Microsoft is a Global 100 company with offices and data centers around the world. To better protect its global data assets, reduce backup costs, and accommodate growing data volumes, Microsoft uses its own backup software, Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010, to back up 3.5 petabytes of data monthly. Microsoft has been able to enhance data protection by eliminating backup tapes and moving to disk-based backup, and can now deliver daily backup success service levels of 98 percent and success rates for data restores of 100 percent. In addition, the company is saving more than U.S.$6 million in backup-related costs and has reduced its backup incidents and staff by approximately 60 percent. Microsoft now has a more flexible data protection infrastructure that can scale with the company’s business and massive data volumes.
DPM 2010 case study on MS IT has been published and can be found here. http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000010350
The case study brings out the impact and ROI that DPM brings to MSIT and the sheer scale of data that it successfully protects with 100% recovery success.
Orchestrator is a critical component in the System Center 2012 release, providing the Process Automation capability to our customers and giving them 3 key benefits:
· Optimizes existing datacenter investments by integrating, extending, and interoperating with heterogeneous tools and systems.
· Helps deliver flexible and reliable datacenter services by orchestrating process workflows across multi-disciplinary process silos
· Lowers costs and improves predictability by automating private cloud scenarios to reduce manual error-prone activities
following features for the beta:
· New unified installer experience based on System Center best practices
· New REST based web service supporting OData to enable easy management of the Orchestrator runtime environment
· New Orchestration Console web portal for IT operators to monitor and control Runbooks in their environment
· Updated cryptography and security model based on Microsoft best practices allowing for centralized security management.
· Rebranding of the product to represent the Microsoft System Center brand
· Significant improvements to security based on Microsoft SDL best practices
· Remediation / Removal of 3rd party code (no java requirements for Orchestrator 2012)
· Delivery of VMWare VSphere & IBM Netcool Integration packs
How to get involved:
You can install the product from the download center (should be live in the next few hours)
Learn about using the product at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc507089.aspx
Read about usage scenarios on http://blogs.technet.com/b/SCOrch
Download existing Opalis SC integration packs and Opalis SDK (Quick Integration Kit)
Download and contribute to the community at http://opalis.codeplex.com/
Send feedback on https://connect.microsoft.com/Opalis/Feedback
The Open Group Cloud Work Group exists to create a common understanding among buyers and suppliers of how enterprises of all sizes and scales of operation can include Cloud Computing technology in a safe and secure way in their architectures to realize its significant cost, scalability, and agility benefits. It includes some of the industry’s leading cloud providers and end-user organizations, collaborating on standard models and frameworks aimed at eliminating vendor lock-in for enterprises looking to benefit from Cloud products and services.
Microsoft Office 365 includes Exchange Online, Lync™ Online, SharePoint® Online, and Microsoft Office Professional Plus. As part of the planning for a “dogfood” deployment of Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft IT (MSIT) is moving to a hybrid deployment of Microsoft Exchange where MSIT hosts some user mailboxes in MSIT’s on-premises service and hosts other mailboxes online in the cloud. For customers planning a move to a hybrid messaging model, it is important to understand application technology dependencies and user experience and support needs. This article discusses how MSIT planned for a hybrid deployment of Microsoft Exchange.
As part of the planning process for a hybrid messaging model, MSIT determined that the following key workstreams were critical to a successful rollout:
Upgrade line-of-business (LOB) applications to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
Build out Active Directory® Federation Services (ADFS)
Plan for mailbox migration (Microsoft Lync Server 2010 dependencies)
Create a cross-premises support model
Evaluate network readiness
Adjust the service management model
The first step in MSIT’s planning process was to ensure that LOB applications were compatible with Exchange Server 2010. MSIT focused on upgrading mail-enabled applications from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. This enabled MSIT to retire expensive Exchange 2007 clusters worldwide, and reduced incompatibilities between mail-enabled applications and Exchange Online. By doing this work up front, as MSIT moves thousands of mailboxes to the cloud, those mailboxes have seamless interoperability with the many existing mail-enabled applications. This strategy preserves MSIT’s long investment in rich, mail-enabled LOB applications.
Upgrading LOB applications involved a number of different application teams and required coordination across several quarterly release cycles.
MSIT provides federated authentication to applications and external partners through ADFS. Office 365 uses federated authentication to provide single sign-on in hybrid mode, which makes ADFS a critical dependency for Office 365 services. It also increases the volume of ADFS traffic significantly. To meet this new demand, MSIT had to scale up support for the ADFS service, which meant doing additional types of monitoring, providing additional supporting infrastructure, and providing 24x7 mission-critical service. Any company that wants to move to the cloud will need to consider an investment in federation services.
