Grey Matter

Issue 62 | Spring 2014

Building on 31 years of software know how

Visual Studio 2013

Building apps for cloud, business and device

Time to migrate

Planning your upgrade from Windows XP and the 2003 servers

Backup in the modern world

The tools you need to ensure your data is safe

WIN!

See page 8
for details

Welcome
Editorial
Editor:...................................................................... Matt Nicholson
Technical Editors:... Sean Wilson, Paul Edwards
News Editor:....................................................... Paul Stephens
Publisher:................................................................... Andrew King
Contributors:.....................................................Tim Anderson,
Simon Bisson, Mary Branscombe,
Kay Ewbank, Jon Honeyball,
Graham Keitch, Paul Stephens
Design and layout:...................................... Jason Stanley
Illustration:.............................................................Sholto Walker
Web Design:......................................................... Jason Stanley

Advertising & Circulation

Marketing:....................... Anna Roach, Emma Cottle,
Ash Khagram

Tel: 01364 654100

Email: marketing@hardcopymag.com
HardCopy is edited for Grey Matter three
times a year by Matt Publishing of Bristol. It
is printed by Pepper Communications Ltd. of
Plymouth and requested by 15,000 readers.
Copyright 2014 Grey Matter Ltd. All rights
reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form without prior
consent of the copyright holder.

All trademarks acknowledged.
HardCopy is a trademark and Grey Matter a
registered trademark owned by Grey Matter
Limited. While all reasonable attempts are
made to ensure accuracy, Grey Matter and
Matt Publishing disclaim any liability
whatsoever for any use of information
herein. Prices exclude VAT unless specified.
Cover Image: Jason Stanley

Advertisers Index
2
Grey Matter
7 CA
9 Kaspersky
12 Visual Studio 2013
17 Adobe
18 Telerik
21 Windows 8
23 Flexera
27 Symantec
28 MySQL
31 Paessler PRTG
33 PostSharp
35 Intel
36 Office 365

Contents

Back in 1978, the BBCs Horizon broadcast an episode called

Now The Chips are Down, which predicted mass
unemployment as a result of the microprocessor. It was followed a
year later by a six-part series on ITV which made similar predictions. So
seriously were the issues taken that the government launched the
Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP) which aimed to help
schools prepare children for a life in a society in which devices and
systems based on microelectronics are commonplace and pervasive.
It called for revisions to the curriculum, specialist teacher training and
the provision of microcomputers in secondary schools throughout the
land. It also spawned the BBC Computer Literacy Project and the
much-loved BBC Microcomputer.
Heady stuff, but by the mid-1990s, it had run out of steam.
Instead computer literacy meant knowing how to print a Word
document; computer programming was something that sociallychallenged men did behind closed doors on outdated PCs or arcane
Unix boxes. Those with any talent were trying to hack the college
mainframe; those without just wanted to get home to their
PlayStations. The joy experienced when your first BASIC program did
something wonderful on the screen was long forgotten.
Thankfully, after far too long a delay, it looks like things might
change. September this year sees the introduction of a new national
curriculum for computing covering ages 5 through to 16. At its heart
are the skills that underlie programming, with the aim of equipping
pupils to use computational thinking and creativity so they can
understand fundamental principles ... including abstraction, logic,
algorithms and data representation. Even at Key Stage 1, Pupils
should be taught to ... create and debug simple programs.
If the idea of teaching a 5-year old to program sounds ridiculous,
then check out Scratch, developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten
Group at MIT Media Lab. Essentially an Adobe Flash environment
housed within a community website, Scratch allows you to construct
programs out of coloured building blocks. Another is Alice, a rather
more sophisticated but still visual system for programmng within a 3D
world, also free of charge but this time from Carnegie Mellon
University. More advanced tools, such as the Kano kit, centre around
the Raspberry Pi.
All good stuff, but doomed to failure unless matched by a
programme that gives teachers not only the necessary skills, resources
and enthusiasm, but can also overcomes a very understandable fear of
a subject that can be very daunting. The government has announced
1.1 million for the British Computer Society to develop such a
programme for primary school teachers, which is a start. Initiatives like
the Year of Code, launched recently with a rather vacuous website and
fronted by someone who, by her own admission, has never coded,
seem less helpful. And there is only six months to go.

Grey Matter Limited

Prigg Meadow,
Ashburton,
Devon, TQ13 7DF, UK
marketing@hardcopymag.com

grey matter
software know how

Software News
Adobe, Infragistics,
JetBrains and more.

News in brief
and competition winners.

8 Competition

Win a Samsung
Chromebook!
10

Visual Studio 2013

Inside the latest release
of Microsofts flagship
development environment.

14

HTML5 for designers

Tools to help designers
work with developers.

19

Time to migrate
Upgrading from Windows
XP and the 2003 servers.

24 Backup

Coping with virtualisation
and the Cloud.
29

Inside Data
Strategies for migrating
your databases.

30

Straight talking
Tim Anderson on the
Internet of Things.

32

And Another Thing

Jon Honeyball ponders
Microsofts low profile.

34

Short Cuts
Views from the edge.

Register Now!
HardCopy magazine is published three times
a year. Make sure you dont miss out by
registering or updating your details at
www.greymatter.com/hc/subscribe

Read HardCopy online

Matt Nicholson
Editor, HardCopy

To view buyers guides, news, blogs and

forums go to HardCopy online at
www.greymatter.com/hc/hardcopy

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

News

Software News
Infragistics strengthens touch-enabled client support
Infragistics www.greymatter.com/infragistics/
New Jersey-based Infragistics has
shipped its 2013.2 controls suite
release, a modest version number upgrade
which in fact contains a major restructuring of
its product range.

Infragistics 2013.2 includes this new Metro Dark theme.

The company now offers just two suites

Infragistics Professional and Ultimate each
including all the previous NetAdvantage
bundles, with Ultimate adding advanced
prototyping tools and libraries. The controls
have been upgraded to include new Microsoft
Office, Windows 8 and iOS 7 styles, as well as
cross-platform touch and gesture capabilities
and Visual Studio 2013 support.
Infragistics Professional includes the
companys ASP.NET, WinForms, Windows UI,
WPF, Silverlight and Windows Phone 7.5
controls, as well as the Ignite UI (HTML5/
JQuery) and NucliOS (native iOS) control
bundles. Ultimate adds Indigo Studio, an
interactive UI/UX prototyping tool, as well as
the Quince Pro pattern library, Icon library and
SharePoint controls.

New features include LinearGauge,

RadialGauge and RichTextEditor controls for
WPF, and a touch-friendly Metro Dark Theme.
WinForms now supports a Start screen-style
WinLiveTileView control and a OneNote-style
WinRadialMenu, while new Windows UI (XAML)
features include an Excel engine and Control
Persistence Framework. Infragistics says its
WPF/Silverlight-based Reporting controls are
the only report rendering engine that can run
without server participation.
Infragistics launched its Indigo Studio UI
designer a year ago, offering version 1.0 as a
free forever download. Version 2.0 is no longer
free, but includes mobile device support with
touch interface, and code generation to
kick-start app development. There are upgrade
plans for existing subscribers.

Adobe gets solidly behind 3D printing

Adobe www.greymatter.com/Adobe/
Design tools giant Adobe has staked a
claim in the emerging 3D printing
market by adding easy-to-use 3D print
capabilities to the latest release of its
cloud-based Photoshop CC, with support for
local 3D printers as well as commercial 3D
printing services.
Other new features in Adobes updated
Creative Cloud suite include Perspective Warp
and Linked Smart Objects in Photoshop, Live
Corners in Illustrator and EPUB 3.0 support in

Now the camera really can lie Photoshop CCs new

Perspective Warp feature lets you simulate a change in the
photographers point of view.

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

InDesign, as well as improved cross-suite

integration with Adobes Typekit font library.
Adobe has focused on radically
simplifying the 3D preparation and printing
process for imported and in-app designs, rather
than turning Photoshop into a full-blown 3D
modelling system. Preparation features include
automated mesh repair and automatic insertion
of scaffolding to prevent models from
collapsing during production. As well as
popular desktop 3D printers such as the
MarketBot Replicator, Photoshop CC connects
directly to the Shapeways.com commercial
printing service, with Shapeways full range of
ceramics, metals and other materials selectable
from the design surface.
Photoshop CCs eye-catching new
Perspective Warp feature lets you alter the
perspective of objects as if the photographer
had shifted viewpoint, while the more
down-to-earth Linked Smart Objects lets you
live-share objects across multiple documents.
Illustrator CC gets an all-new pencil tool
with improved curve accuracy, while Live
Corners let you modify corners on-design or via

Adobe has staked its claim in the 3D

market, with a stated aim of making
Photoshop CC the go-to tool for anyone
who wants to print a 3D model.
dialogs. Theres also support for Windows 8,
including pressure-sensitive pens, as well as
perspective drawing enhancements. Illustrator
and InDesign can now access Typekit fonts
directly from their font menus, while InDesign
also has simplified hyperlinks and a series of
EPUB enhancements including interactive
pop-up footnotes.

News
Netop adds Android to its Remote Control repertoire
Netop www.greymatter.com/Netop/
Danish remote access specialist Netop
has strengthened its support for
mobile devices, adding Android to the list of
platforms supported by its Remote Control IT
support desk package, and improving the
products support for Microsofts Surface Pro
and Surface Pro 2 tablets. The company has also
introduced a new Support Pack licensing
scheme, and released a free SDK enabling
developers to integrate its Live Guide
multimedia chat system into both iOS and
Android apps.
Netop Remote Control Mobile for Android
allows support personnel to make a secure

remote connection to an Android device and

then control it via a screen image on their
console, as well as transferring files and chatting
with the devices user. Samsung smartphones
and tablets running Android 4.0 or later are
supported, with limited functionality on other
devices running Android 2.2 or later.
Netop has also improved console displays
of remote screens from Surface Pro and Surface
Pro 2 devices running Win 8 or 8.1, along with
full mouse and keyboard controls plus granular
permission settings and Active Directory
integration.
Netops new Live Guide SDK is aimed at

developers of customer-facing Android and iOS

apps, allowing them to put users in real-time
contact with sales and service staff via Live
Guides managed chat infrastructure. The
company says that the feature can be
integrated into existing apps in as little as ten
minutes. The new IT Support Packs group
licences for Netopss Remote Control, Security
Server, OnDemand and WebConnect products
in bundles priced for small, medium and
large-scale businesses.

VMware makes biggest-ever mobile device management aquisition

VMware www.greymatter.com/VMware/
Virtualisation giant VMware has agreed
to pay $1.54 billion for Atlanta-based
AirWatch, widely regarded as the leading
vendor in the rapidly-expanding Mobile Device
Management (MDM) market. The acquisition
extends VMwares reach past its existing server
and desktop virtualisation products to tablet
and handheld devices, and follows a string of
similar acquisitions by major vendors over the
past couple of years. The price represents 15
times AirWatchs 2013 revenues, and is
part-funded by $1 billion of new debt.
AirWatchs products support mobile
platforms from iOS and Android to Symbian and

Windows RT, with functionality including

workspace management (separation of
personal and corporate data on BYOD devices),
device management (centrally-managed
updates and settings), app, data and email
security, and browsing management. The
products join VMwares existing Horizon Suite
desktop virtualisation system and recentlyacquired Desktone Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
product in the companys End-User Computing
group.
VMwares move follows MDM-related
acquisitions by McAfee (Trust Digital), Citrix
(Zenprise) and IBM (Fiberlink). There are more

than two billion smart phones

and tablets in the world and
more than half of those
devices touch an enterprise,
said Alan Dabbiere,
co-founder and chairman,
AirWatch. By joining a proven
innovator like VMware, we
now have an opportunity to
bring our leading-edge
solutions to an even broader
set of customers and partners
to help them optimize for the
mobile-cloud world.

Alan Dabbiere: co-founder and

chairman of AirWatch.

