I’m please to discover that my valuable MVP colleague Jordan KRAUSE from IVONetwork published his DirectAccess book in the early days of September (OK I’m a little late). His book aim two goals :

• Provide best practice for your DirectAccess deployment
• Provide detailed troubleshooting steps for common DirectAccess problems

This book provide valuable information for your DirectAccess deployments. You will escape from common misconfiguration that could lead your DirectAccess project to failure. Planning is the key factor for DirectAccess projects. The two last chapter cover common problem encountered during DirectAccess deployments. This book worth the money. By now with Ben Ari book, you have no excuse to do not deploy DirectAccess in your environment .

Congratulation Jordan.

Benoît – Simple and Secure by design but Business compliant

Comme vous avez du vous en rendre compte, je passe de plus en plus de temps dans Orchestrator, ma montée en compétence a été longue et laborieuse, riche de nombreuses erreurs qui a été nécessaire de corriger . Bref, il a longtemps manque une bonne bible sur Orchestrator.

Cette bible est maintenant disponible et accessible à tous sous la forme d’un eBook qui couvre la mise en œuvre d’Orchestrator mais surtout le développement de Runbook. Il ne vaut pas se tromper, on parle bien de développement et non de Scripting. les runbooks doivent être réutilisables et capable d’être utilisés par d’autres.

Après quatre chapitres très courts permettant de poser le décors (Gamme System Center, mise en œuvre), on s’attaque très vite aux considérations de design et développement de runbooks pour arriver aux patterns (très axés sur Powershell au passage). Le chapitre n°6 va progressivement vous amener à la création d’un runbook qui assurera le déploiement d’une machine virtuelle dans SCVMM. cerise sur le gâteau, il sera même expliqué comment appeler ce runbook depuis SCSM. Pour ceux qui vont jusque là et qui ont déjà mis les mains dans le Cloud Services Process Pack, c’est normal, de voir des similitudes, les auteurs sont très impliqués dans l’offre DCS et Cloud Services Process Pack.

Au passage, le lien vers le billet sur le blog de Microsoft Press Blog, super utile pour récupérer l’ouvrage au format numérique ainsi que les Runbook déjà réalisés.

Y a plus d’excuse pour dire qu’Orchestrator est un produit obscur. Bon maintenant, si on a le même sur Service Manager, ce sera parfait.

BenoîtS – Simple and Secure by Design

I discovered DirectAccess at TechED Barcelona 2008 edition, we can compare it to a technology Lego. I started with lab building, projects,  and delivering sessions at Microsoft Techdays since 2009. I even wrote a book on DirectAccess with Lionel LEPERLIER. We wrote it because there was no reference book on this subject, (except Understanding IPv6 third edition that include a dedicated chapter on DirectAccess).

By now there is a reference book on DirectAccess written by Erez Ben-Ari and Bala Natarajan. This book cover all aspects of DirectAccess (except project management).

So like me, if you are a DirectAccess fan boy, order this book now.

BenoîtS – Simple and Secure by design but Business compliant

Writing our Direct Access book took us a long time. For this reason and some others, we decided to do not produce an English version. But now, that’s a book I will to have to Write. Ben Ari, is currently writing it’s own Windows Server 2012 DirectAccess book.

It’s book will be dedicated to DirectAccess feature of Windows Server 2012 release. Stay tuned for more news about it.

BenoîtS – Simple and secure by Design but Business compliant

Another new Forefront MVP and I are writing a book on our favorite DirectAccess. We spend a lot of time to create a reference book in French language. We are progressing fast and now we need your option on the last chapter : DirectAccess and beyond.

What do you want to see in this chapter (NAP, SCCM integration, IPv6, alternate firewall, alternate enrollment process, …). We have many ideas but our publisher would not appreciate us to write a one thousand pages book. If you have good subjects, you can give your ideas on our French Forefront Facebook group : https://www.facebook.com/microsoft.forefront

Note : MultiCast NLB may not be a good Idea, choose something else!

Benoît – Simple and Secure by design but Business compliant.