New Windows 10 IoT Core Images Available!

Today Microsoft has released a set of images for running Windows 10 IoT core on the Rasberry PI, DragonBoard, and MinnowBoard MAX. The announcement had me interested in what the capabilities of the platform would be since I usually end up managing devices through Configuration Manager and/or Intune.

First, let's start off with what this version of Windows is meant for. The Windows 10 IoT Core edition is the smallest footprint of Windows 10 available for devices. If you look at the infographic below, you can see that Windows 10 IoT comes in many flavors with different levels of functionality. Essentially the Windows 10 IoT Core version of Windows 10 is intended for single purpose use cases. There is no Windows shell and no command prompt, but you do get the ability to run Universal Windows Platform applications. Win32 applications are still supported, but they will not output to the console.

Many may wonder what is the point to running Windows under such limited circumstances, but I believe there are some very valid use cases that should be considered. There obviously is the hobbyist market, and though Linux is currently the dominant platform, some developers may feel more comfortable using a pure Microsoft stack to build out their custom creations. The other side is the business market where you want an IoT device that leverages existing developer expertise in the Microsoft stack and has integration into Intune or System Center Configuration Manager to provide updates and management of these devices.

When I first started looking IoT, I saw management and security taking a back seat, but as I've witnessed in the news, this lack of care and feeding has created security and operational issues. IoT was overlooked at being too basic and non-business critical to be on the radar for many organizations but now that these devices are being infected with malware, spyware and participating in BotNets all of a sudden the need for management has become a clear requirement for not just businesses but consumers as well.

It will be interesting to see where the smallest of the Windows 10 IoT editions finds itself in the marketplace but I am hesitant to write it off as a hobbyist product because of the integrated management, the ability to continue using Visual Studio and integrate your solution with Azure's IoT Suite. If you are looking for the latest releases of IoT core I've put a set of links below so you can start downloading them right away!

Rasberry Pi 2 & 3
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55029&WT.mc_id=rss_windows_allproducts

DragonBoard
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55027&WT.mc_id=rss_windows_allproducts

MinnowBoard MAX
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55026&WT.mc_id=rss_windows_allproducts

MVPDays Western Canada

Alan Rafuse, Crystal and Dave

Recently I finished the latest tour of MVPDays in Western Canada and it was a great time reuniting with fellow MVPs and IT professionals. In case you haven't been to an MVPDays event yet you should keep track of the dates, news and speaking opportunities via the MVPDays official Twitter account @MVPDAYS. This conference has been the brainchild of local MVP Dave Kawula and his wife Cristal who is a Veeam Vanguard. Both of them have worked tirelessly to put together these community events featuring Microsoft MVPs talking about some of the hottest technology out there.

The event was originally put together to fill the void that was left when TechDays Canada was no longer being put on by Microsoft Canada. Dave felt that these sorts of events were very important to the community and started with a round of events in Western Canada. Soon MVPDays expanded to Central Canada and the USA featuring more MVPs from across Canada and the USA. I've been personally amazed at the dedication and enthusiasm of everyone involved especially Dave and Crystal has this can sometimes feel like a thankless job.

Speaker preparation the night before in Vancouver

I've been glad to be a part of most of these events as I believe it is important to have more technical events that are independently run rather than being driven by a large software vendor. The big conferences are important, but I find these more intimate conferences offer a unique opportunity to speakers and the attendees where the conversations are more open and less driven by product-specific messaging. The idea isn't so much vendor bashing but to have honest conversations about what works and what doesn't plus who is the interesting underdog in the market that might be blazing a new path in the world of information technology.

You can check out the website www.mvpdays.com to see some of the past speakers plus the past and future dates. The speakers are important, but more importantly, I am going to list off hopefully a complete list of past and present sponsors because without them events such as this wouldn’t happen. Events like this need volunteers, sponsors and most importantly organizers that do it for the IT community.

Sponsors:

Veeam
Microsoft
Exagrid
TriCon Elite
RSVC LLC
IGEL
Workspot
Nimble Storage

Gridstore (now HyperGrid)
Unidesk
5nine Software
Nutanix
Nexsan
HPE by Avnet

Cisco

If you would like MVPDays in your area and think you can get at least 200 people to commit to attending then contact the MVPDays team, the contact form is at the bottom of the MVPDays.com website.