JetBrains keeps Ruby on the rails, storms forward with PHP

JetBrains www.greymatter.com/JetBrains/
Its been a busy few months (as always)
for Prague-based development tools
vendor JetBrains. Back in November it released
version 6 of its RubyMine Ruby and Rails IDE,
followed in early December by version 13 of its
flagship IntelliJ IDEA Java IDE. That was quickly
followed by ReSharper 8.1, a new release of its
Visual Studio productivity extension, and finally
by the companys present for the upcoming
holidays, PhpStorm 7.1. This is an update to the
PhpStorm 7.0 PHP/Web IDE which itself was
only released in October.
RubyMine 6 is a major release featuring

improved language support (up to version 2.1)

faster IDE and debugger performance and
much-anticipated support for multiple projects.
Theres also a built-in SSH console, plus
integration with the Zeus application
checkpointer. IntelliJ IDEA 13 features a
simplified UI complete with new light look (a
change from the Darcula theme of old) and
Search Everywhere asset location feature.
Theres also support for Java EE 7, and new
Android development tools (including an
improved editor and SQLite data access),
together with improved support for the Gradle

project automation tool.

ReSharper 8.1 supports Visual Studio from
2005 onwards, with new support for the
TypeScript application-scale JavaScript
language as well as richer support for JavaScript
itself. Also on the menu are improved VS2013
integration, more C# code inspections, 500
bug/performance fixes and even greater
XAML tooling. PhpStorm 7.1, meanwhile, offers
full support for PHP5.5, improved PHP syntax
colouring, Mocha framework integration and
support for framework-specific command-line
tools including Zend Framework 2 and Drush.

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

News

News in brief
Grey Matter launches its new website
Grey Matter is proud to announce the launch of its new website,
redesigned to reflect the companys focus on consultative sales and
actively assisting customers to make the right product choices. The new
design give visitors easier, themed access to content areas including
buyers guides, product showcases, news, events and (of course)
HardCopy articles, while links from the front page lead directly to
software for Development, IT, Business, Design or Academic markets.
Alternatively visitors can go straight to one of Grey Matters key software
publishers, or see a full A to Z list.

Competition Winner
The winner of issue 61s competition prize, a Nokia Lumia 820
smartphone courtesy of Grey Matter, is Leroy Burrell of Poultec
Training Ltd. Congratulations, Leroy!

Grey Matter on the road

November saw Grey Matter co-hosting a highly successful developers
conference with Intel in London, and also attending the 24th Daresbury
Machine Evaluation Workshop (again with Intel) in Liverpool. GM also
attended the UKs first New Developers Conference (NDC) in London in
December, partnering Intel, Flexera
and Embarcadero.
This years DevWeek conference
will run from 31 March to 4 April at a
new venue, Central Hall, Westminster, London, with 49 major industry
speakers. More information at devweek.com, and watch out for
announcements of Grey Matters participation. Grey Matter is also a
finalist for Reseller of the year in the Network Computing Awards, to be
held on 31 March.
VMware updates its cloud management tools
VMware has released vCloud Automation Center 6.0, vCenter Operations
Management Suite 5.8 and a new Standard edition of its IT Business
Management Suite. Automation Center 6.0 features a new unified IT
services catalogue, support for DevOps automation tools, an advanced
wizard-driven service designer and support for vCloud Hybrid Service and
OpenStack cloud environments.
vCenter Operations Management Suite 5.8 provides improved
performance analytics for Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server.
The entry-level Standard edition IT Business Management Suite features
out-of-the-box data, while the Advanced and Enterprise editions have
new persona-based dashboards tailored to CIO, CFO and other roles.

Grey Matters General Manager Matt Whitton said, Our new site
better reflects how we help our customers providing great independent
software and licensing advice. We are also changing the platform to allow
future development and improvements to our store. We would love to
know what you think!
Find Grey Matter, as always, at www.greymatter.com.
Flexera releases AdminStudio 2013 R2
Flexera has released AdminStudio 2013 R2, a significant upgrade to its
application packaging and deployment suite. Highlights include the
ability to publish iOS apps to VMwares newly-acquired AirWatch MDM
solutions (see page 4), compatibility with Symantecs Altiris server
management suite, and improved integration with Flexeras App Portal
enterprise app store.
Enhancements also include the option to choose a compliance level
for compatibility testing (matching Citrix AppDNAs capabilities), plus
compatibility testing for Windows 8.1 and 2012 R2, and support for App-V
5.0 SP2. The Application Tuner tool can now be downloaded as a
standalone application. Pricing remains unchanged.

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

New Release Roundup

CA Technologies has released Erwin 9.5, an update to its data
modelling tools suite aimed at big data platforms such as Apache
Hadoop Hive, Cloudera and Google BigQuery, As well a consolidation
of previous fixes and updates, the release includes a new native report
designer, Big Data import and Teradata v13.x / v14.x certification.
SAP has shipped a new version of its Business ByDesign mid-market
cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite. The release
features compatibility with SAPs HANA in-memory computing
platform for high performance transaction and analytic processing.
Also new are a Japanese version, more flexible pricing tools and access
from iPads via SAPs Business in Focus mobile app.
Symantec has released NetBackup 7.6, describing it as the only
backup product designed for enterprise level scale. New capabilities

include a claimed 400 times faster recovery of VMware vSphere virtual

machines by booting directly from backup storage, integration with
VMware Changed Block Tracking resulting in 35 times faster backups,
and the ability to protect 300 virtual machines in 300 seconds. Also
included are multi-tenant hosting options and automated disaster
recovery from physical to cloud.

Virtualisation made Simp

Discover how weve made it even easier for your

CA ARCserve is cutting through the maze of data protection complexity. Our single, easy-to-use solution delivers unrivalled
data protection whether your server environment is physical, virtual or a combination of both. So whether you already have
virtual servers, or have imminent plans to migrate, CA ARCserve is the only data protection solution you need.

Learn more about CA ARCserve Backup today, visit

www.greymatter.com/hc/CA-ARCserve or call 01364 654100.

WIN a Samsung Chromebook Wifi

The Samsung Chromebook Wifi is a new type of device.
Running Google Chrome OS on a dual-core ARM
processor, and boasting 2GB of memory and 16GB of solid state
storage, it boots up in just 7 seconds and has a battery life of up to
7 hours. It also links seamlessly with Google Drive for cloud
storage, and Chrome Web Store for thousands of apps.

Competition

We will also accept entries submitted online at

www.greymatter.com/hc/competition

To enter our competition, courtesy of Kaspersky, answer the

question below, fill out the rest of the form and send it to:

Grey Matter Samsung Chromebook Wifi Competition

Grey Matter Ltd
Prigg Meadow
Ashburton
Devon TQ13 7DF

entry form

issue 62
Samsung
Chromebook Wifi

Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business has four tiers.

Which of these is NOT an available tier?
A: Advanced

B: Core
C: Elementary
Answer:

Your details
Name_______________________________________________________
Company____________________________________________________
Address_____________________________________________________

What endpoint security solution are you currently using?

q Kaspersky
q Sophos
q Trend Micro

q Symantec
q McAfee / Intel
Other__________

____________________________ Postcode_______________________
Telephone___________________________________________________
Email_______________________________________________________

q I would like to receive HardCopy magazine.

q Please send me information on products or services that I might find
useful (note that we keep your information private and will not sell or rent
your data for marketing purposes)

How many laptops, computers and file servers are there in your
company?
____________________________________
When is your endpoint security software due for renewal?

________________________________

1. No purchase necessary for entry to this competition.

2. The prize is one Samsung Chromebook Wifi. There is no cash alternative.
3. Once you have received the prize, please register it under a warranty as Grey Matter will no longer be held
responsible for the prize or be able to provide assistance for faults or maintenance.
4. Completed entries must be received by Friday 25 April 2014.
5. Entries submitted online at www.greymatter.com/hc/competition/ or completed on a photocopy of
this page will be accepted.
6. Only one entry will be accepted per person.
7. Winner is decided by random draw from correct entries received by the closing date.

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

8. Winner will be announced on Monday 28 April 2014 and will be notified either by
email or telephone.
9. The judges decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the
decision.
10. Employees of organisations connected with this competition are not eligible for entry.
11. Kaspersky and Grey Matter reserve the right to use the winners name in promotional
materials.
The competition promoter is Grey Matter Ltd, Prigg Meadow, Ashburton, Devon TQ13 7DF.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF ENTRY

Development

Visual Studio 2013

Tim Anderson and Matt Nicholson take a look at the
latest release of Microsofts flagship developer product.

TIM

ANDERSON
A freelance journalist
since 1992, Tim
Anderson covers
a wide range of
technical topics and
is well versed in
modern programming
tools, techniques
and technologies.
His recent work
has appeared in
publications including
Guardian Technology,
The Register,
Computer Weekly,
Hardcopy, vnunet.
com, IT Expert and
ITJOBLOG, as well as
his own popular blog
at www.itwriting.com.

Visual Studio 2013 looks much like

Visual Studio 2012, and indeed at first
sight seems more of an incremental update
than a major new version. However lift the
bonnet and youll find plenty of new features.
One of the first things you notice is the facility
to sign in with a Microsoft account. Do this and
you will find that some of your settings, such as
themes, fonts and colours, keyboard shortcuts
and text editor options, become synchronised if

type Cloud Business App which allows you to

hook into and take advantage of many of the
facilities offered by Office 365. For example, a
business that is using Office 365 is also using
Azure Active Directory. As a result, if a user
leaves the organisation, access to custom Cloud
Business Apps is automatically revoked.
As you would expect, Visual Studio 2013
brings considerable support for building apps
for both Windows Phone and Windows Store.

development of Web applications by

combining the older Web Forms model and
ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) into a
single project type called One ASP.NET. Starting
a project involves choosing a template, such as
Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC, but you can also
add references to other frameworks, including
Web API. Adding a Web Form page to an MVC
project can be done with just a couple of
mouse-clicks.

you sign in elsewhere. Also useful is Peek

Definition, which lets you view and even edit
the code where a variable is defined without
having to open multiple windows.
Another useful feature is CodeLens,
although this is only available in Visual Studios
Ultimate edition. CodeLens annotates your
methods with key information including
references to the code, unit tests that include it
and whether or not they pass, change history,
outstanding bugs, work items and code
reviews. Each item is a hot link so you can drill
down for more detail.
On the language and compiler side, Visual
Studio 2013 is a relatively low-key release.
Watch this space though as Microsoft is
working on a major update to .NET codenamed Roslyn which will introduce support for
compiler as a service.
Perhaps more significant is the new project

Most Windows Store apps have a user interface

built with XAML or HTML, or games developers
can choose DirectX and C++. Visual Studio 2013
comes with a basic XAML visual designer or it
can integrate with a separate application, which
comes free with Visual Studio, called Blend.
Two-way updating between Visual Studio and
Blend makes for relatively seamless integration.
Visual Studio 2013 also comes with a Device
panel so you can test your app against various
simulated screen sizes and states.
When it comes to deploying your app,
Visual Studio guides you through the process.
This involves signing up for a developer
account (free with an MSDN subscription),
testing and validating the app with the
Windows App Certification Kit, and uploading
to the Store where it will be tested by Microsoft
before going live.
Visual Studio 2013 has improved the

One ASP.NET makes it much easier to

configure authentication, allowing you to
choose between individual user accounts,
which are best if you want to use a custom
database or an external login from something
like Google or Facebook; organisational
accounts, if you are integrating with Office 365
or Azure Active Directory; and standard
Windows authentication, if youre using an
internal Active Directory.
Visual Studio 2013 includes LightSwitch, an
unusual but capable tool that can generate
Silverlight clients for desktop browsers, but also
has an HTML client project type specifically
designed for mobile clients. By default
LightSwitch screens use jQuery Mobile and
touch-friendly controls. A Cloud Business App is
based on LightSwitchs HTML client project
type. As you would expect there is strong
integration between Visual Studio 2013 and its

Choosing a solution

10

Visual Studio Express

Visual Studio
Professional

Visual Studio
Professional with MSDN

Visual Studio Test

Professional with MSDN

Target Users

Invidividuals or teams of up to
5 users.

