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Volume
10, Issue 25
12th February 2009
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Cost-cutting,
Virtualisation Unplugged, Microsoft Community Tech Days, Licensing Clinic,
Subsidised Microsoft Technical Training, Springboard Series, SharePoint
Governance Feature Article, Internet Explorer RC1 Released
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There's
nothing like a long-awaited win against the French in the rugby, to ever-so-slightly
lift the spirits of a nation under constant bombardment of
recessionary messages. It was a très enjoyable game last Saturday! On
this positive note, I recently discovered a very practical white
paper by Alinean,
the 'Original pioneers of ROI, TCO and value', outlining 9 ideas to
make anyone in IT a 'Cost-Cutting Hero'. You can access the white
paper here.
I also recommend having a look at a great local website, that
highlights the significant role IT can play in these times, and you
can also learn about the importance of leveraging IT investments you
have already made. See http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/economy/.
It was great to be on the road for a few days last week and meet so
many of you in Belfast and Cork for the 'Virtualisation Unplugged'
Tour. I was relieved not to see a flake of snow in Belfast or Cork on
the day before or on the day of the trainings - this helped bring a
great turnout in for both events. The trainer, James
O'Neill from Microsoft UK, was 100% committed to travelling over
to Ireland for the two tour dates and was not going to let the
closing of Heathrow stop him! When I spoke with James the morning
before the Belfast training, he was already planning an alternative
route to Belfast - he had even looked into an overnight ferry from
Liverpool to Belfast!
Thanks to those who made it to the 'Wellie' in Belfast and Douglas in
Cork last week for Virtualisation Unplugged training. James and Dave
really know Microsoft Virtualisation inside-out, so I'm glad they
were tested with a few tough questions. Even though James claims to
be a bit of a sell-out, by buying into the whole blogging habit, his
blog is still definitely worth keeping an eye on. It can be found @ http://blogs.technet.com/jamesone/.
Also, his Virtualisation Unplugged slides can be found here.
I really impressed when Dave asked the room in Belfast and Cork how
many had downloaded and been playing about with the Windows 7 Beta,
and over half the room raised their hands. And it's always nice to
hear such positive feedback on the beta. Feel free to email me if you
have any feedback, good or bad on your Windows 7 Beta experience.
Dave Northey's is back blogging these days, so you will see his
Windows 7 deck from the event here
in the coming days. Don't forget to make use of all the Windows
Client resources on the Springboard
Series site - helpful whether you are planning for Vista or
7.
Thanks for reading!
Enda Flynn
TechNet Manager
Microsoft Ireland
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Microsoft
Community Tech Days
Who should attend: All IT Professionals: Infrastructure Specialist,
DBA, App or LOB Specialist, IT Manager, Network Specialist,
Desktop and End User Support.
Summary: This is a collaborative effort between Microsoft
and the IT Pro community to re-deliver the highlights to IT Pros
across Ireland. Next month, the four-city tour will stop for
evening events in Galway and Cork, with full day events in Dublin
and Belfast. In addition to the core content of Infrastructure,
BI and Unified Comms & Collaboration, Dublin and Belfast will
also feature 'Personal Interest' evening events for IT Pros,
focusing on 'Microsoft @ Home. Details to follow.
Date: March 10th, 12th, 24th and 26th
Location:
Galway (10th March) - register your interest here.
Cork (12th March) - register your interest here
Belfast (24th March) - register your interest here
Dublin (26th March) - register your interest here
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Who Should Attend: IT Professionals, particularly those
involved in licensing and compliance
Summary: With the broad range of Licensing products we
offer, it's natural to wonder if you are using the right Licensing
solution for your organisation . These clinics outline all the
licensing options available to you and the best solutions for your
company. A brief presentation is followed by a Q&A session.
These popular events quickly so please register today!
Date: 24th March 2009 from 10.00 am to 1pm
Location: DUBLIN - Microsoft Buildings, Envisioning Centre,
Atrium B (Building 3), Carmanhall Road, Sandyford Industrial
Estate, Dublin 18.Click
here for directions.
