Media

System Center and Microsoft Exchange 2010

Dave Morehouse — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:41:00 GMT

PART 4 of 4

In this episode of Brad and Jeff's periodic chats about the management business at Microsoft, they talk about how System Center fits in the constellation of platform and server releases in the fall of 2009.

In part 4, Brad and Jeff cover briefly how System Center supports key workloads, such as Microsoft Exchange.

Also in this episode:

Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) v7

Trustworthy Computing — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:10:00 GMT

The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) is a comprehensive and wide-ranging study of the evolving threat landscape, and addresses such topics as software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software.

Volume 7 of the Security Intelligence Report (SIR v7) covers the first half of 2009 (January through June). It includes data derived from more than 450 million computers worldwide, each running Windows. It also draws data from some of the busiest services on the Internet, such as Windows Live Hotmail and Bing.

The research is extensive and we encourage you to download the report.

Dogfooding: Deployment & Product Influence

Jossie Tirado — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:33:00 GMT

Steven Michalove, from Microsoft Information Security, concludes the dogfooding series where a product is tested on the enterprise, formally known as First & Best Program. For more information on the other phases of dogfooding a product in IT see Evaluating Risk and Security Related Features.

Steven describes how his team evaluates how to the deployment of a new technology will look like on the enterprise. Not only that but his team has the ability to influence a product by looking at what risk might look like in the future so those are considered on the development of the technology.

Read more on blog article Dogfooding: Product Influence or follow the ACE blog.

System Center and Windows 7

Dave Morehouse — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:05:00 GMT

PART 2 of 4

In this episode of Brad and Jeff's periodic chats about the management business at Microsoft, they talk about how System Center fits in the constellation of platform and server releases in the fall of 2009.

In part 2, Brad and Jeff talk about all the improvements in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 and R3 that make deployment and management of Windows 7 clients far more energy efficient and cost effective than ever before.

Also in this episode:

The Power of Software-based Communication

Alan Le Marquand — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:49:00 GMT

Today, the means for communicating with one another anytime, anywhere, and from a variety of devices has become limitless with the use of Instant Messaging, VoIP, webcams, text, and email. Could an Enterprise provide these communication tools to its employees and benefit from this culture change?

Unified Communications (UC) provides the capabilities that enable employees to communicate quickly and effectively using software they are familiar with. UC integrates e-mail, telephony, instant messaging, voice mail, calendaring, and audio/video/Web conferencing, and delivers them to different clients securely. For example, employees located across offices in Europe, Asia, and the United States can communicate with one another instantly using Instant Message, video conference, or by initiating a VoIP call

The Microsoft UC solution is cornered around Exchange Server and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at the backend, and Office Communicator 2007 R2, Office Live Meeting, and Outlook on the client. So what do these products provide?

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 provides a number of communication services for the clients, such as:

Software-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing functionality
IM and Presence
Group Chat
Public IM Connectivity
Mobility

These services can be accessed using Office Communicator 2007 R2, which can be installed on a PC and a Windows Mobile Device. Office Communicator provides a web client for use in places like airports and internet cafes, as well as an IP Phone version for those who prefer the traditional handset form factor. On the PC, Phone or web client, Office Communicator allows you to Instant Message within your own organization or over the public IM network, the PC client allows communication in-person with VoIP calls and video conference. Communicator supports a wide range of devices for making audio and video calls, either as one-to-one or group meetings.

This communication goes beyond voice and video. With unified conferencing you can share and collaborate with people from different floors, buildings, and countries. By using unified conferencing, colleagues can meet and share information such as files and presentations quickly and regularly, regardless of their location.

UC integration goes beyond Communicator with integration into Microsoft Outlook. With Exchange 2010 at the backend, you can integrate email, fax, and voice mail into a single inbox. This integration goes beyond voice mail too as you can initiate communication from within emails and see presence information about the sender.

Mobility is a key requirement of a truly unified communication solution. Both desktop clients are completely mobile; Office Communicator 2007 R2 and Outlook 2007 only require an Internet connection to access the backend and thus provide the full capabilities mentioned above while away from the office. With Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 you get the familiar Communicator interface on your mobile device, and while not the rich experience of its desktop equivalent, you are still able access to your contact lists, see presence information and Instant Message contact over both Public and private IM networks.

By implementing this simplified communications solution, an organization can realize both cost savings and environmental benefits.

