MEA Center of Expertise

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MEA Center of Expertise

  • Lync 2013 training slides and labs for developers

    Free Slide decks and lab materials designed to train developers on using the development models and APIs associated with Lync 2013, UCMA 4.0, UC Web API, Persistent Chat, and Outlook apps.

     

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    Each filename contains a substring "_Mn_", where "n" identifies the number of the module to which the file belongs.

    Module 1 walks through using the Lync 2013 Managed API to programmatically start sharing and handle control requests using Application Sharing modality, and how to share and interact with slides, white boards, and files in conversations using Content Sharing modality.

    Module 2 walks through using the Unified Communications Managed API 4.0 to write asynchronous UCMA code using the Async task framework, and how to build a simple phone menu workflow.

    Module 3 walks through using the Unified Communications Web API to work with familiar capabilities of Lync.

    Module 4 walks through working with the Persistent Chat Platform in Lync 2013, including how to create add-ins for chat rooms, and how to programmatically create, manage, and interact with chat rooms.

    Module 5 introduces Outlook apps, including how to build an app for Outlook, using the Office Javascript Object Model, and different security considerations for these apps.

     

    Download them now ! http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30465

     

    Go to the Lync 2013 training for developers page to watch videos for each module.
  • How to develop a Windows 8 app in 30 days

    Generation App is all about—shepherding applications for Windows 8 and Windows Phone from the initial inspiration, through development, to a place where they bring their creators the fame and fortune they deserve.

    Your journey starts now. From embracing the new Windows 8 style design to coding, testing, and integrating with unique Windows 8 experiences, you’ll learn the essentials to create a great Windows 8 style app over the next 30 days.

     

    This is a complete series focused on Windows 8 Development Starting from downloading the tools, building and designing your application testing it and up till the publishing your app to the Windows Store

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    Don’t miss it! register now http://www.generationapp.com/
  • Update SQL Agent Jobs Schedules with T-SQL

    after building your SSIS project and putting it into action you just start doing some JOB Schedules through the SQL Agent, but when you have a lot of schedules updating them starts to get annoying. and you can start getting some queries to list the Jobs, tasks and schedules in our discussion now we’ll focus on table “sysschedules” as this is the one that holds the info for schedules. and we’ll focus on exactly two fields.

    freq_type How frequently a job runs for this schedule.

    1= One time only

    4= Daily

    8= Weekly

    16= Monthly

    32 = Monthly, relative to freq_interval

    64= Runs when the SQL Server Agent service starts

    128= Runs when the computer is idle

    and

    active_start_time: Time on any day between active_start_date and active_end_date that job begins executing. Time is formatted HHMMSS, using a 24-hour clock.

    now let’s say that all your schedules are daily and they are in frequent starting 1am. then you need to add a new schedule before them but you don’t need to re-schedule all of the jobs using the SQL Agent, simply update the table adding 3000 (30 minutes) to all schedules so will be alerted.

    you can as well change the frequency, active status through this table. the detailed table documentation can be found here

  • Upload VHD to Windows Azure

     

    In my previous blog I covered a small introduction about windows Azure, and as we discussed Windows Azure has 3 roles as web role, worker role and VM role. VM role is the new role and till now still under Beta program. To be able to test this new role you have to upload a VHD to Azure. The base VHD acts as the initial template for the VM Role instances that are created in Windows Azure. The base VHD contains the operating system, any operating system customizations, and your applications.

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    Request access for VM Role

    1- Go to https://windows.azure.com/ log in with your live ID.

    2- Select home then Beta programs.

    3- Select the program check box and Apply for Access.

    4- It may take from 1 day up to a week to get approval for access.

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    Extend visual studio to support VM role

    1- Create a new text.

    2- Past the following

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010\1.0]

    "VirtualMachineRoleEnabled"=dword:00000001

    3- Save and rename the file” EnableVMRole-X64.reg”

    4- Double click of the file, which will enable this role in the context menu in Visual studio.

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    Prepare VHD before upload to Azure

    You can use Hyper-V Manager to create a new base VHD to be uploaded to Azure or you can use existing VHD. However the maximum size of VHD can be uploaded is 65 GB. After you create VHD follow the following steps:-

    1-  Before start uploading you must install the Windows Azure Integration Components inside the virtual machine. The source of Windows Azure Integration Components is inside the installation path of windows Azure SDK %ProgramFiles%\Windows Azure SDK\<VersionNumber>\iso\ folder, select the wavmroleic.iso.

