Está disponível uma versão preliminar do primeiro livro que pretende cobrir o desenvolvimento para Windows Phone 7 Series com Silverlight e XNA:

Free ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7 Series (DRAFT Preview) – disponível em XPS, PDF e ZIP com os exemplos

Microsoft'un çıkardığı RSAT aracını yükleyerek Active Directory, Group Policy, Terminal Services, Remote Desktop Services ve diğer Windows 2003, 2008, 2008 R2 gibi çoğu sunucu görevlerini Windows 7 ile uzaktan yönetebilirsiniz.

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 enables IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2003, from a remote computer that is running Windows 7.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7D2F6AD7-656B-4313-A005-4E344E43997D&displaylang=en 

first – even though you can use these procedures on a running, active windows vista or windows 7 operating system, if you care about your data, back it up – somewhere else – please!  critical personal data i synchronize it using windows live mesh.  now onto the tutorial and screen shots.

my windows 7 partition (and system reserved 100 mb partition) – right click on the c: partition and choose shrink volume…

here’s how much space i can reclaim immediately on my computer (i haven’t defragmented or anything else – just ran the shrink volume command)

this took about 30 seconds and now it’s shrunk.

you can only extend a volume that has free space to the right of it (so in this case i can extend the e: volume i created)

if i had a partition for data and wanted to combine the two, i would have to free up the e: partition by moving it’s contents to a removable disk and then deleting the e: partition to extend c:

you can also use the command line utility diskpart from within windows 7 or windows vista or from windows pe to deal with repartitioning as well (this works on previous operating systems like windows xp!)

help shrink will list the usage of the command within diskpart

help extend will list the usage of the command within diskpart

Ron Jacobs – Sr. Technical Evangelist – Microsoft

http://blogs.msdn.com/rjacobs

“Do the simplest thing that will possibly Work”

Scalability – Able to support the required quality of Service as the system load increases – Wiktionary

Typical Web Architecture

• Users
  • Need a to get routed to same machine (ex. stick sessions)
• Web Tier
• Data Tier

Problem: “It’s simple but isn’t scalable”

Solutions:

• Keep your data near where she’s processing
  • Ex. Cache
  • Cache is scoped to machines / process
    • machine dies
    • processes recycle
  • Cache memory
  • Imagine “What if?”
    • You could have as much cache as you wanted?
    • You could share giant parts of your applications?
    • What about if it was free?
  • You have: Windows Server App Fabric

What is AppFabric Caching?

• An explicit, distributed, in-memory application cache for all kinds of data
  • Caching clients can be across machines or processes
  • Clients access the cache as if it was a large single cache
    • This creates a Unified Cache View.
  • Doesn’t need to be recycled or recompiled when some other process or machine is added

Data Distribution

• Scale on Data Size – more machines => more memory to cache
• Scale on Cache Throughput – more machines => keys are distributed across machines => better throughput
• It’s better to scale with several machines that with a large machine with lots of memory, because the throughput

Take control over AppFabric Cache using the DataCacheFactory class.

Steps:

1. Configure the AppFabric Configuration Store
2. Copy the Client Dlls
3. Update the Web.Config to host the AppFabric Caching

Supports:

• Clients: .NET 4.0 and 3.5
• Cache Server: .NET 4.0

Administration

• PowerShell commands
  • get-CacheHelp
• Performance Counters

AppFabric Cache Codeplex Tool – http://mdcadmintool.codeplex.com

Security

• Domain-Based Security Option
  • Domain Account / Load Account based Authentication
  • Only authorized servers can join the clusters

AppFabric Caching Logical Hierarchy

Machine –> Cache Host –> Named Caches –> Regions –> Cache Items –> Objects

• Host
  • Physical processes hosting AppFabric Caching instance
• Named Caches
  • Can span across machines
• Regions
  • Groups that you want to treat together

Types of Data

• Reference Data
  • Primary Read Only
  • ex. Catalog Data
• Activity Data
  • Read-Write not shared
  • Ex. Shopping cart
• Resource Data
  • Read-write and Shared
  • Ex. Auction Data / Seat Assignment

Reference Data

• Performance
  • Catalog data doesn’t change often
  • Unnecessary network cost to access from different machines
  • Solution – Local Cache
• Bulk Get
  • Bulk Fetch from region
    • 200-300k of calls per second
    • better performance

Activity Data

• Session Integration
  • Just define SessionState to Custom mode and use the “SessopmStoreProvider” to use AppFabric Caching
• Availability
  • It’s possible to define AppFabric Caching to use High Availability and replicate the cached data

