Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Keeping tabs on your favorite NFL teams and players just got a lot faster with Bing. Earlier this month we released an improved NFL Instant Answer to the Bing results page. With fast, up-to-the-minute scores, stats and ticket data, Bing is an easy play on Sunday.

Let’s begin and say you’re interested in getting the scoop about the Seahawks most recent game against the Redskins.  The Bing NFL Instant Answer is highlighted below:

Scroll over “Passing” to see basic passing stats for the game:

Scroll over “Rushing” to see the game’s rushing leaders:

At the bottom of this search result, there is a link where you can check out upcoming Seahawks games and, more importantly, access to ticket information. Look for the DEAL icon and click on “Seattle Seahawks:”

Next, let’s say you’re interested in how new ‘Hawks QB Tarvaris Jackson is doing this year. Simply search Tarvaris Jackson, and the instant answer includes stats for this season, Jackson’s entire career, and even a bio:

And what if you want scores fast? Search NFL Scores in the search box and get up-to-the-minute game day scores right at the top:

With lots of action left before the Super Bowl in February, be sure to use the new Bing NFL Instant Answer to get the quickest results for your NFL queries.

I hear people even to this day complain about the existence of Internet Explorer in Windows.  “Why do I have to have Internet Explorer on my machine?  I use Chrome/Firefox!”

This frankly betrays a lack of understanding about just how much value Internet Explorer provides to Windows & its users.  You probably use Internet Explorer every day in Windows because it’s a core technology responsible for visually presenting content on the screen virtually everywhere… you just don’t know it. 

Again, just because you don’t use it to browse the web doesn’t mean you’re not using it within Windows itself.  Internet Explorer – all versions – provides 2 things:

• HTML rendering engine
• Application Development APIs

Any time any application (Microsoft or 3rd party) or component with Windows has to render HTML in some fashion – you’re using Internet Explorer.  The HTML rendering engine within Internet Explorer is used everywhere within Windows… here’s a small sample of the systems that use Internet Explorer to present formatted text/graphics:

• Windows Help
• All Microsoft Office products
• All of Microsoft administration tools
• Windows Media Player
• Performance Monitor
• Half the stuff in Control Panel
• Most of Windows Live’s tools such as Messenger & Writer
• …etc…

INTERNET EXPLORER:  A PROGRAMMABLE HTML RENDERING SERVICE
Again, other applications take advantage of Internet Explorer and assume that the IE HTML rendering engine is available in every version of Windows to present HTML formatted content or to provide windows or dialog boxes with HTML based layouts.  IE is the programmable service by which everyone presents HTML formatted content.  For example:  Maxthon is a browser that leverages the HTML rendering services (aka “Trident”) of Internet Explorer but provides an interface that’s completely different and in many ways better than what IE9 provides out of the box:

• MAXTHON
  http://www.maxthon.com/

If Windows did not include Internet Explorer as a HTML rendering service, every application would need to include & maintain it’s own HTML rendering service.  And in case you hadn’t noticed, most browsers these days are a good 50MB.  Fortunately, for all of us, there is a standard available to Windows developers… it’s called IE.

Let’s be clear:  Without IE, most of Windows doesn’t work.

SO WHY CAN’T I JUST REPLACE IE WITH CHROME/FIREFOX’S HTML ENGINE?
Obviously, Microsoft’s products, like Windows Help & Windows Media Player are never going to be using a 3rd party rendering engine based on WebKit or something like that.  But for products like JD Edwards OneWorld, which has Win32 applications that include browser windows within them… why not WebKit?  Or Gecko?

The fact is that other browser developers companies don’t seem to really care about providing their HTML rendering services programmatically to application developers in the same way that Microsoft does with Internet Explorer.  There’s not really any incentive for browser vendors to do so.  Sure, Mozilla encourages people to build ADD ONS for Firefox to make Firefox as a browser more useful, but to leverage Firefox as a rendering engine for other applications?  Not so much.

Have you presented your Lync deployment with external access?  Are you interested in federating your Lync infrastructure with other companies like:

• Columbia Sportswear
• Level 3
• Alliant Energy
• AMD
• Amgen
• Aramark
• BestBuy
• BMW
• CB Richard Ellis
• CDW
• Clear Channel
• Conagra
• Corning
• Davita
• DelMonte
• Disney
• First American
• Gamestop
• Hasbro
• Honeywell
• Ingram Micro
• Jet Blue
• Kodak
• Kraft
• Mattel
• Gartner
• British Telecom
• Dell
• Accenture
• HP
• Jabra
• Microsoft
• Polycom
• etc.

These are just some of the marquee names I recognized and picked out of the directory.  Every one of these companies are using Lync/OCS technology and can be federated with.

