The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) provides an in-depth perspective on the changing threat landscape including software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software. Using data derived from hundreds of millions of Windows users, and some of the busiest online services on the Internet, this report also provides a detailed analysis of the threat landscape and the changing face of threats and countermeasures and includes updated data on privacy and breach notifications. The fifth volume of the report is now available:

http://www.microsoft.com/sir

Videos from Tech-Ed 2008 EMEA IT Professionals, currently on in Barcelona, are now online on Tech-Ed-TV

Day 1, Monday 3 November, was dominated by the keynote address from Brad Anderson. Brad spoke about Windows Server 2008 R2, Online Services and the next version of SQL Server (“Kilimanjaro“), how “Software plus Services“ enables IT Professionals to select the best Microsoft Solutions and make them available to their users and customers.

You can view the full keynote address (83 Minutes), a short 5-minute summary and other interesting videos.

If you are not one of the 250 Swiss Participants at Tech-Ed-EMEA IT Professional this year, you can still see and hear what is happening here. 

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/teched2008/itpro/tv/default.aspx

Next week, Tech-Ed 2008 EMEA Developers will invade Barcelona.

SQL Server Energy 2008

Dates: 25.-26. November 2008

Venue: Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria

Information und Registration: www.sqlserverenergy.at

Note: The web site and registration is in German, the sessions at SQL Energy will be in English. 

Rafal Lukawiecki, Robert Bruckner, Dejan Sarka, Steffen Krause, Itzik Ben-Gan, Ramesh Meyyappan, Maciej Pilecki, Kevin Ashby, Al Comeau, Michael Epprecht, and, and, and...some of the best international speakers in their fields of expertise in Data management with Microsoft SQL Server are coming to Vienna for the official Launch Conference for SQL Server 2008 in Austria: the SQL Server Energy 2008!

During these two days, you will get an extensive technical overview in the areas of Data Warehousing, Upgrade and Migration, Developer Productivity, Reporting and much more. 23 Sessions and 5 Chalk Talks will be presented in 2008 Minutes, covering the most important Information on SQL Server 2008. In varying technical levels, that are matched to your needs, you can experience Top International Speakers and SQL Server experts in Vienna! Get to know Microsoft Employees from the SQL Product Team in Redmond, and learn about the product from the people who know it best!

Business Intelligence Conference 2008

Date: 27. November 2008

Venue: Leopold Museum, Wien

Information und Registration: www.microsoft.com/austria/bi

Note: The web site and registration is in German, the sessions at Business Intelligence Conference 2008 will be in German.

Without a doubt, you have invested in the last few years in IT Solutions for Reporting, Planning and Data . In many companies, there are already multiple Business Intelligence Systems in use. Now how do you achieve the required ROI on these investments? What is easier for employees to use than the already installed and trusted tools available to surface Business Intelligence, namely Excel, instead of expensive tools that require intensive training and expensive maintenance? And what benefits would your organization reap if consolidated data is present in a performant and inexpensive database, like SQL Server 2008? Just imagine the benefits!

At the Microsoft-Conference for Decision Makers, you can expect the newest information about BI Platforms and practical presentations in 2 tracks. Let yourself be informed by us about current solutions surrounding Monitoring, Analysis, Data Warehousing, Reporting and Data Mining, and at the same time, exchange ideas with colleagues; Local and International Experts, and Austrian Bi Solution partners. See how some CFO’s and CIO’s from customers present their current solutions surrounding Business Intelligence.

The SharePoint Guidance has just been published on Microsoft’s Patterns and Practices Developer Center.

This guidance helps architects and developers build SharePoint intranet applications. The guidance contains a reference implementation (RI) that demonstrates solutions to common architectural, development, and lifecycle management challenges. This guidance discusses the following:

• Architectural decisions about patterns, feature factoring, and packaging.
• Design tradeoffs for common decisions many developers encounter.
• Implementation examples demonstrated in the RI and in the QuickStarts.
• How to design for testability, create unit tests, and run continuous integration.
• Set up of development, build, test, staging, and production environments.
• Managing the application life cycle including upgrade.
• Team-based intranet application development.

The following areas are not discussed in this version of the guidance:

• Content-oriented sites that use Web content management.
• Internet and enterprise-scale SharePoint applications.
• Multilingual SharePoint applications.
• Scale or security testing of SharePoint applications.

MSDN site: SharePoint Guidance
Codeplex site: http://codeplex.com/spg
Community Forum: http://www.codeplex.com/spg/Thread/List.aspx

The Microsoft SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) have published a compliance guide for SQL Server 2008.

The guide covers:

• Understanding Compliance
• Implementing IT Controls with SQL Server 2008
• Securing the Platform
• Controlling Identity and Separation of Duties
• Separation of Duties
• Encrypting Database Data
• Auditing Sensitive Operations
• Using Policy-Based Management to Define, Deploy, and Validate Policy

It does also include scripts.

http://sqlcat.com/whitepapers/archive/2008/11/15/reaching-compliance-sql-server-2008-compliance-guide.aspx