Resource Data

• Optimistic Locking
  • GetCacheItem returns a version object
  • Every update to an object internally increments it’s version
  • Supply the version obtained along with the Put/Remove
• Pessimistic Locking
  • GetAndLock return a lock handle
  • Doesn’t lock the Get

Resource and Activity Data

• Get Cache Events Notifications
• Register on any client to notify changes
• Batched Notifications

Scalable Notifications

• Register the notification for a specific key
• Map keys to partition
• Poll Required nodes
• Nodes return list of changes

How to get this

• Use at the Web Platform Installer, on the Options to enable the Enterprise Tab
• Afterwards just select the Enterprise tab and install it

View the endpoint.tv Shows Channel 9

What adds value to your business?  Please join us March 17^th, 2010 for a series of webcasts and live question & answer session, designed to showcase how to best engage with Microsoft Partner Network to add value to your business.

On March 17^th, 2010, Julie Bennani, the General Manager of Microsoft Partner, will launch a series of webcasts for Partners about the Microsoft Partner Network.  During these webcasts you will:

• Learn how the network provides you opportunities to strengthen your capabilities to help provide more value to you and your customers.
• Discover the resources available to you to better serve your customers and create customer demand.
• Connect with Microsoft and your partner network to spark innovation and connection.

View the webcasts on March 17^th, 2010 on www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com.  Get your questions answered with live question and answer chat with Julie Bennani and team on twitter/msPartner on March 17, 2010 from 9:00-10:00 am and 5:00-6:00 pm (Pacific Time).   For more information on the webcasts, click here.  If you are new to using Twitter, you can download tips to get you going. 

To prepare for the global webcasts with Julie Bennani, I recommend downloading the Value of Earning a Competency Guide – summary or full version.  The guide provides a first look into the requirements and benefits for the new Microsoft Partner Network competencies and advanced competencies. 

I hope you can join us on March 17^th!

An updated download of the Operations Manager 2007 SP1 Management Pack is available. The management pack for Operations Manager hasn't changed, but the package now includes an updated version of the Operational Data Reporting (ODR) Management Pack, which is installed with Operations Manager.

Here are some the changes you'll see in the ODR MP:

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.0 is an agent-less tool designed to simplify and streamline the IT infrastructure planning process across multiple scenarios through network-wide automated discovery and assessments. This Solution Accelerator performs an inventory of heterogeneous server environments and provides you with usage information for servers in the Core CAL Suite, a data centre infrastructure assessment survey, and a readiness assessment for the most widely used Microsoft technologies—now including Office 2010.

Download the beta materials now:

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.0 Beta 1 (Live ID required)

What are the benefits?

Heterogeneous Server Environment Inventory: Know what’s in your IT environment. The MAP Toolkit provides a network inventory of IT assets remotely without the use of agents, identifying heterogeneous server environments consisting of Windows Server and Linux operating systems, including those running in a virtual environment. MAP 5.0 also automates the discovery of Linux powered LAMP stacks.

Software Usage Tracking: Right-size your IT with the MAP Toolkit 5.0. MAP 5.0’s new usage tracking feature provides consistent software usage reports for Microsoft servers, including Windows Server, SharePoint, and System Centre Configuration Manager. Run updated reports whenever you need to accurately assess the current software usage and client access history in your environment. This will reduce your time and administrative costs for managing software and Server and Client Access License (CAL) licensing assets, and ensures that you pay only for the licenses you use.

Microsoft Office 2010 Readiness Assessment: Streamline your migration to Office 2010 with MAP 5.0’s hardware compatibility proposal document. The actionable recommendations and assessments presented shorten the time it takes to plan your Office 2010 migration.

Data Centre Infrastructure Assessment Survey: Use this survey in the MAP Toolkit 5.0 to assess the components needed to design the storage and networking infrastructure for the Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Centre.

Call to Action

• Join the beta review program for MAP Toolkit 5.0 - join the beta, and influence the development of the toolkit.
• Download the MAP Toolkit 5.0 Beta 1. We’d like your feedback too. Visit Microsoft Connect to download the beta materials.
• Tell us what you think! Send your feedback and questions to the MAP development team.

Related Resources

MAP Toolkit TechNet Library page

Windows Desktop Solution Accelerators

Windows Server Solution Accelerators

Security Solution Accelerators

Virtualization Solution Accelerators

Ready, Set, Virtualize. You are invited to attend The Microsoft Desktop Virtualization Hour.

