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  • Security Compliance Manager Beta program now open!

    Hardening operating systems and applications, implementing security settings, and enforcing compliance standards can be resource intensive—but it doesn’t have to be. Take advantage of a free new tool from the Microsoft security experts on the Solution Accelerators team.

    Get Started with Solution Accelerators http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/cc835245.aspx

    The Security Compliance Manager will enable you to plan, deploy, operate, and manage your organization’s security baselines for Windows® client and server operating systems, and Microsoft applications.

    What does that really mean? image

    · Centralized management and baseline portfolio.

    · Security baseline customization.

    · Security baseline comparison and export.

    · Security baseline compliance monitoring and verification.

    The bottom line: Security Compliance Manager will help you achieve a secure, reliable, and centralized IT environment that will help you better balance your organization’s needs for security and functionality.

    The beta review program for Security Compliance Manager is now open! Join now, and utilize this opportunity to provide feedback and help the development team build this tool to best meet your needs.

    Security Compliance Manager Beta—Features and Elevator Pitch

    Key Features & Benefits

    Centralized Management and Baseline Portfolio: The centralized management console of the Security Compliance Manager provides you with a unified, end-to-end user experience to plan, customize, and export security baselines. The tool gives you full access to a complete portfolio of recommended baselines for Windows® client and server operating systems, and Microsoft applications.

    Security Baseline Customization: Customizing, merging, and reviewing your baselines just got easier. Now you can use the new customization capabilities of the Security Compliance Manager to duplicate any of the recommended baselines from Microsoft—for Windows client and server operating systems, and Microsoft applications—and quickly modify security settings to meet the standards of your organization’s environment.

    Security Baseline Comparison and Export: Security Compliance Manager enables you to quickly adopt the latest Microsoft product releases. Side-by-side baseline comparison features allow you to identify any changes to setting configurations and merge baselines within a product family with ease. Export and deploy baselines in your format of choice, including Desired Configuration Management (DCM) packs, Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP), XLS, or Group Policy objects (GPOs).

    Security Baseline Compliance Monitoring and Verification: Keep current with the latest releases from Microsoft; automate your security baseline compliance process, and take advantage of baseline version control and automatic update features. The planning, customization, and export features of Security Compliance Manager quickly enable you to leverage monitoring and verification technologies, automate policy deployment, and produce compliance reports.

    Elevator Pitch

    Summary Statement: The Security Compliance Manager provides centralized security baseline management features, a baseline portfolio, customization capabilities, and security baseline export flexibility to accelerate your organization’s ability to efficiently manage the security and compliance process for the most widely used Microsoft technologies.

    Full Elevator Pitch: The Security Compliance Manager provides centralized security baseline management features, a baseline portfolio, customization capabilities, and security baseline export flexibility to accelerate your organization’s ability to efficiently manage the security and compliance process for the most widely used Microsoft technologies.

    Take advantage of the experience of Microsoft security professionals, and reduce the time and money required to harden for your environment. This end-to-end Solution Accelerator will help you plan, deploy, operate, and manage your security baselines for Windows® client and server operating systems, and Microsoft applications. Access the complete database of Microsoft recommended security settings, customize your baselines, and then choose from multiple formats—including Desired Configuration Management (DCM) packs, Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP), XLS, or Group Policy objects (GPOs)—to export the baselines to your environment to automate the security baseline compliance verification process. Use Security Compliance Manager to achieve a secure, reliable, and centralized IT environment that will help you better balance your organization’s needs for security and functionality. image


    Next steps:

    · Join the Security Compliance Manager Beta. Then tell the development team what you think!

    · Already a member? Bookmark this link for access to the program page.

    · Help us spread the word—share the beta invitation link with your friends.

    · Want to see where it all started? Download the current version: Security Compliance Management Toolkit.

    The beta will run through March 2010. That means now is the time to join the beta program, take an early look at this tool, and provide the Security Solution Accelerators team with your feedback.

    Want the facts straight from the development team? Check out this series of short videos! Better yet, post your own video response sharing your favorite feature.

  • IT Pro Champions - Quiz Contest

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  • Reducing Bandwidth Utilization with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 BranchCache

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    Does the increasing cost of wide area network (WAN) access restrict you from providing your branch offices with the data center services they need? Learn how Microsoft IT uses the BranchCache™ feature available in the Windows® 7 operating system and the Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating system to improve performance and availability to branch offices. Services at the branch office level include file and print management, offline folder redirection, operating system and application distribution, and patch management. By implementing BranchCache, Microsoft IT significantly improved service availability while maintaining network traffic encryption including HTTPS and IPsec and reducing WAN usage and server demand. Using BranchCache, Microsoft IT expects to save money while increasing branch user productivity.

    Download

     Technical Case Study, 487 KB, Microsoft Word

    BranchCache Deployments at Microsoft

    As the earliest adopter and tester of Microsoft technology, Microsoft IT was working with BranchCache as early as Windows 7 Beta. Microsoft IT was especially interested in using BranchCache in branch offices that were known to have slow links to the main corporate data center in hopes of improving local access time while simultaneously reducing WAN bandwidth demand.

    The pilot deployments discussed in this document occurred during the Windows Server 2008 R2/Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) timeframe. Microsoft IT implemented BranchCache pilots to test the technology using three different systems and protocols:

    • Testing access to internal file shares via SMB
    • Testing access to an internal Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 site via HTTP
    • Testing integration with System Center Configuration Manager and accessing advertised downloads via BITS

    In total, BranchCache was deployed to 24 branch offices where it was tested against internal file shares using SMB, and against a SharePoint Server 2007 SP2 site accessed via HTTP. From these 24 sites, five North American branch offices were also used for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 (BITS) validation.

    Figure 3. Locations and numbers of branch offices used for BranchCache pilots

    Figure 3. Locations and numbers of branch offices used for BranchCache pilots

    The remainder of this section provides details about these pilot deployments.

    Note: The percentage bandwidth savings discussed in these results measure the amount of WAN bandwidth saved for cached files; they are not the percentage reduction of total branch office WAN use. Overall, WAN bandwidth savings will be measured as Microsoft IT upgrades the majority of its back-end servers to Windows Server 2008 R2.

  • Announcing Microsoft Tech.Ed 2010, India, Bangalore, April 12-14

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    For more information visit http://www.microsoftteched.in