See the primary system management challenges that IT administrators face today — and some strategies for dealing with them.

1. System Management
Challenges
Michael Otey
President TECA, Inc.
Senior Contributing Editor
Windows IT Pro
SQL Server Pro

2. What This Session Covers
• Today’s datacenter requirements
• Challenges
– Managing Windows and Linux
– Management of virtual systems
– Monitoring and capacity planning
– Deploying and updating applications
– Preparing for containers and
microservices
– Keeping on top of inventory and licensing
– Cloud and hybrid cloud

3. Rapid Technology Changes
are Driving New IT Demands
• Vast increases in connectivity
– The mobile cloud connects 3.1 billion of 7.3 billion people worldwide
– They average 3 connected devices per person
– By 2025, 80% of the population will be
connected
• Explosive data growth
– Data growth – 30-50% per year
– IoT, Big Data, social, mobile data
• Rapid cloud adoption
– 90% of VMworld attendees had workloads
deployed in the public cloud
3

4. Today’s IT Requirements
• Agility
– Meeting quickly changing business
conditions
• Reducing complexity
• Increasing automation
• Consumerization of IT
• Reducing costs
– CapEX & OpEx
• Data control and security

5. Modern IT Infrastructure
• Heterogeneous “Best-of-Breed” implementation
• Virtualization
– The foundation of the modern data center
– Enables mobility
– Enhances flexibility
• Storage
– Scalability & flexibility
– Data storage efficiency – deduplication
– Snapshots & replication
• Cloud
– Flexibility & extensibility
– Disaster recovery
5

6. System Management
Challenges

7. Managing Windows & Linux
• Heterogeneous platforms are growing
– Standalone applications
– Microsoft’s recent adoption of Linux and open source
• User authentication
– Multiple authentication sources
– Build a centralized user directory and integrate standard
protocols such as SAML, OAuth 2.0, or Openid Connect
• Configuration management & automation
– Different tools and approaches
– Use personnel or cross platform tools like Chef and Puppet
• Log file management
– Differently formatted system and application log files
– Use open source or third party log management tools

8. Managing Windows & Linux
• Reduction of console sprawl
– Different platform management tools and
multiple support structures
– PowerShell
– Use open source &
third party tools
• Remote Access tools
– VMC, UltraVNC

9. Managing Virtual Systems
• Multiple hypervisors
– VMware vSphere & Hyper-V (60%-40%)
– Different management capabilities/tools
– Limited cross platform capabilities
• Siloed management
– Different personnel
• Lack of visibility
• Integration tools
– VMware has Multi-Hypervisor Manager
– Microsoft has VMM
– Third party tools
• Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)
standards

10. Monitoring and Capacity
Planning
• Goal is improving capacity utilization
• Performance baselining multiple OSes and tools
• Virtualization hides capacity
• Creating service levels
• Under / Over provisioning
– Proper control mechanisms
• Forecasting business demand
– Analyzing the historical workload data
– Working in cooperation with business teams

11. Deploying and Updating
Applications
• Version differences
– Version control systems
• Multiple device support
– Workspace / VDI technologies
• Multiple platform targets
– Desktop, web, on-premise, cloud
– Cross platform tools

12. Containers and Microservices
• Moving away from legacy monolithic
applications
– Mode 2 – microservices
– Application redesign
• New to Windows environments
• Mixing legacy & mode 2 apps
• Different monitoring tools
• Docker provides a common
management experience

13. Inventory Management
• Virtual server sprawl
- Self-service VMs
• Users and developers
- Unexpected licensing
- BYOD management
- Inventory tools
- System Center
- Third party tools

14. Licensing
- Vendors use different licensing
- Products use different licensing
- Licensing is complicated
- Trend toward core licenses
- Virtualization further complicates
licensing
- Ongoing inventory is required
- Cloud and SaaS tend to simplify this

15. Challenges of Cloud Adoption
• Growing quickly
• Legacy Infrastructure
• Potentially lower performance
– Shared hardware
• Consolidation and pooling of
resources
– Giving up dedicated resources
• Adoption of new technologies

16. Integrating the Cloud and
Hybrid Cloud
• Moving legacy workloads
• Distributed applications
• Lack of expertise
• Multiple cloud providers
• Difficult to estimate costs
• Partners and third party tools

17. Key Takeways
• Be prepared for growth – more technology
changes are coming in the next few years
than ever before
• Linux & heterogenous virtualization will
grow
• Proper planning and tools are essential for
effective systems management
• The cloud is the future
– But that journey is a long one
– Hybrid cloud is the next practical step

18. KACE Systems
Management Appliance 7.0
(K1000)

19. Confidential19
• Scan in your new or
existing assets
• Multiple platform support
• Scan and GO!
• Free update to the K1
GO! app
Barcoding

20. Confidential20
• Pull data from multiple appliances
into single report
• No specialized hardware needed
Cross appliance reporting

21. Confidential21

22. Confidential22
• New easier to use wizard
• New features
• Multiple approvers
• Specific approver notifications
• Approval Timeout
• Customizable notifications
• Customize your templates with
HTML/markdown
Process enhancements & approval workflow

23. Confidential23
• My devices made easier
• Assign devices easier
• Multiple devices? No
problem
• Interactive feedback
• Get more info during
your install
Self-service software provisioning enhancements

24. Confidential24
• Hardware monitoring made
easier
• Real-time alerts
• Stay on top of your
environment
SNMP Trap Receiver

25. Confidential25
AirWatch integration
• Single pane of glass
• All your devices in one place
• Integrated asset management
• Assign mobile devices to users and
more

26. Confidential26
• Supports ESX 5.5 and 6.0
• Discover what VM’s are running
on your servers
• Get hardware/software details
from your VMware environment
• Get hardware usage available
VMware/Vcenter discovery

27. Confidential27
• My Profile
• More for your users
• See what
tickets/assets/devices
are assigned to you
Users

28. Confidential28
• Manually or automatically assign users to a device
• Control Panel > General > Device Assignment
• Synchronous occurs upon inventory
• Used in conjunction with user portal and “My Profile”
User/Machine assignment

29. Confidential29
• Installing software made easier
• Ability to leverage the software
catalog
• “Run Now” option added
• Publish for users
• Existing MI’s usable from
software portal
Managed Installs

30. Confidential31
• Blacklisting improvement
• Upgrade/Downgrade rights
• Asset Management Appliance licensing changes
• Agentless and grandfathering
• REST API’s/SDK
• Ability for 3rd parties to pull information about inventory, assets, scripting,
reporting, managed installs, and users
Software compliance/Licensing/API’s

31. KACE Systems
Deployment Appliance
4.0 (K2000)

32. Confidential33
• Native UEFI support
• Removes reliance on current workarounds (Legacy BIOS setting, thumb drives)
• Secure Boot still needs to be disabled
• Multicasting in Cisco networks
• Router vendors lack Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM) support
• PGM not designed to cross routers
• Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is vendor agnostic
• IGMP can cross between routers/subnets
• Increased Windows deployment speed
• WIM and Kimage speeds 10% faster
KACE SDA Imaging Connectivity and Speed

33. Confidential34
• Major focus on underlying OS architecture
• Update to the K2000 Appliance 3.7 SP3 (3.7.345)
• Combined SDA and RSA codebase
• FreeBSD 10.0 to 10.3 for SDA
• FreeBSD 7 to 10.3 for RSA
• 32-bit to 64-bit for RSA
• RSA Hyper-V support
KACE SDA Infrastructure

34. Watch the webcast here:
http://bit.ly/2ilF7N6