What is the best migration path to Windows 7? What’s the best desktop management strategy for your company? Which virtualization solutions can save you time and money? Join us in this virtual event and learn how Microsoft can help you discover choices, preserve & extend your existing investments. Learn how Microsoft’s virtualization vision and technologies can help you:

• Build a desktop virtualization management strategy that helps you manage your applications, data, mobile workers and multiple physical and virtual form factors
• Reduce desktop costs
• Enable flexible and agile IT through virtualization
• Increase desktop security and compliance
• Improve business continuity and end user productivity
• Increase end user productivity and streamline your IT management with Windows 7

March 18th @ 9am PST See http://www.desktopvirtualizationhour.com

Hello,

Today we published the Questions & Answers from the March 2010 Security Bulleting webcast. We answered a total of 13 questions concerning the March bulletins and open Security Advisories. No particular themes emerged from the questions but there were some good ones so please review them.

The video covers the core part of the presentation Adrian Stone and I gave during the webcast. We talk about the two bulletins for March, a bulletin re-release and Security Advisory 981374.

More listening and viewing options: Windows Media Video (WMV) Windows Media Audio (WMA) iPod Video (MP4) MP3 Audio High Quality WMV (2.5 Mbps) Zune Video (WMV)

Please join us for our next scheduled webcast where Adrian and I, along with a room full of subject matter experts, will present on the Security Bulletins for April and try to answer all your questions live.

Date: Wednesday, April 14
Time: 11:00 a.m. PST (UTC -8)
Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032427721

Thanks!

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Summary
List of Remote Desktop Server (RDS, a.k.a. Terminal server (TS)) related hotfixes for post RTM for Windows Server 2008 as of Mar. 15, 2010.

Please check http://support.microsoft.com for the latest hotfixes related to RDS.

1) 978869 Error message when you try to open a network-shared application on a client computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2: 0xc000000f
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=978869
Ntdll.dll  6.1.7600.20602 

2) 978918 Error code when an application uses the CredSSP in Windows Server 2008 R2: "0x80090329"
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=978918
Credssp.dll  6.1.7600.20618 
Tspkg.dll  6.1.7600.20618 
Icaapi.dll  6.1.7600.16385 
Tssecsrv.sys  6.1.7600.20618 

3) 979425 A combo box item in a RemoteApp application is updated incorrectly when you connect by using Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 7.0
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=979425
Aaclient.dll  6.1.7600.20625 
Mstsc.exe  6.1.7600.20625 
Mstscax.dll  6.1.7600.20625 
Tsgqec.dll  6.1.7600.20625 

4) 979443 You do not receive a warning message when a remote desktop connection fails from a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=979443
Aaclient.dll  6.1.7600.20622  (newer version on KB 979425)
Credssp.dll  6.1.7600.20622 
Mstsc.exe  6.1.7600.20622  (newer version on KB 979425)
Mstscax.dll  6.1.7600.20622  (newer version on KB 979425)
Tsgqec.dll  6.1.7600.20622  (newer version on KB 979425)
Tspkg.dll  6.1.7600.20622 

5) 979470 The "Remote Desktop Services" service cannot protect a console session from being disconnected in Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=979470
Termsrv.dll  6.1.7600.20621 

6) 979530 A Windows Server 2008 R2-based Remote Desktop server denies some connection requests randomly under heavy logon or logoff conditions
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=979530
Regapi.dll  6.1.7600.20621 

7) 979580 Some users cannot view or print End-User-Defined Characters (EUDC) on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=979580
Eudcsettings.exe  6.1.7600.20625 
Eudcedit.exe  6.1.7600.20625 

8) 981054 Group Policy preference settings for the "Terminal Session" item-level targeting item are not applied in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=981054
Gpprefcl.dll  6.1.7600.20658 

SQL Server 2008 Performance Tuning And Optimization

Microsoft Premier Destek Hizmetleri kapsamında 06 - 09 Nisan tarihleri arasında İstanbul'da düzenleyeceğimiz  SQL Server 2008 Performance Tuning And Optimization başlıklı atölye çalışmamıza katılmanız bizi sevindirecektir. 

Çalışmalar uzman mühendislerimiz tarafından, Microsoft'un sağlayacağı bilgisayarlı sınıflarda uygulamalı olarak gerçekleştirilecektir. Çalışmaların verimlilik ve etkinliğinin artırılması amacıyla sınırlı sayıda katılımcının yer alacağı bir çalışma grubu planlanmıştır. Bu nedenle her kurum için en fazla 2 kişilik kontenjan ayrılmıştır

Çalışmaya katılan kurumların Premier Destek Hizmeti kontratından eğitim süresi kadar (4 gün) zaman düşülecek olup, katılım iptalleri, en geç  29 Mart tarihine kadar yapılabilecektir.

Katılımcıların aşağıda mevcut olan "Online Kayıt" butonunu kullanarak kayıt işlemlerini tamamlamalarını rica ederiz.   Atölye Çalışmasının yapılacağı sınıfın yeri ile ilgili detayları aşağıda bulabilirsiniz.