Federation provides a means by which your company an SECURELY instant message with another company, as well as see the online presence of key contacts that have authorized you to communicate with them.

So if you want a closer relationship with these companies as a partner, customer, or a vendor… check out the Lync federation directory!

• LINK:  Lync Directory
  http://www.lyncdirectory.com/

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Office 2003 will be reaching end of support in April 2014. The following post is designed to highlight the potential risks involved with the upcoming end of support of these products and to outline the options available to mitigate these risks.  

What is the situation and potential risk?

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 will no longer be supported from April 8, 2014 onwards. After this date, Microsoft will not provide any public support for these products, including security patches, non-security hotfixes or incident support.

Running Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 in your environment after their end of support date may expose your company to potential risks, such as: 

• Security & Compliance Risks – Unsupported and unpatched environments are vulnerable to security risks. This may result in an officially recognized control failure by an internal or external audit body, leading to suspension of certifications, and/or public notification of the organization’s inability to maintain its systems and customer information.
• Lack of Independent Software Vendor (ISV) & Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Support – A recent industry report from Gartner Research suggests "many independent software vendors (ISVs) are unlikely to support new versions of applications on Windows XP in 2011; in 2012, it will become common". And it may stifle access to hardware innovation: Gartner Research further notes that in 2012, most PC hardware OEMs will stop supporting Windows XP on the majority of their new PC models. See Creating a Timeline for Deploying Windows 7 and Eliminating Windows XP SP3, June 2011.

What are the available options?

1. Upgrade – This option affords customers the best return on investment by deploying a modern PC with Windows 7 Enterprise and Office 2010. Whether you’re a small business or the largest corporation with offices worldwide, moving to a modern PC with Windows 7 Enterprise and Office 2010 offers your business the ability to improve productivity for your employees and increase operational efficiency through improved PC security and management.

   To help customers with the migration/deployment process, Microsoft and our consulting partners offer several options including proof of concept (POC) and production pilot programs, available through Microsoft Consulting Services or one of our Certified Service Partners, to help you achieve a successful upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise and Office 2010. 

2. Purchase a Custom Support contract through Premier Support to stay on unsupported products – If, for any reason, you decide to remain on Windows XP SP3 or Office 2003 after support ends, you have the option to purchase Custom Support. As a condition of buying a Custom Support contract, you must have a Premier Support agreement and we ask our customers to have a migration plan in place. The cost of Custom Support is significantly higher than regular support, and rises annually due to the rising costs of supporting a legacy product.
   
3. Do nothing – Microsoft recommends customers avoid this option for it can put you at risk of potential security and compliance issues. 

Where can you find more information?

• Details on Microsoft product support lifecycle is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle
• Details on end of support for Windows XP and Office 2003 is available at: www.microsoft.com/endofsupport
• Details on Microsoft Consulting Services that can help you design, deploy and support your Microsoft solutions are available at: http://www.microsoft.com/services
• Details on Microsoft deployment guidance, training and free deployment tools for your IT Professionals at: www.microsoft.com/springboard

Gartner published an interesting research report about migration techniques & the imminent dangers or remaining on Windows XP in the upcoming 2012 year. 

They highlight the following concerns about not migrating off of Windows XP:

• The end of vulnerability & security patches for Windows XP, leaving PCs exposed to new & upcoming malware
• The continued elimination of support for Windows XP drivers by hardware vendors
• The upcoming elimination of Windows XP support by line-of-business software vendors
• The need to purchase custom support to protect & secure remaining PCs, agreements for which cost as much as $500,000/annually

Gartner’s advice around migration off of Windows XP is quite clear in their recent Research Report, "Creating a timeline for Deploying Windows 7 & Eliminating Windows XP" & it begins with, “Plan to deploy Windows 7; do not wait for Windows 8.”

There are however several other recommendations & we have received permission to distribute this analysis/report.  A publicly available link to the content is attached below for your reference.

• GARTNER: “Creating a Timeline for Deploying Windows 7 & Eliminating Windows XP”
  http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/9/7/497A3EA8-09BB-4064-A72C-924C9AC63BE5/creating_a_timeline_for_depl_213442.pdf

We just released a new 365 page eBook from the Patterns and Practices series:  “A Guide to Claims-Based Identity and Access Control, Second Edition”.

As an application designer or developer, imagine a world in which you don’t have to worry about authentication. Imagine instead that all requests to your application already include the information you need to make access control decisions and to personalize the application for the user.

