If Twitter is to be believed, and I believe everything I read on the internet, there’s a certain amount of interest in gathering of systems management professionals here on the west side of the state. The east side already has a most excellent MISCUG but some of us are lazy and don’t like driving. Doubly so in blizzards.
The good news is that we have a great local sponsor willing to host us: ITS Partners. They are getting ready to move into a beautiful new space in Ada and have a long history of excellent in system management. And I’m not just saying that because they’re going to sponsor and host us: I’ve used their services over the years and they’ve been awesome. Additionally I’ve reached out to a few other companies that work in this space and are interested in sponsoring as well.
More importantly, we a lot of local talent that we can lean-on and abuse to provide great content. The only real tie that binds right now is ‘systems management’ which is to say “how the hell do we manage all these devices?” If that’s a question you ask yourself daily then this is the group for you. I know that a lot of us are familiar with Microsoft’s long-standing products such as Active Directory, Group Policy, Configuration Manager, etc. However, we’re open to any management stack or even non-Windows stuff. Heck, I might even force a good friend of mine who consults for VMWare’s AirWatch to tell us how it really works.
In terms of timing, I hope to have our first meeting sometime in the May-July time frame. We had an informal meet-n-great at New Union brewery a few months ago and decided that Friday afternoons are our best bet. The plan is to coordinate with the aforementioned MISCUG and alternate our schedules to avoid anything close to a conflict. If you want to attend a user group every other month or so we hope to make that possible. If things really go well the longer-term plan is to occasionally combine our resources and do some day-long events in Lansing.
If you’d like to join us be sure to signup for our newsletter (up and to the right) and we’ll shoot you an email when we start scheduling events. Also be sure to follow us on Twitter: @WMiSMUG