MSIT wants users to have the same great collaboration experience whether mailboxes are located on-premises or in the cloud. Microsoft employees and contingent staff are heavy users of Exchange Unified Messaging (EUM), rich instant messaging, presence, and conferencing features that are provided on-premises by Microsoft Lync Server 2010. Microsoft Lync Server 2010 is a requirement for instant messaging and presence integrated into the Web email client (Outlook® Web App). EUM enablement is also simplified by using Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Enterprise Voice, so MSIT made the Lync Server 2010 rollout the leading edge of the large-scale Exchange Online mailbox migration. Using the same conferencing solution in the cloud enabled MSIT to preserve cross-premises feature parity (all provided by Lync Server 2010). To make a seamless move to a hybrid Exchange environment, administrators will need to consider the instant messaging, presence, and conferencing needs of their cloud users. They will need to consider how they want to deploy UM for their cloud mailboxes.
Every company does support differently, and there are many teams, technologies, and processes to consider. Transparency of support is a key part of the user experience. There should not be any difference in support whether mailboxes are located on-premises or in the cloud. A simple support model is also key for the IT organization accountable for the service. Microsoft IT analyzed their support model, evaluated their future support and service needs, and determined how to integrate with the Office 365 support.
In order to make the end-user support experience seamless, MSIT introduced new Helpdesk processes for determining where the user’s mailbox is located (on-premises or in the cloud) and processes for troubleshooting the additional dependencies, such as ADFS.
When all mail services are provided on-premises, the corporate network bandwidth is more than sufficient to handle mail usage throughput for all users. As MSIT migrates mailboxes to the cloud, the dependence on edge ingress/egress capacity increases. MSIT evaluated network utilization and capacity and optimized it to address increased traffic between online and on-premises mailboxes.
Since MSIT is providing mail services to users through two separate providers, service management complexities have increased dramatically, requiring more extensive Exchange user profile/business needs analysis. MSIT created new processes and workflows in the following areas:
· End user communications and readiness workflows
· Migration workflows
· Service validation with a test team
· System Center Configuration Manager strategy to prep and maintain end user computers
MSIT carefully planned its hybrid deployment of Office 365 messaging by upgrading LOB applications to Exchange Server 2010, building out ADFS, planning for mailbox migration with Lync Server 2010, evaluating network readiness, and adjusting the service management model. By doing this planning up front, as MSIT moves mailboxes to the cloud, users have seamless interoperability with Microsoft’s many existing mail-enabled applications. Users have the same rich mail experience whether their mailboxes are located on-premises or in the cloud, and since the hybrid model is not a one-size-fits-all solution, MSIT can choose which users go where based on Microsoft’s short-term and long-term business needs.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh134273.aspx
Just one week after TechEd 2011, Microsoft Learning hosted another exclusive three-day Jump Start course and we are excited to announce the availability of the HD-quality video recordings -- FREE -- on TechNet Edge, MS Showcase, the Zune Marketplace, and iTunes! Additionally, every module will be made available (with assessment questions) on the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) later this month!
"Microsoft Office 365 for IT Professionals" is specially tailored for technologists looking for real-world proof of how cloud-based Office 365 enables organizations to solve more problems from more places. Microsoft Office 365 brings together cloud versions of our most trusted email, communication and collaboration software – Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online – with the Office Professional Plus desktop suite. This fast-paced, demo-rich online course features the best experts teaching the technical aspects of Office 365 for IT Professionals. The live online course was extremely successful, with over 1,600 people joining the three-day event and an overall NSAT of 164!
Who is the target audience for this training? • IT Professionals, IT Decision Makers, Network Administrators • Microsoft customers and partners who need to determine how to best leverage the cloud.
