This month we are continuing our introduction to next gen System Center 2012 products and also taking a look at Provance's IT asset management pack for Service Manager.  We have 3 breakout sessions planned, so a lot of good info for you System Center junkies.

If you are interested in contributing to the breakout sessions please contact me scott.stumpf@phillysc.org. As we discussed in our previous meetings, we're trying to get more folks involved with leading the breakout sessions.

As always, food and beverages will be provided.

5:30 - 5:45 Introductions & Announcements

We'll keep the intro short and sweet so we can get to the meat of the evening.

5:45 - 6:45 Provance IT Asset Management Pack for Service Manager

Wayne Brown, Provance

"The Provance IT Asset Management Pack is a Process Management Pack that runs within Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 to provide Software and IT Asset Management. The supplemental capability provided by the Provance IT Asset Management Pack allows Microsoft System Center customers to take control of IT costs, improve IT Service Management efficiency and reduce security and compliance risks. It extends Microsoft System Center Service Manager with additional functionality to manage the financial, contractual and organizational information necessary to support Software Asset Management, License Compliance, IT Asset Life Cycle Management, and more cost-effective and efficient IT Service Management."

6:45 - 7:00 Break

7:00 - 8:00 Breakout Session #1 - Introduction to Data Protection Manager 2012

Scott Stumpf, Software Logic

I have been participating in the TAP program for DPM 2012, but now that Microsoft has released a public beta I can share all the good stuff in the next release including centralized monitoring, remote administration and recovery, enhancements to SharePoint item-level recovery and Hyper-V recovery, role based management, consolidated alerts, and much more.

This session will include a live demo of DPM 2012

7:00 - 8:00 Breakout Session #2 - Using Visio to Visualize Operations Manager Data

Serhan Ulus, Software Logic

We always get questions about 3rd party solutions to visualize SCOM data.  Here's a way to do it using a tool  that you probably already own.  In this breakout session, Serhan will walk us through some slick ways to get live data from SCOM to Visio.

• Why use Visio with SCOM and what are some other options available to us
• Demo: Configure SCOM and Visio for integration
• Demo: Live Visio diagrams
• QA

7:00 - 8:00 Breakout Session #3 - Configuration Manager 2012 (Software Distribution)

Doug Henry, Software Logic

With the high level of interest in SCCM, Doug is going to be running a series of deep-dive breakout sessions focusing on specific Configuration Manager 2012 features.  This month we'll be taking a deeper look at new Software Distribution capabilties.