Professional developers.

Professional developers.

Test professionals.

Unique features

Editions for Web, Windows and

Windows Store development.
Free Downloads.

Includes Unit Testing

and licence to access
Visual Studio Online.
One-off payment.

Includes access to
Windows Server,
Windows Azure, Team
Foundation Server and
Visual Studio Online.
Subscription keeps you
up to date.

Comprehensive
range of testing tools.
Subscription keeps you
up to date.

Considerations

Some feature limitations.

Requires additional
licences to access
Windows Azure,
Windows Server or
Team Foundation
Server.

Doesnt include
Load Testing or Web
Performance Testing.

Doesnt include
Load Testing or Web
Performance Testing.
No development tools
included.

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

Development
cloud platforms, and Microsoft has made the
deployment of applications to Azure and Office
365 as straightforward as possible.
This new version of Visual Studio brings
little in the way of new features for accessing
data. However SQL Server 2014 is coming soon,
bringing with it a new set of SQL Server
Database Tools. These are now part of the SQL
Server package rather than Visual Studio,
although they will run within the Visual Studio
IDE. Visual Studio 2013 does come with an SQL
Server Database project type, but this is for
designing and managing databases, rather than
for creating database applications.
When it comes to debugging, Visual Studio
2013 has much to offer. For example, there is
Just my code which skips over library code so
you can step through just the code that is
specific to the project in hand. This feature did
exist in Visual Studio 2012 but has now been
extended to C++ and JavaScript Windows Store
apps. Visual Studio 2013 also introduces Auto
variables which make it easier to track the return
value of methods that are not assigned to a
specific variable.
New to Visual Studio 2013 is a managed
code memory analyser which is useful for
finding memory leaks in managed code.
Managed code is prone to memory leaks
because it is easy to hold objects in memory for
longer than you intend, thanks to the way
garbage collection works. As with IntelliTrace
and a number of other useful tools for testing,
the managed code memory analyser is only
included in the Ultimate edition.

Team working
Microsofts solution for collaborative
development is Visual Studio Team Foundation
Server (TFS), a repository that hooks into a fairly
comprehensive range of tools and services
designed to help you manage a project of any

size, from initial

design through
development and
testing and on to
deployment. The
repository stores not
only code but also
work items which can
be bug reports,
definitions of features
that need to be
implemented, test
cases or any other task
that needs to be
completed. Work
The IDE for Visual Studio 2013 is a little more colourful.
items form a to-do list
for team members,
factories and offices implemented using sticky
while also enabling the creation of reports for
notes on a wall-mounted board. Under TFS a
monitoring and reviewing overall progress. It
Kanban board comes with default columns for
includes Team Build, which lets you automate
New, Approved, Committed and Done, and you
application builds on a remote server. Another
move tasks between columns by drag and drop.
useful feature is the ability to set check-in policy.
You can also customise the board as needed.
For example, you can ensure that code cannot
Kanban boards were originally introduced as an
be checked in unless it can be successfully built.
update to the 2012 release, but have now been
Microsoft has been keen to promote TFS as
enhanced and fully integrated.
a tool for Agile software development, although
Team Foundation Server is available as a
it is equally suited to more traditional
stand-alone product and is included, together
methodologies. New to the 2013 release is
with the necessary Client Access Licence (CAL),
support for Git, a distributed version control
with the MSDN versions of Visual Studio. There
system devised by Linus Torvalds. Check out
is also Team Foundation Server Express which is
using Git and you get a copy of the whole
a free download and supports teams of up to
source code repository so that you can work
five developers.
with it independently. You can work with a local
Alternatively, Visual Studio Online is a
Git repository, or with a Git repository hosted on
cloud-based solution, hosted on Windows
TFS or on other services such as CodePlex or
Azure, which comes in a variety of incarnations.
GitHub (although using a third-party repository
Visual Studio Online Basic is effectively a hosted
does prevent you from accessing some TFS
version of Team Foundation Server Express, in
features, such as Team Build).
that it is free for up to five users. However it
Another new feature is support for Kanban
does allow additional users to subscribe on a
boards, which can help you visualise and
monthly basis. Visual Studio Online Professional
manage the work that needs to be done in an
is limited to a maximum of 10 users, each
Agile project. Kanban boards can be found in
paying a monthly charge, but includes a

Visual Studio Premium with

MSDN

Visual Studio Ultimate with

MSDN

Visual Studio Team

Foundation Server

Visual Studio Online

Professional developers
targeting Microsoft platforms.

Professinal developers,
architects and testers.

Teams of more than 5

members.

Teams of up to 5 members, or
larger teams looking for a cloud
solution

Adds all Microsoft server

products, including Team
Foundation Server and Office.
Subscription keeps you up to
date.

Adds Load Testing and Web

Performance Testing, plus
additional development and
modelling tools. Subscription
keeps you up to date.

Comprehensive facilities for

supporting collaborative
development.

Free for teams of up to 5 users.

Cloud-based support for
collaborative development.

Requires in-house server

installation and management.

External hosting gives less

control.

Doesnt include Load Testing or

Web Performance Testing.

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

11

Connect. Create.
Transform the app landscape.
Welcome to the age of extraordinary expectations. Every app must work
2013 helps developers blow minds and win business with the most advanced,
integrated solution available - state-of-the-art tooling and services designed
to help you develop, test, and deploy service-powered apps that transform
the user experience across all Windows devices.

Its a new day for developers.

grey matter
software know how

Grey Matter sells Microsoft

software licenses.

Gold Volume Licensing

Silver Software Asset Management
Cloud Accelerate

Explore Visual Studio 2013

www.greymatter.com/visualstudio
or call 01364 654100
Read Grey Matters on-line
Visual Studio 2013 supplement at
www.greymatter.com/hc/vs-guide
to find out about the new features.

Development

Customising the columns in a Kanban board.

subscription version of Visual Studio
Professional for each user. Visual Studio Online
Advanced supports an unlimited number of
users and comes with a more comprehensive
range of project management tools.

Choosing editions
The Visual Studio family currently comes in eight
editions, ranging from free downloads to
subscription services that give you access to a
substantial proportion of Microsofts product
range. This is thanks to Microsoft Developer
Network (MSDN), which continues to be
Microsofts main vehicle for supporting
professional developers who are working with
the Microsoft platform. MSDN comes in six
different flavours, four of which are bundled
with various editions of Visual Studio. All come
with a comprehensive range of software and
driver development kits; a support contract that
includes at least two technical support
incidents; and access to at least one Microsoft
E-Learning course collection containing some
20 hours of online material.
MSDN subscriptions come with a range of
Microsoft client and server applications.
However there is a catch in that, with just one
exception, these applications are licensed on a
per-user basis for development use only. You
can install and use the software as platform for
development, testing and demonstration, but
you or your clients must purchase separate
licences when the application is deployed.
Furthermore, each person in the development
team will need an MSDN licence to access the
teams server installations. The exception is the
copy of Office Professional Plus 2013 which
comes with the Premium and Ultimate editions.
As well as using it to develop Office-based
applications, the user can install one copy on a
single machine for ordinary day-to-day use.
A typical team might have a number of
developers using Visual Studio Professional with
MSDN. This includes the latest versions of

Windows, Windows Server, Windows

Embedded, SQL Server and Team Foundation
Server, together with monthly credits for
accessing Windows Azure, which makes it a
good platform for building applications that
require database access. As its name implies it
comes with Visual Studio Professional which
provides a good range of development tools,
but is limited when it comes to testing,
architectural design or team management.
It is therefore a good idea to equip at least
one team member with Visual Studio Test
Professional with MSDN. This lacks the Visual
Studio development environment but does
come with a more useful range of test tools and
comprehensive support for project
management.
Visual Studio Premium with MSDN
includes not only Windows, Windows Server,
Windows Embedded and SQL Server, but also
development installations of SharePoint,
Exchange, Office and Dynamics. It also comes
with double the amount of Azure credits, twice
as many technical support incidents, and twice
as much online tuition. Visual Studio Premium
brings you a more comprehensive range of
testing tools, lacking only the Web load and
Performance Testing tools that are exclusive to
the Ultimate edition. It includes some
architecture and modelling facilities, but again
not the complete range. The Premium edition is
the one to go for if you are targeting the wider
Microsoft platform, or want to give your team
more general access to Visual Studios testing,
design and management facilities.
Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN gives
you everything that Visual Studio and MSDN
have to offer. Features unique to the Ultimate
edition include IntelliTrace, load and
performance testing, CodeLens, Architecture
Explorer and Architecture and Layer Diagrams.
Larger teams would have at least some
members using this edition.
One of the main benefits of an MSDN

subscription is the knowledge that you can

always be working with the most up-to-date
version of the Microsoft platform. If a new
version of Windows or Exchange is released,
you will be able to download and install it
sometimes before it becomes generally
available. Cease your subscription and your
licences remain valid (unless you are on certain
volume licensing schemes). However you will
no longer receive updates or have access to the
download site should you need to reinstall.
If you do not need MSDN, perhaps
because you already have full licences to the
Microsoft products you need, then you can buy
a single licenced copy of Visual Studio
Professional. This is cheaper, particularly if you
are upgrading from an earlier version, but you
will not receive the automatic updates to the
latest release that MSDN brings. You will also
need to buy additional Client Access Licences
(CALs) if you wish to access Windows Server,
Windows Azure or Team Foundation Server.
Then there are the four editions of Visual
Studio Express, which can be downloaded free
of charge. These are Visual Studio Express for
Web for building Web applications, which
includes facilities for publishing to Windows
Azure; Visual Studio Express for Windows which
allows you to build Windows Store Apps for
installation under Windows 8; Visual Studio
Express for Windows Desktop for building
conventional desktop applications using
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF),
Windows Forms and Win32; and Visual Studio
Express for Windows Phone which includes the
Windows Phone Software Development Kit.
These editions support Visual Basic, C# and C++
and are fully functional, although they lack
many of the features of Visual Studio
Professional. They do not include the Exception
Assistant, for example, which makes dealing
with unexpected exceptions more time
consuming.

Find out more

For a more comprehensive overview of Visual Studio 2013, see our

Web supplement at www.greymatter.com/hc/vs-guide.
You can find a feature comparison chart at www.greymatter.com/
hc/VS2013ComparisonChart.
For details on third party add-ons, see www.greymatter.com/hc/
ThirdPartyProducts.
You can also call Grey Matter on 01364 654100 or email maildesk@
greymatter.com if you would like to discuss your options further.

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

13

Design & Media

HTML5 for designers

HTML5 isnt just for developers. They need to collaborate with
designers to build the apps their users want. Simon Bisson looks at a
few tools that can make the job easier.

SIMON

BISSON

Simon is a
freelance IT writer
and technology
consultant who has
worked on large scale
Web architectures,
mobile Web projects
and XML solutions
for clients in both
the private and
public sector.
simonb@
hardcopymag.com

14

Building web applications has always

meant a collaboration between
developers and designers. With the advent of
the modern Web, that collaboration has
become even more important. Web 2.0 and
AJAX meant that dynamic content could
reshape page layouts on the fly, and JavaScript
libraries began to break down the walls
between design and code.
These days, as HTML5 and its associated
wave of standards become the basis of the
current generation of web applications, the
boundary between layout and code has
effectively vanished. Now all websites can be
applications, with REST APIs providing routes
into all manner of web services and
applications. Then theres the rise of responsive
design, with applications that need to work
across a wide range of screen sizes, from
smartphones to tablets to PCs and beyond.
Users expect well designed pages that dont
break as content loads; pages that animate,
engage and guide them through an
application.
It all means that designers and developers
need to work together more closely than ever,
especially as HTML5 begins to bridge the gap
between web and application. HTML5 and
JavaScript have become first class partners with
traditional code in the latest operating system
releases and with examples like the email
client in Windows 8.1, its clear that theyre
ready for prime time. A new generation of
design tools is helping bridge that gap, giving
development tools to designers and design
tools to developers.
As HTML5 continues to evolve, its clear
that it is becoming another component in the
development toolbox. Its not just Microsoft
using HTML5 in Windows Phone and its new
WinRT programming model; Google is betting
big on its Chrome browser, in-browser apps,
and its Chromebook browser-powered devices.

