Northwest System Center User Group

Register now for our February meeting!

The next NWSCUG meeting is Friday, February 19th at 10:00 am at the Civica Building in Bellevue, WA. Below is the agenda. We look forward to seeing you there!

10:00 – Welcome, and Announcements
10:10 – Strategies for living with Windows 10 and ConfigMgr (vNext) Servicing Options – Paul Thomsen
11:15 – Upgrading from ConfigMgr 2012 to ConfigMgr next (1511) and beyond! – Wally Mead
12:30 – Lunch (Sponsored by Squadra Technologies)
12:50 – Squadra Technologies Security Removable Media – Kevin Furgal
1:40 – Open Discussion
2:30 – Closing Comments and Give-Aways

Strategies for living with Windows 10 and ConfigMgr (vNext) Servicing Options – Our very own Paul Thomsen will present on the topic of Windows 10 Servicing in the Enterprise. Windows 10 Current Branch (CB), Current Branch for Business (CBB), as well as Long Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) present unique challenges for management and servicing. Paul will dive into the pros and cons of each branch, and strategies for how you can enable your customers with the best manageable branch for their job.

Upgrading from ConfigMgr 2012 to ConfigMgr next (1511) and beyond! – Our very own Wally Mead will present on the upgrade path to the new version of ConfigMgr, as well as follow the ConfigMgr Current Branch Cadence forward.

Squadra Technologies Security Removable Media Manager (secRMM) is Windows security software that monitors and controls files being copied from the domain to any plug-and-play storage device. This includes smartphones, tablets, usb flash drives, external hard drives, SD-Cards and CD/DVD. The secRMM architecture parallels the Microsoft endpoint protection products supporting Antimalware and Firewall. secRMM comes with a SCCM Console Extension for central configuration, status messages, out-of-the-box reports and an Excel AddIn for conveniently viewing the secRMM status messages. The SCCM secRMM integration rounds out SCCM’s coverage of Endpoint Protection by providing removable storage Data Loss Protection (DLP).

Moderated Discussion – A fairly new addition to our agenda, which we’ve received great feedback! At our meetings, we have had a great lineup of presentations from industry speakers, as well as from Microsoft – now we want to add more community involvement. Attending a user group meeting is more than just listening to presentations. It’s also about getting to know others in the room, sharing war stories, networking, and helping each other out. We want to get our attendees networking more, so we want to try something new. In the moderated discussion, we’ll agree on some topics to discuss, split into smaller groups to discuss among yourselves, and then recap discussions with the larger group. This helps us learn from each other, and build lasting relationships. Bring your hot topics!

Register now for our February meeting!

Be sure to park in the parking garage at the Civica building, as Microsoft will validate parking.

Register now for our January meeting!

The next NWSCUG meeting is Friday, January 15th at 10:00 am at the Civica Building in Bellevue, WA. Below is the agenda. We look forward to seeing you there!

10:00 – Welcome, and MMS 2015 review
10:10 – Building Custom ConfigMgr Reports with SQL Server Reporting Services – Greg Ramsey
11:00 – ConfigMgr Applications Deep Dive – Mark Silvey (Microsoft)
12:30 – Lunch (Sponsored by Veeam)
12:50 – Veeam Management Pack for System Center – Scott Howard
1:40 – Open Discussion
2:30 – Closing Comments and Give-Aways

Building Custom ConfigMgr Reports with SQL Server Reporting Services – Greg Ramsey will demonstrate how to build your own custom SSRS reports with dropdowns, parameters, and and charts.

ConfigMgr Applications Deep Dive – Mark Silvey and Dune Desormeaux (MS ConfigMgr Product Team) Join us for a deep dive on ConfigMgr Application Management. We look forward to answering your technical questions related to the newly released Software Center, the Application Catalog, the App Model and all other things “App”.

Veeam Management Pack for System Center – Scott Howard from Veeam will discuss and demonstrate their pre-built dashboards, reporting and root cause analysis features.

Moderated Discussion – A fairly new addition to our agenda, which we’ve received great feedback! At our meetings, we have had a great lineup of presentations from industry speakers, as well as from Microsoft – now we want to add more community involvement. Attending a user group meeting is more than just listening to presentations. It’s also about getting to know others in the room, sharing war stories, networking, and helping each other out. We want to get our attendees networking more, so we want to try something new. In the moderated discussion, we’ll agree on some topics to discuss, split into smaller groups to discuss among yourselves, and then recap discussions with the larger group. This helps us learn from each other, and build lasting relationships. Bring your hot topics!

Register now for our January meeting!

Be sure to park int he parking garage at the Civica building, as Microsoft will validate parking.

Greg Ramsey, Enterprise Mobility MVP, is the Enterprise Tools Strategist at Dell, Inc. He has a B.S. in Computer Sciences and Engineering from Ohio State University, and has coauthored many books over the years. Greg is a cofounder of the Ohio SMS Users Group and the Central Texas Systems Management User Group. Greg is also a board member of the Central Texas Systems Management User Group and the Northwest System Cener User Group.

Dune Desormeaux, Program Manager
New to the team in the last six months, responsible for ConfigMgr Remote Tools and some aspects of Application Management. Dune’s largest project since joining the team was the recent Software Center improvements.

Mark Silvey, Principal Software Engineering Manager
Manages a team of developers focusing on key areas of ConfigMgr such as the complete software deployment lifecycle and the SCCM administrative console. Mark has been in software engineering on the SCCM team for more than 11 years.

Register now for our October meeting!

The next NWSCUG meeting is Friday, October 16th at 10:00 am at the Civica Building in Bellevue, WA. Below is the agenda. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

10:00 – Welcome and Opening Statements
10:15 – System Center Service Manager Service Requests, Creation and Use – Denali

11:30 – TBD

12:10 – Lunch (Sponsored by Shavlik)

12:30 – Shavlik Sponsor Session

1:15 – Open Discussion

2:30 – Closing Comments

Register now for our October meeting!

System Center Service Manager – Service Requests, Creation and Use

• Approach to creating SRs/Requirement gathering/Design
• How to create Service Requests in the console
• What types of Service Requests we’ve seen from customers
• Gotchas or things to think about
• Demo what things look like in the portals (Current SCSM, Cireson, New SCSM)
• Q&A

Moderated Discussion

A fairly new addition to our agenda, which we’ve received great feedback! At our meetings, we have had a great lineup of presentations from industry speakers, as well as from Microsoft – now we want to add more community involvement. Attending a user group meeting is more than just listening to presentations. It’s also about getting to know others in the room, sharing war stories, networking, and helping each other out. We want to get our attendees networking more, so we want to try something new. In the moderated discussion, we’ll agree on some topics to discuss, split into smaller groups to discuss among yourselves, and then recap discussions with the larger group. This helps us learn from each other, and build lasting relationships. Bring your hot topics!