Communication technology has advanced greatly over recent years and the organizations who have embraced these advances are now finding that they have a number of different systems to manage and maintain, and often from different interfaces. A Unified Communication solution based on OCS 2007 R2 and Exchange Server can integrate with or replace existing systems, providing a single point of management and reducing the communication complexity in your organization.

System Center Essentials (SCE) 2010 beta preview

Adam Bomb — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

I recently sat down with David Mills and Edwin Yuen, who got together for a brief discussion of Microsoft’s IT management and virtualization solution for midsize businesses. With the release of public betas for System Center Essentials 2010 and Data Protection Manager 2010, customers will have the capability to easily manage, backup and restore their physical and virtual servers in an integrated way.

After discussing the benefits of using Hyper-v, SCE 2010 and DPM 2010, Edwin gives us a quick demo of SCE 2010’s integrated virtual and physical management capabilities.

For more information and to download public betas, go to:

SCE 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/sce

DPM 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/dpm

Yet Another Windows XP Mode Post

yung — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:22:00 GMT

Since the last month, while delivering Windows 7 Launch Events, I have realized how strong the interests on Windows XP Mode (XP Mode) is out there, how much IT Pro want to know more about it, and how many questions are being asked again and again. So I thought to put together something concise and you can get most of your questions answered in a short read.

Designed primarily with small businesses in mind, XP Mode for Windows 7 enables a user to install and run Windows XP applications directly from a Windows 7-based PC. With Windows Virtual PC (not the same with Virtual PC 2007,) XP Mode works in Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate, and provides a 32-bit Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (XPSP3) environment pre-loaded on a virtual hard disk. Notice running XP Mode requires turning on hardware virtualization with AMD-V™, Intel® VT, or VIA® VT processor, which may not be available in all PCs. For Enterprise customers, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V,) part of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and available in Software Assurance, is a management solution for deploying Windows XP Mode and local virtualization solutions in an enterprise setting. While MED-V 1.0 SP1 to be available in the first quarter of 2010 with host support for Windows 7, notice that both MED-V 1.0, MED-V 1.0 SP1 will leverage Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 which does not required hardware assisted virtualization.

To enable XP Mode after installing Windows 7, a local administrator can click “Windows XP Mode” from “All Programs/Windows Virtual PC,” as shown, to access the online download page. Follow the instructions to install Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode. A virtual machine will be automatically initialized with Windows XP SP3. The user will be prompted and can choose to cache the built-in service’s account’s credentials to automatically start the Windows XP SP3 virtual machine.

XP Mode is an integrated environment with a number of productivity features including:

Folder integration to allow accessing the hosting Windows 7 disk drives within XP Mode
Seamless applications to access XP Mode application in the All Programs menu from the hosting Windows 7 machine
USB support for XP Mode
Clipboard sharing between a hosting Windows 7 machine and XP Mode
Printer redirection for XP Mode

The XPSP3 virtual machine running in XP Mode is by default networked with the hosting Windows 7 machine using Network Address Translation. This network and additional virtual machine settings of the XP Mode are customizable. After all, XP Mode is desktop virtualization and a virtual machine. Most settings applicable to a virtual machine are applicable to XP Mode as well. Also keep in mind when it comes to desktop management, XP Mode or a virtual machine should be managed like a physical machine. In other words, a virtual machine in production needs to be secured, patched, and monitored just like a physical machine since at a logical level a virtual machine can be targeted and attacked just like a physical machine.

Datenvisualisierung mit Visio 2010 und Visio Services in SharePoint 2010

Steffen Krause — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:56:00 GMT

Mit den in Visio 2010 weiterentwickelten Data Graphics ist es ganz einfach, Daten ansprechend zu visualisieren. Und mit den Visio Services in SharePoint Server 2010 können Visio-Zeichnungen einschließlich direkter Anbindung an Datenquellen direkt vom Server dargestellt werden.
In diesem Video zeige ich anhand einer Datenbank aus Dynamics NAV 2009, wie Datengrafiken in Visio erstellt werden und wie sie auf die Visio Services in SharePoint 2010 publiziert werden können.

Gruß,
Steffen

Windows 7 Early Adopter Panel at the Gartner Symposium

Adam Bomb — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009 is one of industry’s largest and most important annual gathering of CIOs and their senior IT leaders. One of the Microsoft –sponsored sessions that took place is Windows 7 Early Adopter Customer Panel.

