Friday, 5 May 2017

Gathering business requirements for an Exchange Server 2016 deployment


Organizations invest in technology to solve business problems, better support their business, enhance productivity, or provide new opportunities. Business requirements typically dictate reasons for an organization to implement the proposed new technology.

Business requirements
To operate more effectively, an organization must address its many needs, or business requirements. Business requirements can take many different forms. For example, an organization might need to:

Thursday, 4 May 2017

Step by Step Changing Default RDP Port



The requirement was to Secure Remote Access to Server in a private cloud infrastructure, where the customer wanted to provide RDP of Microsoft Windows Server with different RDP port other than the default one which shipped with default Windows installation.
This section contains steps that show you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might be occurred if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully.

LAB Setup

Windows Server 2012 name = Srvr2012                               RDP default port = 3389      
IP Address = 1.1.1.1                                                              RDP port to change =2454    
Subnet Mask = 255.0.0.0                              
Other OS name = Win 7
IP Address = 1.1.1.2                                           
Subnet Mask = 255.0.0.0  
                            
1.      Click on the Windows logo + R to open the “Run” dialog and write the “cmd” command
2.     Open the registry editor by typing the “regedit” command.

Friday, 7 April 2017

Office 365 Overview

Office 365 is Microsoft Cloud Base SAS (Software As a Service) model.


Office 365. "Office 365" refers to subscription plans that include access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services). Office 365 includes plans for use at home and for business. Learn about Office 365 for use at home. Office 365 plans for business include services such as Skype for Business web conferencing and Exchange Online hosted email for business, and additional online storage with OneDrive for Business.

Many Office 365 plans also include the desktop version of the latest Office applications, which users can install across multiple computers and devices. The fully installed applications include: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. (Publisher and Access are available on PC only.) And you can install them across multiple devices, including PCs, Macs, Android tablets, Android phones, iPad, and iPhone. When you have an active Office 365 subscription that includes the desktop version of Office, you always have the most up-to-date version of the applications.
The Office 365 plans that are online-only are a great choice for certain business needs, and they are designed to work with the latest version of Office, Office 2013, and Office 2011 for Mac. Previous versions of Office, such as Office 2010 and Office 2007, may work with Office 365 with reduced functionality. Get more details about which Office versions are supported. NOTE: This compatibility with Office does not include the Exchange Online Kiosk or Office 365 Enterprise K1 plans.
All Office 365 plans are paid for on a subscription basis, monthly or annually.
Microsoft Office. "Microsoft Office” is the name we still use for our familiar productivity software. Office suites are available as a one-time purchase and include applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which can be installed on only one PC or Mac. The applications are not automatically updated; to get the latest version, you can purchase the product again when the new version becomes available. The latest versions currently available for one-time purchase are Office 2016 for Windows and Office 2016 for Mac. These suites do not come with any of the cloud-based services included in Office 365.
Ref: https://products.office.com/en-us/business/microsoft-office-365-frequently-asked-questions

Saturday, 1 April 2017

Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is a computer program for multi-user collaboration and free form information gathering. It gathers users notes, drawings, screen clippings and audio commentaries. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network. OneNote is available as a part of Microsoft Office and Windows 10. It is also available as a free standalone application for Windows, mac OS, Windows RT, Windows Phone, iOS and Android. A web-based version of OneNote is provided as part of OneDrive or Office Online and enables users to edit notes via a web browser.
OneNote for the students to organize your lesson plans, course contents and make important notes in your own digital notebook. Keep everything in a OneNote Class Notebook, and use its powerful search tool to find what you're looking for, even text in pictures or handwriting. School work includes a lot of information, and OneNote helps you, students capture it all, on all devices. With it, everyone can stay organized, share lessons, work together, and even spark their creativity. While inspiration can come from anywhere, it should all end up in OneNote. Your notebooks are saved automatically and can be viewed from any devices, online or offline.


It Make teachers’ jobs easier by giving them the tools they need to stay organized. In OneNote, they can organize their lesson plans and course content in searchable digital notebooks. Each has a personal workspace for every student, a content library for handouts, and a collaboration space for lessons and creative activities. And they can be viewed from any device, online or offline. Creating interesting lessons is easier than ever in OneNote Class Notebooks. Starting from their existing lesson plans, your teachers can add web content, videos, and audio recordings, for custom lessons that get their students’ attention. Your class notebook makes it easier to collect homework, quizzes, exams and handouts. Students go to the content library to get their assignments. They simply share the digital notebook, no more class handouts, to assign work. And students can highlight, annotate, sketch, take notes, and turn in their homework, all in the same notebook. In OneNote Class Notebook, students can ask for help, and teachers can give their support, directly in the student's private notebook. And the notebook’s collaboration space encourages students to work together as the teacher provides real-time coaching.
OneNote Provide a central place for administration with OneNote Staff Notebooks. Like OneNote Class Notebooks, they offer a personal workspace for every teacher and staff member, a content library for shared information, and a space where everyone can work together, all in one digital notebook. There your team can share lesson plans, capture meeting and classroom observation notes, find professional development opportunities, and more.