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

Web design in Visual Studio 2013

Microsoft has stopped developing new versions of its Expression design tools and instead
added more design features to Visual Studio 2013. While much of its tooling is focused on its
code editor, it does mean that both JavaScript and HTML5 are fully supported in the IntelliSense
code completion tools. Theres even support for modern libraries and frameworks, including
AngularJS, KnockoutJS and Handelbars. If you want to do more complex JavaScript work, then
Visual Studio 2013 handles CoffeeScript through its Web Essentials plugin a tool that contains
a lot of useful web design and development features that may well end up in future versions of
Visual Studio.
CSS developers get a lot more in Visual Studio 2013, including support for Bootstrap as
part of ASP.NET MVC. Theres also full IntelliSense support for CSS, even from external CSS files.
One thing to note: if you want a split view between designer and editor, youll need to open
pages in the HTML Web Forms Editor, not the default HTML Editor.
One of the more important features is Browser Link, which connects Visual Studio to other
browsers, including Firefox and Chrome. Content youve edited in Visual Studio is displayed in
multiple browsers simultaneously, letting you see how your page appears in each. Make a
change, click refresh and youll see it in all connected browsers. While its intended for ASP.NET
web applications, you can add a handler in a sites web.config for static pages. Browser Link is
based on Microsofts SignalR protocol which uses web sockets to handle two-way
communication to a browser.
For those using HTML5 to build Windows Store apps, Microsoft has tweaked the bundled
version of its Blend design tool in Visual Studio 2013. Its now easier to work with CSS3
animations, and to manage the CSS in your application designs. Theres also support for
design-time data so you can format and test out data-binding elements without connecting to
live data sources.
Microsoft has done a lot to make Visual Studio 2013 a tool for both designers and
developers, though it does inevitably focus on the code side of design. Its not an HTML-specific
tool like Dreamweaver, but it is a powerful HTML editor, especially if youre planning to work
with a selection of JavaScript libraries. As HTML5 becomes an increasingly important tool for
Windows development, Visual Studios HTML5 support and tooling is only going to get better.
Meanwhile Firefox has launched its own
HTML5-focused operating system, and a range
of smartphones. Even Intel is driving HTML5
development, with a free cross platform
development tool and support for key open
source libraries and tools.
The rise of HTML5 means that developers
need to work with designers, and both need
tools that can be folded into existing workflows.
That used to be hard there were design tools
and there were development tools, and never

the twain shall meet. But thats all changing,

and now designers and developers can
collaborate easily, often using the same tools.
Theres another reason to use HTML5: it
makes it easier to build cross-platform mobile
applications. Responsive design makes it easy
to write code that can run on all classes of
device, and you can then wrap it in a run time
that gives access to device capabilities as well
as access to stores. BlackBerrys WebWorks
builds on that approach, and Microsoft provides

Design & Media

learned with Flash. The code that Edge Animate
generates is ready to drop into a page, and
includes the CSS used to design animation
elements. Theres also support for a range of
web fonts, giving you more design options than
the standard browser font sets.
Similarly, Edge Reflow is there to help you
design responsive web pages. Its built around
the open source WebKit browser engine, so
youre working live in a browser on pages that
can be viewed on your choice of screen sizes.
Reflow tools are built into Dreamweaver, but its
often better to use a standalone tool when
youre showing designs to colleagues, or
focusing on just how a specific page design will
perform on various devices. Responsive design
depends on CSS media queries, and Reflow will
let you set breakpoints to show just how
different screen sizes impact a design. The latest
Reflow beta adds support for form elements.
Pages from Reflow, and from other Adobe
tools, can be delivered to Edge Inspect for live
testing on devices. With the proliferation of
mobile devices, it can be hard to ensure that
your code and designs run on as many as
possible. Thats where Inspect comes in, as it
gives you the tools you need to display pages
on devices without having to fully deploy your
applications. Devices are paired with a
computer, and a Chrome extension is used to
keep them in sync with what youre currently
browsing. You can view the code thats been
rendered on a device from your host PC, and
make changes in real time. Theres even support
for devices like the Kindle Fire, which arent
handled well by other development tools. Edge
lets you take screenshots from all connected
devices so that you can show the current state
of a design to the rest of a team, or to clients.
Adobes HTML5 tools will also work with its
PhoneGap mobile application development
service, which takes HTML5 and JavaScript code
and wraps it to run on mobile devices, ready for
distribution through app stores. These new
hybrid applications are increasingly important,
mixing a native runtime and APIs with HTML

Building a mobile app with the Intel XDK.

a web rendering surface as part of its Windows
Phone APIs. Theres even support for web views
in Apples iOS, though access to the companys
latest JavaScript engine is restricted.

The Creative Cloud

The first place to stop for HTML5 design tooling
is Adobes Creative Cloud. Switching from its
traditional boxed software development model
to a subscription service has allowed Adobe to
change its delivery cadence, making the
company much more responsive to changes in
designer and developer needs, and able to
deliver new features and tooling at a much
faster rate. The company has also become much
more involved in the standards process,
delivering new features for the popular WebKit
browser engine the same engine that is built
into many of its web design tools. That means
Adobe is able to support new HTML5, CSS and
JavaScript features faster than its competitors,
giving designers the tools they need to add
advanced features to their layouts.
Dreamweaver remains the top of the heap
for HTML5 design tools, with its mix of visual
design and layout and deep code development.
Its a powerful tool, and one that deservedly
remains the go-to for most developers working
with the Web. The latest Creative Cloud release
includes tools for working with CSS 3.0, and for
highlighting code in Live View (itself a WebKit
rendering surface, for real world browser
support without leaving the editor). With
responsive web design in mind, theres also a
Fluid Grid Layout that simplifies working with
different screen sizes; so you can reflow page
content (and selectively hide pager elements)
depending on screen sizes.
If youve used Dreamweaver in the past,
then Dreamweaver CC isnt that far removed
from its predecessors. The code editing tools
have been improved, and its easier to build your
own custom editing layouts with the ability to
sync settings between copies of Dreamweaver
via the Creative Cloud service. However Adobe

has concentrated on making Dreamweaver a

tool for working with HTML5. Theres support for
many key technologies, including CSS
transitions and HTML audio and video as well
as integration with the popular JQuery
framework thats used to simplify the delivery of
many modern web design features.
Dreamweaver isnt Adobes only HTML5
development tool; its been joined by the Edge
suite of tools. Written in HTML5 and delivered as
part of the Creative Cloud subscription service,
the Edge applications focus on specific web
design use cases and if you have a Creative
Cloud subscription you get to use them
alongside the more familiar Dreamweaver and
Photoshop. Unlike more traditionally delivered
design tools, Adobe is continuously updating its
tools, and new features are added regularly.
Some of the Edge tools, like Reflow, are still in
beta. Youll also find HTML support in Adobes
video editing tools and in its InDesign
publishing package.
Edge Animate is perhaps the best known
of the Edge tools, as it brings Flash-like
development to HTML5 animations. With a
familiar look-and-feel, you can create and
animate page elements using a time line to
draw paths and handle transitions and
transformations. Designers dont need to learn
new skills to add animation to a web application
as they can use the same techniques they

Sample code shows Telerik KendoUI in action.

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

15

Design & Media

developed an HTML5 design tool to help build
responsive mobile applications.
Sencha Architect is a full featured design
tool that makes it easy to layout designs, and
prototype with live data, as well as re-skinning
designs on the fly using cutomisable templates.
If you want to work with code, thats there too,
in the shape of one of the best HTML code
editors around. Its also extensible, and theres a
marketplace where you can share your
extensions with other users.

Microsoft support

Selecting a project type in Sencha Architect.

applications. Its not just Adobe thats investing
in this approach Salesforce is using similar

libraries that extend JQuery and can be used

with your choice of editing and design

tools for its mobile application framework, and

Intel is investing in hybrid application runtimes
as part of its HTML5 developer programme.

environments to add HTML5-powered features

to an application. While the base Web version of
Kendo UI is free for anyone to use, the full suite
(and the specific mobile and data visualisation
tools) need to be licensed before you use them.
Where Kendo comes in most useful is
when youre trying to do things that come as
second nature in a desktop application
development environment, like displaying data,
or using drag and drop, or autocomplete. To use
Kendo UI youll need to include references to a
Kendo library in your page, and then call the
appropriate widget. Its an approach that needs
familiarity with JQuery though, as Kendo
widgets are called through JQuery.

Intel XDK
Intels HTML5 development toolkit XDK is a
cross-platform bundle that works with many
common JavaScript and CSS frameworks,
including Bootstrap and JQuery, built using
open web tools. The heart of the toolkit is the
Brackets code editor, along with a UI designer in
App Designer and App Starter. The App Starter
is intended for prototype development, and to
try out new designs and layouts.
Apps built using Intels XDK can be
converted into mobile apps through Apaches
Cordova service, which is also the basis of the
PhoneGap tools used by Adobe. Intel uses the
Ripple device emulator developed by
BlackBerry, so you can test mobile designs
without having to build and deploy them to
devices and without leaving your browser.

Sencha Architect
Senchas touch tools are a familiar piece of the
mobile HTML5 environment, and the
companys technologies are widely used across
most mobile platforms. Theyre not Senchas
only product, though. The company has also

Its not just the traditional design and

development tools that are adding HTML5
support. More informal tooling, like Microsofts
Visual Studio LightSwitch include some HTML5
features. Here designers and developers can
collaborate on form layouts, to ensure the best
possible user experience, even for informal
team-level applications.
Microsoft is taking that model still further
in the currently experimental Windows 8.1
development tool, known as Project Siena,
which generates HTML5 Windows apps that
can be connected to any web service or to
internal business systems. While Project Siena
currently doesnt offer the ability to edit its
generated code in other design tools, its an
obvious feature to be added in future versions.
In the HTML5 world its becoming harder
to see a difference between the roles of
designers and developer. If your job is to write
code, you need to layout pages to display your
content. If you design pages, you need to write
code to add the features you want. Thats an
important evolution, and one that makes
finding good tooling increasingly important.
With plenty of HTML5 tools now available, its
becoming easier and easier to find design tools
that work in your workflow, and that finally
bridge the divide between designer and
developer. All you need to do is find the
one that works for you.

Telerik Kendo

Developers will be familiar with Teleriks work,

but designers will find its Kendo UI libraries
more useful. Unlike the other tools weve
looked at, Kendo UI isnt a development or
design package. Instead its a set of JavaScript

Find out more

The Intel XDK can be downloaded free of charge from http://

software.intel.com/en-us/html5/tools. Full details of the other
products mentioned are available on the Grey Matter Web site at
www.greymatter.com. To discuss your needs further, call Grey Matter
on 01364 654100 or email maildesk@greymatter.com.

16

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

Microsofts forthcoming Project Siena in action.

To find out more about Telerik call 01364 654100

Or visit www.greymatter/hc/telerik

Business

Time to migrate
Microsoft is no longer supporting Windows XP, Office 2003 or its
2003 servers. Mary Branscombe plans your escape route.