Cost: Free event
Register
Here!
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Who should attend: This event is part of our Connect Program
for Technical Decision Makers including: CIO's, IT Directors and IT
Managers.
Summary: Come along to see how Microsoft Virtualisation can
deliver immediate cost savings to your organisation by reducing
energy, space and hardware costs along with maximising your
existing IT investments. This interactive event will feature
product demos and real life Irish customers demonstrating how they
have cut costs through the use of Microsoft Virtualisation.
Date: 26th March 2009, from 08.30am to 11.00am.
Location: Dublin City Centre: Radisson Royal Hotel. Click here
for directions.
Cost: Free Event
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Introduction to Installing and Managing Microsoft® Exchange
Server 2007
16-18 February 09, Cork, PFH
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Virtualization in Depth
18-19 February 09, Dublin, Global Knowledge
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Applications
23-24 February 09, Dublin, New Horizons
Installing and Configuring the Windows Vista Operating System
23-24 February 09, Galway, New Horizons
Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Servers
24-27 February 09, Belfast, New Horizons
Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
25-26 February 09, Dublin, New Horizons
Implementing System Center Data Protection Manager 2007
2-5 March 09, Dublin, BT
Advanced SharePoint 2007 Development
02-06 March 09, Cork, PFH
Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
9-12 March 09, Dublin, New Horizons
Managing System Center Operations Manager 2007
10-13 March 09, Dublin, Global Knowledge
Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Servers
10-13 March 09, Cork, PFH
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MS
PRESS BOOK OF THE FORTNIGHT
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Long Description
Announcing an all-new SELF-PACED TRAINING KIT designed to help
maximize your performance on 70-432, the required exam for the new
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certification for
SQL Server 2008 - Implementation and Maintenance. This 2-in-1 kit
includes the official Microsoft study guide, plus practice tests on
...
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Today,
January 26 at 12pm PT, Internet
Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) was released to tech and
consumer enthusiasts in a total of 25 languages. The goals of this
announcement are to drive global excitement, strengthen long-term
confidence in Internet Explorer and help drive demand for Internet
Explorer 8. RC1 will include a number of bug fixes, user experience
improvement and enhanced security, performance and compatibility.
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From April
the 6th to the 8th 2009 in London at the Queen Elizabeth II
Conference centre you can meet and hear some of the world's
foremost experts on SharePoint. With over 56 sessions over 4 tracks
dedicated to all types of audience from IT pro's , Developers ,
Information workers , project managers and Business
Managers/Information Directors this is the largest SharePoint
conference to come to the UK and has something for everyone. The
Best Practice Conference is all about real world experience
designing and using SharePoint, making sure you maximize your
return of investment in the product. To find out more about the
event and register or become a sponsor
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This
free Snack describes the benefits that Windows Server 2008 offers
for installing and maintaining a branch-office network. It demonstrates
a branch office network installation using the new server core
option. It also lists the benefits of Active Directory read-only
domain controllers (RODCs) and BitLocker drive encryption.
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Watch
the third part of the TechNet
Edge video series on the new features for System Center Data
Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 Service Pack 1. This instalment looks
at the new licensing options for DPM, including the new desktop
agent coming with the February 2009 price list.
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We have some
great new online resources to help you discover the benefits of
Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 in Windows Server 2008.
Visit the IIS.net portal to see how to Get
Started with IIS and learn how to add value to your web
platform with IIS
Extensions (released on an ongoing basis).
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Explore
new and updated features in Windows 7 with these short screencasts.
Subscribe to the Windows
Client Videos for IT Pros RSS feed to be automatically updated
as new walkthroughs are added.
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Mark
talks about kernel changes in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
including the removal of the scheduler's dispatcher lock, support
for up to 256 CPUs, boot from VHD, MinWin, and core parking for
power savings.