In this highly visible discussion, featured Gartner Research VP & Distinguished Analyst Michael Silver facilitated the panel around Windows 7 planning, deployment and customer experience with Windows 7 Early Adopter Customers: ADP, BMW, Energizer and Pella.

The panel includes discussions about topics of importance for enterprises considering the move to Windows 7. ADP, BMW, Energizer and Pella share their perspective on business drivers to adopt Windows 7 and the benefits they expect to achieve with deploying Windows 7. These companies also share their deployment experience and recommendations for companies new to Windows 7 deployment. This is a great chance to get valuable insider information from Microsoft Customer industry leads.

Please visit Gartner.com for a replay of this webcast.

System Center and Windows Server 2008 R2

Dave Morehouse — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:29:00 GMT

PART 3 of 4

In this episode of Brad and Jeff's periodic chats about the management business at Microsoft, they talk about how System Center fits in the constellation of platform and server releases in the fall of 2009.

In part 3, Brad and Jeff treat the relationship of System Center to the latest release of the server platform, Windows Server 2008 R2.

Also in this episode:

GreenIT: La virtualización y el medio ambiente

Jorge Aristizábal — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:04:00 GMT

En la actualidad existen 2 temas importantes en la mente de los administradores de sistemas en las empresas: Ahorro de costos y medio ambiente. En esta sesión se aprenderá cómo por medio de las soluciones de Microsoft de virtualización y cómo se logra reducir los costos de operación y administración de la plataforma mientras que se ayuda al medio ambiente.
Orador: Rubén Colomo - México

Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange (FPE) Anti-Spam

David Tesar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:02:00 GMT

Alexander Nikolayev, program manager for FPE, walks us through how all of the anti-spam features work, including the new functionality with FPE over the previous version. After a couple minutes we dive right into the whiteboard walking through the mail flow anti-spam features with connection, protocol, and content filtering.

Since this is a longer interview, here’s how it breaks down. Markers are the round circles in the Silverlight player progress bar.

[5:20 / Marker 1] - How the DNS Block list (DNSBL) feature works, exceptions of when it doesn’t apply, how you know a message was blocked by DNSBL, areas where our DNSBL is better than competitors’ solutions.

[13:47 / Marker 2] – How SMTP filtering works

[19:00 / Marker 3] – How Sender ID filtering works

[21:32 / Marker 4] – Cloudmark engine (content filtering) and performance results with MSIT, frequency of updates with engine, how it is different than competitors’ solutions.

[27:04 / Marker 5] – Estimated Percentage of Spam which is blocked at what spot in the Anti-spam mail flow process based on MSIT deployment of FPE (not including FOPE)

[29:05 / Marker 6] – What is Backscatter and how does it work

[36:40 / Marker 7] – Final tips on backscatter, content filtering, DNSBL, SMTP and sender ID, SPAM and BACON.

Watch a video on the differences between FPE, Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE), and the native capabilities for protection within Exchange 2010.

Visit the Forefront Server Security homepage

Better Power Management in the Enterprise (2 of 2)

Kimberly Bolton — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:28:00 GMT

In part 2 of 2, Mark Aggar, Microsoft Environmental Technologist, talks about how virtualization is key to better power management, and then provides tips and resources that help consumers and businesses track and reduce their power consumption.

Dogfooding Security-Related Features

Jossie Tirado — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:13:00 GMT

Yale Li and Price Oden, from Microsoft Information Security, explain the second phase of dogfooding a product on the enterprise, formally known as First & Best Program. This second step consists of doing a security assessment on specific features in the product. For the first phase go here.

With this assessment the organization may decide what are the strategies around those features, or opportunities. It is a very detailed step on the dogfooding process, where they go all the way back to design and functional specification documents. They describe how this worked for BitLocker To Go^TM.

Read more on blog article Dogfooding: Phase 2 or follow the ACE blog.

Better Power Management in the Enterprise (1 of 2)

Kimberly Bolton — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:50:00 GMT

In this 9 1/2 minute video, Jeffwettlaufer, System Center Product Manager, and Mark Aggar, Environmental Technologist, discuss how Microsoft is helping businesses make IT greener through better use of Microsoft product features and best practice recommendations.

