Webcast Series: Microsoft.com Operations

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Ok, I usually do not do these plugs because I wager you want to read interesting, synthesized information (after all, you could just go read the IIS documentation... aha, I thought so, no one wants to go do that! :-P ), but Chris Adams managed to get me to do another one. Last time, it was for DebugDiag - a good cause... so here I go on that line again, this time for the Microsoft.com OPs guys.

I have worked with the Microsoft.com OPs guys before (in fact, some are former IIS team members), and you probably ran into them at TechEd 2005 Orlando at the Track Cabana for IIS. I am definitely looking forward to hearing first hand tales from them because they are amongst the very best and knowledgeable IIS customers. Why? Because historically, Microsoft.com is amongst the earliest LIVE adopters of beta IIS/Windows builds, find many of the show-stopper bugs *in production*, and work closely with the IIS team to debug and test private fixes. For example, turn-around time on issue resolution from identification, troubleshooting, and resolution, is usually on the order of hours, and they will take private binaries right from the developers, drop it onto production servers, and do verification right then and there. Of course, they have the network and provisioning infrastructure to make this process effortless, but it is still sweet. :-)

Oh, and we bounce tools/feature ideas with them as well, and they are not shy about giving feedback, demanding features, or trying things out. For example, ETW Tracing in WS03SP1.

I think the bold-spirit and close ties result in a huge win-win - Microsoft.com makes sure that they get a smooth rollout at RTM by being there from day 1 to get their issues fixed prior to RTM, and IIS gets live feedback and reaffirms that it can stand up to the rigors of a major Internet site at RTM.

//David

Here are the links to sign up for the upcoming webcast series. Go to https://www.microsoft.com/events/default.mspx, then click on the More live webcasts. link at the bottom of the page scroll to the date of the event.

Monday Nov 7, 2005 11:30am
MSCOM- High Availability Architecture

Hear from the System Engineers who operate the highest scale IIS solutions on the Internet; including www.Microsoft.com, Windows Update, MSDN/Technet, Downloads, and more.  They will share their web hosting secrets for High Availability architectures, including the areas surrounding Network Security, Cluster & Host Level Load Balancing, and Web & Database server distributions.

Tuesday Nov 8, 2005 9:30am
MSCOM- Configuration Management of Web Farms

Get 1-on-1 with Sr. System Engineers responsible for running www.Microsoft.com and Windows Update to see how they perform scripted administration and deployment of configuration settings across the infrastructure.  Engineers will have sample scripts and provide visibility into how they leverage various commands which release with Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0.

Wednesday Nov 9, 2005 11:30am
MSCOM- Change & Release Management Strategies

Microsoft.com Operations will provide insight into how they handle and manage software updates; such as Operating System deployments, Service Pack's & Security Patches.  They will also cover the approach used to manage application releases to environments, and strategies leveraged with the Product Development organizations (Development, Test & Program Mgmt) regarding Software Development Release Cycle (SDLC)

Thursday Nov 10, 2005 11:30am
MSCOM- Monitoring & Management of Enterprise Platform

Microsoft.com Operations is currently responsible for managing more than 2000 Windows Servers hosted in 3 remote Data Centers.  Partner up with their Sr. Engineers to understand how they leverage a suite of technologies and operational processes to establish Asset Management, Event / Log / Performance Data Collection and Reporting, as well System & Application level uptime analysis.  Session will include how they leverage Active Directory and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) within the overall framework of their solution.

Friday Nov 11, 2005 11:30am
MSCOM - Troubleshooting & Debugging Web Hosting Environments

Dive under the hood with our Sr. System Engineers at Microsoft.com Operations to see how they troubleshoot and debug the array of hosted ASP.NET applications and database driven systems.  They will provide "How  To" real life scenarios covering commonly leveraged tools such as LogParser, Server Performance Advisor (SPA), Performance Monitor, Network Monitor, and more.  The team will also cover some common debug dump analytic procedures used when those tools and corresponding data have not identified root cause of a problem.