    2-  Mount wavmroleic.iso to virtual machine which you want to upload its VHD to Azure and then double-click WaIntegrationComponents-x64.msi. Enter the Administrator password that is used when the operating system starts after the image is prepared and deployed to Windows Azure. Finish the installation of the components. You must restart the virtual machine for the components to be completely installed.

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    3- Open the Start menu, type %windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe and then press Enter to launch the System Preparation Tool. Set the System Cleanup Action to “Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)”, check the option labeled Generalize, set the Shutdown Options to Shutdown, and then press OK.

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    Upload VHD to Windows Azure

    Now you are ready to upload VHD to windows Azure

    1- Open a Windows Azure SDK Command Promptas an administrator from Start | All Programs | Windows Azure SDK v1.x.

    2- Run the following command

    csupload Add-VMImage -Connection "SubscriptionId=[subscription_id]; CertificateThumbprint=[certificate_thumbprint]" -Description "[description]" -LiteralPath "[vhd_location]" –Name [vhd_filename] -Location "[azure_subregion]" -TempLocation %TEMP% -SkipVerify

    For example:-

    csupload Add-VMImage -Connection "SubscriptionId=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX- XXXXXXXX; CertificateThumbprint=512DB65E1233C227DCD2067X5F7295BFEBA01X99" -LiteralPath d:\VMs2012\test.vhd -Location "West US"

    3- Wait until VHD to be uploaded it depends on your VHD size and internet speed.

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    4- Once it finish go to the Management Portal, select the Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN tab, and then VM Images. Notice that the list includes the test.vhd file that you are currently uploading and that its status is shown as Pending and once it finishes it will be committed.

    Create new service model contains VM role

    1- Configuring your Windows Azure Management Portal Credentials in Visual Studio.

     

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    2- Open Visual studio and create new cloud project

    3- Don’t select any role and click OK.

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    4- Add new VM Role

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    5- Select your windows azure subscription you created in step 1 and select VHD for your virtual machine role.

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    6- In configuration tab select number of instance.

    7- Finally, create a package to deploy your virtual machine role.

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    8- Click on “Configure Remote Desktop connection” to enable remote desktop on VMs which will be created.

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    9- Choose the newly created certificate from the drop down list, and then enter the name of the user that you will use to connect remotely to your VM. Finally enter a password and confirm it, and choose the account expiration date then click ok.

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    10- Click package, then wait until Visual Studio creates it. Once the package is ready, Visual Studio opens a window showing the folder that contains the generated files.

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    11- Go to Management Portal and create new hosted service using the files you got from step 10 and certificate we created earlier, then click ok.

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    Note that you must choose the same region you upload VHD to.

    12- Wait until the status of the deployment is shown as ready.

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  • Part 4- Monitor Azure with System center Operation Manager (SCOM).

    In Part 3 we configured System Center App controller 2012 to manage public cloud on Microsoft Azure. In this Part 4 I will cover how you can monitor hosted services using System Center Operation Manager (SCOM). SCOM can monitor the public and private cloud at the same time using the same console so the administrator can monitor all his system from single pane of glass.

    Configure System Center Operation Manager 2012 to monitor hosted service in Azure

    1- First download install windows Azure management pack which has the following features:-

    Feature Summary
    After configuration, the Windows Azure Monitoring Management Pack offers the following functionality:

    · Discovers Windows Azure applications.

    · Provides status of each role instance.

    · Collects and monitors performance information.

    · Collects and monitors Windows events.

    · Collects and monitors the .NET Framework trace messages from each role instance.

    · Grooms performance, event, and the .NET Framework trace data from Windows Azure storage account.

    · Changes the number of role instances via a task.

    2- Import MP in SCOM

    3- As we discussed in previous parts, to be able to communicate with windows Azure you need a certificate and your Subscription ID. However SCOM doesn’t understand Azure out of the box, so to import certificate and password we need to do small work around.

    4- Go to administration then right click on Run as configuration and Create a new run as account using Binary authentication and import the certificate we exported in Part 3.

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    5- Create a new run as account using basic authentication, we will use this account to host certificate password

    a. In user name enter any value we only care about password

    b. Enter the certificate password you exported in Part3.

