Intel Communities: Message List

Deploying Windows 8 and Touch - After Hours QnA

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 20:38:19 GMT

Last week, I moderated the Intel IT Center Talk to An Expert webinar with Tiffany Pany from Intel IT and David Scheer from Intel’s software team. Our topic was “Deploying Windows* 8 and Touch in the Enterprise”. We had such a large turn-out that we could not handle all the live audience questions.

So I decided to create After Hours – a blog focused on continuing the conversation – by posing the best of the remaining audience questions to our panelists, and handling a few myself.

In case you missed the webinar, here is a link to the replay. Due to some technical difficulties in the studio, unfortunately we only have an audio podcast version.

You are invited to read through the QnA below and ask more in the comments field

Chris (@chris_p_intel)

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Q: We are a school district - all system migrations occur in the summer since we have thousands of systems - we were planning on migrating to Windows 7 or Windows 8 summer 2014... but we are VERY concerned with the May 1, 2014. Will Microsoft still support/provide fix for the May 1, 2014 security threat for a fee? - Barbara

This is a Microsoft support question and not one I can answer for them. I would recommend you touch base with their support community on Microsoft.com. Chris

Q: Are users with non-touch enabled devices getting an upgrade to Win8 at Intel? - Larry

Yes, we have some non-touch devices that are compatible with our build. We have found that even though Windows 8 is touch enabled, it doesn’t prevent you from using a keyboard and mouse. Tiffany

Q: Will we be able to download the PowerPoint presentation after the meeting? - Jason

I am working to get the presentation uploaded to a Slide Share site and will update the link when I get it. Here are the other resources shared during the webinar. Chris

o Intel IT paper on Deploying Windows 8

o Principled Technology study on Tablet TCO

o Intel IT paper: Evaluating Security on Intel based Tablets running Windows 8

Q: Can we get more detailed information on the TCO slide? Such as what went into each cost? - David

The TCO study used to create that slide was done by Principled Technologies and the study is provided above. Chris

Q: What was the start and end date of your Project plan? - Joel

Intel IT began assessing Windows 8 in early 2012 and held an assessment with pilot users in Q3. In October 2012 we created our 4-stage deployment strategy which goes through the June of 2013. Tiffany

Q How are BYO devices IT managed? Sandbox? - Marcos

BYO Primary PCs are managed through our standard security and manageability suite of software. Intel IT offers three levels of service on Windows 8 tablets. Tiffany

The Premium service gives users full network access and is managed through our standard security and manageability suite of software.
The Basic service will be managed using manageability software that we use with other tablet and phones as soon as the Windows 8 release is ready.
Our third level of service is unmanaged and offers users limited capability while reducing the IT footprint on the device.

Q: How do you put windows 8 into a windows 7 mode? – Nate

There are several different ways to do this and here are a couple of interesting articles that walk through a step by step explanation.

- http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/make-windows-8-boot-straight-to-the-desktop/6976.

- http://www.7tutorials.com/how-boot-desktop-windows-8-skip-start-screen

If you want to add a "start" button in the desktop there are several options. One option, "Classic Start Menu" also includes an option to boot directly to the desktop. I've been using the “Classic Start Menu” (http://www.classicshell.net/) button for a while. Follow the instructions closely though, you probably don’t want it to load all of the software it recommends. I just loaded the start button.

I’m not recommending one approach over another but this should give you an idea of what options are available. David

Q: How did you configure Windows 8 to work like Windows 7 without the use of the START button. - Jack

We are training our users to use the Start Screen in place of the old Win7 start button. We have also purchased a small number of licenses for a third party start menu app that we will distribute via our internal app store. Our belief is that our users will transition to the new OS using the start screen pretty easily. Tiffany

Q: So, Intel IT will be providing their users both a laptop and a tablet? And if so why? - Chris

Short answer is No. We are looking at each user based on their job role and work style to best match them with the technology they need to be most productive and effective. With over 80% of Intel employees having a need for mobility, Laptops are and have been our primary compute device for as long as I can remember (I joined in 2000). We don’t expect this to change.

Many of these employees desire to have a companion tablet. For this reason Intel IT does support BYO tablets / phones for employees to supplement their primary device. We started this in 2010 and have seen employee reported productivity gains - as a result many employees do have two devices (both a laptop and tablet)

For some all-day mobile workers, we have been evaluating and are planning to integrate Intel tablets as a primary device. At Intel, we see this benefit for manufacturing workers (hyperlink to http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/it-management/intel-it-best-practices/tablets-in-facilities.html). – Chris

Are Workstations Relevant in a Mobile World?

webadmin@intel.com — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:28:24 GMT

Yesterday, I found some research in the Enterprise CIO Forum "Mobile A Higher Priority Than Cloud or Big Data" that discussed the priority that CIOs and other IT leaders are placing on mobility. I found the information relevant and consistent to what I see both in Intel IT and during my discussions with other IT professionals and decision makers. And the industry trends around IT consumerization and cloud computing is only accelerating the importance of mobility in business and enterprise IT.

However, as I engaged in the discussion thread, a member of the community described how this move to mobility has led to the demise of the workstation as a viable computing platform. Personally, in my job, I have never had use for a workstations but I have known many engineers who swear by them and depend on them to get their jobs done.

Today a workstation has the horsepower of a super-computer from a decade plus ago. So you may ask, who needs that kind of compute power at their finger tips. At Intel, many of our technical engineers require these machines to get their work done productively. We also deploy clusters of workstations in remote offices to support design engineers - as an alternative to landing a data center (costly) or deploying Silicon Design Infrastructure-as-a-Service over the network (low latency performance due to speed of light restrictions). Read more about this use of workstations at Intel to design next generation processors.