Windows XP was the first consumer

operating system to use the Windows
NT kernel. It fixed DLL Hell, by allowing side by
side multiple versions of libraries so each
application could get the version it needed. In
its day, it was an excellent OS. But that was 13
years ago. It was designed before 3G, Blu-ray
players or Facebook. It was also designed before
Trojans and malware and botnets became
endemic, and it cant cope with the security
threats your business now faces; in fact
Microsoft had to do major security reengineering in the first two service packs for XP
to cope with the viruses we faced a decade ago.
In 2013, according to Microsofts own Security
Intelligence Report, Windows XP systems were
six times more likely to be infected with
malware than Windows 8.
Official support for Windows XP (including
Internet Explorer 6) ends on 8 April 2014, along
with support for Office 2003, Exchange 2003,
SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Project Server
2003. Extended support for Live Communication
Server 2003 finished on 14 January 2014. The
embedded version of Windows XP gets support

for a little longer, into early 2016. Windows

Server 2003 reaches end of life on 14 July 2015.
That means there will be no patches or
fixes for any problems found in Windows XP,
Windows Server 2003 or the other products.
There wont be any new knowledge base
articles or other technical content. You wont be
able to phone up for support, even if you have a
standard support contract. More importantly
there will be no security updates, unless youre
paying for custom support directly from
Microsoft a support plan thats likely to cost at
least as much as buying new PCs or upgrading
your existing systems.
All software has vulnerabilities, and even
after 13 years, Microsoft is still finding security
flaws in Windows XP. After April, even security
flaws that are found and fixed in newer versions
of Windows will live on in XP, which will make it
a very soft target for malicious software. Hackers
may be able to use information about new
exploits that have been fixed in Windows 7 to
target the unpatched Windows XP, and its
already been suggested that some attackers
have exploits stockpiled to use after April.

Many new programs dont run on Windows

XP already, and no new versions of Microsoft
software will be available for XP. The same is
true on the hardware side; there will be no new
drivers for any Microsoft devices for XP, and if a
device maker creates a new driver it wont be
distributed through Windows Update. Its also
unlikely that new hardware from other
manufacturers will come with XP drivers either.
But again its security software that will be the
hardest hit by the end of support.
Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows
XP will no longer be available for download
after the end of support in April. However if you
already have System Center Endpoint
Protection, Forefront Client Security, Forefront
Endpoint Protection, Windows Intune or
Microsoft Security Essentials, then you will be
able to get new virus definitions until July 14
2015, and some anti-virus companies will
continue to offer updated definitions until April
2016 or longer (the AV-TEST website has a list).
But these products only protect you against
known viruses that exploit security
vulnerabilities in XP. You wont be getting
patches to deal with the underlying
vulnerability.
If youre in a regulated industry, covered by
standards such as HIPPAA or PCI DSS, its
unlikely that youll be in compliance if you
continue using Windows XP after April, because
the regulations state that your systems have to
be up to date with security patches. If no
patches are being issued, you cant be up to
date.

MARY

BRANSCOMBE
Mary is a freelance IT
writer whos worked
on both sides of the
fence, from writing
manuals to developing
a technology area for
a major online service.
Shes also the editor of
IT Expert magazine.
maryb@
hardcopymag.com

Planning your migration

Microsoft research shows that Windows XP systems encounter almost as many

viruses as more recent systems, but are much more likely to get infected.

If you dont already have a migration plan for

getting off Windows XP, now is the time to
make one. For a larger business, a full migration
can take at least six months, so youll need to
prioritise your most important systems. Look at
locking down the machines you cant migrate.

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

19

Business
Turn off Java and Flash, or block email and web
browsing altogether, as this is how most attacks
happen. Turn off administrator access and stop
users making configuration changes; with no
official updates to apply, you can freeze the
system, apart from anti-malware updates.
But you can also make this an opportunity
to change the way you work. Instead of
upgrading from Office 2003, and moving your
servers from Windows Server 2003 to Windows
Server 2012, you might choose to subscribe to
Office 365 and get Exchange, SharePoint, Lync
and Yammer online, plus the desktop Office
2013 programs with SkyDrive Pro cloud storage
(shortly to be renamed OneDrive). If youre not
getting a new server to run Exchange, you
might migrate some or all of your workloads
onto Azure as well. Its also an opportunity to
introduce full-disk encryption; turning on
BitLocker encryption when you set up or
migrate.
Given that you have to address XP, take the
time to look at what you actually need your IT
to do, and whether switching some or all of
your activities to the cloud is a good fit for your
business.
The first step is to find out whether you
can upgrade your existing PCs or whether you
need to buy new hardware. You can use the
Windows Upgrade Assistant to check individual
PCs, but if you have a lot of systems you might
want to use an asset inventory tool, such as the
migration planning reports available in the
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit
(MAP), to find out which PCs are ready to
upgrade.
You also need to decide between Windows
7 and Windows 8. Migration tools cover both
and software compatibility is broadly similar,
but if youre planning to introduce tablets you
should pick Windows 8 for its better touch
support.
If you want to keep an elderly PC then you
may not be able to upgrade to a 64-bit version
of Windows 7 or 8. The 64-bit versions of
Windows offer better security because more
protection can be enforced at the hardware
level. Some older PCs will not run Windows 8 at
all, because they dont have specific CPU
security hardware that stops malicious code
being placed into memory for later execution.
You can still upgrade such PCs to Windows 7
though, and a 32-bit version of Windows 7 will
give you far better protection than Windows XP.
If you want to get users onto Windows 8
quickly, and youre planning to replace your PCs
but youre not ready to buy new hardware
immediately, you could also consider Windows
To Go. This allows you to run Windows 8 directly
from a USB 3 stick, including installing

20

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

Server app migrations

When it comes time to move off Server 2003, youll also need to migrate the applications that
youre running on your server. The most urgent of these will be Exchange Server 2003, SharePoint
Server 2003 and Project Server 2003, which go out of support at the same time as Office 2003 and
Windows XP.
You cant perform an in-place upgrade from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 or 2013, and
youre almost certainly going to want to install a new server to run Windows Server 2012 and a
new version of Exchange (unless youre moving to Office 365 instead). That means installing the
new server and the new version of Exchange, and then migrate your Exchange data. You can do
that with the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant, which is a free Web-based tool, or with
third-party tools like Dells Quest Migration Manager and Metalogix Email Migrator which will also
handle migrating to Office 365. The free MAP Toolkit will also scan your systems and generate
reports to help you plan a migration to Office 365.
Third-party tools can also handle migrations from earlier versions of Exchange, or even from
Outlook PST files, which saves you from having to do a more complex IMAP migration; and they
will help you check which users need new versions of Office client applications, and deploy them.
There are also tools to move from other mail systems, so Dells GroupWise Migrator will move you
from GroupWise to Exchange 2013 or Office 365. Dell also has Migrator tools to move from Notes
and Sametime to Exchange, SharePoint and Lync, including Office 365.
To migrate content from SharePoint Server 2003 to Office 365 or to a recent version of
SharePoint without doing the multiple upgrades required to get to SharePoint 2013 you need a
third-party tool like Dell Software Migration Manager for SharePoint, Metalogix Content Matrix for
SharePoint or MetaVis Migration Suite. This last can also migrate Project Server 2003 content,
Outlook PST files and public folders, or move files from Google Docs to the SkyDrive Pro cloud
storage that users get with Office 365.
You can also migrate manually from Project Server 2003 to Project Online, either by opening
and saving projects or using VBA scripts.
If you still have Live Communications Server 2003, you can move the users manually to Live
Communications Server 2005 using the admin snap-in, and then migrate to a newer version of
Lync. However it may be simpler to uninstall Live Communications Server and recreate the users.
Similarly, if youre moving to Office 365, you can import users from Active Directory rather than
migrating them.
When it comes to custom applications, Flexera AdminStudio Application Compatibility Pack
can also be used to check and fix installation packages and application code against Windows
Server 2012 R2.

applications , getting updates and connecting

to Active Directory.
Similarly, although a Windows Server 2003
Virtual Machine (VM) will run on Azure, as long
as you install Windows Core Management
Package to give you PowerShell 2, this is not a
supported guest OS and hasnt been tested. As
a result, Microsoft is unlikely to give you much
support if you run into problems.

Application compatibility
The next major issue after hardware support is
application compatibility. Use your inventory
and planning tools to compile a list of all the
applications in use and contact the vendors to
find out if your current version will run on
Windows 7 or 8, or if you need to budget to
upgrade the software or even replace it. If the
issue is Windows version checking, DLL or
registry redirection or user permission
requirements then you may be able to use the
compatibility settings in Windows 7 and 8 to

trick the application into thinking theyre

running on an older OS.
In many cases, application compatibility is
what has delayed migration off XP this long
along with the belief that if a PC is still
working its still fit to use, and the security
issues should put paid to that fallacy.
If its a particular piece of software thats
keeping you on Windows XP, you can look into
virtualising the program you need using
Windows XP Mode or MED-V for Windows 7, or
with third-party virtualisation tools like Virtual
Box or VMware. But bear in mind you will still
be more vulnerable than if you remove XP
completely, because the virtual copy of
Windows XP is still running and still needs
servicing.
A better solution is to virtualise the app
using tools like Citrix XenApp and AppDNA,
App-V application virtualization or Remote
Desktop Services, because then youre not
running XP on user desktops where it can get

Business
Key migration tools

Move to Office 365 and you can migrate your Active

Directory with tools from Dell Software.

compromised. This should work for nearly all

XP-specific applications, unless theyre
controlling a hardware peripheral that needs a
direct connection. For larger businesses with a
lot of applications, Dells ChangeBASE is an
automation tool that includes compatibility
testing for applications and websites and tools
to remediate, package and virtualise
applications
But any software thats so old it only runs
on Windows XP is unlikely to have all the
features youd get in a newer program, so you
may want to consider upgrading to a new
version or a different tool.
Again, use the migration as an opportunity
to evaluate what software is in use in your
business, and how much of it you want to keep.
Youll probably need to budget for training and
support as you move users to a new version of
Windows, so you can cover the move to any
new applications at the same time. If you dont
have time to run a pilot project, start making
training material available to users as soon as
possible and pick users to get extra training so
they can provide buddy support to their
colleagues. Remember, youre not just
migrating hardware and software; youre also
moving users to a new way of working.

There is no direct upgrade path from Windows

XP to either Windows 7 or 8 so, unless you have
a very small number of PCs, youll want to use
deployment tools to standardise and simplify
the process. The User State Migration Tool helps
ensure that a clean deployment from a
standardised image will gives users access to
their files but not their applications, so look
for a deployment tool that helps you create an
image with applications installed.
Use the Microsoft Application
Compatibility Toolkit (ACT), which is available
on its own or as part of the Windows
Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK), to
compile an inventory of the software running
on user machines which you can check for
compatibility with Windows 7 and 8, and to
check websites and web applications to see if
they work with Internet Explorer 10 and 11. You
can also see what applications other ACT users
have tested and reported on, which could save
you time on testing (helpful if youre starting so
late), as well as looking at the list of consumer
and big-name applications on the Compatibility
Center for Windows 8.
The ADK includes a full set of preparation
and deployment tools, including the Windows
Performance Toolkit and the Windows
Assessment Toolkit which let you test how your
applications will perform on the new operating
system; the User State Migration Tool for
migrating user settings, as an alternative to the
Windows Easy Transfer utility in Windows 8;
DISM and other deployment tools for actually
putting the new Windows images on the PCs
that youre upgrading; and the Volume
Activation Management Tool for handling
Windows licences.

If you have a more complex setup, and

more than a couple of hundred PCs to deal
with, the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit will be
more suitable. A set of wizards walk you
through importing installation files for
Windows or Windows Server from a DVD or
ISO, preloading volume activation keys,
installing applications, preloading drivers and
then creating a boot image that you can put
on a share, burn to DVD, distribute on a
bootable USB stick or deliver via System Center
Configuration Manager (SCCM). If the
machines you are using to run Windows XP are
as old as XP itself then they will probably not
be able to boot from USB, so youll need to use
a deployment tool or take DVDs from PC to PC.
If you have more recent PCs that youve
downgraded to XP, then USB boot will be
available.
When it comes to custom applications,
Flexera AdminStudio Suite includes the
Application Compatibility Pack which can
perform thousands of automated tests to
evaluate the compatibility of both an
applications installation package and its code
with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1,
and with up-to-date versions of Internet
Explorer. It also claims to fix the vast majority
of installation package issues.
You can also manage Windows 7 and 8
deployment directly from System Center
Configuration Manager, but to deploy
Windows 8 fully you need SCCM 2012 SP1. This
also lets you manage group policy for
everything from blocking the Windows Store
to setting Windows 8.1 PCs to boot straight to
the desktop rather than to the full-screen Start
menu, which can help staff with the
transition to the new interface.