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    6- Now we successfully import the certificate and authentication in SCOM, select now Authoring view then select the Management Pack templates you should see Windows Azure Application as one of the management packs templates.

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    7- right-click the Windows Azure Application node and select the “Add Monitoring Wizard.

     

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    8- On the Name and Description page of the wizard, provide the desired name and description for your new monitoring type and click Next.

    9- On the Application Details page of the wizard, provide the following information:

    a) The DNS name of your hosted services in the cloud that you want to monitor

    b) Your Subscription ID

    c) The Deployment slot of your application, which will either be Staging or Production

    d) The Azure certificate run as account, which will be the Azure Binary account you created in step 3

    e) The Azure certificate password run as account, which will be the Azure Password account you created in step 4

    Once you enter all information, you will select next.

    clip_image010

    10- The next step will be to select a proxy account.it can be any machine has internet connection. You should just select the Browse button, select the Search button, and then select your server name, as seen below. Select next when it takes you back to the original dialog if you don’t have a proxy server. If so, then enter your proxy server address and then select next then create.

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    11- Theoretically you finish and after a while if you go to Monitor then Windows Azure you will be able to see the status of the hosted services. However if it keep unmonitored follow the following to solve this known issue .

    12- In earlier versions of the Windows Azure SDK, the default Windows Azure Diagnostics string provided by the Visual Studio template in the service configuration file was named DiagnosticsConnectionString. Later Windows Azure SDKs have changed this name to Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString. And by default SCOM is looking for old value so we need to change it. To solve this issue either you change the value in Visiual sutdio or in SCOM itself.

    13- To change it from SCOM go to Authoring and select Object Discoveries.

    14- Select Scope and search for “windows Azure role instance”

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    15- Find your desired target whose name should look something like Windows Azure Hosted Service Total Discovery (<your hosted service name>) as seen below. Right-click on the item and select Properties from the popup menu and select override tab then select override.

    clip_image016

    16- Then change the “DiagnosticsConnectionString” to “Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString” then click Ok.

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    17- It will take a while until you will find SCOM can monitor your Hosted services in Azure healthy.

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  • Part 3- Manage windows Azure with System center App controller

    In Part 2 we created our first hosted service in the public cloud hosting a sample website. In this Part we will configure System Center App controller 2012 to manage our public cloud on Microsoft Azure. But first what is the App controller.

    System Center App controller 2012

    App controller is a part of Microsoft System center suite and it creates a simple way for the datacenter administrator to delegate to application owners control of their applications and virtual machines. It offers a simple, self-service experience for building application, giving application owner greater visibility into their services, virtual machines and the public or private clouds they run on. This frees datacenter administrators to concentrate on managing the infrastructure and enables application owners to focus on running their services rather than servers.

    Configure System Center App controller 2012 to manage Azure

    1- First we need to export the certificate we created in Part2, open MMC then add certificate and select “computer account”

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    2- Under personal right click in the certificate you generate from IIS and select export, and while exporting select export private key then click next , next and enter password.

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    3- Save the certificate in secure location.

    4- Open App controller go to Overview page and select “connect a Windows Azure subscription ”

     

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    5- Enter the following :-

    a. A friendly name for this subscription.

    b. Your subscription ID for Azure.

    c. Select the certificate you exported in step 3.

    d. Enter the password for the certificate that you enter in step 2 and click ok.

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    6- Now you successfully add your Azure subscription to App controller. If you go to services tab you will be able to see services we created in part2 and you can create a new service from here also.

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  • Part 2- Create a new service in windows Azure

    In part one we covered a small introduction to windows Azure and how you can create account in windows Azure. In this part I will cover how you can create simple website and how you can publish it to the public cloud. But before jumping to details steps we need to cover some concepts like subscription ID and certificate.

    Subscription ID

    Once you create an account in windows Azure you will have a unique subscription ID, this ID is the unique identifier for your account and you will use this ID during configuring SCOM or App controller to manage your public cloud.

    To get your subscription ID go to “Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN” select Hosted Services as shown below

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    Certificates

    All your communication to public cloud “Windows Azure” is secured communication, so you need to create a certificate to establish this channel, this certificate can be a public certificate or even a self-sign certificate. There are multiple ways to create a self-sign certificate like CA, Visual studio, PowerShell, IIS and ….etc.