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Microsoft
has just taken the wraps off the latest client operating system,
Windows® 7. The first point to note-this is a pre-beta release, and
is still an early first-look. While most information out there will
focus on how Windows 7 makes everyday tasks easier, with improved
user experience and productivity scenarios for end users, we
thought we'd focus on information specifically of interest to IT
professionals.
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Implementing
virtualisation can decrease your infrastructure's power consumption
and hardware needs. Download the free Microsoft
Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkitto help you better
understand your IT infrastructure and determine whether your
systems are ready for migration to Hyper-V server virtualisation
technology.
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PowerShell
CTP 3 is now available for download. It's the version that will be
installed by default in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. With a
host of new features including remote administration, background
jobs, a graphical environment to create and test scripts, computer
management cmdlets and much improved WMI support, now is the time
to start learning how to use it. The next release of Windows will
build on this with all aspects of the server being managed by
PowerShell including Server Core and applications such as Exchange,
SQL Server and the System Center family already use it. Download
PowerShell CTP 3 to start preparing for the future of server
admin.
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When the
first person in a branch location requests a file over the WAN, it
will be cached locally for any subsequent requests within the
branch. Check it out.
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Use
these tools to analyse a wide range of performance problems including
application start times, boot issues, deferred procedure calls and
interrupt activity (DPCs and ISRs), system responsiveness issues,
application resource usage and interrupt storms.
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Check
out the new features and technologies that help improve the
security of computers running Windows Server 2008 R2, increase
productivity and reduce administrative overhead.
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The
Windows Azure SDK provides the APIs, tools, documentation and
samples needed to develop internet-scale applications that run on
Windows Azure.
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Download
Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio. These tools extend
Visual Studio to enable the creation, building, debugging, running
and packaging of scalable services on Windows Azure.
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This
free Snack describes the benefits of implementing Network Access
Protection (NAP) in Windows Server 2008. It describes how to
configure network and health policies for various types of clients.
It identifies the options for configuring Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol (DHCP) enforcement for NAP and demonstrates
the steps for testing a NAP implementation with DHCP enforcement.
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SharePoint
Governance
Author: Aidan Nolan, Aidan Nolan is an Information Worker
Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services here in Ireland. He has
over 10 years consulting experience and has worked on SharePoint
projects as far back as Tahoe (codename for SharePoint Portal Sever).
Last December I gave an introduction to SharePoint governance to the SharePoint
User Group Ireland (SUGIE). This was a topic that was well
received and thought it worth sharing and elaborating a little more
on.
So, what is SharePoint governance anyhow? Well by definition
governance is ....
"the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes
that you establish in an enterprise to guide, direct, and control how
the organization uses technologies to accomplish business goals.
Effective governance anticipates the needs and goals of both your
organization's IT teams and its business divisions. Governance also
provides policies and guidelines that make the deployment of products
and technologies such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 both
manageable for IT and also effective as a business tool. Governance
can help protect your enterprise from security threats or
non-compliance liability. It can also help ensure the best return on
your investment in technologies, such as by enforcing best practices
in content management or information architecture." - taken
from TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ie/library/cc263356(en-us).aspx)
Working as a consultant here in Microsoft Services Ireland has given
me an opportunity to introduce SharePoint governance to a number of
organisations via our SharePoint Enterprise Portal and Collaboration
Technology Planning (EPCTP) offering. While this might sound like a
mouth full it's a simple offering that assists customers in the
important planning and design phases of SharePoint 2007. SharePoint
2007 is a huge success story and when deployed it is quiet often adopted
by the business and end users at lightning speed. Without proper
governance policies in place this can cause all sorts of headaches in
the medium to long term. For example, if a site collection is allowed
to grow without a quota policy applied, what starts off as a small
manageable content database could potentially grow beyond your
expectations (500GB+ within a year). This can then impact the system
performance, acceptable backup and restore times not to mention an
information architecture that is near impossible to navigate. So if
you wish to avoid such headaches then governance is the solution.