In this world, your applications can trust another system component to securely provide user information, such as the user’s name or email address, a manager’s email address, or even a purchasing authorization limit. The user’s information always arrives in the same simple format, regardless of the authentication mechanism, whether it’s Microsoft® Windows® integrated authentication, forms-basedauthentication in a web browser, an X.509 client certificate, or something more exotic. Even if someone in charge of your company’ssecurity policy changes how users authenticate, you still get the information, and it’s always in the same format.

This is the utopia of claims-based identity that A Guide to Claims-Based Identity and Access Control describes. As you’ll see, claims provide an innovative approach for building applications that authenticate and authorize users.

Who This Book Is For
This book gives you enough information to evaluate claims-based identity as a possible option when you’re planning a new application or making changes to an existing one. It is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates web applications and services that require identity information about their users. Although applications that use claims-based identity exist on many platforms, this book is written for people who work with Windows-based systems. You should be familiar with the Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Microsoft Active Directory® directory service, and Microsoft Visual C#® development system.

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook “A Guide to Claims-Based Identity and Access Control, Second Edition”
  http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28362&WT

The definition, business value, and technology benefits of the “the cloud” have been hotly debated in recent months. Most agree that cloud computing can accelerate innovation, reduce costs, and increase business agility in the market. In 2012, cloud computing will transition from hype and discussion, to part of every enterprise’s reality, and IT is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation and help business reap the benefits of cloud computing.

Join us for a virtual event designed to help you explore your cloud options. It’s your chance to interact with Microsoft experts and with IT leaders like yourself, who have been putting cloud technology to work in their own organizations. You’ll be among the first to hear the latest private cloud news from Microsoft.

• Welcome remarks by tech-expert and journalist, Christine Chen
  8:30AM PST/4:30PM GMT
• Private Cloud thought leadership panel and Live Q&A with Microsoft senior executives
  8:40AM PST/4:40PM GMT
• Envisioning Your Private Cloud; Scenario-based demonstration of Microsoft’s Private Cloud computing solutions
  9:40AM PST/5:40PM GMT
• Closing remarks and next steps
  10:25AM PST/6:25PM GMT

Microsoft Executive Panelists:

Satya Nadella
President, Server
and Tools Business, Microsoft

Brad Anderson
Corporate Vice President, Management and Security Division, Microsoft

Jacky Wright
Vice President, IT Strategic Services, Microsoft IT

DATE/TIME:
Tuesday, January 17th
8:30 AM PST | 4:30 PM GMT

REGISTRATION:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/events/en-us/PrivateCloudExec/#fbid=uZYzH12-8yp

Our IT organization likes to say that they’re Microsoft’s first & best customer, because we deploy our products internally within Microsoft before they’re ever available to our customers.

As part of that effort, they document their work and summarize it in case studies and whitepapers which are often very useful for folks implementing the same products.

Here’s a listing of their most recent content:

New or updated content

• Microsoft IT Implementation of Disaster Recovery in the Datacenter
  Article
• Active Directory Rights Management Services at Microsoft
  Technical White Paper
• Using Windows Azure to Build and Expand Microsoft.com Social Media Capabilities
  Technical Case Study
• Microsoft IT Leverages Risk and Health Assessment Programs r
  Technical Case Study
• AppLocker Deployment at Microsoft
  Technical Case Study
• Using Excel Services to Improve Financial Data Retrieval Performance
  Technical Case Study
• Enabling Self Service BI from EDW using SharePoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2
  Technical White Paper
• Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring
  Technical Case Study
• Public Key Infrastructure at Microsoft
  Technical White Paper
• Optimizing Branch Office Servers by Using Windows Server® 2008 R2 with Hyper-V
  Technical Case Study
• Developing a Strategy to Simplify Planning and Improve Performance and Reliability
  Article
• Implementing Support and Monitoring For a Business-Critical Application Migrated to Windows Azure
  Technical Case Study
• Architecting and Redeploying a Business Critical Application to Windows Azure
  Technical Case Study
• How Microsoft IT Deployed a Customer Facing Application to Windows Azure in Six Weeks
  Technical Case Study
• Microsoft Adopts the Private Cloud
  Technical Case Study
• Forecasting Process for Worldwide Sales Provides Transparency, Consistency, and Efficiency
  Business Case Study

New Readiness & Delivery Content

• IT Showcase on: Server Virtualization
  Quick Reference Guide
• IT Showcase on: Consumerization of IT
  Quick Reference Guide

