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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) has been designed specifically to help meet the challenges of any business and the needs of all the different groups with a stake in the messaging system. Exchange Server 2007 SP2 is a mission-critical communications tool that enables employees to be more productive and access their information anywhere and anytime while providing a messaging system that enables rich, efficient access to e-mail, calendar items, voice mail, and contacts. For the administrator, Exchange Server 2007 SP2 provides advanced protection options against e-mail security threats, such as spam and viruses, as well as the tools to help manage internal compliance and high availability needs. For an overview of the new features that are available in Exchange Server 2007 SP2, see "What's New in Exchange Server 2007 SP2".
Download here.
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Hyper-V case studies can be found here.
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Check the new Sharepoint 2010 landing page here and get a sneak peek on the new features.
For users:
SharePoint 2010 enables organizations to connect and empower people through an integrated set of rich features.
For IT professionals, SharePoint 2010 offers enhancement to drive productivity, scalable unified infrastructure, and flexible deployment.
For developers, SharePoint 2010 provides the business collaboration platform to rapidly build solutions and respond to business needs.
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The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is an agentless toolkit that finds computers on a network and performs a detailed inventory of the computers using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and the Remote Registry Service. The data and analysis provided by this toolkit can significantly simplify the planning process for migrating to Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Server® 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, Microsoft Application Virtualization, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and Forefront® Client Security and Network Access Protection. Assessments for Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Vista include device driver availability as well as recommendations for hardware upgrades.
If you are interested in server virtualization planning, MAP provides the ability to gather performance metrics from computers you are considering for virtualization and a feature to model a library of potential host hardware and storage configurations. This information can be used to quickly perform "what-if" analysis using Hyper-V and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 as virtualization platforms.
Get it here.
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Great video about how the datacenter of the future might look like.
Mike Manos’ blog post is great on detailing this vision.
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Next version of Windows will be called Windows 7. The codename of the product will be used for the final release !
Read all about it here.
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Just noticed on connect that the Linux Integration Components for Microsoft Hyper-V are available again - but now on RTM !
Get them here: https://connect.microsoft.com/default.aspx
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These a great news !
The show begins in 10 hours, but the news it out:
- Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, a new hypervisor-based server virtualization product (like ESXi), will be released within 30 days and be available at no cost via the Web
- Microsoft will demonstrate live migration feature of Windows Server 2008 R2. And the next version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server (the one after 2008) will have live migration capabilities.
- System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 will be released within 30 days [not a surprise], which will manage Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 or VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3
- Microsoft’s global server OEM partners ... report that nearly 100% of their customers who order Windows Server 2008 with hardware are also choosing to have Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V included with their order.
- Dedicated virtualization lab established within the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center.
Source: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx
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Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable
Under the Hood: Windows Vista Performance...Need Answers?
Join Mark Russinovich and a panel of industry experts for a LIVE virtual roundtable to explore your top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what you can do to improve overall system performance.
Submit your performance questions live during the event or send them in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.
save the date and join Mark on September 24th at https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard (use the calendar reminder attached to this blog post)
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HMC 4.5 brings together powerful Microsoft enterprise products such as
Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, and
now gives you Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, which
manages all real-time communications such as instant messaging (IM)
and audio and video conferencing.
Other new features and enhancements:
- Exchange Server 2007 SP1: Web-based OABs and resource mailboxes
- Windows SharePoint Services: multi-tenant People Picker functionality
- Provisioning capabilities have been expanded:
- Microsoft Provisioning System (MPS)
cross data store integration procedures
- Individual Information Worker (IIW) tenant model
- New SDK, updated for HMC 4.5
Get started now with HMC 4.5 and HMC 4.5 SDK
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To try it out, select from the following operating environments:
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Monitor the Security Compliance State of Your IT Environment for Computers Running Windows
The toolkit provides best practices from Microsoft about how to plan, deploy, monitor, and remediate a security baseline. The toolkit includes 12 Configuration Packs that you can use with the desired configuration management (DCM) feature in Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to monitor Windows Vista®, Windows® XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Windows Server® 2003 SP2.
The toolkit also offers a proven method that your organization can use to effectively monitor the compliance state of recommended security baselines for Windows Vista®, Windows® XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Windows Server® 2003 SP2. You can monitor computers running these operating systems using the desired configuration management (DCM) feature in Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007 with the Configuration Packs the toolkit provides. In addition, you can quickly and easily run reports to demonstrate how your organization is meeting important compliance regulations.
The Security Compliance Management toolkit includes the following components:
- Security Compliance Management Overview.docx: This document describes the overall security compliance management process and the steps that the toolkit recommends to achieve security compliance using prescribed security baselines.
- DCM Configuration Pack User Guide.docx: This user guide describes how to load and operate the Configuration Packs in the desired configuration management (DCM) feature of System Center Configuration Manager 2007.
- SecurityComplianceManagement.msi: This Microsoft Windows Installer (.msi) file includes 12 Configuration Packs to provide security baseline checks for Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, and Windows Server 2003 SP2.
- Informational Materials.zip: The materials include a Security Compliance Management Data Sheet and a FAQ that explain how the guidance for the toolkit can benefit your organization.
Get it here.
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Noticed that is now avaiable on Microsoft Download Center the System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1.
- Full Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 Support: Deploy and manage Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008—with full support for the latest Windows platforms, from planning through inventory, to deployment, and into operational scenarios such as software distribution, software update management, desired configuration management, and more.
- AMT Integration: Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 integration with Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) enables hardware-based power control (on/off/restart) and delivers many new remote diagnostic and troubleshooting capabilities. Configuration Manager can now perform scheduled or on-demand power control operations on Intel vPro enabled systems in the enterprise, enabling higher levels of software update compliance as well as increasing application installation and operating system deployment success rates. The new out of band management console provides direct hardware interaction using Windows Remote Management (the Microsoft implementation of WS-MAN). This enables remote boot control, allows forced PXE boot for operating system deployments, remote network boot for customized remote tasks and diagnostics, and direct inspection of hardware inventory and power state—even if the system is powered off.
- Asset Intelligence: Building on the original release within Configuration Manager, this enhancement to the inventory capabilities of Configuration Manager 2007 provides improvements for stronger inventory of hardware, software, and software licenses in use throughout the enterprise. The enhancements made enable administrators to more easily, and more accurately, inventory and manage hardware and software assets as well as view and manage purchased software license information. By providing this essential information, Asset Intelligence makes it easier for administrators and asset managers to more effectively plan for upgrades, migrations, and software license compliance reporting.
Get it here