Monday, 27 March 2017

Azure Germany in CSP

Azure in Germany was launched in 2016, and if you’ve heard about that, you may already know, that Azure in Germany is different from other Azure regions.
Azure in Germany is an isolated instance of Azure. It doesn’t connected to other Azure regions. Azure Portal URL is different – https://portal.microsoftazure.de. I recommend to read this article to understand high-level details why Azure in Germany was built this way.
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Unlike Azure in China, which is operated by 21Vianet and doesn’t even have an English version of the website, Azure in Germany is operated by Microsoft, but with local specifics:
  1. German Azure regions are isolated from other regions (Europe, US, Asia). The network between these datacenters is isolated and dedicated within Germany.
  2. Support for Azure Germany comes from EU-based support staff. The German data trustee supervises all support that requires platform access.
  3. Customer data remains in Germany under the control of T-Systems International GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, acting as the German data trustee. Microsoft does not have access to customer data or the datacenters without approval from and supervision by the German data trustee.
  4. Originally these regions were available only for the customers with business address in Germany. Recently it was extended to any customers with business address in EU/EFTA.
  5. Azure Germany is deployed in 2 regions – Germany Central (Frankfurt) and Germany Northeast (Magdeburg, not far from Berlin). Germany Central region is bigger and has more Azure services deployed. Price for Azure services in these two regions is pretty the same, it is a little bit higher than in Global Azure regions in Europe (West Europe, North Europe).
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  6. Azure in Germany has its own Azure Portal (https://portal.microsoftazure.de) and its own tenants (*.onmicrosoft.de).
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  7. You need to specify that you want to connect to Azure Germany in PowerShell or CLI. For example, this is an example for PowerShell: Login-AzureRmAccount -EnvironmentName AzureGermanCloud
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How Azure in Germany is different from CSP perspective:
  1. To be available to sell German Azure to your customers in EU/EFTA, you’ll need to get a separate Partner Center account by completing an additional enrollment. You will use a separate partner tenant to login into Partner Center – partnername.onmicrosoft.de. Once authorizes, you will be able to create customer accounts in any EU/EFTA country.
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  2. Only partners with EU/EFTA business address are allowed to enroll to German Partner Center.
  3. Partner Center capabilities for German partner accounts are limited. Check here for details.
  4. All Azure services will be deployed in Germany (the same for Office 365). You can’t assign your customer a Global Azure subscription from German Partner Center account.
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  5. German CSP services are billed in 6 local currencies – EUR, GBP, NOK, SEK, DKK, CHF.
  6. License-based Azure subscriptions (Azure AD, Azure MFA etc.) are not available. Only usage-based Microsoft Azure Germany – CSP.
  7. Not all Azure CSP services are available in Germany. Check here for details.
  8. Despite the fact that Azure Machine Learning is available in Azure Germany, it is not currently available in Azure CSP subscriptions.
  9. KeyVault in Azure Germany is not accessible through Azure Portal, but it is accessible through PowerShell. There isn’t a sovereign Certificate Authority integrated in Azure Germany. You’ll need to create the CSR and then get it signed by CA of choice, and then merge the certificate in KeyVault.
  10. Not all VM sizes are available. Check here for details.
  11. Azure ADs in Global Azure and in Azure Germany are fully isolated from each other. If On-Premise AD of a German customer is already integrated with Global Azure AD (using Azure AD Connect or other tools), you won’t be able to integrate it with German Azure AD before dropping the old integration.
I think that Azure Germany is a great example of a public cloud, that is truly aligned with local regulations. I recommend all EU/EFTA CSP partners to try it.

Friday, 24 March 2017

Introduction of Office 365

Office 365. "Office 365" refers to subscription plans that include access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services). Office 365 includes plans for use at home and for business. Learn about Office 365 for use at home. Office 365 plans for business include services such as Skype for Business web conferencing and Exchange Online hosted email for business, and additional online storage with OneDrive for Business.