    To create self-sign certificate from IIS and upload it to Azure follow the following steps:-

    1- Open IIS manager console then select Server Certificates

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    2- Select “Create Self-Signed Certificate” from action section in the right side to generate a new one and it will automatically save locally in computer certificate store.

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    3- Any certificate has two parts Public key and private key; we need to export both of them. The Public key we will upload it to windows Azure (.cer file) and the private key we will use it while configuring SCOM and App controller.

    4- To export the Public key open MMC then add certificate and select “computer account”

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    5- Under personal right click in the certificate you generate from IIS and select export, and while exporting select don’t export private key.

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    6- Finally we will upload the certificate to Windows Azure, go to Azure portal select “Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN” then management certificate and upload the public key of the certificate that you just exported in previous step.

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    7- After you finish, export the certificate again but with the private key and keep it in secure location.


    Create a new service in windows Azureclip_image014

    Now you can create your first website in the cloud. To upload your website to Azure your need to package your website code using Visual studio as Azure package which will generate two files:-

    1- .CSpkg file:- is the file that contains your website content.

    2- .CScfg file:-is the file that contains your website configuration like type of Roles, number of instances, enable remote desktop on machines,….etc.

    Sample of files ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg ; WindowsAzureProject1.cspkg

     

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    Note that by default Visual studio doesn’t understand cloud you have to install Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio.

    Now we are ready to create our first website in Azure and the first step as we discussed in part one is creating new hosted services. Go to Azure portal select “Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN” then select “New Hosted Service”. Enter the name of your service, your public URL of your website and select either production or staging. Finally browse .CSpkg and .CScfg click ok.

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    Azure will start creating new virtual machines and deploy your website on them. Numbers and types of virtual machines is equal to what you defined in CScfg file. For example in screen shoot below Azure will 2 virtual machines, these 2 VMs are under the same role “Web Role”.

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    Once it finish you can browse your website immediately

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  • Part 1- Introduction to windows Azure and how you can create account

    What is Windows Azure?clip_image002

    Windows Azure is Comprehensive platform for running applications; simply you can consider it as a place where you can host and execute your code in the cloud.

    The main benefit of azure are:-

      • Scalability
      • Availability
      • Fault Tolerance

    Azure has three core components:-

    1. Compute: - is the virtual machines that will run your code.

    2. Storage: - is a scalable storage in the cloud which is auto-scale to meet massive volume and throughput database based on customer needs. Any data you upload in the cloud storage automatically replicated to 3 locations in Azure to provide you with high availability.

    Windows Azure storage has four types:-

    · Table: - group of entities (name/value pairs)

    · Queue: - Simple non-transactional message queue

    · Blob: - Large binary storage

    · Drives: - NTFS VHD mounted into Compute instance

    3. SQL Azure Database:- Is SQL Server relational database model delivered as a service which support clip_image004

    · Support for existing APIs & tools

    · Built for the cloud with high availability & fault tolerance

    · Easily provision and manage databases across multiple datacenters

    Service, Roles, and Instances

    Service, Roles, and Instances are representing the structure in windows Azure. Let say that you want to host website on windows azure, the first step you have to do is creating a service. The service is a container for your application and you assign the public URL for this service, so you can consider for every application you need to create a service.clip_image006

    Each service can contains one or more role. Let say that you want to host website which is 2 tier applications, so you will create a service for your website contains 2 roles one is web role and the second one is database server.

    Finally, you have to define how many instance you need from each role. Back to our example if you want to host website you will create 1 service contains 2 Role (web, SQL) and 2 instances from web role (2 web server) and 2 instances from Database role.

    Windows Azure Role

    Windows Azure has 3 roles as web role, worker role and VM role. VM role is the new role and till now still under Beta program.

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    How create account in Azure

    1- Simply you logon to http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ and create free trial account

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    2- You need to enter your credit card information nothing charge.

     

    3- Congratulation now you’re in the cloud :-)

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    4- Switch to preview mode by clicking the green preview points, it will be looks like

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  • Manage and monitor windows Azure with system center 2012

    Manage and monitor windows Azure with system center 2012

    A Microsoft window Azure is Microsoft public cloud, which is the representation of Platform as a service (PaaS) where Microsoft is controlling the network, storage, servers, O/S and runtime. And the end users will controller the application layer and Data layer.  Also Azure has software as a service offering through Microsoft online services.

