BPOSitive : General

Ping tool and useful info on BPOS networking and bandwidth

Brett Hill — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:43:00 GMT

There is a document on microsoft.com/downloads called Guidance for Microsoft Online Services Multinational Customers is not what it seems. You don't have to be a multinational to be interested in the details such as latency stats between you and the BPOS data center. In addition, there is an online ping tool that will tell you your latency between the browser and any of our data centers and provides guiance for whats acceptable.

Add this to your list of BPOS technical reference materials

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c4ec4bbe-5979-4cf2-bac5-d86e1baada2c

BPOS Portals released in new languages and locations.

Brett Hill — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:36:00 GMT

On Sunday morning (11/08), we published 15 additional sites – serving 14 more countries, in 9 more languages. This brings our total to 40 localized sites (including our first RTL language: Hebrew). In additional to publishing new sites, we also enabled “Buy” functionality on the existing sites for India and Singapore, corresponding to the commercial availability for customers in those countries

Country (Language)	URL
Brazil (Portuguese Brazilian)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/pt-br
Chile (Spanish)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/es-cl
Colombia (Spanish)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/es-co
Czech Republic (Czech)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/cs-cz
Greece (Greek)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/el-gr
Hong Kong (Chinese Traditional)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/zh-hk
Hong Kong (English)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-hk
Hungary (Hungarian)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/hu-hu
Israel (Hebrew)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/he-il
Malaysia (English)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-my
Mexico (Spanish)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/es-mx
Poland (Polish)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/pl-pl
Puerto Rico (English)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/es-pr
Romania (Romanian)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/ro-ro
Taiwan (Chinese Traditional)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/zh-tw

Customers globally who visit the microsoft.com/online home page are being “geo-detected,” where possible, by their browser language setting and IP address – then are redirected automatically to the appropriate corresponding subsidiary site. At all times on all of our Web pages, customers have the opportunity to change the locale they wish to view.

This is the list of localized sites that were published previously:

Previously Published Country (Language)	URL
Australia	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-au
Austria	http://www.microsoft.com/online/de-at
Belgium (French)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/fr-be
Belgium (Dutch)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/nl-be
Canada (English)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-ca
Canada (French)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/fr-ca
Denmark	http://www.microsoft.com/online/da-dk
Finland	http://www.microsoft.com/online/fi-fi
France	http://www.microsoft.com/online/fr-fr
Germany	http://www.microsoft.com/online/de-de
India	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-in
Ireland	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-ie
Italy	http://www.microsoft.com/online/it-it
Japan	http://www.microsoft.com/online/ja-jp
Netherlands	http://www.microsoft.com/online/nl-nl
New Zealand	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-nz
Norway	http://www.microsoft.com/online/nb-no
Portugal	http://www.microsoft.com/online/pt-pt
Singapore	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-sg
Spain	http://www.microsoft.com/online/es-es
Sweden	http://www.microsoft.com/online/sv-se
Switzerland (German)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/de-ch
Switzerland (French)	http://www.microsoft.com/online/fr-ch
UK	http://www.microsoft.com/online/en-gb
US	http://www.microsoft.com/online

CRM Online and BPOS integration

Brett Hill — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:33:00 GMT

Ran across this blog post on integrating BPOS with BPOS. Useful info.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dynamicscrmonline/archive/2009/05/19/crm-online-and-bpos-business-productivity-online-suite.aspx

Also, you might be interested to know that the SMTP gateway in CRM has been updated to work with Exchange Online

Could be a First for Microsoft! Intneral Technical Wiki now Pushed to Quickstartonlineservices.com.

Brett Hill — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:10:00 GMT

Internally, the Technical Product Management team had a Wiki they were using to keep track of all kind of issues. FAQs that were being asked all the time about things like public folders, mail enabled lists, how to work with proxy servers, when is feature "X" coming , blah blah blah.

The cool thing about this particular wiki is that it is a living resource that is actively updated, and used to drive meeting agendas, workflows, feature priorities, and other details. In other words, it's an important tool that we use here.

Well, we had that thought that most of this information would be really useful to Partners as well. It's current. It often has details that are difficult to find, and is relatively comprehensive. What if we could find a way to push the internal Wiki into Quickstartservicesonline and flag items we wanted copied so that partners would have access to the same agile resources we have?! So that's what we did. We made this even more useful by adding all the checklist items from the Migration and Discover whitepaper I recently wrote as line items in the wiki making it a great place to go for the latest questions you should ask before tackling a migration plan.

You can of course search for any topic or click on one of the topic of interest. Say you're interested SSO Auth Proxy (Single Sign On Authentication with a Proxy), click on the link and you'll see :

BPOS-S Single Sign-In Client (SIC as some refer to it) currently does NOT support Outbound Internet Authenticating Proxy Server configurations. Users will receive SIC messages stating …”unable to establish a secure connection..”. This is typically due to a Connectivity Issues with the BPOS-S Single Sign-On Services (SSO Web Services), which has been seen when connecting over the Internet from an On-Premise Authenticating Proxy Server. These servers can be of any flavor, such as Blue Coat, ISA, Threat Management Gateway (v.Next of ISA), etc., as long as they are configured for Outbound Internet Authentication.