GÜNDEM

·        Module 1: Architecture

·        Module 2: Table and Index Structure

·        Module 3: Performance Tools & Monitoring

·        Module 4: Locking and Concurrency

·        Module 5: Query Optimization

·        Module 6: Programming Efficiency

·        Module 7: Resource Governor

Konuşmacı:  Batuhan Yıldız

Tarih:     06-09 Nisan 2010, 09:30-17:30

Yer:        Bellevue Residence, Aydın Sokak. No:7 Levent, 34340

Michael S. Scherotter – Media Experience Evangelist – Microsoft

Mail – mishero@microsoft

Twitter - @synergist

Blog – http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist

Design Goals

1. Out-of browser
2. Offline applications
3. Multiple Services Simultaneously
4. Expression Blend
5. A/B Testing
6. SketchFlow Application
   • Important to track the information about how customers are using our sketch.
7. Microsoft Silverlight Media Framework Player

Build upon Silverlight Behaviors

Architecture

• Application with the Analytics Services and the TrackAction will contact the DataCollector element that will send the information to the Event Log element.
• If we are offline everything is working and the information will store all the information in the Isolated storage and whenever the application goes online all the Analytics Services will be contacted and informed about all the actions made offline.

A Complete set of Behaviors related to Silverlight Analytics are made available easily inside Blend in order to define what to track and to analyze.

Extensibility

• Analytics Services Create Behaviors
  • Basically wraps Service Calls
• Control Vendors Create Behaviors or Handler via MEF
• Framework Comes with Visual Studio Templates

Building it

• New Silverlight Class Library
• Add new Item ”Analytics Behavior”
  • Template for developing Analytics Behaviors
  • Gives you access to Analytics Events that are placed in your application

Application Performance

• Use the Pulse Behavior

Partners

• Actually inside the Framework
• Analytics Services
  • AT Internet
  • Google Analytics
  • Quantcast
  • Comscore
  • Nedstat
  • GlanceGuide
  • Preemptive Solutions
  • Controls
    • Telerik
      • Microsoft Silverlight Media Framework
      • Smooth Streaming Media Element

• The ones that will be in the Framework
  • Analytics Services
    • Nielsen
    • …
  • Controls
    • Infragistics
      • Microsoft Silverlight Media Framework
      • Smooth Streaming Media Element

 Service Oriented Analytics

• Platforms
  • WPF Analytics
  • Silverlight 4
• Behavior that wraps the Endpoints and places the analytics in them, leveraging all the power of the Silverlight Analytics not only for Silverlight applications
• http://msaf.codeplex.com
  • Open Source – MS-PL
  • Community Development
  • Beta Status
  • Learn from the code

So you want to go to TechEd? If the fact that Chris Henley and I are speaking is not enough for you.  Then you need to try sending your boss and email about the value of TechEd.  Here is a great example of an email:

Convince your boss: Send me to Tech·Ed 2010 

And in case your wondering, what session we are delivering here it is:

10 Hot Topics Every IT Admin Needs to Know about Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 R2 is an awesome operating system, and the real benefits are for the IT administrator. Join Matt Hester and Chris Henley, authors of "Windows Server 2008 R2 Administrators Instant Reference" as they cover the ten hottest topics in the world of Windows Server 2008 R2 from the IT admin's perspective. Ever hear of Windows Core protocol? You will! How are your Hyper-V skills? We'll make them better! Ever used the graphical interface from PowerShell? We’ll show you how! What happened to Terminal services? Why is Remote Desktop so much better? We’ll show you! If you’re an IT administrator you don’t want to miss this session!

Many times we hear consultants, firewall administrators and others asking how to use TMG as a Secure Web Gateway, which is a quiet fair question. But sometimes we also hear things like: where do I enable Secure Web Gateway feature on Forefront TMG 2010? Although this is also a valid question, it shows that whoever is asking this question possibly don’t know that Secure Web Gateway is not a feature, it is a combination of many features to be implemented as a single solution. This confusion is critical to really understand TMG value proposition on this area and how to fit TMG on a SWG scenario. In order to better clarify this gap that we have in the market we (MS Press TMG Book Authors) wrote an article for TechNet Magazine (March 2010 issue) that technically explains how to use Forefront TMG as a Secure Web Gateway, read it more at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff472472.aspx

I often get asked about upgrading SQL Server 2008 Evaluation Edition to a retail edition such as Standard or Enterprise Edition. This is very well documented at the below SQL Server books online link:

How to: Upgrade to a Different Edition of SQL Server 2008 (Setup)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc707783.aspx

Below are the main steps, using the Setup , edition upgrade wizard.