Crear plantillas de outlook para mensajes

hektor — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:48:00 GMT

Este video realizado por Pilar Arguiñariz (Microsoft Office Outlook MVP) nos presenta como crear una plantilla en Outlook para un nuevo mensaje con una características predefinidas, además como colocar un botón en la barra de herramientas para acceder a dicha plantilla

Windows 7: Grabacion de acciones de usuario para reproducir un problema

hektor — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:45:00 GMT

En este screencast podremos ver como utilizar el grabador de acciones de usuario de Windows 7, que puede utilizarse para grabar y posteriormente reproducir en otro equipo un problema, facilitando la interacción con los Helpdesk y otros servicios de soporte.

Cumplimiento NAP para DHCP

hektor — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:16:00 GMT

En el siguiente video, realizado por Javier Rama del Castillo (ingeniero de soporte de microsoft de nertworking), podréis ver una demostración del funcionamiento del cumplimiento de NAP para DHCP en un entorno basado en tres máquinas:
     ·    Un Controlador de dominio
      ·    Un servidor NPS y DHCP
      ·    Un equipo cliente.

Introduccion a Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 (UAG)

hektor — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:03:00 GMT

En este screencast realizado por Raúl Moros (MVP de Microsoft Forefront), nos muestra una introducción al funcionamiento de UAG (Unified Access Gateway) en un entorno seguro.

System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 and Microsoft Exchange

Dave Morehouse — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:22:00 GMT

Jason Buffington and Leslie Kitz get together for a brief parlay on what's new and exciting in the next version of System Center Data Protection Manager, due out in the spring of 2010.

After discussing how DPM 2010 stacks up, and how 2010 supports Exchange server installations, Jason goes into a demo that shows off DPM's new capabilities in protecting Exchange.

This video is the first of a series.

SharePoint 2010: Übernahme von PowerPoint Designs nach SharePoint

Steffen Krause — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:14:00 GMT

Das Anlegen von eigenen Designs für SharePoint Seiten, also Farben und Schriftarten entsprechend dem Firmendesign, musste bisher von Hand geschehen.
In SharePoint 2010 kann stattdessen das Design einer PowerPoint-Präsentation direkt übernommen werden. In diesem Video zeige ich, wie das geht

Gruß
Steffen

SharePoint 2010 Developer Dashboard

Steffen Krause — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:14:00 GMT

Das Developer Dashboard in SharePoint 2010 hilft nicht nur Entwicklern dabei, die Performance ihres Codes in einer realen SharePoint-Umgebung zu testen.
IT Professionals und Administratoren können das Developer Dashboard auch zum Troubleshooting von langsamen oder überlasteten SharePoint-Umgebungen verwenden. Fragen wie "Welches WebPart macht diese Seite so langsam" oder "Wo kommen die vielen Datenbankzugriffe her" werden hier beantwortet.
In diesem Video zeige ich die Aktivierung und Nutzung des Developer Dashboards

Gruß,
Steffen

Driving Manageability Across Microsoft

Dave Morehouse — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:31:00 GMT

PART 1 of 4

In this episode of Brad and Jeff's periodic chats about the management business at Microsoft, they talk about how System Center fits in the constellation of platform and server releases in the fall of 2009.

In part 1, the discussion focuses at a general level on how System Center is a business central to Microsoft, not only from the standpoint of its strategic value in the marketplace, but also in terms of its technical importance to businesses across the company, from Windows client to Windows server, to all of the key server workloads, especially Exchange.

In parts 2, 3, and 4 that follow separately, they talk specifically about the way in which System Center supports, respectively, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Exchange.

Also in this episode:

System Center Home
Because It's Everybody's Business (the joint launch and campaign site)

Document Sets in SharePoint 2010

Steffen Krause — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:52:00 GMT

Document Sets in SharePoint 2010 ermöglichen, Gruppen von Dokumenten (z.B. Angebote mit all ihren Bestandteilen) als Einheit zu betrachten, mit gemeinsamen Eigenschaften und gemeinsamen Workflows. In diesem Screencast zeige ich, wie Document Sets verwendet und erstellt werden.

