Kurt Shintaku's Blog

This 3rd party seminar using Microsoft’s cloud platform should be good.

NimboSync and Windows Azure: Give Employees a Better Way to Work Without Sacrificing Security
May 17, 2012 at 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
This event requires registration: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/922887575

There is a growing need for employees to have access to company documents on their mobile device which is currently being satisfied by consumer applications—putting the entire organization at risk. NimboSync is a powerful new solution built on the Windows Azure Platform that connects all of the systems, applications and people within an organization.

NimboSync gives employees an intuitive interface for accessing, storing and sharing company documents without sacrificing security. NimboSync is built on Microsoft’s Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and it is simplifying the enterprise IT environment even as the strategic initiatives driving IT mushroom.

It is likely your organization is looking for a secure, user-friendly solution for sharing company documents internally and with partners. Join us to find out how NimboSync meets this requirement while providing an integrated platform for long-term development, growth and strategic initiatives in the cloud.

Event Organizer: Kristine Drier (Business Development at Nimbo)

Event Link: http://linkd.in/JtV1M0

Microsoft Server Performance Advisor (SPA) 3.0 helps IT administrators collect metrics to identify, compare, and diagnose potential performance issues in deployments of Windows Server 8 Beta, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008. SPA generates comprehensive diagnostic reports and charts and provides recommendations to help you quickly analyze issues and develop corrective actions.

SPA 3.0 features an improved interface design, automated data collection, and a consistent SQL data schema. The SPA framework requires Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Express (free version) but does not need to install anything on the servers under test. SPA can be run entirely using freely downloadable software from Microsoft.

This page provides a brief introduction to SPA 3.0 and links to download the SPA 3.0 software and the accompanying user’s manual and development guide.

Read more: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/hardware/hh367834

Here’s a list of accessories that I’ve gotten for my Verizon HTC Trophy.  (Verizon’s showcase device running the Windows Phone 7.5 operating system)

WARNING:
It’s very important to know for future reference that there are actually two HTC “Trophy” phones on the market from DIFFERENT carriers that are virtually identical however one is GSM based, uses DIFFERENT batteries, DIFFERENT accessories, etc. from the Verizon HTC Trophy.

• HTC Spark (T8686) also sometimes referred to as the HTC Trophy (GSM – Not available in the United States)
• HTC Mozart (T8698) also commonly referred to as the Verizon HTC Trophy (CDMA)

When searching for accessories and stuff, it’s important to get them for the HTC Mozart (T8698) i.e. the Verizon-specific HTC Trophy if you’re a VZW customer.

ACCESSORIES THAT WORK WITH THE VERIZON HTC TROPHY:
(I’ve bought all of the devices below.  Some take a while to arrive because they come from Hong Kong but they work)

• Mugen 1800mAh Extended Slim Battery ($45)
  http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com/htc/htc-7-mozart-t8698-htc-mozart/mugen-power-1800mah-extended-battery-for-htc-7-mozart-t8698.html
• Kidigi Charging Docking Station for Verizon Trophy – with secondary battery charger for extra battery ($23)
  http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com/htc/htc-7-mozart-t8698-htc-mozart/htc-7-mozart-t8698-usb-desktop-cradle-with-2nd-battery-slot.html
• AceSoft 1580mAh Extended Battery (2x) + External Home Charger ($30)
  http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-ACCESSORY-High-quality-Battery-Home-Charger-SYNC-4-HTC-7-Trophy-Verizon-US-/270966301572
• Rapid Fast Car Charger + Pouch Case ($5)
  http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Rapid-Fast-Battery-Car-Charger-Pouch-Case-Phone-Verizon-HTC-Merge-Trophy-/310353702827
• Rapid Fast Battery Home Wall AC Charger Phone (2x) for Verizon HTC Merge Trophy ($5)
  http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-Rapid-Fast-Battery-Home-Wall-AC-Charger-Phone-Verizon-HTC-Merge-Trophy-/310398309040
• Metallic Blue Hard Cover Case for Verizon HTC Trophy ($6)
  http://www.ebay.com/itm/330574239387 
  Other Cases for Verizon HTC Trophy ($6/each)
  http://stores.ebay.com/CellCasesUSA/TROPHY-/_i.html?_fsub=2450217017&_sid=890598797&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

