This weekend the most expected version of HMC was released for service providers to deploy it. With this version, service providers can offer OCS (IM, Collaboration, PC-toPC VoIP) services as part of their online services. At the same time support to Windows 2008 and WSS 3.0 SP1 is included in this solution.
You can have access to the bits of the solution from the following location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C9CBBC69-4AE4-450D-AF5E-F49E7C701CF4&displaylang=en
Or for those who are interested in developing on top of MPS (i.e. self-service portal, namespaces, increase the business logic of the current APIs, etc.) there is a SDK available as well for developers to consume:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CE3FC537-86AE-4802-9A05-43E2A27A4B45&displaylang=en
The documentation to migrate from previous versions is still pending, but it will be released soon. If you have HMC 4.0, you shouldn't expect too much of impact in your APIs or portals already implemented. If what you have is HMC 3.5 or earlier, you should consider a similar migration path like to HMC 4.0 with the addition of migrating LCS to OCS 2007. Don't forget to consider these migrations paths while deploying the solution.
I'm excited with the new changes and functionalities that Windows 2008 will provide to the enterprise and hosters. To mention some of these features, Windows 2008 provides a minimal version of the OS (Server Core - the most efficient Windows version ever), expansion in the capabilities of powershell and how the server can be administered (you'll be able to obtain a script for almost any correspondant UI control or task), additional HA features are incorporated/enhanced into Windows Server (failover clusters, Network Load Balancing, dynamic hardware partitioning, robust storage options, and advanced machine-check architecture), enhanced OS-virtualization mechanism to consolidate and optimize the resources in the DataCenters (Hyper-V), let's don't forget IIS 7.0 and its additional features (PHP integration, security enhancements, larger no. of web-sites supported per server).
If you want to know more about these features, check out the following set of online videos which presents the capabilities of Windows 2008:
Windows Server 2008 Deployment Overview - Michael Niehaus, Tim Mintner
The 10 Most Important Things About Failover Clustering - Jim Teague
Power Management: Windows Server - Stephen Berard
Dynamic Partition: Windows Server - Davis Walker
Windows Server Longhorn - Iain McDonald
Windows Server virtualisation - solution scenarios - David Hitchen
Windows Server 2008 Kernel Advances - Mark Russinovich
Active Directory Domain Services in Microsoft Windows Server 2008 - Stephanie Cheung
Virtualization in Windows Server - Mike Neil
Managing Windows Server 2008 with Server Manager - Dan Harman
Using Group Policy with Windows and Windows Server 2008 - Mazhar Mohammed, Derek Melber
Microsoft.com: Employing Windows Server 2008 and Internet Information Services 7 - Paul Wright, Brad LeRoss
Living the Longhorn Life: What's Up With Windows Server 2008 - Mark Minasi
Feel free to share with me your views and comments.
If you haven’t heard about MS Enterprise Search solutions, let me summarize the relevant points and what are the options available in Microsoft to address this space.
The people in the organizations are hard at work making things happen. When they need publicly available information to get the job done, they know how to search on the Internet to find it. But when they need information in their business, they need Enterprise Search.
In the world of business, Search isn’t just about finding information. That’s the starting point. To be valuable to an organization, a search has to result in the ability to do something meaningful and profitable with the information you find. It has to be an integral part of a business productivity infrastructure. Microsoft is changing the Enterprise Search landscape by delivering a solid solution that fills the gap left by current offerings.
Microsoft provides a search experience that is at the same time richly innovative and comfortably familiar. Office SharePoint Server 2007 as part of an Enterprise Search solution provides the following features:
· Deploy Search as an Integrated Service
o Integrate Search into Important Business Applications
o Integrate with Desktop Search
o Integrate into Tools and Applications with Rich, Actionable Interfaces
· Deploy a Secure and Managed Solution
o Control Access to Information With Permissions
o Manage Your Search Solutions
o Scale Your Deployment
· Unlock Unstructured and Structured Information
o Find Information in Unstructured Repositories
o Use Search as an Interface for Line-Of-Business Systems
o Refine Results and Save Important Queries
· Find People and Expertise
o Build Rich Personal Profiles
o Publish Personal Profiles Using SharePoint My Sites
o Identify People Who Can Help
Our vision for the future of Enterprise Search is people-centric. It builds on the strengths of key technologies like Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to provide a platform that not only helps people find what they need, but also helps them do something meaningful with what they’ve found. After all, Enterprise Search isn’t simply about finding information. It’s about real people and real problems, and the tools that help them get their jobs done.
As you read above our main player in this space is MOSS 2007, however for those SMB customers or hosters who want to leverage Searching capabilities Search Server 2008 is an option which relies on Windows Sharepoint Services.
The following table summarizes the features of each available option:
*This list represents features included with the Enterprise Client Access License version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
** Microsoft Search Server 2008 relies on Windows SharePoint Services to provide its functionality
For more details:
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/default.aspx (Enterprise Search Overview)
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch/products.aspx (Products: Search Server 2008, Search Server 2008 Express, MOSS 2007)
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000000149 (Case Study: TV Guide Online)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb871550.aspx (MS Search Server 2008 - Technet)
http://www.fastsearch.com (Microsoft announces offer to acquire FAST – Jan 17th, 2008)
For those of you (ISVs, Hosters) who develop applications for MPS (multi-tenant applications, provisioning), it's important for you to know that there is an MPS SDK update available for you to review and consider in your development. As an example of these changes, the following namespaces were updated (specific procedures):
- Exchange 2007 Provider
- Hosted Email 2007 Namespace
- Hosted SharePoint 2007 Namespace
- Managed Email 2007 Namespace
- Managed SharePoint 2007 Namespace
- SharePoint 2007 Provider
You can download the SDK with the details of the changes from the following reference:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CE3FC537-86AE-4802-9A05-43E2A27A4B45&displaylang=en
If you already have a MPS-based portal (custom or 3rd party), ensure that your solution has a roadmap to integrate these updates. Most of the times, these updates have no impact in current deployments, however as for any other change in your environment: TEST IT FIRST!!! This will help you to minimize headaches later.
Feel free to contact if you need have any question.
After Exchange 2007 SP1 got released, additional mobility features were included along with extra policies settings to restrict their usage. Following you'll find a comprehensive matrix of these policies comparing the different versions of messaging platform available:
|
Settings |
Ex2003 SP2 |
Ex2007 RTM |
Ex2007 SP1
STD CAL |
Ex2007 SP1
ENT CAL |
|
EAS Protocol Version |
2.5 |
12 |
12.1 |
12.1 |
|
Corresponding WM Client |
WM 5
MSFP |
WM 6 |
WM 6.1 |
WM 6.1 |
|
Password Required |
X |
X |
X |
X |
|
Min Password Length |
X |
X |
X |
X |
|
Alphanumeric pwd |
X |
X |
X |
X |
|
Inactivity Timeout |
X |
X |
X |
|