Asem Alhourani

A Champion in House!

2011-01-31T09:04:00Z

We're really proud to announce that Mr. Syed Khairuddin was recognized by Microsoft for his Online Community Contribution. I'm personally very proud of Syed and I'm really glad that I met him earlier. He was introduced to me by Ammar AbuThuraya, one thing lead to another and he is VP of VirManSec - Jeddah Chapter.

Abdurrahman Al-Qatani too has posted something about the recognition made by Syed, more about it here

http://mssaudicommunity.net/2011/01/29/syed-khairuddin-recognized-by-microsoft-for-online-community-contributions/#comment-17

Congratulations Syed, Well done and deserved!

OpenDoor 2010 & VirManSec Recognition.

2010-11-09T11:51:00Z

It really means a lot to me that VirManSec is recognized as the best IT Pro in Saudi Arabia.

I have received this certificate from Mr. Ammar Abu Thuraya from Microsoft earlier this morning, and it really made me feel proud of the community owns by every single member who ever wrote a post in it! I always say that this community is owned by the guys who work on it, and for it. It wouldn’t happen without the tremendous support they’re offering all over the year. Thank you guys!

Specifically I would like to thank Ammar Abu Thuraya from Microsoft for his continues support to the communities in Saudi Arabia, not only VirManSec, but all the communities out there. I think Ammar has influenced the concept of knowledge transfer a lot throughout the past years. From all VirManSec members thank you Ammar.

From Riyadh, I would like to thank Essam Hamdan (MSFT), Wilfried Schadenboeck (MSFT), Abdulaziz Jaradeh, Omar Alomari, Hossam Remawi, Abdulrahman Shaheen for their continues support to the community.

And from Jeddah, the list is really long, starting by VirManSec Jeddah Chapter president Mazen Ektifan, and his VP Mr. Syed Khan, and the technical Advisor Mohammed Ektifan for their endless efforts to establish the concept of communities in the Western Province. And for the amazing event they’ve organized in Effat University in Jeddah. You guys simply Rock! And I mean it.

Also I’d like to thank VirManSec sponsors, R-Tech represented by Mr. Nour Homsi, Pixel-Arabia, Effat University, and the great Mahmoud Al Agha from Network Connections Company.

This means a lot to me.

I was also glad and lucky to have the chance to be a speaker in the Open door event http://www.microsoft.com/saudi/about/opendoor/speaker.aspx held in Riyadh and Jeddah from the 2^nd until the 7^th of November 2010. This event was attended by Steve Ballmer himself and I was honored by speaking in three sessions in this event, and for that I would like to thank,

Wilfried Schadenboeck for giving me the opportunity to co-speak with a great speaker like him the sessions “Realizing a Dynamic Datacenter Environment with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Partner Solutions”

Thanks a lot Willy! It really means a lot to me.

Essam Hamdan, Shadi AlKayyali and Ammar Abu Thuraya again for allowing me to handle two more sessions, one in Riyadh that’s “System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 Deployment: Architecture and Scenario Walkthrough” and another in Jeddah that’s “Walkthrough Data Center Evolution to Private Cloud: SSP”. I learned a lot from this event, and again I was honored by being a speaker in there.

Thank you all,

Asem Alhourani,

Internet Based Clients | Servers in DMZ

2010-07-12T09:14:00Z

I’m writing this article because I want to explain a design scenario I had at one of my customers. After upgrading their SMS 2003 to ConfigMgr 2007, it was decided that their ConfigMgr 2007 should be upgraded to Native Mode because the customer wants to use Internet Based Clients.

With a customer which has 5 sites across the country the question raised by them was if it is necessary to have a site server in the DMZ at each location of these 5 sites. (Because each corporate branch has a site server, meaning different site code and different boundaries)

Or is it a design decision which can be made based on the number of clients intended to be switching between being Internet Based Clients or Intranet clients. So simply if the customer is having very few number of clients to be internet based clients all over the corporate branches, can one site at the DMZ supports this requirements?