1. Insert the SQL Server installation media. From the root folder, double-click setup.exe or launch the SQL Server Installation Center from Configuration Tools. To install from a network share, locate the root folder on the share, and then double-click Setup.exe.
2. To upgrade an existing instance of SQL Server 2008 to a different edition, from the SQL Server Installation Center click Maintenance, and then select Edition Upgrade.
3. If Setup support files are required, SQL Server Setup installs them. If you are instructed to restart your computer, restart before you continue.
4. The System Configuration Checker runs a discovery operation on your computer. To continue, click OK.
5. On the Product Key page, select a radio button to indicate whether you are upgrading to a free edition of SQL Server, or whether you have a PID key for a production version of the product. For more information, see Editions and Components of SQL Server 2008 and Version and Edition Upgrades.
6. On the License Terms page, read the license agreement, and then select the check box to accept the licensing terms and conditions. To continue, click Next. To end Setup, click Cancel.
7. On the Select Instance page, specify the instance of SQL Server to upgrade.
8. The Edition Upgrade Rules page validates your computer configuration before the edition upgrade operation begins.
9. The Ready to Upgrade Edition page shows a tree view of installation options that were specified during Setup. To continue, click Upgrade.
10. During the edition upgrade process, the services need to be restarted to pick up the new setting. After edition upgrade, the Complete page provides a link to the summary log file for the edition upgrade. To close the wizard, click Close.
11. After installation, the Complete page provides a link to the summary log file for the installation and other important notes. To complete the SQL Server installation process, click Close.
12. If you are instructed to restart the computer, do so now. It is important to read the message from the Installation Wizard when you are done with Setup. For information about Setup log files, see How to: View and Read SQL Server Setup Log Files.

You can also perform the upgrade using command line option, see below SQL BOL topic.

Command Line option

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms144259.aspx#Upgrade

Hope this can help save time in upgrading to retail editions of SQL Server from the evaluation edition.

Note: The Evaluation edition of SQL Server is based on the Enterprise Edition and thus it is recommended to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition so you can continue to enjoy the many capabilities such as Resource Governor, Database compression, Backup compression, Transparent Database encryption, etc.

I just created my first PowerGUI PowerPack which you can use together with the MP Authoring Console. Just like I blogged previously in my MP Authoring Helper PowerShell script here.

Here a teaser screenshot of the PowerGUI PowerPack.

It’s just a first version I created and I would like to have it tested a little more before posting it on the PowerGUI PowerPack library.

So if anybody is creating MP’s using the MP Authoring Console and wants to try to use the MP Authoring PowerPack within PowerGUI to help creating MP’s let me know via Twitter via a DM or use the contact form on my weblog and I’ll email my PowerPack for testing.

One of the primary security mechanisms built into IAG and UAG is the RuleSet engine. This mechanism inspects every URL request submitted to IAG or UAG, and tries to match it to one of the preconfigured rules. These rules define URLs and patterns that are permitted, down to the parameter level. A rule may indicate that the request matching certain parameters should be rejected or accepted, and if the request does not match any of the existing rules, it will also be rejected. The rules are built using RegEx, which may be confusing to some, but in this case, it allows an administrator to specify what is permitted and what isn’t with a high level of detail, yet conserving on the number of rules (which affects the server’s performance). Here’s a sample screenshot of the server’s rule set:

When the administrator publishes new applications on the server, new rules are automatically generated according to parameters predefined as part of the application’s template. A blank server would have rules pertaining to InternalSite and a server with a blank portal trunk would also have “portal” related rules. Some templates add only a single rule, while others may add multiple rules. The above screenshot shows some rules related to the File-Access template, which include 18 rules.

As you can see above, each rule has several parameters. The Action indicates if this is a “reject” (deny) rule or an accept one. The URL specifies the URLs affected by this rule, including a RegEx pattern, which could be complicated to understand. The Rule also specifies how to handle parameters in the URL, and the HTTP Methods that are accepted.

At the bottom of the screen, we can see the parameters within the rule, and what they can be – length wise and type (string, number etc).

Normally when working with IAG or UAG, the predefined templates will include a set of rules that won’t need any manual intervention, but custom apps may need some. For example, creating a custom application based on the “Generic Web App” template will create a rule with the URL value set to “.*”, which means that any URL will be permitted. This may not be secure enough for some companies who feel the permitted URLs should be controlled more tightly.