I think we always need to remember that technology is a tool for business ... on size does not fit all usages ... and IT's job is to match the right tool to the right job ... in this way IT is able to maximize both employee and business productivity.

The workstations remains relevant - just maybe in different way than we once thought. What are your thoughts? (comment below)

Chris

Should CIOs Love or Hate the Cloud?

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:10:33 GMT

I read this thought provoking article on Forbes last week: "CIO's Love-Hate Relationship with the Cloud Revealed". The article captures both the risks and opportunities that IT leaders face with more DIY, easily accessible services available to business leaders. Providing some interesting data based research to back it up, these trends are real and each IT group will deal differently with the challenges.

At Intel IT, we are embracing these trends and focused on improving business partnerships and knowledge, accelerating our pace, employing new technology to drive both efficiency and growth, while changing the culture and roles within IT. We see it as an exciting opportunity that must be seized, despite the risks and unknowns.

What do you think?

Should IT Virtualize Business-Critical Apps?

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:07:43 GMT

Today I read an IT World article titled "Hidden Truth About Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications" that addresses the common situation that IT organizations have handled the low-haning fruit regarding what to virtualize. IT World shares data that many organizations are now using facts to overcome fears that business critical apps are not wise for virtualization and cloud.

Recently Intel IT tacked this same problem and recently made the decision to virtualize Intel IT's mission critical applications as a key stepping stone for pervasive cloud deployment following a successful POC (proof of concept). The enterprise architecture we used for our POC is illustrated below:

Is your IT organization avoiding or embracing the virtualization of business-critical (or mission critical) applications? I'm interested in hearing where you fall in the decision making process and what IT best practices you have found or lessons you have learned.

Chris (@chris_p_intel)

Re: Are You Thinking Differently About IT Value?

webadmin@intel.com — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:30:34 GMT

John, Thanks for your comment. It is interesting to hear how mobility, cloud are converging in your line of business - from both a risk and opportunity standpoint.

Consistent with your statement below, I'm also seeing and reading a lot more these days where supply chain concepts are influencing the thinking of the IT value chain. We experienced this inside our own private cloud environment at Intel.

Are You Thinking Differently About IT Value?

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:46:31 GMT

I often blog and talk publicly about the ever changing role of IT and as we approach the end of 2011, the discussion amongst IT leaders, IT managers, CIOs and industry analysts is peaking once again. The forces acting on IT - from both a technology perspective and business perspective - are some of the strongest I have seen since joining Intel IT a little more than 2 years ago.

A couple weeks ago Roger Camrass from EC Insight wrote a blog that captured my attention - "When the I in CIO Stands for Innovation". As you can guess based on the title, Roger advocates for senior IT leaders to shift from the mindset of being utility operators to strategic value creators. He urges organizations to account for disruptive forces, use technology as a business innovation tool and advocates for measuring the value of IT through new business oriented metrics.

Roger's challenge to the CIO community to think differently resonates inside Intel IT as we have found that we need to do exactly that as we actively deployed cloud, embraced IT consumerization, began transforming our enterprise security model in 2011. In the next few days the IT team at Intel will release our 11th edition of the Intel IT Performance Report (on www.intel.com/IT) where you will find that Intel IT is not only thinking differently, but acting differently as well.

Inside this version the Intel IT annual performance report you will find out why self-service IT solutions, custom business intelligence tools and secure access to services from personal devices are now imperatives for success - and how the Intel IT team is taking an active leadership role by embracing bold IT innovation to make these solutions a reality.

So my question to you in this community remains ... "Are you thinking differently about IT value?"

..... if so, share with me how this is impacting your IT strategies, investments and most importantly, your business results

Chris (@chris_p_intel)

Re: Relationships between CIO, CFO and CEO

webadmin@intel.com — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:26:29 GMT

Jimmy, I also saw the discussion you mentioned and have enjoyed reading it.

As I read your perspective here it has reminded me of an article I saw on CIO.com titled "IT Value is Dead. Long Live Business Value".

I printed this article in May and it sits on my desk as a daily reminder that when we approach IT innovation as a means drive business value, then the alignment issues between CIO - CFO - CEO go away and a strong collaborative partnership emerges naturally.

Chris

Re: If you had to pick 5, what would be the Top KPIs for a CIO, or IT Department?

webadmin@intel.com — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:30:11 GMT

Pat, I enjoyed our phone discussion yesterday.

Re: If you had to pick 5, what would be the Top KPIs for a CIO, or IT Department?

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:35:00 GMT

Pat, Warija beat me to the response and i'll add on. We see our KPI's at Intel IT change based on what we want to focus most on improving and use a combination of .

We categorize our KPIs based on IT business value categories that include business growth, business efficiency, employee productivity in addition to IT Agility, efficiency and continuity

We also formally report our key IT indicators and metrics in our IT Annual Performance Report and if you look back in history of this report you see some items change (ie cloud metrics, virualization%, device count are new) and some items are stable (IT cost / employee, IT cost / Biz revenue)

In our IT Operations area we are establishing a new framework on four metrics types

Quality - How well the work is performed as measured by the end recipient of the work
Velocity - The speed and volume of work accomplished in a defined period of time
Efficiency - How streamlined the work is done (End to End)
Capacity - The total available resources that are available to do the work

As we look forward, our organization is placing a focus on Velocity as a lead metric and KPI we want to improve.

Chris

Re: How to arrive from virtualization to private cloud ?

webadmin@intel.com — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:01:27 GMT

The Intel IT team has been implementing many of the advancde management services that define cloud in our private enterprise cloud environment. We are deploying services in as short as 3 hours now.

Check out this whitepaper on the principles and processes we've been using for "Implementing On-Demand Services Inside the Intel IT Private Cloud"

Das Kamhout has written some blogs on this topic also and may be of assistance.

Chris P