The short answer is No! But let me first clarify the Internet Based Clients types explained well in here http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2009/03/03/tips-and-tricks-using-internet-only-client-management-on-the-intranet.aspx by Carol Bailey.

Clients related to this idea can be shortly listed as below:

The first one is the Internet ONLY clients, so these clients will never try to find an intranet management point (that’s the normal management point)

The second one is the intranet only clients, (and as the name indicates these will be majority of clients).

I assumed that because most of them are workstations which are not suppose to be moving out! (Hopefully)

The third is the type of clients which supports both (internet and intranet) which means that the clients can connect over the internet and finds an internet-based management point or stays in the company’s network and connect to intranet based management point.

Having said so, and to address the above questions, there MUST be a site in the DMZ to handle the clients which are assigned to this site when they go out on business trips for instance. But the long answer is, are we absolutely sure that we will have Internet based clients all over our five primary sites? If the answer is YES, then we need to have 5 dedicated servers in the DMZ zone. If the answer is NO, the IT team needs to determine what are the sites\location which has no Internet Based Clients.

The good news is that using the Virtualization technology these 5 servers (from my customer scenarios) can be hosted on a Hyper-V virtual server and all of them can run as Virtual Machines.

This article was inspired by the customer’s questions and I would like to thank Mr. Wilfried Schadenboeck for contribution.

Website Registration and Password Recovery is Working Again

2010-07-07T18:10:00Z

Hello All,

We faced some difficulties in the website E-mail and password recovery features. We're very sorry for the inconvenience, and you can surely recover passwords and register now.

Thanks a lot.

Microsoft MVP for the Third Year in a Row

2010-07-02T18:47:00Z

I'm very pleased to announce to my fellow community leaders and members that my Microsoft MVP status was renewed for the third year in a row. This happens with a lot of dedication and more team work.

Cheers,

Asem Alhourani,

Jeddah Chapter Launch - a Thank You Thread

2010-04-12T14:28:00Z

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I’m really very excited to announce that we’re launching a new branch of VirManSec in the western region of the kingdom which we agreed to call VirManSec IT Community – Jeddah Chapter. This new Chapter is started by a group of IT Pros who lives in Jeddah and who wants to share their knowledge with their peers within their region.

Personally I lived the experience of starting and founding a community back in 2008 when I started VirManSec IT Pros Community in Riyadh, and it was really wonderful to live the same experience again with the guys in Jeddah, but this time with a bigger maturity level and better understanding of the IT Pros expectations.

The guys in Jeddah have done a wonderful job starting this community, they invest and used a lot of their personal times into this, because they simply believe in the power of knowledge transfer and the power of communities, I really would like to thank them all for efforts they made to start ‘their’ community, VirManSec Jeddah Chapter is solely and independently fully operational without the supervision or the help from its older sister VirManSec IT Pros Community! They have their own characteristic, their own way of reaching and even their own logo. They only ware generous enough to share the on line resources with us. I would really like to thank them one by one.

VirManSec Jeddah Chapter President Mr. Mazen Ektifan who has done everything he could to make this dream comes true.

Mr. Syed Khairuddin, VirManSec Jeddah Chapter VP whom with his brilliant IT abilities and communications skills we were able to start this chapter.

Mr. Nour Homsi, VirManSec’s continues and always sponsor who have never failed us. VirManSec is utilizing his company R-Tech resources to host their website.

Mr. Mohammed Ektifan, a one believer of the community work and the new technical adviser in Jeddah.

And from our sponsors in Jeddah

Effat University: The highly esteemed university which believed in community and gave us the chance to use their elegant and professional facilities to throw our first event in Jeddah.

Pixel Arabia: The very elegant designing company who offered us to maintain our website because they simply believe that small things make big difference!

Networks Connections: The company with a vision of a smart investment in the field of serving the communities, who were very supportive along the way of founding Jeddah Chapter.

Registration to Jeddah Chapter Launch Event can be done through this link "Register"

Last but not the least I would like to thank the guys in Microsoft who always help us with latest technologies. They’re always with us as bloggers, and visiting speakers to our event. Specifically I would like to thank Ammar Abu Thuraya (the custodian of the communities concept), Wilfried Schadenboeck, Essam Hamdan, Shady AlKayyali and Alawi Albar.

