Check out www.systemcenterforum.org for their new System Center Virtual User group - http://www.systemcenterusergroup.com/. The group will not only be a traditional user group in the sense that it holds periodic meetings (using Live Meeting) but also as a forum for people to come together to find resources to establish more traditional / physical user groups.

The System Center Virtual User Group will also have a spot in a community session at MMS. If you're going, check it out!

To join, go to http://www.systemcenterusergroup.com.

Thanks to Pete Zerger for sponsoring this!

Are you gong to MMS 2008? Look for the flyer for special savings when ordering System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed!

Cameron will be at MMS and will have the flyer with him. He will be giving several presentations on OpsMgr:

• S031 Why move to Operations Manager 2007? (Thurs, May 1, 10:15-11:30)

You have MOM 2005 installed and running in your environment - so why would you want to move to Operations Manager 2007? Even if you don't have MOM 2005 installed, are you considering deploying MOM 2005 or Operations Manager 2007? This session explains the differences between these products, digging into specific areas of improvement where OpsMgr 2007 does better than MOM 2005.

• S032 Extending Operations Manager 2007 (Tues, April 29, 10:15-11:30)

This session discusses options available to extend out of the box functionality in Operations Manager 2007. Discussions will encompass available third party functionality, publicly downloadable Operations Manager extensions, and provide an overview of options available to create Management Packs for Operations Manager.

Cameron will also have several copies of the book as give-aways, so check out his sessions!

Our coauthor, John Joyner of ClearPointe, is very active in the Remote Operations Manager (ROM) area. Check out this podcast where John and Peter Stevens of ClearPointe talk about how ROM and ClearPointe's Network Operations Center products save the career of a (fictitious) IT manager. The podcast is available at http://www.virtualteched.com/pages/videostecharea.aspx?TA=VTESYS_MANOP01, and  was recorded during ITForum 2007 in Barcelona Spain.

John enjoyed Barcelona also, when he wasn't busy at ITForum!

If you've had the "opportunity" to move your Root Management Server (which Cameron describes at http://cameronfuller.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A231E4EB0417CB76!908.entry), there are other components you will need to update as well. This includes the Reporting Server and Web Console Server, which will need to know the new location of your RMS.

• Change the rsreportserver.config file on the Reporting Server. There are two entries there for <ServerName>; change them to point to the new RMS name.
• On the Web Console Server, modify the web.config file where it says <add key = "MOMServer" value='FQDN name of RMS"> to reference the FQDN name of your new RMS.
• On the registry of the reporting server, change the value of  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\Reporting for the DefaultSDKServiceMachine to the new RMS.

The steps to update the files as well as the entire process to move the RMS are discussed in our book. System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, which is being released this week, discusses additional issues in the RTM version when moving the RMS. You can also check out http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/31051585/loading-report-hierarchy.aspx.

If you preordered the SAMS book on Amazon.com, you may have received an email from them over the weekend advising they are not able to ship the item yet, and estimated a new delivery date of 05/13/2008 - 06/20/2008.

This is an automatically generated email, and the date provided was not based on information from the publisher. As soon as the "in-stock" date is missed, Amazon automatically adds 90 days or so to the expected time and emails everyone who has pre-ordered.

SAMS has advised that the warehouse in stock date is 3/12/2008, at which point the books will begin to be distributed to the bookstores and online sites such as Amazon. It probably will take a week or so for it to be received throughout the channel, but the book will be available in March, not somewhere between mid-May and mid-June!

3/21/08 - an update on this. Amazon now shows that the book is In Stock. Happy reading!