A typical scenario that requires RuleSet troubleshooting is when a user tries to open an application from the portal, or perform some action with an application, but receives an error page that looks like this:

This error is quite cryptic to the user, but an administrator can easily see more details in his Web Monitor. Here’s a sample of how it would look like:

This error description is easy to understand – the URL contains an illegal path, and the rule is “default rule”, which means that UAG could not find a rule that would permit the request (in this case, for /internalsite/scripts/loginTimeout.js) and so it was rejected. Here’s another error:

This one is a little different – this time, the failure was because the request was using an HTTP Method that was not specifically allowed. As can be seen on the 2^nd line, the disallowed method is “HEAD”, which is not always allowed by default. The HEAD method is used to retrieve just the header information about a file, without reading the entire file. It’s often used by network monitoring tools to check if a web server is responsive, but limiting that check to use the minimal resources.

Other variations of Rule violations can occur if a URL contains a parameter that is not allowed – one that is too long, or of a type that is not acceptable. For example, older versions of IAG had a bug in the default URL Set for OWA that prevented users from creating calendar items that occur in the year 2010 and onward. The rule, “OWA2003_Rule5” had the parameter “yy” set to allow the value of 200[0-9], which allows a calendar item for the years 2000-2009, but not 2010 or later:

This presented itself in the Event Monitor as this error message:

Request failed, URL rejected by URL Inspection rule. Trunk: owa; Secure=1; Application Name: OWA; Application Type: OWA2003SP1; Rule: OWA2003SP1_Rule5; Parameter: yy; Value: 2010; Failure reason: Parameter value failed 'Value' check; Source IP: 6.16.14.91; Method: GET; URL: /exchange/Brian/Calendar/?Cmd=new&mm=1&dd=12&yy=2010.

The fix was simple – change the Value to a string that allows for higher numbers. This was actually fixed in Update 3 for IAG 3.7 SP2. A string that allows higher number is “20[0-9]+” (without the quotes).

If you run into a situation where access is blocked, the 1^st order of business would be to open the Web Monitor on the IAG server, and look for errors in the Security Log. If the event is related to Rule violation, inspect the message text to find out to which Trunk, Application and Rule it pertains, and see if it is related to the URL, or a parameter. The next step would be to open the make a backup of the Server configuration, as the Rule Set UI is complicated and a small mistake could cause to further trouble. Then, inspect the rule and try to figure out why it is blocking access.

Once you realize which part of the rule is blocking (Action, URL, Parameters, Methods, Parameter type, Param Value, Param length etc), experiment to determine the actual allowable value. One might be tempted to change the URL to “.*”, for example, which will solve the problem by allowing everything, but that might also expose the server to attacks. A good way to know what is required is to change the application itself to “learn mode”, which causes the server to log, but not enforce security rules. Then, use a URL recording utility like HTTPWatch, and explore the application as much as possible. Then, copy the recorded URLs to Excel and use Remove-Duplicates and sorting to figure out the URL patterns that should be allowed. Once you have that, you can start constructing the RegEx rules that will allow the application to run uninterrupted, but with the tightest possible security.

In a couple of weeks, Microsoft’s Technical Evangelism Team will embark on the EnergizeIT 2010 Tour, a cross-country set of presentation showing what’s possible with Microsoft tools and technology. If you want to know how Visual Studio 2010, Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 and other Microsoft tools and tech can cut your costs and help your business and organization, you should catch an EnergizeIT event near you. They’re free, and they’re happening in the next few weeks!

Depending on the city, there will be different “flavours” of EnergizeIT events. I’ve written some descriptions below, and if you want the full set of details, check out the EnergizeIT page.

The “From the Client to the Cloud” Full-Day Events (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal)

In Canada’s six largest cities, we’ll hold our EnergizeIT From the Client to the Cloud full-day events, where we’ll cover the Microsoft-based platform in detail. And yes, even though it’s full-day, it’ll still be free!

Please note: The Toronto session is currently booked. You can register, but you’ll end up on the first-come, first served waiting list.

In the morning, we’ll talk about the big picture. We’ll show you a scenario featuring the Microsoft-based platform as seen from different points of view: the customer, the information worker, the developer and the IT professional. You’ll see our latest and greatest as well as our up-and-coming developer goodies: Silverlight, .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010. We’ll show you Windows 7 and Azure in action, talk about Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, and tell you how all of Microsoft’s stuff works together.

Just as the morning session answers the question “What’s the latest technology?”, the afternoon sessions answer the question “How do I get to the latest technology from where I am now?” These sessions, split into two tracks – one on infrastructure management and deployment, one on the development process – will cover what you can do with our tools and technology in a little more depth. They’ll show you what you need to implement what you saw in the morning session and provide a roadmap you can follow to learn more and take action.

For more details about From the Client to the Cloud events or to register (it’s free!), visit the EnergizeIT From the Client to the Cloud page.

The “Community Connection” Evening Events (Many Cities Across Canada)

We’ll also hold Community Connection events in the evening in many cities across Canada,where we’ll do the “big picture” session (the morning session) of our From the Client to the Cloudevents.