    This blog is 4 parts and I will focus on PaaS “Windows Azure”:-

  • Lync 2010 Command-Line Parameters

    You can use command-line parameters to quick-start Microsoft Lync 2010 or when you need to start Lync 2010 from another application.

    For example, if a user clicks a phone number in another application, the application can start an instance of Lync 2010 and initiate a call to that number.

     

    Lync 2010 Command-Line Parameters
    Extension tel:

    Format of Data

    tel URI
    Example Tel:+14255550101
    Action Opens the Conversation window for an audio call but does not dial the specified number.

    Extension callto:

    Format of Data

    tel:, sip:, or typeable tel URI
    Example Callto:tel:+14255550101
    Callto:sip:user@contoso.com
    Action Opens the Conversation window for an audio call but does not dial the specified number.

    Extension sip:

    Format of Data

    SIP URI
    Example sip:user@contoso.com
    Action Opens the Conversation window with the specified SIP Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) in the participant list.

    Extension Sips:

    Format of Data

    SIP URI
    Example sips:user@contoso.com
    Action If Lync 2010 is configured to use the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, functions exactly like sip:. If TLS is not being used, displays a dialog box informing the user that a higher level of security is required.

    Extension conf:

    Format of Data

    SIP URI of conference to join
    Example conf:sip:user@contoso.com;gruu;opaque=app:conf:focus:id:BDD5MWV0B0SGR
    Action If URI is self, instantiates the focus and brings up roster-only view. Otherwise, brings up roster view but does not send INVITE.

    Extension im:

    Format of Data

    SIP URI
    Example ">">">im:<sip:user1@contoso.com><sip:user2@contoso.com>
    Action Displays an instant messaging (IM)-only Conversation window with the SIP URI. Accepts multiple SIP URIs specified inside angle brackets (<>) without any separator.

    The above command-lines can be used with HTML pages too, use it with Hyperlinks and IE will automatically detect it and opens Lync Client

     

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  • Windows 8 Camp in a Box, Release Preview Edition

    Windows 8 Camp in a Box is a training kit about Windows 8 contains hands-on-labs, presentations, samples and resources from the Windows 8 camps.

    Win8Camps

    The Windows 8 camps are free training events for developers ramping up on Metro style app development. To sign-up for a Windows camp, please visit http://devcamps.ms/windows.

     

    Download it now from Microsoft Download Center
  • SCSM Technical How To for the more Simple Tasks ... 01 - End User Notification

    I have been working with System Center Service Manager for a while now, and one thing I noticed is that for a lot of the people who are still exploring the product for the first time, it can be kind of confusing to configure some of the basic tasks.

    There are actually some great resources out there including online articles, step-by-step guides, videos and of course the great System Center Team blog in addition to other independent blogs specifically focusing on Service Manager, and if anyone is interested in knowing more about those resources, please drop me an email and i'd be more than happy to provide links.

    Back to my post now, I was not a blogger before and wasn't planning on being one now, however, I decided to start posting here some basic Technical How To, Step by Step guides for the more simple tasks that people new to Service Manager might be looking for; Things that are typically not the focus of the great resources I mentioned earlier.

    So for my first post, I will be walking through how to Configure simple End User Notification upon submitting a new incident request.

    First of all, in order to be able to configure this, we need to make sure that your notification channel is well configured and functioning.

    Next we just need to configure a few simple things.

    Notifications in Service Manager, like more System Center Components, consists of three simple elements:

    • Channels
    • Subscriptions
    • Templates

    In Channels you simply configure the means through which the notification will be sent. Out of the box, an SMTP channel will appear in Channels and we just need to configure its settings.

    Templates store the various message templates that we are going to using in the various notifications we want to send out. So we can configure one template for analyst, another for end user, and may be one more template for SLA management to notify an admin when an SLA is about to be breached.

    Finally, Subscriptions is where everything comes together, we choose the targeted class for this notification (Incidents, Change Requests, ...etc) then define which template we want to use and finally who should receive this notification.

    And here is the step by step guide for how to configure a notification to end users when a new incident is created for them:

    1- Navigate to the Administration Workspace and Expand Notifications.