New Webcasts & Audiocasts

• Integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 with SAP for Expense Management
  IT Pro Webcast, January 17, 2012 9:30 AM Pacific Time
• Microsoft Risk and Health Assessment Programs for Premier Customers
  IT Pro Webcast
• Consolidating and Sharing Business Intelligence Reports for Finance
  TechNet Radio
• System Center Configuration Manager 2012
  IT Pro Webcast
• Measuring and Driving Microsoft IT Using Microsoft BI Solutions
  TDM Webcast
• Microsoft Adopts the Private Cloud
  IT Pro Webcast
• How Microsoft IT Deployed Internet Explorer 9 at Microsoft
  TechNet Radio
• Managing Client Data Backup, Storage and Management at Microsoft
  TechNet Radio
• How Microsoft IT is Moving to the Cloud to Meet and Exceed the Needs of the Business
  TechNet Radio
• Microsoft IT Uses File Classification Infrastructure to Help Secure Personally Identifiable Information
  TechNet Radio
• How Microsoft Deployed Windows Phone 7 in the Enterprise
  TechNet Radio
• Maintaining High Availability for Microsoft.com
  TechNet Radio

A customer asked the question:  Doesn’t the elimination of Single Instance Storage in Exchange Server 2010 mean that our Exchange stores are going to balloon in size?

We addressed this back in February. 
We HAD to change our storage architecture to provide dramatically better IO performance, huge increases in scalability, and more flexible.

One of our main goals for Exchange 2010 was to provide very large mailboxes at a low cost. Disk capacity is no longer a premium; disk space is very inexpensive and IT shops can take advantage of larger, cheaper disks to reduce their overall cost. In order to leverage those larger capacity disks, you also need to increase mailbox sizes (and remove PSTs and leverage the personal archive and records management capabilities) so that you can ensure that you are designing your storage to be both IO efficient and capacity efficient.

During the development of Exchange 2010, we realized that having a table structure optimized for SIS was holding us back from making the storage innovations that were necessary to achieve our goals. In order to improve the store and ESE, to change our IO profile (from many, small, random IOs to larger, fewer, more sequential IOs), and to resolve our inefficiencies around item count, we had to change the store schema. Specifically, we moved away from a per-database table structure to a per-mailbox table structure.

This architecture, along with other changes to the ESE and store engines (lazy view updates, space hints, page size increase, b+ tree defrag, etc.), netted us not only a 70% reduction in IO over Exchange 2007, but also substantially increased our ability to store more items in critical path folders.

The outcome was a bit of Exchange database growth.  To compensate for this we effectively implemented compression which eliminated the growth side effect.

As a result of the new architecture and the other changes to the store and ESE, we had to deal with an unintended side effect. While these changes greatly improved our IO efficiency, they made our space efficiency worse. In fact, on average they increased the size of the Exchange database by about 20% over Exchange 2007. To overcome this bloating effect, we implemented a targeted compression mechanism (using either 7-bit or XPRESS, which is the Microsoft implementation of the LZ77 algorithm) that specifically compresses message headers and bodies that are either text or HTML-based (attachments are not compressed as typically they exist in their most compressed state already). The result of this work is that we see database sizes on par with Exchange 2007.

Here’s the articles from the Exchange Team Blog that talk about why SIS’s removal from Exchange 2010 ends up being a really good thing!

• Dude, Where’s My Single Instance? (February 2011)
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2010/02/22/dude-where-s-my-single-instance.aspx
• Top 10 Exchange Storage Myths (March 2011)
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2010/03/29/3409629.aspx

One of my TAMs sent a mail out to our customers and I thought this part was exceptionally important for people to understand:

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 will no longer be supported from April 8, 2014 onwards. After this date, Microsoft will not provide any public support for these products, including security patches, non-security hotfixes or incident support.

Running Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 in your environment after their end of support date may expose your company to potential risks, such as: 

• Security & Compliance Risks – Unsupported and unpatched environments are vulnerable to security risks. This may result in an officially recognized control failure by an internal or external audit body, leading to suspension of certifications, and/or public notification of the organization’s inability to maintain its systems and customer information.
• Lack of Independent Software Vendor (ISV) & Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Support – A recent industry report from Gartner Research suggests "many independent software vendors (ISVs) are unlikely to support new versions of applications on Windows XP in 2011; in 2012, it will become common". And it may stifle access to hardware innovation: Gartner Research further notes that in 2012, most PC hardware OEMs will stop supporting Windows XP on the majority of their new PC models. See Creating a Timeline for Deploying Windows 7 and Eliminating Windows XP SP3, June 2011.

Do the math:

• If your company has 10,000 desktops, assuming you start right now, you will need to deploy 370 Windows 7 desktop images every month, or 75 desktops a week in order to make the April 2014 deadline.
• If your company has 3,000 desktops, you need to be able to deploy 111 Windows 7 desktop images each month.

Ask yourself:  Could you do this?  Do you have the time & the manpower?