Resolution/Workaround

1.       Outbound Authenticating Proxy Servers MUST be using the NTLM Authentication method for the below to work!!!!

2.       When the below snippet is placed into the SignIn.exe.config file, this allows the SSO client to pass the logged in users Domain credentials to the Authenticating Proxy Server, allowing Outbound Internet Connectivity:

a.       Caveat: The user must be logged into the machine as a Domain User Account and that account must be granted Outbound Internet Connectivity for the below to work.

1.       Browse to the following location to modify the SignIn.exe.config file: x:\Program Files\Microsoft Online Services\Sign In

2.       Modify the SignIn.exe.config file, using Notepad.exe or other Application of choice:

3.       Save the File

a.       Logout and Exit SIC

4.       Restart SIC

<system.net>

    <defaultProxy useDefaultCredentials="true">

      <proxy usesystemdefault="True" />

    </defaultProxy>

        </system.net>

This gives the ability to get information out to partners faster and easier than ever before. This is all good news for partners who need ready information without having to wait for formal editing, vetting, and signoff. However, the downside is of course you'll find the content is bit rougher and there will be some inconsistencies. That's the trade off, but we think it's a good one. Hopefully you'll find this useful.

This is only available to Microsoft Partners.

Thanks,

brett

Integrating CRM with Business Productivity Online Suite

Brett Hill — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:50:00 GMT

A good blog post on how CRM and BPOS can work together using Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communicator Online, and Office Live Meeting Online.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dynamicscrmonline/archive/2009/05/19/crm-online-and-bpos-business-productivity-online-suite.aspx

BPOS Webcasts on Technet

Brett Hill — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:57:00 GMT

Wanted to post this summary of webcasts on Technet for your viewing pleasure.

http://blogs.technet.com/bpositive/pages/bpos-webcasts-available-on-technet.aspx

"BPOS.....practically essential": Tom's Hardware reviews BPOS

Brett Hill — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:56:00 GMT

“In any economy, BPOS would be persuasive. In this one, it seems practically essential.”

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cloud-computing-bpos,2313.html

Nuff said.

Partner Migration Series: Interview with Steven Pivnik, Co-CEO Binary Tree

Brett Hill — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:32:00 GMT

Binary Tree has been in the business of developing products and services for cross platform migration since 1993, and they are a migration partner for Microsoft Online Services. As a market leader in Notes migration, it's no surprise they are one of the first to offer Notes to Exchange Online migration services and software. On May 20, I interviewed Steven Pivnik, Co-CEO of Binary Tree, about their solutions for Notes to Exchange Online services migrations.

Q: How did you start making migration tools for Microsoft Online Services? How did you start in the migration business?

A: We started Binary Tree in 1993 primarily as a Lotus Notes service organization doing a lot of Lotus Notes custom application development. We were hired by JP Morgan at that time to build a migration tool to take them from the mail platform they were on to Lotus Notes. We wrote a utility to do it and soon we were asked by another company to write a tool for migrating data from GroupWise to Lotus Notes. We said "Sure!" And then we had another project to migrate data from Netscape. And from those projects, a migration practice mushroomed into 24 different utilities to migrate to Lotus Notes. IBM licensed those tools and shipped them worldwide with the Notes CD, which gave us overnight worldwide notoriety in the Lotus Notes market space.

Click here for the full interview.

City of Carlsbad reports on Moving To BPOS

Brett Hill — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:12:00 GMT

Nice article from Network World on the City of Carlsbads move to BPOS suite.

" Carlsbad went live with Exchange in late March and everything went smoothly from Microsoft's end of things. "You went home Friday as a Groupwise user and you came back Monday as an Exchange user."

http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2009/ndc3/051809-cloud-carlsbad.html

Useful Migration and onboarding references

Brett Hill — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:43:00 GMT

Here are some useful links to the latest info on Migration and (and some onboarding) docs and resources. The Migration paper was recently updated and expanded significantly. Also, REALLY worth reviewing are the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Exchange and SharePoint online. These papers provide a roadmap to features that you should identify as potential issues or opportunities when mapping a customer’s existing system and architecture to the features and capabilities of BPOS-S.

Migration White Paper

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=90&p=&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=25350815-5c57-441a-b7fb-329ff5fe14b3&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fD%2fF%2f6%2fDF6C3D9D-A10B-4245-9909-7A5E660D303C%2fMigrate+to+Microsoft+Online.doc

Online Documentation:

http://www.microsoft.com/online/help/en-us/bpos/index.html?page=html%2Fd90be1d1-83c4-4f0c-b25b-816fbf321ff3.htm

Directory Synchronization and Migration Tool Deep Dive Webcast

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/partners1/view?id=35NNMF&role=attend&pw=d33c0a

Engineering Team Blog Posts on Migration

http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/archive/tags/Migration+and+Coexistence/default.aspx

Migration Toolkit

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b4d668f4-26b0-4b3c-8b13-5e0275948257&displaylang=en&tm