    2- Select Subscriptions and click on Create Subscription in Tasks.

    A prerequisite for this is ta have previously configured your Email Notification Channel

    3- On the Before You Begin page click Next

    4- In General

    1. Give your new subscription a Notification Subscription Name
    2. Specify the Description (Optional)
    3. For When to Notify, keep When an object of
      the selected class is created.
    4. In Targeted Class, Click on Browse and select Incident.
    5. In Management Pack, select the Management Pack in which you wish to save your customization and click Next.

     


     

    5- Click Next in Additional Criteria.

    6- In Template, Click Select to choose the Email Notification Template you wish to use (here I am using the out of the box End User Notification Template)

     

    7- Click Next in Recipient.

     8- In Related Recipients, Click Add and choose Affected User the Click Add and Next

     

     

    9- Click Create then Close and your new Subscription in now ready.

  • Lync Outbound gateway failover (NET)

    Overview

    This is a two-part process; in the first part of the process, we use the UXs to point each of them at the same Lync Pool. In the second part, we do the complementary action on the Lync side by specifying both of the UXs as PSTN Gateways using the Lync 2010 Topology Builder and then do the voice routing below.

    Configuring the LYNC Voice Routing to use secondary gateway if the primary fails Using NET UX Gateway

    To configure voice routing:

    1. Open the LYNC Server 2010configuration page:
      1. Enter the URL of the Front-End pool (https://<fqdn of the front end pool>/cscp).
    2. Click Voice Routing in the left pane.
    3. Click Voice Policy in the right pane.
    4. Double-click the relevant policy_ in the list.
    5. Double click the relevant PSTN usage record.
    6. Double Click on the Route entry.
    7. Add the secondary UX gateway into Associated Gateways list
    8. Click OK, OK, and OK to exit out of the Voice Policy configuration.

    https://support.net.com/display/UXDOC/LYNC+side+Gateway+Failover+Configuration

     

  • SQL Server 2012 BI Environment in 12

    are you fan of creating VMs? do you like to have your own environment signed by your name as your companion in developing Microsoft BI applications, creating POCs or even trying and learning some new stuff? I Love doing this very much… So I listed below the steps that you need to follow in order to have your own Environment ready.

    so here’s the recipe that at the end you’ll end up having a VM with SQL server total installation with Analysis service both multidimensional Mode for your dashboard and KPIs and tabular mode for your new PowerView report, SharePoint with PowerPivot for SharePoint installed for your Self-Service BI.

     

    Ingredients:

    1. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

    2. SQL Server 2012

    3. SharePoint Server 2010

    4. SharePoint Server 2010 SP1

    5. Microsoft Office 2010

    6. PowerPivot for Excel

     

    Directions:

    1. Create a New VM with HD of Size 200GB form Hyper-V manager

    2. Install Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 (if the Windows version without SP1 then Install SP1 separately after finishing the installation).

    3. Create a Internal Network connection adapter on Hyper-V. We’ll call it LoopBack Adapter and we’ll give it IP 100.100.100.1 in the Host and Gateway to 100.100.100.2

    4. In the VM assign a fixed IP to the Network Connection with 100.100.100.2 and gateway 100.100.100.2

    5. Open run and Type dcpromo to start creating a domain for your VM choose any name for example milkyway.local keep the rest default settings and after it finishes restart the machine and login with the domain administrator account.

    6. in the Server Manager > Roles add the Application Server Role

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    6. Install SQL Server 2012 with all components (choose the analysis services instance to be Multidimensional).

    7. Install SharePoint Server 2010 and don’t Configure it then Install SharePoint Server 2010 SP1.

    8. Install a new instance from SQL Server and choose only the Analysis services, name the instance .\TABULAR and in the type of Analysis choose it as tabular mode.

    9. Install the PowerPivot for Sharepoint (from the installation Pack of SQL Server 2012). Un-check the include Database engine option.

    10. after installation finishes open the SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools > PowerPivot Configuration Tool put the domain administrator account for configuration and choose the default database instance then Validate, if validation went Run

    11. Install Microsoft Office 2010 and after it install PowerPivot For Excel (make sure the same version either x64 or x86).

