Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Skype for Business User Tips & Tricks Step by Step for Anyone is over 100 pages of tips, tricks and hacks by Skype for Business MVP Matt Landis. This book will make any novice or expert user of Skype for Business (Lync) even more productive than they were before.

What some people are saying:
"My organization migrated to Office 365 last year. We’ve had a slow adoption to the full toolset, but the book "Skype for Business User Tips & Tricks Step by Step for Anyone" has certainly been helpful. It’s nice to have a document with a table of contents…much better than the help file within Skype!" –Rick Grams II, Operations & Technology Leadership

"[Skype for Business User Tips & Tricks] has a plethora of tips and tricks around utilizing Skype for Business! …this grouping of tips can you great workflows that you can share with your customers!" –Todd Sweetser, Microsoft TS2 Team more

You can also read a subset of the tips online here:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/LyncUserTip

Grab the eBook here:

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Skype for Business User Tips & Tricks for Anyone” (PDF, 200pgs, 3.88MB)
  https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Skype-for-Business-User-600b52ba

Installing & Upgrading Skype for Business Server Step by Step for Anyone is a free eBook by Skype for Business MVP matt Landis that takes a generalist IT person step by step through the process of installing and/or upgrading Skype for Business.

This book is in progress which means more chapters are in the works and coming soon!

Current Chapters

• Installing Skype for Business Server Standard Edition Step by Step
• Lync 2013 to Skype for Business Server 2015 Front End In-Place Upgrade  Step by Step
• Edge In-Place Upgrade Step by Step
• Enabling Enterprise Voice Features

Grab the eBook here:

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Installing & Upgrading Skype for Business Server Step by Step for Anyone” (PDF, 59pg, 2.83MB)
  https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Skype-for-Business-Server-f4dac647/view/Reviews

At Build 2016, we announced a limited preview of Azure Service Fabric on Linux, which you can use to build, deploy, and manage cloud applications by using the same core technology that Microsoft has used to build massively scalable solutions on Windows.

With this preview, you can create  Reliable Actors and stateless Reliable Services in Java on top of our runtime. Developers can build apps by using the tools with which they’re familiar, including Yeoman scaffolding, Gradle builds, and Vagrant-based setup.

The SDK and runtime also provide support for containers and guest executables, as well as the ability to create and deploy apps to a cluster on Azure or your development computer.

Read more here:

• BLOG: Service Fabric Preview on Linux
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/azureservicefabric/2016/06/16/service-fabric-preview-on-linux/

Sign up for our preview here:

• BETA: Azure Service Fabric for Linux
  http://aka.ms/servicefabriclinuxpreview

“Administrating Skype for Business Server 2015 Step by Step for Anyone” is written by Fabrizio Volpe and Matt Landis (Skype for Business MVPs).

It covers the following:

• Working with the Control Panel
• Adding Users
• Setting up Voice Policies
• Configuring a Dial Plan
• Managing Response Groups
• And much more.

Download the eBook here:

• Administrating Skype for Business Server 2015 Step by Step for Anyone (PDF, 87 pgs, 4.14MB)
  https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Administrating-Skype-for-ec6e4c62

Microsoft Azure has over 75 services available within it and “Azure Compute” is just one of those. 

This a diagram that lays out Azure Compute & related services that are involved with the execution, management, and automation of Virtual Machines in the Azure cloud.

• DOWNLOAD: Azure Compute Services visual diagram (.PDF)
  https://1drv.ms/b/s!Ao0Dfn8MQdoAoPc4amHdAlRW-onVlw

In case you hadn’t heard, the licensing for Windows Server & System Center are moving from a per-processor license to a per-core license.

The details of the licensing change are documented in the following downloadable datasheets and FAQs below, but the big point to know is:

For Windows Server:

Customers with processor licenses with Software Assurance (SA) can upgrade to Windows Server 2016 at no additional cost. At end of the SA term, processor licenses will be exchanged for core licenses and customers can renew their SA on core licenses.

Windows Server Datacenter and Standard Edition 2proc licenses with SA will be exchanged for a minimum of 8 two-core pack licenses (16 core licenses) or the actual number of physical cores in use.

For System Center:

Customers with processor licenses with Software Assurance (SA) can upgrade to System Center 2016 at no additional cost. At end of the SA term, processor licenses will be exchanged for core licenses and customers can renew their SA on core licenses.

System Center 2-proc licenses with SA will be exchanged for a minimum of 8 two-core pack licenses (16 core licenses) or the actual number of physical cores in use on the server under management.