So where do we start with governance? First off we recommend that a
governance team is set up in your organisation. This team should
comprise of business stakeholders, server administrators and key
information workers who will be responsible for monitoring and
updating governance policies. Once established the team will ensure
the following governance areas are clearly documented:
Roles and responsibilities - Define who is responsible for
what and get sign off by the role owners and managers. The document
should cover all 3 tiers in SharePoint (farm admins, SSP admins and
site collection admins) as well as AD, network/infrastructure, server
level, SQL/DSA's, backup/restore, monitoring, reporting, antivirus
etc. It varies from organisation to organisation but basically you
need to identify all the services that you require for a successful
deployment and identify who is going to manage it.
Information Architecture - Also known as taxonomy which should
capture the logical and physical design of your web application(s)
and site collection(s) structure including their content database
allocations. It will also drill down into quotas, locks, site
provisioning and retention policies. We recommend that you plan
for software boundaries when focusing on this area.
Portal UI - This will cover the look 'n feel of the sites
including navigation, master pages, page layouts, site templates and
definitions as well as some high level wire frames.
Infrastructure - Design SharePoint architectures
(internet/extranet/intranet/DR etc). We recommend that you plan
for performance and capacity when focusing on this area.
Operations - Define how you plan to manage your SharePoint
Infrastructure. This will include backup and restore methods,
monitoring, deployment processes, change management processes, cost
allocation, SLA's etc.
Document Management - This document should contain information
on what documents will be stored in SharePoint (file types), document
management policies for features such as document versioning,
auditing, workflows and retention policies etc.
Development Standards - Define what level of customisation is
acceptable and supported in your environment. Identify your
development environment. Clearly outline how customisations can be
achieved and using what tools (designer, visual studio etc) as well
as actual development standards themselves.
Enterprise Search - Based on the information architecture you
should define search scopes, identify content sources (SharePoint
sites, file shares, external websites, exchange folders, business
data and custom content), plan
for search and define the core search settings.
Training - Identify who needs training and how it is best delivered.
This should include both technical and end users. Remember to be
realistic and keep some budget.
Support - Define support channels SharePoint.
These are the core areas that we recommend as a baseline but
depending on your requirements you may also want to identify policies
and best practices for other feature areas of SharePoint such as Web
Content Management, Forms and Excel Services etc. It is also
important to remember that each document produced is living and
should be reviewed and updated as required.
In summary, SharePoint Governance is as important as the wheels on
your bike and should be discussed as early as possible to ensure a
long and successful SharePoint deployment.
Useful links:
Governance
Resource Centre
Governance
Checklist Guide
Plan
Governance
Governance
and Manageability
Best
Practices Resource Centre
Plan
for ..... (Governance, Search, Capacity, Monitoring....)
Help with Governance and Compliance
The Solution Accelerators - Security and Compliance team provides
guidance and tools to manage compliance infrastructure and to institute
sound principles of IT service governance. A
number of resources are available here, but in particular we
wanted to point out the IT
Compliance Management Guide. This Solution Accelerator can help
you shift your governance, risk and compliance (GRC) efforts from
people to technology. Use its configuration guidance to help
efficiently address your organisation's GRC objectives. See
online job aids for compliance.
Microsoft's Generation 4 Data Centre Strategy
Data centres are a hot topic these days. No matter where you look,
this once obscure aspect of infrastructure is getting a lot of
attention. For years, there have been cost pressures on IT operations
and this, when the need for modern capacity is greater than ever, has
thrust data centres into the spotlight. At Microsoft, we have focused
a lot of thought and research around how to best operate and maintain
our global infrastructure and we want to share those lessons. Which
is why we are sharing our Generation 4 Modular Data Centre plan.
This is our vision and will be the foundation of our cloud data
centre infrastructure in the next five years.
Read About Microsoft's
Vision for Generation 4 Modular Data Centres
Watch the Generation
4 Video
Read the Generation
4 Blog Post
Watch the TechNet
Edge Video
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See a
selection of new
Knowledge Base articles on the TechNet website. Knowledge Base
articles feature an Article Translations box in the right column. You
can select a language from the drop-down list and read the article in
the language of your choice.
Also
available via RSS 
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