First off, welcome to the new CSMUG site! We decided to go away from the discussion board format to more of a blog since that is essentially what the site was being used for and we also needed to change hosting providers so this gave us an opportunity to change over the back end to the new software. This year we plan to be better than the last and we are excited to announce that our first meeting of 2011 will have none other than Ed Aldrich! For those not in the SCCM know here is a little about Ed.

Ed’s been around the game for a long time… after a 20 year gig in the US Navy, as an electronics technician and cryptographic whiz, he spent six years supporting the Trident submarine Command and Control systems in Newport, RI. This was followed by another six years at Fleet Financial Group, and another two years at Gtech Corporation (the world’s largest lottery systems integrator), where Ed became their SMS 2.0 expert, deploying the very first production deployment of the SMS 2.0 product in New England (March ’99). This role provided a rich learning experience from RTM, thru SP1 and on to SP2. This task saw the single handed deployment of over 40 SMS sites. Next, it was on to the role of the “SMS King” and corporate AntiVirus Administrator at CVS/pharmacy where he migrated their SMS v1x system to SMS2/SP3/SP4, and ultimately on to a totally new 17 site SMS 2003 infrastructure. He also designed, deployed and administers the Altiris and Symantec AntiVirus client management systems’ enterprise wide. Ed is a ten year SMS/SCCM MVP and Industry Expert speaker at the Microsoft Management Summit series. He was also a participant in the SMS 2003 Early Adopter Program; author of the Systems Management technical knowledgebase EdNet 2002; and, founder and co-facilitator of the New England Area SMS User Group (the largest and oldest known SMS specific User Group in the country). Ed is currently employed as a Systems Engineer with 1e, Ltd, a Microsoft UK Gold Partner (infrastructure).

Ed will be talking about various technologies from 1E that complement Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager product. 1E’s product line can help you gain benefits such as increased patch compliance and reduced power consumption both inside and outside the data center. They can also provide extensions to System Center Configuration Manager to help simplify your server infrastructure and deployment management when deploying software or patches to your workstation environment. Come see what has been going on with this leader of System Center Configuration Manager products has to offer.

Also Kevin Kaminski will be discussing the Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 SP1 Sequencer, this tool has yet to be released to the public but it will soon be available for general use in the first quarter of this year. Originally shown at Tech-Ed Europe this session will review the product’s significant enhancements which make is an upgrade worth investigating if you already have App-V. This release was focused on taking the complexity out of application sequencing and providing feedback to the user about the sequencing environment. See how application virtualization is simplifying application deployment and why you should consider it for your organization.

The event will be held at the Bankers Hall Auditorium on Friday February 25, 2011. The address is lower level by Starbucks (P3) at 315 – 8th Avenue S.W., Calgary and will open at 11:30 and run from 12:00 am to 2:00 PM. Tickets are free but please register at: http://csmugwinter2011.eventbrite.com/

And yes, lunch and beverages will be provided. Also there will be some giveaways such a NFR copy of Windows 7 Ultimate.