Public Migration Forum

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/onlineservicesmigrationandcoexistence/threads/

Microsoft Online Assessment and Planning Toolkit

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/dd537571.aspx

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Exchange Online

http://services.social.microsoft.com/feeds/FeedItem?feedId=354f0d03-5d74-4af6-9796-30fef164210f&itemId=0cc66008-69b3-4644-9746-26e3bd99c80a&title=Exchange+Online%3a+Evaluating+Software-plus-Services&uri=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2f5%2fB%2fC%2f5BC966BC-47D8-41DF-95F2-FA9A2D816258%2fExchange+Online+-+Evaluating+Software-plus-Services.zip&k=VlfVUCHipE2NkymGMOWXaW4%2bUXr8uJTZk2TZM%2f0sBKk%3d

Beta Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for SharePoint Online

https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=14&DownloadID=7925

Online Services Release Notes

Brett Hill — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:41:00 GMT

With the recent update of the services, there was also a "release notes"document that I just found out about.

It has some useful tips and information, worth looking at for those of you deploying the services.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=f297f10c-de9b-4c3e-8aa4-60d7f1baef55&displayLang=en

Customer Portal Updates with new Options

Brett Hill — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:12:00 GMT

Over the weekend, the Microsoft Online Customer Portal was updated with new options, a sleeker - better design, and a focus on the benefits of designating a Partner with the subscription.

Added are options for the new Deskless Worker license which is designed for organizations where workers do not have a specific desktop to work with, but still need to be involved with company communications using Email and SharePoint. Deskless worker provides a significantly reduced price for services - perfect for special situation such as roaming medical workers in a medical facility or shop floor workers using a shared desktop.

In addition, OCS was added as a service allowing customers to add presence to SharePoint and Office applications and communicate instantly via IM. Presence really lights up your Office apps and makes document collaboration a lot easier since you can immediately chat with the owner or author of an email or document. Also, Office Communicator is free for a limited time with the service.

Last but probably most important, the portal is now available in multiple languages and your data will be located in one of our increasing number of data centers globally depending on the Ship To location indicated when you sign up for the service.

Check it out!

BPOS goes live internationally, with updates and OCS to follow

Brett Hill — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:56:00 GMT

The announcement is out that BPOS is available in several countries.

There has been a ton of working on here to roll out these services as fast as possible to countries worldwide. As this is a new service for Microsoft, there has been a learning curve on the various requirement and regulations involved for each individual country and they are quite different, making it a challenge to offer a single, unified set of services to the world. However, merely difficult is not an issue for the challenges we tackle and the services are now available in 19 countries.

From the press release "Exchange Online and SharePoint Online are available for trial in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Organizations worldwide will be able to trial and purchase the entire Business Productivity Online Suite, including Office Communications Online, in April."

Note that OCS is not yet turned on but will be in April for both US and International customers. There are some other updates to the services as well that generally do not impact the user but a couple of key ones that do are : a) the portals are available in 7 languages and b) the Single Sign on Tool now runs on all supported client operating systems other than Media Center and XP Home!

Stay tuned for more details on the delta in the services update.

Windows IT Pro Magazine Webcast on BPOS / Windows Live

Brett Hill — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:18:00 GMT

Microsoft Online Services: Implementation Options and the Path to Migration

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 12:00 PM EST

Sponsored by:

Join John Savill for this free webinar. Microsoft now offers solutions such as Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and Microsoft Office Communications Online, for services you traditionally find hosted within an organization. With Microsoft Online, organizations now have the option to implement services with greatly reduced local infrastructure or management overhead. John Savill looks at the full suite of services available, walks through the licensing options, examines the quality of service and availability options, helps you determine if hosted services is right for your organization, and explores how to migrate to hosted services.

Speaker
John Savill
John is the author of the popular FAQ for Windows and a contributing editor to Windows IT Pro. He is an advisory architect for EMC’s Microsoft consulting practice. He’s an MCITP: Enterprise Administrator for Windows Server 2008 and a nine-time MVP. His latest book is The Complete Guide to Windows Server 2008 (Addison-Wesley).

Dan Holmes reports "blown away" by BPOS

Brett Hill — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 22:12:00 GMT

Hey, my buddy Dan Holmes posted an entry about moving his company to BPOS. Definitly worth reading.

http://www.officesharepointpro.com/TabId/149/NodeId/1950/a-microsoft-online-report-card.aspx

Quoting from the above:

What Microsoft has attained in this first release is an extraordinary, robust, enterprise-ready service. I don’t expect there to be many fundamental problems (security, reliability, availability, performance) based on my experience thus far.

I’m actually blown away that the company seems to have done so much right the first time around. I know you know what I mean! I heard about Microsoft Online for the first time 18 months ago, and Microsoft has delivered. It’s competitors can talk the talk, but Microsoft brings it across the finish line. So Microsoft Online is absolutely worth a very close look by any enterprise wanting to improve levels of service and reduce costs simultaneously. Just be sure you’ve done your due diligence to make sure you’re subscribing to the categories and levels of service to meet the requirements of your organization and its users.