Find out more

The Compatibility Center for Windows 8 is at http://microsoft.com/

en-us/windows/compatibility/en-US/CompatCenter/.
The Exchange Server Deployment Assistant is a free Web-based tool
available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=171086.
Full details of other products mentioned can be found on the Grey
Matter website at www.greymatter.com. You can also call Grey
Matter on 01364 654100 or email maildesk@greymatter.com to
discuss your migration strategy.
Moving to Office 365 with MetaVis Manager for SharePoint.

22

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

grey matter
software know how

IT

Backup
in a modern world
Backup has become a lot more complicated now that
we have virtualisation and the Cloud. Kay Ewbank
checks out your options.

KAY

EWBANK
Kay is a database
consultant specialising
in EIS, financial
analysis and GIS
systems. While much
of her work is based
in London, being
a consultant gives
her the freedom to
sail, travel and help
out as a part-time
sheep farmer.
kaye@
hardcopymag.com

Backup used to be simple; you had a

tape backup system, a set of three
tapes in a safe, and another set down at the
bank for off-site safety. The situation is now
more complex with a wider choice of backup
hardware and increased use of cloud and
virtualisation technologies. You can no longer
just back up data files on your local server and
sit back, satisfied the job is done. These days
you need to think about whether and how to
back up virtual machines, and how your
cloud-based systems should be backed up.
The ever-increasing amount of data makes
the task more difficult, particularly for smaller
companies who cant justify the cost of a full
backup system with its own servers and
hardware, allowing you to backup all the data
in full on a weekly basis, with daily incremental
backups. Smaller companies need backup
solutions that dont clog the network and stop
people working in normal business hours.
Furthermore, backup is one area where third
party software can still offer significant
advantages over that provided with the
operating system.

Virtual machines
Many companies have added virtual servers to
their network configuration, and this increases
the complexity of backing up data. You need to
be clear what virtual machines are present and
which contain data that needs to be backed up.
Backup solutions need to be aware of virtual
machines that arent mounted at the time the
backup is happening, and which data devices
are associated with those machines.

Snapshot backup
Many companies use snapshots to back up
their machines, and their virtual machines in
particular. Taking a snapshot means you can

24

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

restore the machine to its previous working

state if something goes wrong. As the name
suggests, a snapshots is a copy of the contents
of a system disk at a specific date and time, and
you can take multiple snapshots at different
times to provide different restore points. Most
versions of Windows, with the exception of
Windows 8, come with a utility known variously
as Shadow Copy, Volume Snapshot Service, or
Volume Shadow Copy Service which can be
used to take such snapshots.

Data in the cloud

Just because your data is cloud based doesnt
mean you can forget about backup. Its true
that many cloud providers also offer backup,
but would your data be protected if your cloud
providers data centre burnt down, or if the
provider went into liquidation? If your company
relies on being able to access that data, then
you shouldnt be relying on a single point of
access.
The need to back up data that is stored in
the cloud is one side of the picture; many
companies are attracted by the possibility of
using the cloud itself as a backup solution.
However this isnt as straightforward as it
seems. You need to be sure that the company
you choose will be around if and when you
want to restore the data, and this is increasingly
difficult to predict.
The real disadvantage of using the cloud is
the relatively slow connection speed. This is
annoying if youre backing up important data,
but even more frustrating if you actually need
to download the data. Some cloud backup
companies have resorted to copying a
customers data onto disks and sending them
out via courier. This is probably better than
waiting days while you download terabytes of
company data, but it isnt really cloud

computing as you imagined it.

If youre attracted to the idea of using the
cloud for backup, you need to work out
whether you could wait while its recovered;
cloud is fine for less time-important files, but if
you need really speedy recovery for priority
data, you need a different solution.

Windows Backup
Microsoft Windows Server includes Windows
Server Backup which is a combination of a
Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in,
some command-line tools, and Windows
PowerShell scripts that together let you back up
the server, its drives, or a selection of folders. Its
a very basic solution. A better option, although
still limited, comes in the form of Windows
Server Essentials which includes a backup
facility. This gives you a wizard-based system
that can make use of cloud-based backup
services, specifically Windows Azure Backup.
The system will back up data from connected
PCs that are connected to the network on a
daily basis, and can be used to restore
individual files and folders, or entire PCs. The
software has built-in compression, throttling
and encryption prior to the data being
transmitted to the cloud.
On the desktop, Windows 8 comes with a
different backup system to earlier versions. File
History does a backup every hour of documents
stored in the Libraries, Desktop, Favourites and
Contacts folders. You can specify which external
storage device to use for the backup, and
change the default time period between
backups. You can turn it off, and there is a group
policy setting if you dont want your end users
copying files in a fashion that is not under your
direct control. File History is a useful option for
many users, but it cant be used for full system
backups. It is also limited to backing up data to

IT
Choosing a solution
Product

Virtualisation support

Cloud support

Strong points

Target users

CA ARCserve
Backup

Works with
VMware, Hyper-V
and Citrix
XenServer

Can use cloud services as

part of a disk-to-disk-cloud
(D2D2C) backup policy

Agentless, host-based VM
backup. ARCserve includes a
software license management
utility, centralised job
management and device
management

Midrange

Symantec Backup
Exex 2012

Supports Hyper-V
and VMware

Local, network and

cloud-based storage are
equally treated in terms of
destinations for backups

Simple central management

console, identical treatment of
real and virtual machines

SMEs

Dell NetVault
Backup

VMware, Citrix
XEN and Hyper-V

None

Strong cross-platform support,

excellent range of supported
devices such as tape libraries

Enterprise

Veeam Backup &

Replication

Hyper-V and
VMware

Cloud edition supports

15 public storage clouds
and open cloud storage
platforms

Ensure backups work by

opening and running them in a
virtual environment

Organisations
with
virtualised
systems

Dell Vranger Pro

VMware ESX and

ESXi

None

Flexible licensing system. No

need for intermediate server

Organisations
running
VMware

physical devices; you cant copy to the cloud, or

even to Microsofts own SkyDrive service.
Windows desktops prior to Windows 8
come with Windows Backup and Restore, which
lets you back up folders, libraries, and drives to
another drive, a DVD or a storage device
connected to the local network. Its a long way
from perfect, which might explain why so few
people use it. For a start, if you want to restore
an image, the hardware needs to be identical.
Equally off-putting is the performance,
particularly on Windows 7. Backing up data,
particularly for the first time, can take many
hours or even several days. Whats worse is that
if the machine is turned off part way through,

the process starts again from the beginning.

Things do improve once youve created the
initial backup, but are still slow.

Symantec Backup Exec 2012

The latest in a long line of products from
Symantec is Backup Exec 2012. This latest
release has been radically redesigned, but not
everyone approves of the changes. The
interface has been streamlined with a new
management console that is intended to be
easier to use, but some of the more advanced
features of earlier releases are no longer
available. To run the software well you will need
a powerful machine, and it still wont be fast.

In this latest release you no longer think in

terms of specific backups to be run. Instead you
create a backup strategy that is applied to
systems as you select them. You can treat
physical and virtual servers almost
interchangeably, and local, network and
cloud-based storage are treated equally as
destinations for backups. One nice option is the
ability to create a backup that will be converted
into a virtual machine for either Hyper-V or
VMware. You can keep using your network and
servers while backing up devices, and there is
support for load balancing and bandwidth
throttling.

CA ARCserve Backup

Setting up storage in Symantec Backup Exec 2012.

CAs ARCserve Backup is popular with its users,

with strong support for cloud storage and
virtual environments. You can back up to tape,
disk and the cloud, and make use of space
saving deduplication to minimise the amount
of storage and time taken by each backup. It is
available in many configurations, from the
top-end editions which allow you to back up
physical and virtual file servers, email servers,
database servers and application servers; to
more selective options targeted at specific
operating systems, file servers or application
servers.
Virtual support lets you back up at both
VM and host-level if youre using VMware, and
VM-level backups if youre using Microsoft
Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer. ARCserve also

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

25

IT

The CA ARCserve Backup main window.

offers remote virtual standby so you can make
an image-based backup, even offsite, and
convert it to a bootable VM. Another useful
option is the ability to create disk images of
servers and desktop machines that can be used
to restore to bare-metal hardware.
ARCserve also lets you create synthetic
backups, so you can copy only the changes to a
server, then have ARCserve combine all the
incremental changes to form a single full
backup, perhaps on a weekly schedule. You can
back up to disk and have the backup
automatically copied to the cloud for remote
off-site backup, with support for a number of
public clouds including Microsoft Azure and
Amazon Web Services EC2.
ARCserve has good support for data
deduplication included in the standard licence,
with deduplication integrated into the software
to minimise storage. If youre storing the same
files week after week with only small changes,
then deduplication could save significant space.

Dell NetVault Backup

This began life as Quest NetVault Backup,

before Quest became part of Dell. NetVault
Backup is aimed at the enterprise market and
has strong cross-platform support, together
with native support for more backup devices
(such as tape libraries) than rival products.
There are also relatively easy options for adding
capacity as you get more data.
If you need to back up tens of terabytes of
data every week, then NetVault Backup is a
good option; for smaller companies it would
probably be overkill. NetVault is being

increasingly promoted for use

with Dell hardware systems
such as disk backup
appliances. When used in this
configuration, NetVault users
can deduplicate data directly
at the source of the backup to
reduce backup traffic over the
network. It also has a LAN-free
option whereby you avoid
network traffic by using local
or SAN-attached storage
devices.
Network Attached
Storage (NAS) devices running
NDMP are also supported.
NetVault also lets you create synthetic full
backups by taking an existing full backup and
combining it with subsequent incrementals.
NetVault Backup has good security options
for regulatory compliance. You can choose
which data should be encrypted for backup on
a job-by-job basis, and supported encryption
options include CAST-128, AES-256 and
CAST-256 encryption.

Veeam Backup & Replication

Veeams solution has the advantage of being
designed specifically for virtual machines, and
performs really well in this sector. As the name
suggests, Veeam was originally designed for
backing up VMware machines, though more
recent versions also support Microsoft Hyper-V.
Veeam lets you create backups directly
from shared storage, and also lets you take
incremental backups, which significantly
reduces the time taken. Once a full backup is
taken, subsequent incremental changes are
used to create synthetic backups. The software
also tests its backups to ensure they work by
opening them in a virtual environment and
creating a virtual machine based on the backup.
The virtual machine is then started and checked
for errors.

Find out more

Full details for all these products are available on the Grey Matter Web
site at www.greymatter.com. You can also call Grey Matter on 01364
654100 or email maildesk@greymatter.com if you would like to
discuss your needs further.
Adding a server in Veeam Backup & Replication.

26

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

Another feature liked by users of Veeam is

its ability to run a virtual machine directly from
a backup file. If you need to recover a virtual
machine, Veeam starts it from the backup so
users can begin using the machine and the
applications installed on it straight away. You
can then transfer the virtual machine, while it is
running, to your local SAN or NAS, without
interrupting its users.

Dell VRanger Pro

VRanger Pro was developed specifically for
backing up virtual machines, a task that it
accomplishes very well. It doesnt support
Hyper-V, concentrating on VMware ESX and
ESXi. Theres a standard version that you can
use to take backups of a virtual machine, but
the Pro version also provides support for
VMware replication for more advanced
recovery options. VRanger Pro supports
incremental backups, and backups can be
taken without interrupting the virtual
machines. You can also minimise the time taken
to back up multiple systems by using multiple
ESX hosts.
Although the software is VMware specific,
you can still back up and recover Windows
physical servers and files. As with backing up
virtual machines, vRanger sends data direct
from the original servers to the backup target
when backing up physical servers, so avoiding
the need for a media server. If you are backing
up virtual machines, this is achieved by having
a virtual appliance on the machine that is being
backed up. If youre backing up a physical
server, a local agent is installed to perform the
same process.
If you need to restore data using vRanger
Pro, you can browse a catalogue of available
backups to find the information youre looking
for, then restore the data using a Storage Area
Network Fibre Channel instead of having to
load your normal network with the extra
traffic.