What’s the high-level overview? • The 15-hour course is broken into three five-module sections: (1) Office 365 Platform, (2) Exchange Online and (3) Lync & SharePoint Online • “Team-teaching” approach led by senior Microsoft technologists with real-world experience • Every module is an engaging discussion, packed with best practices and real-world demonstrations • 82% said the course improved their perception of Microsoft’s approach to cloud computing Where do I go for this great training? The HD-quality video recordings of the entire course on TechNet Edge: “Microsoft Office 365 for IT Professionals” Jump Start
If you’re interested in one specific topic, we’ve included links to each module as well. • Office 365 Jump Start (01): Microsoft Office 365 Overview for IT Pros • Office 365 Jump Start (02): Deploying Clients for Office 365 • Office 365 Jump Start (03): Microsoft Office 365 Administration & Automation Using Windows PowerShell™ • Office 365 Jump Start (04): Microsoft Office 365 Identity and Access Solutions • Office 365 Jump Start (05): Microsoft Office 365 Directory Synchronization • Office 365 Jump Start (06): Exchange Online Overview for IT Pros • Office 365 Jump Start (07): Microsoft Exchange Online Administration • Office 365 Jump Start (08): Microsoft Staged Exchange Online Migration • Office 365 Jump Start (09): Hybrid Options with Exchange Server & Exchange Online • Office 365 Jump Start (10): Exchange Online Archiving & Compliance • Office 365 Jump Start (11): Lync Online Overview & Configuration for IT Pros • Office 365 Jump Start (12): SharePoint Online Overview • Office 365 Jump Start (13): SharePoint Online Administration • Office 365 Jump Start (14): SharePoint Online Extensibility & Customization • Office 365 Jump Start (15): Office 365 Deployment Overview
Microsoft has an estimated 100 million users of its SkyDrive “anywhere access and sharing” service today.
According to Brian Hall, General Manager of Internet Explorer and Windows Live, “We need to turn SkyDrive into a destination application,” while keeping the underlying Skydrive infrastructure,
He cited as an example a SkyDrive application for the phone that would allow a user to see all information — files, photos, Office Web Apps documents — that they stored in their 25 GB of free cloud storage available with SkyDrive.
Microsoft is developing a new HTML5 based version of SkDrive. SkyDrive also may become a place to store music, as well, as LiveSide has noted.
Hall described SkyDrive as part of the “communications properties” under the Windows Live brand. The other two, according to his definition, are Hotmail and Messenger. SkyDrive allows users to “store, organize, and download your files, photos, and favorites on Windows Live servers, and access them from any computer with an Internet connection,” as Microsoft explains on its Web site.
It looks like Office 365 general availability on June28th was confirmed by the head of the Microsoft partner organization]
Office 365 is Microsoft’s successor to its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Live@Edu and Office Live Small Business products. Microsoft has begun educating its partners and customers about its BPOS-to-office 365 migration strategy. Packaging and pricing of the suite already has been announced.
Office 365 consists of Microsoft-hosted Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online, and also includes for customers who want it, a version of Office Professional Plus that can be installed locally on PCs and paid for per month, on a subscription basis. Office 365 competes head-to-head with Google Apps, and a handful of similar services.
Fujitsu, one of three OEMs that announced initial support for the Azure Appliance concept, is going to deliver its first Azure Appliance in August 2011, Fujitsu and Microsoft announced on June 7. Fujitsu’s offering is known as the Fujitsu Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform, FGCP/A5, and will be running in Fujitsu’s datacenter in Japan. Fujitsu has been running a trial of the service since April 21, 2011, with 20 companies, according to the press release.
Azure Appliances to be in production and available for sale by the end of 2010.
Windows Azure Appliances, as initially described, were designed to be preconfigured containers with between hundreds and thousands of servers running the Windows Azure platform. These containers will be housed, at first, at Dell’s, HP’s and Fujitsu’s datacenters, with Microsoft providing the Azure infrastructure and services for these containers.
In the longer term, Microsoft officials said they expected some large enterprises, like eBay, to house the containers in their own datacenters on site — in other words, to run their own “customer-hosted clouds.”Over time, smaller service providers also will be authorized to make Azure Appliances available to their customers, as well.
Fujitsu’s goal with the new Azure-based offering is to sign up 400 enterprise companies, plus 5,000 small/medium enterprise customers and ISVs, in the five-year period following launch, the press release says.
Here are some private cloud trainings which is available on the www.MicrosoftVirtualAcademy.com training site. This content is available without registration on TechNet Edge.
Platform
o 01: Virtualization Overview
o 02: Differentiating Microsoft & VMware
o 03a: Hyper-V Deployment Options & Architecture | Part 1
o 03b: Hyper-V Deployment Options & Architecture | Part 2
o 04: High-Availability & Clustering
Management
o 05: System Center Suite Overview w/ focus on DPM
o 06: Automation with Opalis, Service Manager & PowerShell
o 07: System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012
o 08: Private Cloud Solutions, Architecture & VMM SSP 2.0
VDI
o 09: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Architecture | Part 1
o 10: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Architecture | Part 2
o 11: v-Alliance Solution Overview
o 12: Application Delivery for VDI