Read more below:

• Windows Server 2016 Datasheet
  http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/2/9/7290EA05-DC56-4BED-9400-138C5701F174/WS2016LicensingDatasheet.pdf
• System Center 2016 Licensing Datasheet
  http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/2/9/7290EA05-DC56-4BED-9400-138C5701F174/SC%202016%20SE_DC_Licensing_Datasheet.pdf
• Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 Pricing & Licensing FAQ
  http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/2/9/7290EA05-DC56-4BED-9400-138C5701F174/WS2016Datasheet.pdf

Skype for Business brings the power of professional meeting and collaboration technology together with an experience that is familiar and intuitive. Add in seamless integration with Office, and a single unified experience whether on your PC, Mac, iOS, Android, or Windows Mobile, and Skype for Business offers the industry’s most complete and user-friendly set of messaging, voice, video, and conferencing capabilities.

This is a downloadable document that provides a high-level comparison between Skype for Business & Slack, Cisco (Jabber, WebEx, Spark) & Google Hangouts as of May 2016.

• INFO: Comparing Skype for Business versus Slack, Cisco, and Google Hangouts
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52979

At DockerCon 2016 on Tuesday, new capabilities to run and manage containers in the cloud were demonstrated by Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Azure CTO.

Among them: Docker Datacenter is now available in the Azure Marketplace, bringing container management and deployment services to enterprises with a production-ready platform supported by Docker and hosted locally behind the firewall. Russinovich also showed Docker Datacenter managing a hybrid, container-based application spread across Azure and, for the first time, Azure Stack on-premises.

“Microsoft has been rapidly releasing container innovation to the Windows and Linux ecosystems – partnering with industry leaders like Docker and Mesosphere to deliver container solutions that help companies build and deploy applications at cloud speed and scale, whatever their choice of platform or tools,” Russinovich writes in a blog post.

Read more here:

• NEWS: Microsoft brings container innovation to the enterprise at DockerCon 2016
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-brings-container-innovation-to-the-enterprise-at-dockercon-2016/

A lot has been said about the importance of the cloud in evolving business practices for agility & new markets.  But who’s the #1 Public Cloud platform being adopted (or planned to be adopted) by Enterprises today? 

According to HyTrust’s recent study, that’d be Microsoft.

HyTrust 2016 State of the Cloud and Software Defined Data Center Study – graphic by Businesswire

According to the “HyTrust 2016 State of the Cloud and Software Defined Data Center Study” looking at real-world implementations, Microsoft is the #1 Public Cloud chosen amongst 125 C-level execs, 125 VP-level execs, and an additional 250 Directors, Managers, and IT professionals for a mix of Large Enterprise & SMB/mid-sized Enterprises.

The use cases for Microsoft Azure included:

• Financial Services, Banking, Insurance, Trading: 43 %
• Manufacturing: 50%

For more information on the study, visit:

• BUSINESSWIRE: Software-Defined Data Center Goes Mainstream: HyTrust Study Finds Broad Adoption Across Multiple Disciplines and Vertical Industries
  http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160616005439/en/Software-Defined-Data-Center-Mainstream-HyTrust-Study-Finds

Visit the study site for high-res digitals of the graphic & the downloadable whitepaper of the study at:

• HYTRUST: Industry Experience: The 2016 State of the Cloud and Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) in Real-World Environments
  http://www.hytrust.com/cloud-sddc-study/

We’re pleased to announce a new free ebook: Microsoft Platform and Tools for Mobile App Development (ISBN 9781509304134), by Cesar de la Torre and Simon Calvert.

Understanding and creating a mobile app development strategy is an important process for today’s development decision-makers who aim to open up new business opportunities or to empower employees to be more productive with new capabilities.

Microsoft defines an end-to-end (E2E) platform for the agile creation of mobile apps that can target any platform (iOS, Android, or Windows), provides easy consumption of services in the cloud or on-premises, spans the requirements for consumer or employee scenarios, offers development teams DevOps tools to improve quality and to achieve faster time to market, and allows for integration with existing enterprise systems.

This book outlines the E2E platform from Microsoft that forms the critical capabilities for organizations selecting technologies and tools for a Mobile Application Development Platform (MADP) and Rapid Mobile Application Development (RMAD). It also describes the core decision factors that organizations should consider, and it outlines the technical capabilities available within Microsoft solutions and products.

Download the eBooks here:

Read more at the announcement page here:

• MSPRESS BLOG: Free ebook: Microsoft Platform and Tools for Mobile App Development
  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_press/2016/06/22/free-ebook-microsoft-platform-and-tools-for-mobile-app-development/