard and Greg talk to the amazing Laura Chappell about WireShark. WireShark is an open source tool for analyzing network packets. You can download WireShark at www.wireshark.org. You can get Laura's definitive book on WireShark at www.wiresharkbook.com and learn more about getting certified in WireShark at www.wiresharktraining.com/certification.

Richard and Greg talk to Brent Ozar about his experiences doing the Certified Masters in SQL Server 2008 program at Microsoft - a three week intensive course that stretches your knowledge in every aspect of SQL Server. The conversation also ranges into SQL Server 2008 R2 and the latest features of SQL Azure. Check out Brent's blog posts at http://www.brentozar.com/sql-mcm/.

Richard and Greg talk to Francois Doremieux while he was in France, talking about Microsoft Communications Server. The discussion digs into how telecommunications is migrating into an integration between instant messaging, email and telephony. While most of discussion focuses on the current version of Microsoft Communications Server, listen for some tidbits of what's coming next.

Richard and Greg talk to Robert Hamilton about Data Loss Prevention (DLP). Modern DLP products actually inspect data as it moves around the network, identifying any information that might be at risk and offering a number of responses to that finding. The conversation also digs into the balance between security and impairing productivity.

Richard and Greg talk to Eriq Neale about mixing Apple Macs and PCs in networks. The conversation digs into how Macs can access file shares in Windows network. There are even options for allowing Macs to log into Active Directory and with some third party tools, some group policy can be pushed onto a Mac. Eriq also talks about printers, virus scanning and the effects of BootCamp and Parallels for Mac.

Richard and Greg talk to Nick Simons about the upcoming Microsoft office Web Apps. Web Apps are lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote available through Sharepoint 2010 or soon via Windows Live SkyDrive. The conversation digs into how users can interoperate between regular Office 2010 and Web Apps as well as the ability to collaborate (simultaneously edit) a document with multiple users using both Office 2010 and Web Apps.

Richard and Greg talk to Amy Babinchuk about Essential Business Server (EBS). Amy digs into the challenges of setting up EBS's Threat Management Gateway with an existing firewall and how Feature Pack 1 addresses those problems. The conversation also delves into the issues around integrating EBS into an existing environment, including using the Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner to make sure your existing infrastructure is healthy enough to add EBS too successfully. The health scanner is a must have for any environment!

Richard talks to Dave Sobel of Evolve Technologies about how small businesses can benefit from virtualization technology. The conversation ranges over migration to virtualization, how upgrades change with virtualization, the benefits to disaster recovery and more. Virtualization on the desktop is explored as well.

Richard and Greg talk to Robert Crane from the Computer Information Agency in Sydney Australia about Sharepoint 2010. The show digs into the issues that companies face when using Sharepoint without careful governance to manage their data well. Check out Microsoft's Sharepoint Governance Resource Center for more information.