Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Today we are excited to announce the launch of NBC Sports Live Extra for Windows and Windows Phone!

Get ready to watch more than 1,000 events LIVE for FREE with the NBC Sports Live Extra app. You can follow your favorite events and sports, and receive push notifications for event start times.  The app will live stream an abundance of live sporting events that air on NBC, NBC Sports Network and the Golf Channel, including NHL Regular-Season and Stanley Cup Playoff games, PGA TOUR, U.S. Open (golf), Notre Dame Football, French Open (tennis), Premier League (soccer), Major League Soccer, Formula One, IndyCar, and Triple Crown horse racing.  NBC Sports Live Extra is your exclusive source for LIVE streaming video coverage of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics February 6-23.

The NBC Sports Live Extra applications are free to download:

• Download the Windows 8.1 application HERE.
  http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/nbc-sports-live-extra/e15ed754-98ec-4ab5-9285-b9eddc3e9251
• Download the Windows Phone 8 application HERE.
  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/nbc-sports-live-extra/2bfb700d-7703-45ac-818e-677857b3b849

As you may have read, Microsoft announced the Board of Directors has selected Satya Nadella as its next CEO, effective today. A 22-year veteran of Microsoft, Nadella is strong advocate for customers and partners, and proven leader with strong technical and engineering experience.. Many of you met Satya at the Microsoft Briefing in Redmond last year with his keynote on Microsoft cloud vision.

Today, Satya will address customers and partners for the first time as CEO during a Customer and Partner Webcast event. I would like to extend a personal invitation for you to participate in this online event.

Customer and Partner Webcast Details:

When:  12:00 – 12:30 pm PDT

Where: http://msft.it/ceowebcast

If you’re unable to join the live event, a video recording will be available later in the day at: www.microsoft.com/ceo.

Protecting application availability – especially against threats like regional disasters – can be a high-cost endeavor involving complex planning and the need to remotely monitor service availability.  This cost and complexity results in many applications which could benefit from protection going unprotected today.

Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager helps protect your on premises applications by automating the replication of virtual machines to a secondary location – and as of today, it’s now generally available.

It provides three key capabilities

• Automated Protection – HRM leverages the capabilities of Windows Server and System Center to provide on-going replication of Virtual machines to your secondary site
• Continuous Health Monitoring – Windows Azure provides remote monitoring of service availability, and acts as the central repository for your customized recovery plan
• Orchestrated Recovery – In the event of a service outage at your primary datacenter, you can execute your recovery plan from Windows Azure to orchestrate the recovery of services at your secondary site.

These recovery plans enable automated disaster recovery orchestration by sequencing failover of different virtual machines and application tiers and providing customization through scripts and manual actions.

Now you can easily protect, monitor, and if needed recover your applications with an easy-to-use cloud-based service.

Several customers have already deployed Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager in their environments, including as Aston Martin, United Airlines, and Pošta Slovenije.  You can read more about specific capabilities in today’s blog posts from Brad Anderson and Scott Guthrie.

Learn more about Hyper-V Recovery Manager here.
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/services/recovery-manager/

[stolen from the Windows Server blog]

A major announcement was made by our General Counsel, Brad Smith, regarding where customer data can reside in Microsoft’s cloud.  We are going to empower customers to have their data reside outside of the United States, even if the service is subscribed to within the US.

Here’s the article from the Financial Times/CNBC:

Microsoft will allow foreign customers to have their personal data stored on servers outside the U.S., breaking ranks with other big technology groups that until now have shown a united front in response to the American surveillance scandal.

Brad Smith, general counsel of Microsoft, said that although many tech companies were opposed to the idea, it had become necessary following leaks that showed the U.S. National Security Agency had been monitoring the data of foreign citizens from Brazil to across the EU.

"People should have the ability to know whether their data are being subjected to the laws and access of governments in some other country and should have the ability to make an informed choice of where their data resides," he told the FT.

Mr Smith added that customers could choose where to store their data from a variety of existing Microsoft data centers. For example, a European client could choose to have their data stored in the group’s Irish data center.

…

• CNBC: Microsoft to shield foreign users’ data
  http://www.cnbc.com/id/101356752

Quick reminder:  After 4/8/2014, Exchange Server 2003 will no longer be supported under the normal support channels or receive security and non-security updates.

This is the same date that both Office 2003 and of course, Windows XP is going ‘end of life’ as well.

• TECHNET: Time to Move from Exchange 2003
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh145599(v=exchg.141).aspx

SkyDrive is being renamed to OneDrive.  High five to the branding folks for not coming out with something out of left field.

But it’ll be more than just a rename.  How much more?  Well, join the notification list for the preview of OneDrive and find out.

• BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT: http://blog.onedrive.com/
• PREVIEW SIGNUP: https://preview.onedrive.com/

Bill Gates stops in on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and talks about the elimination of polio in India for the past 3 years and the projection that polio will be eradicated in the next 5 years.

He also talks about the future of computing and what the next big thing is.  He specifically talks about how handwriting on tablets is still to come.

He talks about the Giving Pledge and his drive to get folks to give back, including the philanthropy he encouraged amongst employees while at Microsoft.

This is a good one.  I won’t spoil the surprise.

• VIDEO: Bill Gates on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” (Tue Jan 21, 2014)
  http://www.hulu.com/watch/586327

The Project Portfolio Management Solutions Guide describes tools in Project Online and Project Server that provide solutions to everyday work, and enable you to effectively execute and achieve your strategic priorities.

It talks about how these tools help to provide a PPM solution that help organizations to reduce costs, drive efficiency, and help set the seeds to grow their business.

• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Solutions Guide
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41549

If you work with Hyper-V, you very well also use System Center to manage it.  If you do not use System Center, you should download this free ebook and give it a review.

We’re happy to announce a new free ebook – Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 by Mitch Tulloch with Symon Perriman and the System Center Team.

Microsoft System Center is one of the three pillars of Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision that will transform the traditional datacenter environment, help businesses unlock insights in data stored anywhere, enable the development of a wide range of modern business applications, and empower IT to support users who work anywhere while being able to manage any device in a secure and consistent way. The other two pillars of the Cloud OS are, of course, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Azure, and Microsoft Press has recently released free Introducing books on these platforms as well.

Whether you are new to System Center or are already using it in your business, this book has something that should interest you. The capabilities of each component of System Center 2012 R2 are first described and then demonstrated chapter by chapter. Real-world and under-the-hood insights are also provided by insiders at Microsoft who live and breathe System Center, and those of you who are experienced with the platform will benefit from the wisdom and experience of these experts. We also included a list of additional resources at the end of each chapter where you can learn more about each System Center component.

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2”
  http://aka.ms/682832pdf

The System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Analyzer is your first line of defense in troubleshooting issues with System Center 2012 R2 server-side components.

The System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Analyzer is a diagnostic tool that you can use to evaluate important configuration settings for computers that are running any of the following System Center 2012 R2 components:

• Operations Manager
• Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
• Service Manager
• Orchestrator (plus Service Provider Foundation)
• Configuration Manager
• Data Protection Manager (DPM)
• App Controller

DOWNLOAD: System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Analyzer
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41555