Thank you all, and I hope by the end of this year to see a similar thank you letter to some IT Pros, Sponsors in the Eastern Province.

First Day @ Tech.Ed 2010 in Dubai

2010-03-01T05:59:00Z

Hello all,

I just wanted to let you know that I have just registered for the Tech.Ed 2010, the event looks promising so far. We're waiting for the keynote session to start.

I have here with me some IT pro gurus from VirManSec

Our Exchange Reference and Guru Mr. Ra'fat Elmasri.

Our MDOP guy Mr. Hossam Al Remawi

Our community Guru to be :) Samer Al Otaibi

And a fellow community lead for Security 4 Arabs Mr. Amir Mahouk.

I'm still reachable on my cell phone, so if you're in the summit let me know about it.

Cheers,

Asem Alhourani

MVP Global Summit Experience

2010-02-27T05:25:00Z

I was lucky this year to attend the Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2010. The event started on the 16th of February, however the MVPs of ConfigMgr started on the 15th (thanks to Wally Mead). We had lots of discussion with the products team and the other MVPs from around the globe. Anyway all of the information shared among us from the Microsoft people happens to be under NDA.

The summit content was very rich and valuable. Meeting with other MVPs was really something that added a lot to my personal and career experience. I had the chance also to meet my MVP Lead based in South Africa and I discussed with him lots of concerns and shared lots of stories.

One of the most amazing things I did through the summit was visiting the Microsoft campus and taking a look at one of their datacenters in Microsoft Enterprise Engineering. The overall rating of the summit from my perspective was excellent, it was definitely the most fruitful summit I have ever attended.

I'll soon upload some photos

Windows Phone ME .. New Community

2010-01-30T09:07:00Z

I recieved the below e-mail from the community leader Mr. Adel Alzubair, he launched his new Windows Mobile community. I'm happy for Mr. Adel Specifically and for the region in general becasue we see a great deal of commnity growth happening here and there.

All the best Adel and his team,

By Adel:

I am delighted to announce that the Windows Phone Middle East community website is officially online.
You can access the website using the URL http://www.windowsphoneme.com.

On our website you can enjoy Windows Mobile tutorials on both technical and end user aspects, podcasts and also follow up on what's new in the Windows Phones field.

You will also be able to follow up with Windows Mobile 7 Rumors and news by accessing our forum.
Don't forget to register in order to get full access to the website and have the ability to comment, post and share your opinions and thoughts with us and the world.

At last but not least, if you have a passion for Windows Mobile and would like to join us as an on board member please feel free to reply to this email and i will keep in touch.

New Community "Microsoft Dynamics AX Brains" Was Launched

2010-01-16T22:39:00Z

Hello Community Members,

I'm pleased to announce the launch of a new community in Saudi Arabia, this community will join its older sister communities in forming the character of the communities and knowledge transfer principles in the area. Please join me in Welcoming the new community and wishing it and its founders all the luck.

They can be found on http://www.dynamicsaxbrains.com/community/

Cheers,

Asem Alhourani

Community Leads on AlarabiyaTV

2009-12-31T07:16:00Z

The interviews made with the community leads by Alarabiya TV channel were just aired. Personal I think that it was amazing looking at VirManSec name broadcasted along with all other IT communities in Saudi.

I will update you with the link from Alarabiya for the video once it is published on line.

GDC '09 & Communities

2009-12-20T13:01:00Z

Alright long story short, GDC ‘09 rocks!

Over 2500 developers and some IT Pros have attended this amazing event. It was really full of knowledge, and I liked the fact with socializing with other IT professionals and developers. The event was very organized and I could personally sense that people were happy and satisfied with the event’s sessions and over all organization.

