Hi all – I’m David Hastie, senior product manager in the Identity and Security Business Group here at Microsoft. I wanted to flag an announcement Microsoft made today in the area of information protection and data loss prevention. It involves Rights Management Services in Windows Server 2008.
In short, Microsoft and EMC’s security division, RSA, have announced a partnership to give companies a better way to protect sensitive information.
We know customers face a lot of challenges trying to strike the right balance between securing information but also giving the right people access and use of it - both inside and outside the company. Currently, it is often too difficult and expensive to protect data using multiple solutions and policies that have to be stitched together. So, we’re working together on a new “built in” approach (versus additional, “bolted on” technologies) that implements information protection throughout the infrastructure, based on information content and context, as well as the identity of users.
With this partnership, Microsoft is building RSA’s data loss prevention (DLP) classification technology into our platform and future information protection products. The goal is to allow customers to define information security policy centrally, push those policies across the enterprise, identity and classify sensitive data, and use various controls to enforce protection.
Additionally, as a first step, this month the new 6.5 version of RSA’s DLP Suite will integrate with Active Directory Rights Management Services in Windows Server 2008 (AD RMS.) This means you can automate the application of RMS protection based on the sensitivity of information identified by RSA DLP. It will facilitate the roll out of RMS by using content-aware discovery to apply RMS access and usage policies.
We are very excited about this partnership and our new approach to information protection. It is a good example of our focus on delivering solutions that address security and identity together, knowing that customers Stay tuned for more updates and I encourage you to consider taking advantage of the new integration between RMS and RSA’s DLP solution.
David
Hello everyone! Back in October I made a post about SP2. At that point, we allowed a small group of TAP customers access to the SP2 beta. Today, I am happy to announce our schedule for making SP2 available to everyone for download!
Starting today, TechNet and MSDN subscribers will be able to download the SP2 beta through our Customer Preview Program (CPP). If you are a TechNet or MSDN subscriber, you can gain access to the CPP through TechNet or MSDN today. On Thursday, we will open the CPP to everyone through TechNet or MSDN. This CPP is designed to give developers and IT Professionals the opportunity to have an early look at SP2 by installing and testing in their environments. We hope these installs will give us great feedback through the automated feedback reporting tool to ensure we ship the highest quality Service Pack.
If you are interested in learning more about all the changes in SP2 for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, take a look at the Notable Changes Document. Some of the changes I’m most excited about:
- The inclusion of Hyper V RTM bits in the Service Pack
- Changes to the power profile to yield additional power savings
For more information on what's in store for Windows Vista, see Mike Nash's blog posting. The Springboard Series is also a great place for more information as well.
We are tracking to ship SP2 in the first half of 2009. We value your feedback, so please download the SP2 beta!
Justin Graham Senior PM Windows Server