    12. Install the reporting services Shared feature on the SharePoint using these steps.

    a. open the Sharepoint 2010 management shell and type

          command> Install-SPRSService

          command> Install-SPRSServiceProxy

          command> get-spserviceinstance -all |where {$_.TypeName -like “SQL Server Reporting*”} | Start-SPServiceInstance
    (here’s a detailed info from this blogpost on Configuring SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services SharePoint 2010 Integration)

    b. open SharePoint central administration > Application Management > Manage Service application > New > SQL Server Reporting Service Application. choose a name for it and database connection

     

    image

    P.S. you may also need from this screen to add PerformancePoint Service Application.

     

    and We’re Done Smile Enjoy your VM. you may add your own spices to it ( silverlight, zoomit, … )

    My original post on my website can be found here

  • Can i edit my PowerView Report exported to PowerPoint in Presentation Mode? YES YOU CAN

    with the release of SQL Server 2012 different versions until the RTM last week. Microsoft introduced a one kicking feature in the Business Insight Pillar with the new Amazing easy-to-use reporting PowerPivot that you can simply export this report to PowerPoint and when your slides are running the report can start being interactive.

    well not only this. you can even turn you report to be editable so you can start creating some charts and do ad-hoc analysis within your presentation. so how can I do this let have a look

    1. A key thing you need to know is that when you export your PowerPivot Report to PowerPoint the object that is exported is connecting to the report on the Sharepoint not connecting to the datasource of the Report. something like this

    PowerViewFlowExample

    2.  So after you export your Report to the PowerPoint right click on the object in the slide and click properties and in the InitParams scroll to the end and change AllowEditViewMode and set it to True

    PVinPPS

    3. when you present your slide Deck you’ll be able to do edit the report and start dragging and dropping same experience as the Web One.

    PVinPPS2

    PowerPivot is an amazing experience for Personal BI and demonstrating how easy and a flexible tool it’s to quickly get up from a database to an interactive editable report inside a presentation

     Manually modifying the InitParams or any of the Silverlight control properties is not an officially supported scenario. See msdn.microsoft.com/.../hh759323(v=sql.110).aspx. Thank you Riccardo Muti for the Heads-up

  • Cumulative Update package 5 for SQL Server 2008 R2

    Cumulative Update 5 contains hotfixes for the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 issues that have been fixed since the release of SQL Server 2008 R2.

    in the middle of the celebrating our new version of SQL Server that will come in the Launch event 1 week from now we need not to forget about the amazing SQL Server 2008 R2 with the CU 5 for some fixes

    here’s more details about it

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2438347

  • Microsoft Egypt Open Door February 20, 21

    It’s the time for Open door… Monday and Tuesday in Cairo Heliopolis Fairmont Hotel in Egypt we’re having our annually Open Door even with first day for IT Professionals and second day for Developers. I have a session with Hisham Mortada Monday 12:00 PM for What’s New in SQL Server 2012.

    Amr Al Asway will be delivering a session regarding what's new in System Center 2012. and Tuesday Ayman El-Hattab will be having a session Software Development Lifecycle with Microsoft Visual Studio.

  • Please join me and welcome "SEQUENCEs" to the family of T_SQL

    yes it’s, it’s the Sequence that you can use as a number generator separated from Columns and tables. it’s a new Object added to SQL 2012 ANSI Standard. to be used in many situations. I can remember now that it would made my life easier if I had it before. let’s have a look on the implementation

    1. we’ll create a new sequence with T-SQL

    CREATE SEQUENCE [dbo].[S2] 
    START WITH 200
    INCREMENT BY 20
    GO

    Or from the GUI under <DATABASE NAME>programmatically/sequences

    image

    2. to get the next Value for it simply type (Next Value For S2)

    select (next value for s2)


    so a simple table with two columns (ID bigint, TheText varchar(5) )

    insert into test1(thetext) 
    values ( next value for s2, 'Text1')

    or even put the default binding for the ID Column to be (Next Value For s2 )

    image

    I can’t even think if the options. one thing I needed before is to update a table with an Auto Number. now you can do it without a loop.

