December 22, 2011 News Thursday: Office 365 Integration Module for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials and more Server and Tools News - Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog - Site Home

by STB Blogger

Office 365 Integration Module for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials Released Today

Microsoft is pleased to announce the availability of the Office 365 Integration Module for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials (OIM).

Currently available on the Microsoft Download Center, this Integration Module allows Small Businesses with fewer than 25 PCs to use Small Business Server 2011 Essentials to run the core infrastructure they need on-premise and easily integrate into Office 365 for email and collaboration without increasing management costs or complexity. Additionally, the module centralizes user and server management into one place and enables small businesses to manage their users from one single pane of glass, thus saving time and money.

This release confirms Microsoft’s commitment to all small businesses to provide them with the best IT solutions for all their needs--mobility, client computing, IT infrastructure, and email and collaboration.

If you’re interested to learn more about SBS Essentials, Office 365, and how the two together provide a great solution to any small business, visit the Official SBS Blog and SBS Essentials Website.

Avanade Announces Strategic Relationship with Microsoft to Deliver New SQL Server Appliance Solutions

Avanade, a business technology solutions and managed services provider, announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft on December 20, to develop and deliver business intelligence and data warehousing solutions for Microsoft SQL Server. The new data appliances will make it easy for companies to scale their IT infrastructure to meet increasing business needs to turn vast volumes of data into relevant information.

Microsoft will work with Avanade to develop industry solutions specifically for the new Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse appliance Optimized for SQL Server. This effort is focused on helping enterprises easily manage their data both on premises and via cloud computing services. Avanade will launch new solutions based on SQL Server for customers in industries such as retail and financial services.

For more information on the partnership and Avanade, please visit www.avanade.com.

You’re Invited: Upcoming TechNet Radio Webcasts

From Virtualization to Private Cloud with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012

10:00AM PST, February 1, 2012 – Register here
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012, a management solution for the virtualized data center, lets a system administrator manage virtualization hosts, networking, and storage resources. With Virtual Machine Manager 2012, you can optimize your existing investments by managing multiple-hypervisor environments in a single pane of glass. In this webcast, we demonstrate how you can use Virtual Machine Manager 2012 to create and deploy virtual machines and private clouds. We show how you can pool and dynamically allocate virtualized data center resources, enabling self-service infrastructure experience for your business, with flexible role-based delegation and access control.

Becoming the Next Private Cloud Expert Now

10:00AM PST, February 8, 2012 – Register here
This webcast builds on your understanding of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012. We do an architectural review and highlight the requirements, steps, and operations to construct a private cloud from a service standpoint, including constructing fabric and deploying a private cloud with a service template. By attending this webcast, you will get all the information and skills you need to construct a simple, yet realistic private cloud for self-training and evaluation and to become the next private cloud expert in your company.

You've Got a Cloud: Familiar Tools to Manage It

10:00AM PST, February 16, 2012 – Register here
With a private cloud in place, how do you maintain it? How do you integrate the processes and operations with those on-going routines? Put your hands around the tools that will help you keep your sanity. Learn how to maintain and service a private cloud with enterprise infrastructure. In this webcast, we review the tools that are available—many of which you are familiar with. We also review the tools that are designed to help you streamline IT operations to better maintain your private cloud with legacy infrastructure without compromising enterprise security and ultimately reduce costs.