The Community Connection evening events will take place in the following cities:

• British Columbia: Vancouver, Kelowna and Victoria
• Alberta: Edmonton and Calgary
• Saskatchewan: Regina and Saskatoon
• Manitoba: Winnipeg
• Ontario: Ottawa, London, Kitchener and Mississauga
• Quebec: Montreal, Quebec City and Trois-Rivières
• Atlantic Canada: Halifax, St. John’s, Moncton and Fredericton

For more details about Community Connection or to register (it’s free!), visit the EnergizeITCommunity Connection page.

Office 2010 Installfests (Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Montreal, Mississauga)

I’ve been using the beta and release candidate versions of Office 2010 in my day-to-day work for the past few months – PowerPoint for my public speaking stuff, Outlook for email, scheduling and get-things-done stuff and OneNote for my copious note-taking. We’d like you to take it for a spin!

Join us at one of our Microsoft Office 2010 Installfests and we’ll hook you up with the latest build of Office, show you some of our favourite features and demonstrate how to get the most out of our productivity suite.

For more details about the Office 2010 Installfests or to register (it’s free!), visit the EnergizeIT Office 2010 Installfest page.

Academic Sessions

We’ll also be passing through a number of colleges across Canada, talking to students about getting ready for the working world and showing them resources that they can use to fire up their careers.

[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]

The Microsoft partner ecosystem continues to rally around Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) and Microsoft identity and access management solutions.   For example, Microsoft gold partner Oxford Computer Group and BHOLD Company, which provides software solutions for authorization management and control, announced their partnership to deliver enterprise identity and access governance solutions with FIM.   From their press release:

The partnership sees OCG implementing BHOLD Controls, a robust analysis and detection tool for identity and access audit and reporting, and BHOLD Suite with FIM 2010 for an identity and access management solution which includes role based access management and governance. BHOLD Suite keeps a reliable log of permissions and roles and offers a complete management suite for auditing, reporting, attestation and simulation.

Oxford provides white papers on IAM, including a new one on FIM, available here.

If you are a solution provider partner implementing Microsoft identity and security solutions, be sure to participate in the Microsoft Security Software Advisor Program and earn fees from your customer deployments.

So your thoughts about EBS and it's closure as a product?

http://www.smbnation.com/Home/tabid/36/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/72/One_Week_Later__Essential_Business_Server_EBS_Updates.aspx

Harry has an interesting post on his take on EBS.  One thing that stuck out in my view was a case study that combined EBS as well as BPOS in a whitepaper case study.  In the white paper it was stated that in addition to deploying BPOS they also placed the three server EBS solution in a virtual server setting hosted in a data center.  The white paper stated..

In addition to adopting the Business Productivity Online Suite, Kindering Center moved its management, security, and remote desktop access servers to virtual servers running Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Premium, hosted off-site by a third-party provider using the Windows Server 2008 operating system with Hyper-V technology. As a result, the organization eliminated the need for any servers on-site—as well as the need for on-site server maintenance.

Okay.  So there's no "onsite" server maintenance.  But just because it's in a data center doesn't mean that it goes WITHOUT maintenance.  You still have three servers, four with the HyperV.  You still need someone maintaining that server.  Geography is just that, geography.  The need for maintenance has not been removed in this solution.  Sometimes the marketing spin on these solutions floor me.  It's not as black and white as is presented.

The underlying concern I've seen from partners is that the solution up from SBS that prior to this announcement had a road map to the next solution is now back to being murky again.  Take this comment from a SBSC partner:

Susan,

I have read many of the rants on the internet about the demise of EBS. Wayne Small’s is particularly heartfelt. I have pondered it and this is the God-honest truth… I don’t think that I know enough to fully implement a stand-alone version of the EBS components. In fact, the EBS product was overly complicated for what I feel was its real market: those companies that outgrew the 75 user limit on SBS. Why did Microsoft throw Forefront and ISA and three servers at a problem that most of us could solve with one server and a good firewall router? Were they saying to themselves “Gee, we gave them 75 users for a great deal, and if they want to go bigger we have to throw ‘enterprise’ all over them so that we don’t slight our current mid-market clients. Besides, SBS was a REALLY good deal and we are Microsoft… We deserve better.” 

They blamed it on the cloud, but really (the way I figure it) the cloud doesn’t hold a candle to SBS with 150 users on-premises. List price for SBS 2008 Standard with 145 user CALs is $12,254. That comes to $81.70 per CAL or $2.27/mo/CAL over a short 36 month period. Push that out to 4 or 5 years and it gets even cheaper per month per capita. BPOS is selling for about $10/mo/CAL and I don’t know if there is a quantity break, but it would have to be significant to compete with SBS. You can get a decent Dell server with RAID5 and 8GB RAM for $3000 which comes out to about $.50 per month based on the previous scenario. So… under $3.00 per month gets you your own SBS server to service a company with 150 users.