Gruß,
Steffen

With Windows 7, there's never been a better time to be a PC.

yung — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

This is it! We had waited and waited, and it's finally here. Windows 7 is now generally available. There are new technologies, new solutions, and a new dimension of capabilities for IT. With Windows 7, there's never been a better time to be a PC. There's never been a better time to be a Windows user. For all you IT Professionals out there, let me highlight the 3 key deliveries:

Making people productive anywhere
Managing risks through enhanced security and control
Reducing cost by streamlining PC management

and innovations introduced in Windows 7 and make pertinent information readily available for you here.

Making people productive anywhere

Making people productive is not that hard. In your office plugging company’s network with a laptop loaded with apps, you can be productive. Making people productive “anywhere” on the other hand is a very challenging effort for IT, while facing the mass amount of mobile devices and increasingly complex network computing environment today. The growing numbers of mobile workforce and branch offices are at the same time demanding corporate resources seamlessly available regardless the required infrastructure and organizational boundaries. Two Windows 7 solutions to facilitate remote access are BranchCache and DirectAccess.

Managing risks through enhanced security and control

Security is nothing we need to much justify the need in today’s network computing environment. It is critical, imperative, and all too often costly. From Windows Vista, Windows Vista SP1, to Windows 7, BitLocker has been expanded from a single drive, multiple drives, now to portable media. Windows 7 offers security enhancements enabling a user to secure data from unauthorized access very easily with BitLocker-to-Go, for example. In Windows 7 Explorer, highlight a portable drive, right-click to turn on BitLocker-to-Go. It is that readily available, easy to do, and readable with Windows XP. There is really no reason not to do it since it is so little to do, yet with so much control and so strong protection on data. As a memory stick is now with 32 GB and beyond capacity, BitLocker-to-Go is one very cost-effective way to protect data from unauthorized access. For a large company, BitLocker technology with group policies offers a software based enterprise solution of hard disk encryption. You don’t need to look for a solution and end up with a second-best solution. It is in Microsoft Vista and it is much enhanced in Microsoft Windows 7.

In an enterprise environment, software restriction is one of the most difficult enforcements. Not only it needs a mature infrastructure to provide software inventories, metering, and on-going monitoring, but the required skill sets to develop, test, and manage those software restriction policies are hard to find, take years to develop, and come with very high costs. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 together present AppLocker as a vehicle with which a system administrator can provision a policy to deny/allow execution, installation, or usage of a target application based on the application's digital signature by deriving a publisher rule defined and enforced with a Group Policy Object without programming. A complex requirement, for instance allowing task workers to access Office 2007 and later, but not PowerPoint when accessed by contractors, can be done with AppLocker in a few mouse clicks without any scripting.

Reducing cost by streamlining PC management

Many thought without a direct migration path, i.e. in-place upgrade, from Windows XP to Windows 7, the deployment of Windows 7 must be a tedious and tricky process. In fact, Windows 7 offers a number of vehicles making the migration an intuitive and straightforward process. For consumers and small businesses, Easy Transfer makes migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 absolutely “easy” and, in my view, fun actually. Scanstate and Loadstate, two key utilities in USMT (User State Migration Tools) make a migration process very logical and easy to understand. Hard-Link Migration leaves and remaps data in place and significantly reduces the time needed to place large amount of user data in a typical PC refresh scenario.

In the past two years, with Microsoft’s introduction of virtualization strategies and solutions, there are many options in resolving compatibility issues at an application or OS level while reducing TCO and increasing flexibilities in deploying and managing IT resources in the long run. Specific to Windows XP compatibility issues, Windows 7 Professional and above offer Windows XP Mode (via a free download) with a local virtualization of Windows XP SP3 machine. So those applications developed specific for Windows XP can now essentially run in a Windows 7 environment with a few steps to set up a virtualized Windows XP SP3 run-time environment to host those Windows XP specific applications. Further an application running in Widows XP Mode can be seamlessly integrated into the Start/All Programs menu of a host Windows 7 machine. Notice Windows XP Mode alone is designed for a relatively small deployment since there is basically no built-in system management function. For a large scale deployment, MED-V or Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, one of the six offerings that come with MDOP (or Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack available through Software Assurance program) is the solution to manage local desktop virtualization with the abilities to provision a MED-V workspace policy to deploy XP Mode with standardized settings and a consistent user experience, etc. While MED-V 1.0 SP1 to be available in the first quarter of 2010 with host support for Windows 7, notice that both MED-V 1.0, MED-V 1.0 SP1 will leverage Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 which does not required hardware assisted virtualization.