UNITE
VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL
Save up to 65% off the RRP with the vOne promotion*

Symantec Backup Exec 2012 includes advanced new

capabilities, covering virtual and physical environments.

You only need to buy one solution to protect your

entire environment:

Take the complexity out of backup with Grey Matter

and Symantec.

A single solution for VMware, Hyper-V and physical servers

True single file recovery, dedupe and policy management
New V-Ray technology for unmatched visibility
Automatically protect new or moved machines

Learn more at www.greymatter.com/hc/SymantecUnite

*Until 31 May 2014, you can save up to 65% off the RRP of Backup Exec 2012 V-Ray Edition and receive a discounted Backup Exec Agent for Applications
and Databases licence (vOne bundle). If you have a primarily virtual environment, you can save up to 65% off the RRP of Backup Exec V-Ray Edition.

Confidence in a connected world.

Opinion

Inside Data

Sooner or later you are going to have to migrate

your database to a more up-to-date platform.
Graham Keitch examines your options.

Database migration projects can be a

serious challenge. The processes
involved can be complex and can threaten
business continuity should they go wrong.
Maintaining the status quo can be risky too if
outdated systems no longer meet the demands
of the business, or the software is no longer

resources to assist with this. They can provide

tools to help you migrate to their platform, but
you will most likely need third party products
for cross-platform flexibility, and to address
some of the deeper issues such as unravelling
the schema and code. Lets take a look at some
of the tools vendors provide with their database,
and some third party
tools that go deeper.
Both Oracle Database
and Oracle MySQL
ship with tools that
allow you to import a
third party database.
Oracle SQL Developer
is free and supports
the migration of
legacy Oracle and
non-Oracle database
technologies to
Oracle Database.
Resources include
Emarcadero DBArtisan XE4 Migration Wizard in action.
documents that will
supported. While these concerns apply across
help you estimate timeframes, risks, roles and
the entire software spectrum, they are most
responsibilities.
acute at the data layer. Changes to the database
Those wishing to upgrade from earlier
or anything it interacts with, such as
editions of Oracle Database can use the Oracle
applications or platform, can disrupt the system
Database Upgrade Assistance (DBUA).
with potentially devastating consequences. In
Alternatively there are plenty of documents
the case of migrations, the database, its schema,
available to guide you through the manual
code and the actual data itself will most likely
command line upgrades which will be necessary
have to be worked on, and this can be a risky
if youre migrating to a different hardware or
undertaking. As we will see later, there are tools
operating system platform. For safety, upgrades
to assist with this.
and patches are now installed into a new Oracle
It isnt surprising that many database
Home which ensures the current production
applications are quite dated. For a lot of users
environment isnt tampered with.
this is fine. Why tamper with things if everything
Oracle MySQL also has migration tools,
is working as it should and adequately serving
some aimed at Microsoft users. Microsoft Access
the business? Database systems are often
is used by many third party ISV and OEM
subject to creep when the original purpose and
products. For those requiring multi-platform
specification have been extended over time. The
support and greater scalability, MySQL
full workings of a database thats been in service
Embedded Server is an ideal Open Source
for a long time can become obscure. Its
alternative. MySQL Workbench 6.0 has a Wizard
interaction with applications, and hence the
to handle migrations from Microsoft SQL Server,
impact of any changes, may be very difficult to
Sybase ASE, Sybase SQL Anywhere and others,
assess unless the documentation is thorough.
including earlier editions of MySQL. The Wizard
Leading database vendors such as Oracle,
includes facilities to select and map data and
Microsoft, Sybase and others have tools and
objects for migration.

Microsofts free SQL Server Migration

Assistant (SSMA) is a graphical tool that
provides project assessment and automates
schema and SQL statement conversion, data
migration and testing. The SSMA for Oracle
handles Oracle 7.3 or later migration to all
versions of SQL Server from 2005 to 2012. There
are also versions of SSMA for Oracle MySQL,
Sybase and for Microsofts own Access.
Migration to the high end Sybase Adaptive
Server Enterprise is likely to involve high
performance OLTP systems, a task that is more
complex and could require expert involvement.
Nevertheless, SAP does provide technical
documentation and guidance on its website.
A number of third party products are
available that can help with different aspects of
the project. A good example is Embarcaderos
ER/Studio XE4 which contains design tools for
probing an existing database to model its
physical and logical structure. Embarcaderos
DB PowerStudio contains tools such as
DBArtisan which can be used for migration
projects and ongoing database management.
The Red Gate portfolio likewise addresses
the needs of Oracle Database, MySQL, Microsoft
SQL Server and Azure users. Their Schema
Compare and Data Compare products are
useful for both upgrade and migration. SQL
Compare creates a migration script so you can
update a database in the staging or production
environment with changes from a later build.
Dell Softwares SharePlex can be helpful for
testing purposes. This is a replication tool for
Oracle and other databases which provides a
near real-time copy of production data
without impacting on the live system.

Find out more

Graham Keitch is the database pre-sales specialist at
Grey Matter and has worked in IT for over 20 years.
For further information and advice about database
licensing, call him or one of his colleagues on 01364
654100, or email him at grahamk@greymatter.com.

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

29

Opinion

Straight talking
Tim Anderson investigates the Internet of Things; and
why Microsoft should share, share, share.

Among the buzzwords (or phrases) of

the moment is the Internet of Things
(IoT). Like many buzzwords, IoT is hard to define
and has different shades of meaning depending
on who you talk to. I was at CES in Las Vegas,
source of all that is new, cool and excessive in
consumer technology, and connected things
ran from Parrots MiniDrone to Kolibrees
Connected Toothbrush to the inevitable
Internet fridge from Samsung. Such was the
excitement around wearable technology that
Sony, at its press conference, held up a small
piece of white plastic, told us that it was the
core gadget behind Sony SmartWear wearable
entertainment, but nothing more, and
considered it news. A section of the exhibition
called iHealth featured gadgets that monitor
your heart, temperature, blood pressure,
exercise regime and more, feeding possibly too
much information back to cloud-based services.
Samsungs Smart Home concept promises
to connect all your home appliances, not only
the refrigerator but also lighting, air
conditioning, washing machine, TV, cameras,
and of course the robot vacuum cleaner, using
its Smart Home Protocol, managed by a
cloud-based server, and controlled using a
smartphone or tablet.
IoT is not just about the kind of gadgets on
show at CES. Consultants RedMonk put on an
IoT conference in London a month before CES,
called ThingMonk, and I noted down this
comment from Moten Bagai, Director of
Business Development at Heroku:
We get to talk to the largest companies in
the world, the CEOs that are viewing the
Internet of Things as a massively
transformational force in terms of how they run
their business and how they connect to their
customers. We are on the precipice of a major
new wave in application development that is
going to change what we understand when we
talk about an application. Within the next two
to three years, when we talk about an app of

30

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

any reasonable complexity its going to have a

device perspective.
Hyperbole? Probably, especially as Bagai
also admitted that Were not seeing a lot of
demand yet, attributing that fact to IoT being
an emergent area.
Still, the fact that something is hyped
excessively does not make it insignificant. The
IoT buzzphrase embraces a number of areas:

Embedded computing. In one sense there

is nothing new in that. Back in 1991, Java was

a project called Oak and intended to run on
small consumer devices and smart remote
controls. On the other hand, lower cost
combined with ubiquitous connectivity
means that the importance of embedded
computing continues to grow.
Connected devices. It is easier than ever to

Is Microsoft learning to communicate again?

Remember the controversy surrounding the user interface changes in Visual Studio 2012?
When the preview appeared, featuring near-monochrome icons that were hard to distinguish
one from another, there was an outcry. Microsoft rushed to fix it before the release, making
considerable improvements, and further tweaked it with the Blue theme that came out with
Update 2 in May 2013.
In December 2013, Microsoft Project Manager Brian Harry made some frank comments
about the incident in comments to an MSDN blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/
archive/2013/12/09/visual-studio-2013-1-rc-is-available.aspx#10483229):
The implementation of the new UI in 2012 was a mess. When I first saw it I didnt like it,
and the internal feedback was consistent there was a bit of a cone of secrecy around the
new UI because we didnt want it leaking. Even I didnt get to see it until months into it. I
think the biggest learning was - Dont kid yourself into thinking you can do a ripple effect
feature like that on the cheap. Another learning is secrecy is bad - it lets problems fester
until they become crises. Share, share, share. The feedback is critical to course correction.
Now put this together with comments from former Microsoft employee Hal Berenson,
writing on the question of whether Windows 8 is the new Vista. He identifies the key problem
in the development process:
The secrecy. The unwillingness to bounce things off customers early enough to make
changes. A worship of schedule and process above wisdom and expertise, even if the result is
the wrong thing shipped on the promised timeline.
Adding in the comments:
I hear incredible stories of the Windows team leadership just refusing to pay any attention
to input from other parts of the company.
If Windows 8 had won immediate market acceptance and made significant inroads into
the tablet market dominated by iOS and Android, all would be forgiven. The fact is, Windows 8
has proved a hard sell, despite solid improvements in performance and a decent tablet UI.
Windows 8.1 softened the changes somewhat, with boot to desktop and the reappearance of
the Start button, suggesting that a softer initial approach, with more concession to what had
gone before - maybe the ability to use Silverlight in the tablet personality, for example - would
have helped adoption.
Harrys remarks are encouraging though, because he felt able to share them, and because
they may show a change in mood as Microsoft figures out what comes next for the Windows
client. Microsoft has been burned before by sharing too much too early (three pillars of
Longhorn anyone?), but for the last few years it has gone too far in the opposite direction. It
may work for Apple, but for Microsoft with its partner-based ecosystem a little more sharing
would be a good thing.

Opinion

make a device connected. Low energy

Bluetooth, for example, means a device can
talk to a network with low power and little
expense.
Sensors. Many IoT examples boil down to a
sensor or sensors feeding data back to a
service. The value of that data is immense in
areas like personal health, weather, pollution
monitoring, temperature control, and many
more.
Tagging. IoT is not just about devices, but
also ideas like RFID tags, which make objects
machine readable without the manual steps
it takes to read a barcode.
Machine to Machine (M2M). Smart
communication between devices, or
between devices and services, that enable
automation, data collection, or other
applications.
Wearable computing. This is may be just a
special case of connected devices and
sensors, but also refers to efforts to get many
of the features of a SmartPhone, for example,
into a form that is more convenient for the
user. Google Glass is an obvious example, a
computer embedded into a spectacle-like
container. Smart watches are another
possible approach.

So what does IoT mean for developers? The

answer is partly about device-awareness: In
order to have a complete developer experience,
we have to have a perspective that includes
devices, how we receive their data, how we
control them, how we deploy software to them,
said Bagai, talking about Herokus perspective.
Heroku is a cloud application platform which
supports a number of languages including
Ruby, Node.js, Python and Java.
Bagais remarks apply more generally too. It
pays for developers to have a device
perspective on any application they build, even
if it is for future use. That might just mean
support for smartphones and tablets, but it
might also mean thinking outside the box. What
sort of data might make this application smarter
and more useful? An example would be the
addition of real-time traffic data to mapping
and navigation apps, which greatly improves
their usefulness.
Unfortunately there is a substantial
roadblock to IoT development, and that is
standards, or their lack, or their multiplicity. Like
Samsung with its Smart Home Protocol (SHP),
vendors like to do their own thing. At least
Samsung is talking about opening up SHP to
third-parties, which is not always the case.

Kolibrees Connected Toothbrush on show at CES.

Want to investigate IoT? While there may
be a shortage of settled standards, there is a lot
of fun to be had trying out development on
commodity-priced boards like Raspberry Pi or
Intels Arduino. On the software side there is
Node-RED which integrates with both Pi and
Arduino, and is built on Node.js to create a
visual tool for wiring the Internet of Things.
There is no better way to get a device
perspective than to start prototyping
with some actual hardware.

Grey Matter 01364 654100 HardCopy

31

Opinion

and another
thing
Jon Honeyball ponders Microsofts low profile
at CES, and the wonders of the Raspberry Pi.

