Subject: Advisory Meeting tonight |
From: Derek Olson <derekjamesolson@gmail.com> |
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2011 14:25:49 -0600 |
To: Tim.Preuss@minnesota.edu |
Hello Mr. Preuss,
I am sorry for the short notice but I will not be attending this evening as my schedule was not able to be changed due to training reasons. However, through email I will be able to convey what I would have in person.
From my personal experience in the field I can say that the ‘Cloud’ is not going away anytime soon. At Microsoft we are moving to a version of online services based off of the 2010 office package.. I cannot comment on the specifics as it is still in beta testing. The current public release is referred to as Business Productivity Online and currently a 30 day trial can be created. We may never see a 100% cloud environment as customization and control over security are reasons that some companies will want to maintain their own servers and installations
If another class were to be created I would not put an emphasis on anything in particular, but rather study a wide range of online services and software. Our competitors, Google, have online services as well and with Amazon’s cloud computing service currently available there is no telling how far the shift to the cloud will go. In addition I know from my Cisco classes that it is important to keep from being tied to a single company’s proprietary business solutions. We never know what we will run into out there and specializing in a single company’s product will be more of a limitation than an advantage.
If we had the luxury of offering as many classes as we wanted I could see having separate class for each product on the market but that is unrealistic and as we all know technology is an ever changing industry and schools are constantly at the disadvantage of being at least a semester behind what is happening in the world. In 5 or 10 years we could be looking at the pendulum more than likely swinging back from a ‘Cloud’ trend to and onsite environment with new technologies that make on premise once again more cost effective, accessible or secure.
New Credits are more than likely the route the panel is looking at going. If that is the case in my humble opinion I would look to having the following points covered in labs and materials for a newly created class:
· Current Online Services offered in the industry
o Microsoft, Google, etc
· Migration solutions for on premise to online.
o Who offers these services
o Migration Planning
o Migration Implementation
o Automated Migration through scripting
§ PowerShell would be a great example
· Maintaining internal security for online services within an organization.
o Who is authorized, who has access, what procedures are in place for support.
Working new material into existing classes may be more feasible as this is what is normally done as the industry changes. In this case I would recommend adding material or labs for the following:
Microcomputer OS:
· Intro to Hyper V
o Early teachings of hyper V will help students throughout their academic stay at MSCTC by not needing to spend additional funds into running 2 or more computers for different classes. Using Virtual PC when I took Linux saved me a lot of time and headache as well as money.
Network OS:
· Creating a trial account for various online services
· Finding a solution to migrate from on premise to online
o Active directory migration or synchronization
o Exchange or other email service.
· Advanced Hyper V – this is a must as many companies are also attempting to host multiple virtual servers off of a single machine for better scaling to their business needs
o ‘Virtual Clouds’ are becoming more and more common as a way for companies to still utilize old software that would not be currently supported under a new OS without having to be held back by running obsolete software and hardware.
Systems Project:
· SharePoint lab
o Creation of a single install SharePoint server (within a VM)
o SharePoint is a great tool for businesses that do not want to be a party of the cloud but have a lot of mobile users. For this reason if SharePoint is not covered anywhere in the curriculum I would definitely add it.
I hope this aids the panel in updating the coming curriculum. If there are any questions please feel free to contact me at DerekJamesOlson@gmail.com
Thank you,
Derek Olson
Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services Support