    So Welcome Sequence to to T-SQL Family

  • ColumnStore Index Quick view and Performance test (Video)

    SQL Server 2012 introduces a new data warehouse query acceleration feature based on a new type of index called the columnstore. This new index, combined with enhanced query optimization and execution features, improves data warehouse query performance by hundreds to thousands of times in some cases, and can routinely give a tenfold speedup for a broad range of queries fitting the scenario for which it was designed.

    enough with the talk let’s have a quick view on it in this Video

  • Cannot start the columnstore index build; What is Wrong ?

    you’re trying to build a ColumnStore Index and Increased the DOP or using multiple columns on the Index and you did received this error message

    “cannot start the columnstore index build because it requires at least 760040 KB, while the maximum memory grant is limited to KB per query in workload group 'default'”

    Well don’t decrease your Columns. Simply it’s a Resource Governor modification “even if it’s not enabled” as the default workgroup is created by default with 25% of Memory per Query…!!!

    1. Go To Resource Governor under Management

    2. enable it and change the default workgroup in the memory granted to 100RG2

    3. try building again the index it’ll succeed

  • Impact of enabling Unified Messaging for Lync users

    Lync Server Enterprise Voice uses the Exchange UM infrastructure to provide call answering, call notification, voice access (including voice mail), and auto-attendant services.

    all of the notifications and voicemails are stored on the main mailbox of the user; which can have an impact on the user quota

     

    so in order to roughly understand the impact "size on disk" for the voicemail; we have the below calculation.

     

    The narrowband used codec is consuming 16Kbps; so the size on disk will be (16Kbps X 60 Seconds)= 960Kb / 8 bits = 120KB per 1 minute voicemail

     

    so for a standard maximum 3 minutes voicemail message  =  360KB

    Also notifications can be turned off from the Exchange2010 OWA Phone>Voicemail settings under notifications menu.; You can disable save call logging on the mailbox from the client side or from client policy from the server;

     this control can be done via PowerShell command (Set-CsClientPolicy –Identity Global  –EnableCallLogAutoArchiving $false)

     

  • Create failed for Index not supported on the target server version. No Panic

    ColumnStore Index the New Cool non-clustered index feature in SQL2012 with
    significant boost in performance while been used. I tried to create it on my
    newly restored Database but I received this Error

    “Create failed for Index Either the object or one of its properties is not
    supported on the target server version.
    (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo)”

    oh…!!! this is not cool, well not so fast…!!! it’s related to your
    compatibility level of your database so this could be fixed very easy.

    1. Choose your Database then Click Properties

    2. choose Options tab and change the compatability level to
    SQL Server 2012 (110). then OK

    now try again to create your index and … Yes I can.

  • Lync Custom States for TSPs ;)

    Lync Custom availability states

     

    Install The registry to add the TSP states for Lync

     

    Regards

  • SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit Web Installer Preview

    The SQL Server 2012 Developer Training Kit includes technical content including labs, demos and presentations designed to help you learn how to develop SQL Server 2012 database and BI solutions. New and updated content will be released periodically and can be downloaded on-demand using the Web Installer Preview

    download it and start exploring

    http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27721

     

  • SQL PASS EGYPT. Out first SQL Server user group in EGYPT


       
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
       
       
       
      
       
     

     


      
     

    SQL
      PASS EGYPT CHAPTER

     

    It’s a pleasure to announce you the creation of the
      first PASS SQL Server user group in Egypt as PASS Official Chapter.

     

    Through this chapter we look for a monthly gathering
      of ALL SQL & BI community in Egypt to discuss, share and help in all SQL
      related matters especially with our new coming SQL Server 2012 release. Our
      community announcement will go in the upcoming Microsoft Open Door in Egypt

     

    About
      PASS

    PASS History and Structure

    PASS
      is an independent, user-led, not-for-profit organization co-founded by
      Microsoft and CA in 1999. It was created to build a body of individuals that
      would provide expertise to help educate millions of SQL Server users around
      the world. PASS is run by volunteers and operates globally through its
      websites, sponsored events, yearly Summits, and localized Chapter activities.
      It is governed by a member-elected Board of
      Directors
    . The Board engages a management
      company
    to handle the organization’s day-to-day operations.

     

    PASS Mission

    Empower
      the global Microsoft SQL Server and Business Intelligence community to
      connect, share, learn and be inspired through networking, knowledge sharing,
      peer-based learning, and the ability to influence the direction of Microsoft
      SQL Server data platform.

     

     

    Ideas are more than welcomed to be shared through
      the website, Facebook group,
      or just email
      me
    … It’ll help out the development of our group