You know that annoying feeling you

get when you go to the supermarket to
get your favourite item, only to find it has been
discontinued? Or rebranded? Its like a small
part of you has been taken away, and someone
decided this was a good thing. Now scale that
thought up, and imagine a significant section of
your local supermarket has gone. Or even that
the place has closed completely. The hole in
your life is very significant indeed.
It felt like that visiting CES, the Consumer
Electronics Show, this year held, as always, in
Las Vegas in early January. It wasnt just that
Microsoft wasnt there no stand, no keynote
from Ballmer. Its that Microsofts influence
wasnt there either. A dearth of devices with
Windows 8, a small number of tablets running
Redmonds finest it was as if the ship had
sailed and no-one bothered to get on board.
As you would expect, the large
manufacturers like Samsung and so forth had
Windows products. But the scale and influence
was not there. It was as if we had forgotten to
ask them to the party, and then only noticed
half way through that they hadnt come.
Of course, this is an overly pessimistic look
at a company through the wholly artificial lens
of a huge trade show aimed at the consumer.
But where was the big Xbox One presence? The
Surface devices? Windows phones?
This is fascinating stuff. If you look at the
latest revenue figures from Microsoft, they are
still doing very well thank you. It will be a long
time indeed before Microsofts bankers get a
little nervous with the companys cash holdings
or its overall business. But there was a distinct
feeling in the air, both at CES and in the latest
figures, that the tide had turned. That Microsoft
had less relevance to the consumer anymore,
and that it was turning into a company that we

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Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

remembered, sometimes fondly, often not.

Now dont misunderstand me. There was a
huge amount of Microsoft stuff going on at
CES. All sorts of briefings and things happening
away from the show floor. Thats where the real
interest happens at CES, not out amongst the
row upon row of third party iPad cover
manufacturers, each desperately trying to
differentiate themselves from their next door
neighbour.
But still, talking to friends and colleagues
who were there, and to any number of
attendees, there was the feeling that Autumn
had come. That the excellent work being done
in the Cloud was Microsofts future, that there
would probably be no real need for an Xbox
Two in six years time. That there was no real
hope of Microsoft breaking into either the
tablet market with Windows 8.x or the phone
market with Nokia.
At this point, the Microsoft PR wonks are

doubtless foaming at the mouth, spitting bile at

the mere thought that they might have left it all
too late, and that catch-up is now impossible.
Of course, in true Microsoft fashion, we are
being leaked details of Windows 9, or is it 8.1
Update 1, or some other naming nonsense.
Apparently, this will be much better, this is the
one we will really like and want to have. That
the ingestion of some tens of thousands of staff
into Microsoft from Nokia will go well. A senior
Microsoft phone executive who I happened to
sit next to at breakfast, maintained that this
would all be just fine, and that it would work
out great in the end. I asked what the ratio of
Microsoft to Nokia employees would be fired
given the obvious overlap in many, but not all,
areas. He nearly choked on his smoked salmon
bagel, and then made his excuses to leave.
Microsoft might argue that Google didnt
have a presence either, nor did Amazon, both
huge cloud technology providers. That is

Raw Mac power

My new Mac Pro has arrived. Its a tiny thing, especially alongside the old Tower of Power
version. Mine is a fairly well-stuffed specification 8 CPU cores, 64GB of ram, 1TB of PCIE solid
state storage which can delivered a sustained 1Gbyte read/write speed per second. 6
Thunderbolt 2 interconnects running at 20Gbit/sec. Two GPUs each with 6GB of RAM. Enough
video horsepower to run three 4K monitors at the same time.
It is an amazing achievement. When I look back at devices like the Silicon Graphics
workstations of years gone by, and see just how much faster the Mac Pro is, it really puts things
into perspective. This is supercomputer performance from only a few years ago.
But as with all extremely high performance devices, it comes down to the synergy of
hardware, OS and software. With Apples latest Final Cut Pro X, optimised for the Mac Pros
GPUs, I can edit 5k native video from the Red camera without a stutter. I can overlay multiple 5K
video streams, do rotations effects and distortions, and the CPU meter doesnt even twitch.
Compare and contrast to the same workload on a recent fully stuffed iMac, which stutters,
wheezes and emits smoke from its vents when asked to do the same task, and it is clear that
tuning is everything when you are the highest peak of the high end. Is this a product for
everyone? Absolutely not if your tasks are a normal mix of Web, documents and so forth, then
the MacPro is a very shiny indulgence. But give it some serious workload on properly optimised
applications, and it will bend reality on your desktop. I cant wait to hook up some 4K monitors
I saw some stunning prototypes at CES on the Samsung and LG stands, and the prices even
promise to be moderately reasonable.

Opinion
indeed true, but then neither of them are trying
to sell high priced hardware with expensive OS
runtimes. Amazons new Nexus range is
extremely strong, and the prices for simunlocked hardware is breathtakingly low.
Amazon continues to steamroller ahead with
Kindle. Both seem oblivious to the Windows 8
threat, maybe because it really isnt there?
CES 2015 will be fascinating. Will the new
Microsoft CEO turn things around, or take the
safe if predictable route of spinning off Xbox,
retreating to the corporate services cloud, and
trying to get Office365 revenues from anyone
who will pay? And what shape will the laptop,
ultra book and Windows tablet market be in at
that point? I cant wait to find out.

Raspberry PI
Goodness me, what a lovely little thing the
Raspberry PI is. A board no bigger than a
playing card with enough computing power to
do real work. I bought a kit of bits, including a
case and camera, and hooked it up to my TV.
Within a few minutes, allowing for OS choice
and setup, I had a fully working graphical
desktop, a web browser and a bunch of useful
tools. Maybe the TV vendors should be thinking

of bolting PIs into their TVs to make them truly

Smart TVs rather than the somewhat pathetic
efforts of today?
But my lightbulb moment came when I
installed Wolfram Runtime and Mathematica
onto my PI. Suddenly things got serious. I had
seen the Mathematica PI items recently at the
Wolfram Conference, held next to their HQ in
Champaign, Illinois. I was blown away then, and
I am still blown away today. It is not super
computer quick, but thats the point it is fast
enough. And if you want significant CPU power,
then call into the Wolfram Cloud infrastructure
and do your number crunching there.
PI has really caught my imagination.
Looking back to the early days of computing at
schools, I started with CP/M and then the Apple
II, IBM XT and BBC Micro. My career took me
slightly sideways into instrumentation control
via IEEE488 bus controlling test equipment
driven by devices like the HP85 and HP9816.
But back then, things were fun. With the rise of
Windows, the focus of computer training
seemed to move to can you use Office? It
would be utterly delicious to see children
returning back to the core issues of computing
logical thinking, maths work and handling

The wondrous Raspberry Pi, and it costs less than a round at the pub.
hardware. At the trivial cost of a PI, this is
possible and should be encouraged.
If you havent looked at PI, get one now. Its
less than the cost of a decent round at the pub,
especially if you live in London. They have
already sold millions, and they deserve to sell
millions more.
Of course, this could have been a Microsoft
Research project, with a lightweight Windows 8
RT running on the ARM processor and the
development tools to match. And
wouldnt that have been interesting?

Grey Matter 01364 654 100 HardCopy

33

Opinion

Short cuts
Paul Stephens takes a sideways look at the world of IT.

Chinese walls

IBM Inadequate BYOD Management. This sector

iPhonekiller
Features
Why iPhonekiller
No Apps
Gallery
How To
Tech Specs
VMware isnt a company
automates the sensitive process of telling key
known for rash acquisitions, so when
personnel that the iPhone 4S theyve finally
we read that it was paying $1.54
managed to master isnt really up to the job of
Introducing
billion to buy into the cheap furniture
connecting to a virtualised SharePoint server in
market we were surprised to say the
order to insert live sales data into next years
The most powerful
least. This turned out to be a
projections presentation, and would be better
and open yet.
misapprehension, as wed confused
deployed playing the new album from the winner of
MDM, the sector in which VMwares
The Voice. Key Buy stocks include SizeMatters Inc,
newly-acquired AirWatch subsidiary
vendors of leading package SizeMatters 2013 R2
operates, with MDF (Medium Density
(Professional and Enterprise editions available),
Fibreboard) and MFI (retailer of
which looks a cert for a juicy 25 times earnings bid
MDF-based bargain bedroom suites).
from either Google or Intel by Q3.
Even so $1.54 billion is a lot of money,
especially when youre paying in hard
MDI Mobile Device Interruption. Based on
Design: Ronen Kadushin. Open Design c 2010
cash rather than stock, so we were
behavioural science nudge theory, MDI tackles the
keen to find out more.
Ronen Kadushins iPhonekiller is another opportunity in the IDM market.
problem of excess social media use during working
MDM, it turns out, stands for
hours without resorting to demotivating blocking
Mobile Device Management, and its the hottest sector since the last
techniques. Instead market leader BeadyEye Pro interrupts social app sessions with motivational
hottest sector (whose name escapes us) in the permanently-overheated
pop-up messages including Your friends already know about that dog soprano video how about
enterprise mobile market. It was born of the realisation that any mobile
rehearsing tomorrows equipment-leasing sales presentation instead? and Getting some work done
devices which have access to sensitive corporate data are also very
instead of wearing your fingers out on WhatsApp could mean you end up on the permanent staff
probably running unfeasibly cheap Chinese productivity software as well
with holidays and sick pay (requires zero-hours add-on pack). BeadyCorp is looking to IPO in Q4, so
as the NSAs favourite app, Angry Birds. MDM keeps the two separate,
make sure you short your favourite server manufacturer early to get liquid in time.
adding another layer to the infrastructure a typical mobile processor has to
munch its way through before getting to the important stuff (i.e. a really
IBS - (thats enough TLAs ed)
good level with glass bricks and those really big birds that flatten
everything in their path).
So this really is goodbye...
We have to admit that were not totally convinced by MDM on iOS
Last issue we got a bit emotional over the forthcoming
its hard to imagine what the machine would actually be allowed to do
departure of ultra-colourful Microsoft CEO Steve Mad
once not only Apple but a third party killjoy too had finished telling it what
Dog Ballmer, but took solace in the fact that he wouldnt
it couldnt, while on Android the device would be free to do stuff, but
actually be going until his replacement had been
wouldnt have any processor cycles left once MDM plus the irremovable
appointed. Well now its happened, and Steve really is on
bloatware installed by both Google and the hardware vendor had taken
his way.
their share. Still, those guys at VMware know their stuff, so there must be
His successor is Satya Nadella, former Executive VP
something in it. Perhaps this is where Windows RT is really going to come
of Microsofts Cloud and Enterprise group. Satyas a
into its own.
22-year Microsoft veteran, so he wont need Bill Gates to
Download iPhonekiller

iPhonekiller

Watch the
Guided Tour >

Pick of the Stocks

MDM stock is a tad expensive following the AirWatch acquisition, but there
are plenty of other mobile sectors just waiting for investors to get in on the
ground floor. Here are Short Cuts top buys:
IDM Immobile Device Management. As the backlash against mobile
grows, IDM is the new hot ticket for technology sector investors. Leading
products include Hell No It Wont Go! from Arkansas vendor PinItDown
Inc (formerly Little Rock Nail and Rivet), whose iOS 7-compatible 3-inch
galvanised anti-mobility devices (hammer included) gained a 48 percent
market share in Q4 2013.

34

Spring 2014 Issue 62 HardCopy

give him a guided tour of the Redmond campus. That

said he may get one anyway, as Bill is taking on a new
role as Technology Advisor, in which hell devote more
time to the company, supporting Nadella in shaping
technology and product direction. The words seat,
back and driver come to mind, although that could
just be our jaundiced industry view.
Either way, Short Cuts would like to offer its warmest New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
more Tim Cook than Screaming Lord
congratulations to Satya on his appointment. Watching
Steve.
his inaugural video interview he does seem more Tim
Cook than Screaming Lord Steve, but then no-one was
ever going to fill Ballmers shoes entirely. We wish him luck.