They also don’t really talk about the point that a company of that size will need several other servers which will require a domain controller(s) to keep things in order. So now… the cloud needs management and the local shop needs management. How is this all coordinated? They are going to need some IT support, either in-house or outsourced. 

Which brings me to my point. I have a client that really needs to move out of their SBS server and into something larger. I was going to do an EBS migration in May, but the whole three-server thing had me worried, because they really only need SBS 2008 with 125 users. I don’t have the expertise to competently handle all of the pieces of EBS, nor do I want to learn it for just one client. I went out on the web this morning and looked at the procedure to move from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 and it is pretty complex. I don’t foresee a smooth transition if I try to tackle that instead of an EBS migration.

We SBSC guys and gals are good at what we do, but “Small” is our core competency for most of us. SBS is a specialty that should not be looked down upon and obviously (by my many observations) there are a LOT of consultants that can totally hork up an SBS installation. To draw the line at 75 users is totally arbitrary and Microsoft has already proven a desire to ‘kit out’ the 50-300 user space. We also know that hardware capacity is a false argument (I have one client on a 2003 server running as a DC and an Exchange 2003 server with 500 accounts, with BES and this box is over 4 years old and has NO problems. Same with an old Pentium 4 with 2Gb RAM and over 75 users on SBS with NO problems.) Like the old joke attributed to Winston Churchill:

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill...  I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course...
Churchill: Well, would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

IMHO, SBS 2008 is plenty of infrastructure for the average S-MB. Exchange (which is the easiest part of the product to deal with), Sharepoint Services, Companyweb, RWW, RDS Gateway integration with Companyweb, Faxing, Certificate Management, Patching (if needed) and, of course, Active Directory management is the real power behind the product. Except for an IT Shop that wants to work hard to prove their worth, I would challenge any 500 user site not to want the features of SBS.

So?  What are your thoughts?

The last of our path cmdlets is Convert-Path.  This converts a PowerShell path to a PowerShell provider path.

This sequence should explain how it works.

PS> cd HKLM:
PS> cd software
PS> cd microsoft
PS> Get-Location

Path
----
HKLM:\software\microsoft

PS> Convert-Path -Path (Get-Location)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft

change drive to the HKLM: registry drive

navigate into the software\microsoft key

Get-Location returns the provider path i.e. file system style

Convert-path returns the path in the registry.

Some of you reading this post might think that Operations Manager 2007 is great, but not quite perfect, so you might want to provide some feedback. The Operational Data Reporting Management Pack is an easy and automated way to provide feedback regarding your Operations Manager experience, in particular regarding how Management Packs behave in your Operations Manager environment.

The Operational Data Reporting Management Pack automatically gathers anonymous information from Operations Manager and sends reports to Microsoft on a weekly basis (you have to opt-in). The data in the reports is used to improve the quality of Management Packs and Operations Manager 2007.

How does it work?

If you opt-in to sending the data to Microsoft, Operations Manager automatically runs the Operational Data Reports on a weekly basis (Saturday at 2AM). The reports are exported to XML format, packaged into a CAB file and then sent to Microsoft using the Watson channel – the same way that crashes and other errors are reported. (Be sure your Management Server has internet connectivity so it can send the reports.)

We analyze the data looking for trends like 60% of customers disabled a particular rule, or a certain monitor is frequently raising alerts. Then we share the information with other teams at Microsoft that develop Management Packs so that Operations Manager and the Management Packs can be improved over time.

An example report we use is shown below. The top graph focuses on the top alert generating rules/monitors for a given time period across all contributing Management Groups. The second graph displays averages and standard deviations for the same rule or monitor to determine if it’s consistently noisy across environments.

It is also possible to drill in to individual environments to more closely look at alerting behavior for that particular environment.

How do you get started?

The latest version of the Operational Data Reporting Management Pack ships with the Operations Manager MP, you can find it

·         Here, if you are running Operations Manager 2007 SP1

·         Here, if you are running Operations Manager R2

All you have to do is to import the Management Pack and opt-in to send the data to Microsoft. You only need to do this one time and Operations Manager will take care of anonymously reporting changes each week. If you want to see what data is sent, simply run the reports manually by going to the “Microsoft ODR Report Library” section in the reporting space of the console.

Note: Participation in the program is strictly voluntary; you can view the privacy statement here.

Opt-In to Send the Data to Microsoft

If you want to opt in to Operational Data Reporting, perform the following steps: