We recently released the public release candidate for Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010.

At this event of the System Center User Group Belgium, you’ll learn about Data Protection Manager 2010 and the product features that are causing excitement in the IT community! We will walk you through most of the new features in DPM 2010 and the enhancements that were made to the Data Protection Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) solution, which is protecting Windows-based application servers and file servers today.

• Speaker: Mike Resseler, Ferranti
• Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 19:00
• Location: Microsoft Belgium, Zaventem
• Agenda
• 18:00 Registration and lunch
• 18:45 Welcome
• 19:00 What's new in DPM 2010
• 21:00 Q&A and drink
• Register at http://dpm.eventbrite.com

The Official Microsoft Blog writes about two announcements on the social features of Office 2010:

• The LinkedIn for Outlook Social Connector is available for download
• Additionally, we’re announcing new Outlook integrations with Facebook and MySpace.

More info is available at the Official Microsoft Blog and the Outlook blog or watch this video on LinkedIn for Outlook:

Each month through June 2010, Microsoft’s Innovation Showcase invites you to a 60-minute Solution Architect focused webcast to educate on the latest trends/topics and how new technologies can align with your business needs.

Visual Studio Tools For Architects
February 25, 2010 at 19:00 CET – 20:00pm CET
Come learn how the new code visualization, UML, and Architectural Validation tools inside Visual Studio 2010 come together to help you understand existing code bases, model domain specific problem domains, and maintain the proper control and visibility of those software systems.

Register here

Stay Connected:

The Solution Accelerators Team has announced the beta release of the Security Compliance Manager version 1.0.

The Security Compliance Manager version 1.0 provides centralized security baseline management features, a baseline portfolio, customization capabilities, and the ability to automate the creation of GPOs and System Center Configuration Manager DCM packs to accelerate an organization’s ability to efficiently manage the security and compliance process for the most widely used Microsoft technologies.

Quick summary of the tool posted on the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Security & Compliance blog:

Centralized Management and Data Repository: The centralized management console of the Security Compliance Manager provides you with a unified, end-to-end user experience to plan, customize, report, and export security baselines. The tool gives you full access to the complete database of recommended security settings 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.

Also check out the TechNet Security Solution Accelerators website.

Update 22 February - see a summary video (4 minutes):

The new Exchange 2010 webcast series is live! Register to watch or download the recorded video or podcast. A full list of topics and presenters is below. Each webcast is approx. 60 minutes in length. Looking for something shorter? We also have a new series of “How Do I” videos dedicated to Exchange 2010 that can be found in the Exchange TechCenter.

Don’t forget, you can also attend a preconference day on Exchange 2010 at TechDays 2010 on 30 March.

Webcast Series

TechNet Webcast: Introducing Exchange Server 2010
Presented by: Rand Morimoto

In a time when your organization requires its communication tools to be cost-effective and flexible, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 enables you to achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that can simplify your administration, help protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for great business productivity. In this webcast we introduce you to Exchange Server 2010, as well as highlight and demonstrate key investments made in this latest release.

TechNet Chopsticks: Discover what’s new in Exchange 2010 and how you can use this rich set of technologies
(French: part 1 / part 2 – Dutch: part 1 / part 2 – English: part 1 / part 2)
Presented by: Ilse Van Criekinge

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 brings a new and rich set of technologies, features, and services to the Exchange Server product line. Join us and and we will provide you with an overview of some of the important new features and functionality, which you can use when you're planning, deploying, and administering your Exchange 2010 organization.

TechNet Webcast: Discover the New OWA: Outlook Web App
Presented by: Gary Danoys

The new Outlook Web App provides the most robust Web experience for accessing your Microsoft Exchange Server. With OWA 2010 users will get even more ways to communicate from the Web. From the new OWA IM and SMS Sync features to the incredible changes to the conversation view; new communications types and presentation methods abound to make users more productive. New features like MailTips, Side-by-side calendars, Delegate access, Delivery reports, and more are demonstrated.  The new Exchange Control Panel (ECP) also makes end-user self-service features greatly enhanced meaning users can more easily manage their own issues. This webcasts focuses on the new end-user functions available in OWA 2010 as well as walks through the configuration of IM with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and helping IT pros troubleshoot common configuration errors in setting up OWA IM.

TechNet Webcast: Upgrade and Coexistence with Exchange Server 2007 and 2003
Presented by: Harold Wong

Walk through the process for introducing Exchange 2010 servers into an Exchange 2003/2007 organization. Learn the pre-requisites, steps required, and the impact to client access for MAPI, Outlook Anywhere, OWA, ActiveSync, and POP/IMAP clients after the upgrade has occurred.

TechNet Webcast: Information Protection and Control in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
Presented by: Michael Smith

Worried about employees accidentally leaking valuable corporate e-mail? This webcast introduces new methods of information protection and control powered by Exchange Server 2010, including new transport rule for moderation, dynamic signatures and application of rights management. A discussion of the use of Active Directory Rights Management Service in parallel with Exchange is included, as well as an introduction to how these new features can be applied to real-world messaging control scenarios.

TechNet Webcast: Exchange Server 2010 High Availability
Presented by: Devin L. Ganger

Welcome to the future! The future of Exchange high availability, that is. In this webcast we reveal the changes and improvements to the built-in high availability platform in Exchange Server 2010. Exchange 2010 includes a unified solution for high availability and disaster recovery that is quick to deploy and easy to manage. Learn about all of the new features in Exchange 2010 that make it the most resilient, highly available version of Exchange ever.

TechNet Webcast: Getting the Most out of Exchange Server 2010: Performance and Scalability
Presented by: John Fullbright

Selecting the right server hardware for an Exchange 2010 deployment becomes much easier when you know the product team's scalability and performance guidelines. This webcast provides a look at the product team's guidance for the processor and memory requirements of each server role in Exchange 2010. A number of key performance enhancements from this release are discussed, and you also learn about how to use related tools like the Exchange Storage Calculator, Exchange Profile Analyzer, Loadgen, and Jetstress to take the guesswork out of server sizing.

TechNet Webcast: Deploying and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Transport Servers
Presented by: David Elfassy

The transport server role in Exchange 2010 provides some exciting new management functionality to make mail flow issues easier to monitor and diagnose. This webcast shows you how you can best leverage this functionality including Direct Deliver, Shadow Redundancy, and transport SLA measurement and reporting. Learn how to plan for the most efficient transition -- whether you're moving from Exchange 2003 or 2007.

TechNet Webcast: Addressing E-mail Archiving and Retention
Presented by: Kamal Janardhan

As e-mail volume continues to grow, we recognize your user's desire for an infinite inbox and the IT Admin's goal to be able to preserve and discover these mailboxes in a cost-effective manner. To help address these needs, Exchange Server 2010 introduces integrated archiving along with message retention and multi-mailbox discovery capabilities. This webcast offers a technical deep dive and some demonstrations of the user and IT Pro archiving experience in Outlook and Outlook Web App, as well as Exchange Management Console and PowerShell. The session also highlights the message retention capabilities through Move and Delete Policies in Outlook, OWA and PowerShell, Hold Policy to preserve data for recovery in legal or accidental deletion scenarios, and e-Discovery with multi-mailbox search in the Exchange Control Panel.

TechNet Webcast: Exchange Server 2010 Management and Operations
Presented by: Oliver Moazzezi

Exchange Server 2010 includes new capabilities that make the operation of your Exchange environment more efficient. Learn how we've made the Exchange Management Console more powerful, extended the reach of PowerShell, made it easier to delegate management tasks, and built Web-based tools to make the job of managing Exchange easier than ever.

TechNet Webcast: Calendar Sharing and Federation in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
Presented by: Joel Stidley

Federation is a key part of the architecture of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, powering new organization-to-organization sharing scenarios. Attend this webcast to learn how to implement free/busy and full calendar sharing with your business partners using Exchange Server 2010.

How Do I videos

• Getting Started with Archiving in Exchange 2010
• Getting Started with Remote Management
• Getting Started with Message Retention in Exchange 2010
• Getting Started with Message Discovery
• Introduction to Exchange 2010
• Get Started with Role Based Access Control
• Get Started with DAGs
• Create and Configure Certificates
• Transitioning from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 Part 1
• Transitioning from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 Part 2
• Transitioning from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 Part 3
• Coexisting Exchange 2010 with Exchange 2007
• CAS ISA