ONLINE REFERENCES/DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE VERIZON HTC TROPHY:

• HTC Community Forum for Verizon HTC Trophy
  http://community.htc.com/na/htc-forums/windows-phone/f/131.aspx
• Verizon Wireless Community Forum for Verizon HTC Trophy
  https://community.verizonwireless.com/community/windows/trophy
• WPCentral Community Forum – HTC Trophy
  http://forums.wpcentral.com/trophy/
• XDA-Developers – HTC Trophy
  http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=809

The recent uproar over Advanced Persistent Threats & actual evidence seems to have resulted in some commentary in the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report’s latest issue.  It’s a good read for security folk and is always published at http://www.microsoft.com/sir.

Taken from our Press Release on the topic:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2012/Apr12/04-25SIRvApr12PR.aspx

Microsoft Corp. today released the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume 12 (.pdf file), which found that the Conficker worm was detected approximately 220 million times worldwide in the past two and a half years, making it one of the biggest ongoing threats to enterprises. The study also revealed the worm continues to spread because of weak or stolen passwords and vulnerabilities for which a security update exists.

According to the SIRv12, quarterly detections of the Conficker worm have increased by more than 225 percent since the beginning of 2009. In the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, Conficker was detected on 1.7 million systems worldwide. In examining the reasons behind Conficker’s prevalence in organizations, research showed that 92 percent of Conficker infections were a result of weak or stolen passwords, and 8 percent of infections exploited vulnerabilities for which a security update exists.

“Conficker is one of the biggest security problems we face, yet it is well within our power to defend against,” said Tim Rains, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing. “It is critically important that organizations focus on the security fundamentals to help protect against the most common threats.”

The SIRv12 also revealed that many of the threats often referred to as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are no more advanced or sophisticated than other types of attacks. In most cases, these attacks leverage known vectors such as exploiting weak or stolen passwords and vulnerabilities for which security updates exist, but their success lies in the persistence and determination in trying different tactics to compromise the target. This is why Microsoft refers to these types of threats as Targeted Attacks performed by Determined Adversaries, rather than APTs.

…

Read the rest of the release at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2012/Apr12/04-25SIRvApr12PR.aspx.

• To download this month’s Security Intelligence Report (volume 12) go to:
  Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume 12 (.pdf file)
  http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9807245
  (Warning:  It’s long – 3.26MB file)

We are pleased to announce that Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 is now available for download!

Download the latest release to stay up-to-date on your deployment needs. New features and enhancements make large-scale desktop and server deployments smoother than ever!

Key Benefits:

• Support for Configuration Manager 2012
• Customizable deployment questions
• Ease Lite Touch installation
• Secure deployments
• Reliability and flexibility
• Support for Windows 8

Support for Configuration Manager 2012:
This update provides support for Configuration Manager 2012 RC2 releases. MDT 2012 fully leverages the capabilities provided by Configuration Manager 2012 for OS deployment. The latest version of MDT offers new User-Driven Installation components and extensibility for Configuration Manager 2007 and 2012. Users now also have the ability to migrate MDT 2012 task sequences from Configuration Manager 2007 to Configuration Manager 2012.

Customize deployment questions:
For System Center Configuration Manager customers, MDT 2012 provides an improved, extensible wizard and designer for customizing deployment questions.

Ease Lite Touch installation:
The Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) is now integrated with Lite Touch Installation, providing remote control and diagnostics. New monitoring capabilities are available to check on the status of currently running deployments. LTI now has an improved deployment wizard user experience. Enhanced partitioning support ensures that deployments work regardless of the current structure.

Secure Deployments:
MDT 2012 offers integration with the Microsoft Security Compliance Manager (SCM) tool to ensure a secure Windows deployment from the start.

Reliability and flexibility:
Existing MDT users will find more reliability and flexibility with the many small enhancements and bug fixes and a smooth and simple upgrade process.

Support for Windows 8:
MDT 2012 provides support for deploying Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows Server “8” Beta in a lab environment.

Learn more
Visit the MDT home page: www.microsoft.com/MDT

Get the latest news straight from the MDT team: http://blogs.technet.com/mniehaus/

MDT works with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit and Security Compliance Manager to help you plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies—easier, faster, and at less cost. Learn more at www.microsoft.com/solutionaccelerators.

• Visit the Microsoft Download Center to download MDT 2012 now! (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&=tm&id=25175)

Strengthen your compliance experience with new features from the Data Classification Toolkit for Windows Server 8 Beta.

Key features include:

• Knowledge
  • Out of box classification configuration package
  • Mapping with PCI-DSS and NIST 800-53 standards
• Enhanced User Experience
  • Scenario driven User Interface
  • Classification wizard to configure file server classification infrastructure
  • Claims wizard to help configure a claim value
• New features to support Windows Server 8 Dynamic Access Control
  • Support for out of box rights management file management Tasks
  • Support for global and secure  properties
  • Manage and report default Central Access Policy on file servers
  • User and device claims wizard to help determine the set of values for claims
  • Active Directory Central Access Policy Configuration Export and Import tool to configure central access policy across forest
  • Support for both Windows Server 8 and Windows Server 2008 R2 file servers

Top Benefits:

Get ready for Windows Server 8 Beta and stay on top of your compliance. The toolkit offers support for new Windows Server 8 Beta features, Dynamic Access Control, and forward compatibility for existing functionality from the earlier version of the toolkit. The Data Classification Toolkit provides support for configuring data compliance on both Windows Server 8 Beta file servers and Windows Server 2008 R2 file servers to help automate the file classification process, and make file management more efficient. The final release of Windows Server 8 is right around the corner; make sure your compliance process and policies are up to date!

Simplify configuring Central Access Policy. This version of the toolkit allows you to provision and standardize Central Access Policy across the forest, and apply default access policy on your file servers. It also provides a tool to provision user and device claim values based on Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) resources to help simplify the configuration process of Windows Server 8 Beta Dynamic Access Controls. In addition, you can easily track and report existing Central Access Policy on file shares.

Strengthen your user experience. The toolkit adds UI to the existing Windows PowerShell experience, including a Classification Wizard for managing file classification and Central Access Policy on the file servers in your organization. The UI also provides a wizard that you can use to build claim values in AD DS.

This toolkit is designed to help enable an organization to:

• Identify, classify, and protect data on its file servers.
• Provide support for Windows Server 8 Beta, as well as for hybrid environments of Windows Server 8 Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2.
• Easily configure default Central Access Policy across multiple servers.
• Build and deploy policies to protect critical information in a cost-effective manner.

Join the beta program and download the beta materials on Connect: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=217117

Not unlike Novell users who moved from a Directory-centric solution to an solution like Windows Server that focused on Applications & Services, many VMware users are already planning on moving from a Virtualization & Hypervisor-centric solution to a solution like System Center that focuses on management of the most important aspects of a Datacenter.

Virtualization is just a dimension of the Datacenter:  Providing a single management infrastructure for both Physical & Virtual, both Private & Public cloud, both OS & Applications… that’s the future of core infrastructure.

VMware to Hyper-V converts share lessons learned

Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer Published: 2 May 2012

Some IT pros will move from VMware to Hyper-V when new virtualization management tools in Microsoft’s System Center 2012 and a new version of Hyper-V hit later this year.

Though switching hypervisors can be a challenge, some say that the cost savings make it a worthwhile move.

One VMware shop based in Chicago will move the last VMware holdouts in its virtualization environment to Hyper-V when Windows Server 2012 becomes available. The Walsh Group, a contractor and construction management company, will save $150,000 per year in slashed VMware Inc. licensing and staffing costs by switching to Microsoft Hyper-V, estimated Patrick Wirtz, manager of technology innovation.

The company, which spreads its IT services between a main data center in Chicago and 100 to 150 remote job sites, will also add automation to its environment with System Center 2012.

Meanwhile, about 20% of the environment — including a mission-critical ERP application in the data center and some of the servers at remote job sites — remain on VMware, at least for now. The company will move the ERP app to Hyper-V as part of an application upgrade, Wirtz said, but only when Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V supports more virtual CPUs (vCPUs) per virtual machine (VM).

In the developer preview released last fall, Microsoft said each guest can support up to 32 vCPUs and 512 GB of memory, up from a limit of 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of RAM.

“Being able to allocate those extra CPU cores to mission-critical apps, like our financial system, is really key for us,” Wirtz said.

Another new Hyper-V feature, shared-nothing live migration, will help the company migrate off VMware at remote job sites where there is only one server, Wirtz added.

…

Read the rest of the article here:
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/2240149514/VMware-to-Hyper-V-converts-share-lessons-learned

System Center Advisor quietly added monitoring & best practices support for several of Microsoft most in-demand server products:

• Exchange Server 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010
• SQL Server 2012

Previously only support for Windows Server 2008 (R2) as well as SQL Server 2008 (R2) was available.  Here’s the announcement:

On April 17, Microsoft announced System Center Advisor (SCA) support for SharePoint 2010, Exchange Server 2010 and SQL Server 2012 at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas.

Below is a brief overview of SCA:

System Center Advisor is a cloud service that enables IT pros to assess their server configuration and proactively avoid problems, while helping support staff to resolve issues faster by accessing current and historical configuration data, all with the security features that meet their needs. Additionally, System Center Advisor helps reduce downtime by providing suggestions for improvement, and notifying customers of key updates specific to their configuration.

Currently supported technologies:

• SQL Server 2008+
• Windows Server 2008+

On April 17 Microsoft announced support for the following technologies:

• SharePoint 2010
• Exchange Server 2010
• SQL Server 2012

Security

• SCA management packs are designed to avoid collection of PII.  No guarantees against unintended collection of sensitive data. There is a mechanism to inspect data before upload.  Microsoft carefully considers every report of customer privacy concerns.
• Like most other services, the SCA team will capture metadata/management/utilization metrics to improve the service.  Please refer to the SCA Privacy Statement.

System Center Advisor is available in 26 locations in English language to Software Assurance customers.  Any customer can sign up for a 60-day free trial at http://www.SystemCenterAdvisor.com

Holy cow.  It finally released!  I’d given up on this.

Forefront Hotfix Rollup 4 for Forefront Security for Office Communications Server has now been released. This allows the product to be used with Lync 2010.

Features of the hotfix rollup
Hotfix Rollup 4 allows FSOCS to be installed on Lync 2010 (running on Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 2008 SP2 x64) in addition to Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. As the feature set and patch level are the same as RU3, customers who have already deployed RU3 can update but are not required to do so.

…

Read more here:

• SUPPORT:  Description of Hotfix Rollup 4 for Forefront Security for Office Communications Server
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2694730
• BLOG:  Hotfix Rollup 4 for Forefront Security for Office Communications Server
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2012/04/02/hotfix-rollup-4-for-forefront-security-for-office-communications-server.aspx

Today, Windows Intune addresses the management and security of PC’s with all of the features below in a single console:

• Anti-Virus/Malware protection with Forefront endpoint protection
• Patching for Windows and 3^rd party applications
• Software deployment via the cloud anywhere around the world
• License management for Microsoft and 3^rd party licenses
• Inventory reporting for HW and SW (Microsoft and 3^rd party)

We just announced the next release of Intune slated for June release. The agility the cloud delivers equates to aggressive, 6 month release cycles offering major features made available to customers with no on-premise infrastructure requirements. Our next release (slated for June) will allow customers to:

• set policies AND deploy LOB software to iPad, iPhone, Windows Phone, Android
• Active Directory Federated services integration with Intune
• Peer caching for remote sites who are receiving Application Downloads – we maximize the bandwidth at the subnet level

Here’s the release:

Windows Intune April 2012 Pre-Release Now Available

Windows Intune is an integrated, cloud-based client management solution that provides tools, reports, and upgrade licenses to the latest version of Windows. Windows Intune helps keep your computers up-to-date and secure, and lets your users more securely access and install targeted licensed software applications and perform other common tasks, from virtually anywhere. NOTE: In this pre-release of Windows Intune we are providing access to some of the new features and enhancements that are coming soon. It is important to understand that this pre-release is designed for use in a test environment and should not be linked to existing production servers. Once the full release of Windows Intune is available, the ability to connect to your production infrastructure will be enabled.

See also:

• Windows Intune April 2012 Pre-Release Getting Started Guide
• What’s New in the Windows Intune April 2012 Pre-Release
• Windows Intune Partner Offers