Adobe Creative Suite 6 has arrived…

So the wait is finally over and Adobe Creative Suite 6 is now here. CS6 offers exctiting new adaptions, a fresh variety of creative tools and delivers blazingly fast performance.  Retouch with new Content-Aware features, and create superior designs as well as movies using new and re imagined tools and workflows.

Check out our website for all Adobe products and CS6 upgrades.

Microsoft Datacentre Security & Management Update

If you’re like me getting to MMS in Las Vegas next month is something that will probably never happen and it’s at this Microsoft flagship management event that System Centre 2012 will finally launch, probably the best worst kept secret this year. However here’s the next best thing, Microsoft are running a series of UK based events entitled “The Best of MMS”. The 3 events will all run in May for details and to register click here.

Staying with System Centre 2012, it’s always good to see Microsoft eating their own dog food so to speak. In this interesting article Charlie Satterfield, Sr. Program Manager in the Management & Monitoring team, talks about how they’re transition to System Centre 2012 to provide the monitoring piece for www.microsoft.com, TechNet, Windows update, and MSDN.

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Microsoft Datacentre Security & Management Update – March

Last time out we talked about the launch of Windows 8 server Beta, well the first test reports are starting to come in. From a virtualisation point of view one of the features that will provide most functionality is the new PowerShell CMDLETS for managing Hyper-V replicas to find out more have a look at this. There really is some funky new features in Windows 8, take for example the Windows on a stick, USB stick that is, it provide users with a full corporate copy of Windows on a USB storage device called “Windows To Go” feature, but will probably be an enterprise feature. However one of the drawbacks of Windows 8 is that it can’t be managed by System Centre 2012 or so I thought.

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Symantec Norton wins PC Advisor’s Best Security Software of 2012 award

Since the PC advisor awards were launched in 2010, the event has become much appreciated within the technology sector social calendar. As it not only shows the best of the past year’s technology, but as well it guides readers to the brands that they can trust and the sites from which to buy.  The winner of the Best Security software 2012 was Symantec Norton.

Norton Internet Security is an internet security suite that safeguards your PC lightly and now its 2012 version introduces several new technologies to combat emerging threats.

Computer 2000 signs deal with Acronis

Brings easy cloud and virtualised data protection and DR to a wider market

Computer 2000 has signed a UK distribution deal with Acronis, a leading provider of easy-to-use disaster recovery and data protection solutions across physical, virtual and cloud environments. The agreement will give Computer 2000’s customers access to the full range of solutions from Acronis, including the popular Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Server for Windows, Acronis vmProtect 6 and Backup & Recovery 11 Virtual Edition.

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Microsoft promotes safe Internet use in schools

Microsoft Ireland joined other tech companies to promote safe use of the web in Ireland’s schools last month. Volunteers from the company, supported by the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE), were amongst tech industry professionals who took part in the promotion of Safer Internet Day. Orla Sheridan, consumer channels group director, Microsoft Ireland, said: ‘We take the issue of Internet safety very seriously and have continuously invested in schemes and programmes to help educate young users of the Internet and their parents about how to use this great resource in a safe and efficient manner. We are delighted to be partnering with the government, educational representatives and law enforcement agencies to highlight the importance of this issue.’

Symantec and Microsoft work better together for virtual environment protection

When customers move to a virtual environment that can change the dynamics of their network and system protection – the best way to make sure that they are safe and sound is to use the best solutions around. Symantec System Recovery Server Edition (formerly Backup Exec System Recovery) is ideal for deployment with Microsoft Hyper-V and other virtual systems. It delivers fast and reliable system recovery that will restore physical and virtual systems in minutes, even to bare metal, dissimilar hardware, remote locations, or virtual environments. With more than 787,000 protected systems, Symantec System Recovery is proven, trusted, and reliable backup server software – and it’s a perfect answer when you need a simple backup solution for newly virtualised systems. Call the Software team or email software@computer2000.co.uk to find out more.

Microsoft Datacentre Security & Management Update – February

We’ll start this time with Windows 8, as I’ve mentioned before this release of Microsoft’s server platform will include Hyper-V 3. The feature set has been greatly enhanced to compete with VMware’s Vsphere 5, but don’t forget that Microsoft’s System Centre 2012 suite will be required to provide the management.  In this article there is a direct comparison between the product sets, so you can decide which suits your customer needs best.

The System Centre 2012 suite licensing model was announced this week and Microsoft has listened to the community by simplifying the process. With the present release of the System Centre products there are different licensing models per product and over 100 SKUs in total. With the System Centre 2012 release there are 2 SKUs, for physical and lightly virtualised workloads there is the Standard Edition and for more heavily virtualised workloads there is the Datacentre Edition. Microsoft have produced a “Buyers Guide” website to help you through the process you can also get the datasheet and FAQ.

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Sign up now for 2012 Microsoft Licensing Boot Camps

The dates for our famous Microsoft Licensing Boot Camps have now been set up to the middle of this year – and places are being booked-up fast so please get in touch right away if you want your business to benefit from this exceptional series of crash-courses. Many resellers who have already been through our Microsoft Boot Camps have benefited by being able to win more new customers and do much more software licensing business as a result too. One example is detailed on pages 32–33, where you can read a case study on Expressware – a small Gloucestershire reseller that took part in our Boot Camps last year.

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Microsoft Datacentre Security & Management Update – February

Last time out we went a bit System Centre mad, so this time we’ll start with news of Windows 8. The beta version of the product is due for release this month and the feature I’m looking forward to most is Hyper-V 3. I blogged about a while back with what hopefully would be in the product, well some more details relating to Storage, management of storage with PowerShell and the new VHDX format disks.

Back to System Centre and a new product in the family that may have escaped your notice. System Centre Advisor, which is now a benefit of Software Assurance for Windows Server or Microsoft SQL server. So what is System Centre Advisor, to find out more and download the 60 day free trial click here.

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