In GDC I had the chance to meet my other fellow Communities leaders, where we exchanged some of our humble and detailed experience in the field of establishing a community and attract people to work on it. The community concept in this part of the world still really needs a lot of attention, smart work and hard work. People are somehow ready to work and participate in communities; people are ready now more than any time before to share knowledge. The key factor that we rely on in communities is to understand people needs and communication levels.

I believe that communities in Saudi Arabia will grow more and more to cover the whole Gulf region, I also believe the best community event was never held, and the best community speaker has never spoke and the best community ever is not even born! I believe so because I’m certain that the coming communities and the coming speakers and the coming contributors will be the best of the best.

In GDC ’09 Mr. Ammar Abu Thuraya literally surprised us by deciding to honor and rewards the community workers in the kingdom, and I happen to be one of them! I would really like to thank him and Microsoft for this reward and hopefully it will take VirManSec to another step further.

With Mr. Adel Almasrrani

Other VirManSec community members were also rewarded, first is Mr. Nour Homsi, the man who believed in community work where most of others denied! He sponsored and cared for VirManSec when it was just an idea discussed between some IT pro. Thank you Nour for this great help, and here is a copy of your certificate of appreciation

Then, Mr. Mazen Ektifan who helped a lot in the System Center area of the community by posting lots of very useful content in the Wiki services of the community. Thanks a lot Mazen you deserve the best and here is a copy of Mazen’s certificate of appreciation.

Ms. Rima Nakhala helped us a lot through the initiation of the community web site by designing it and she was handling VirManSec web site for more than 6 months, thanks a lot Rima and here is a copy of your certificate of appreciation.

I would like also to thank everybody who has contributed in the growth and success of this community. From the Microsoft team,

Mr. Wilfried Schadenboeck (and don’t get me started on Willy and his contribution)

Mr. Essam Hamdan (the guy with innovative ideas and unlimited support)

Mr. Ammar Abu Thuraya (Again for the vision he shares with us)

Mr. Shadi Alkayyali (who insists on showing at every event we hold to show us his support)

Good luck and see you all in our next event (Feb. 2010)

It's coming back MMS 2010

2009-12-09T22:28:00Z

Hello all,

I went there last year to MMS 2009, and I strongly recommend attending this summit...

See you there :)

http://www.mms-2010.com/public/home.aspx

Cheers,

VirManSec IT Community Event - Live Demos

2009-11-04T08:34:00Z

VirManSec board community members are glad to invite you to attend another VirManSec event which includes Live Demos! We would like to keep reaching for IT professional through a series of events which are made for community members’ discussion and knowledge transfer.

In our event we will put you face to face with highly skilled IT professionals who will address and talk to you about the recent technologies and inventions in the Virtualization, Management & Security.

Please find below the Agenda of the event.

Time	Session
From 16:45 To 17:00	Coffee & Registration
From 17:05 To 17:25	Prayer Time
From 17:30 To 19:00	Make it Easy - Windows 7 Deployment -Live Demo By: Wilfried Schadenboeck (MSFT)
From 19:00 To 19:55	System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 (Beta) - Live Demo By: Asem Alhourani (MVP)
From 20:00 To 20:30	Fighting Back the Conflicker Worm - Presentation By: Abdulrahman Elshafei (MVP)
From 20:35 To 20:45	Closing & Prizes

VirManSec Event Videos

2009-08-18T10:51:00Z

Hello all, we were lucky yesterday we video taped some parts of the sessions delviered.

Please see them on youtube or VirManSec group on Facebook

Ammar Abu Thuraya Opening Speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVUASkvdpAc

Ammar Abu Thuraya Speeach about Communities and their affect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h39HI5aJ-uE

Wilfried Schadenboeck talking about Exchange 2010 Beta http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYrKqTAdPQQ

Wilfried Schadenboeck talking about Exchange 2010 Beta (same session) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POlWfEkXoks

Syed Khan talking about Windows Server 2008 R2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob3WHIY0I1Y

Syed Khan talking about Windows Server 2008 R2 (Same Session) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8jJ8CDxlx4

Let us know what do you think about the Videos, we are planning to have a full webcasts soon insha'Allah.

Cheers everybody;

Asem