Microsoft DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant 2.0

Microsoft DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant (DCA) 2.0 can be used by computers running Windows 7 when connecting to internal corporate networks with DirectAccess in Windows Server 2012. It improves the DirectAccess connection experience, supports one-time password (OTP) authentication for DirectAccess users and helps organizations reduce the cost of supporting DirectAccess users.

More information can be found here;

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 (RTM)

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 includes Server Manager, Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins, consoles, Windows PowerShell cmdlets and providers, and command-line tools for managing roles and features that run on Windows Server 2012. In limited cases, the tools can be used to manage roles and features that are running on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008. Some of the tools work for managing roles and features on Windows Server 2003.

More information can be found here;

Bye, Bye Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (TMG) (nee) ISA

It’s a pity, but Microsoft are discontinuing any further releases of the following Forefront-branded solutions:

- Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE)
- Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint (FPSP)
- Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (FSOCS)
- Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (TMG)
- Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Protection Services (TMG WPS)

More information can be found here and here.

Windows Azure Online Backup and Cloud Protection

Windows Azure Online Backup is a cloud-based backup solution enabling server data to be backed up and recovered from the cloud in order to help protect against loss and corruption; current trial offers 300GB of free storage for the next 6 months.

Windows Azure Online Backup now supports cloud-based backup from on-premises System Center 2012 SP1 via the Data Protection Manager component.

Key features
Below are some of the key features being delivered in Windows Azure Online Backup:

• Simple configuration and management.
  • Simple, familiar user interface to configure and monitor backups from Windows Server and System Center SP1.
  • Integrated recovery experience to transparently recover files, folders and VMs from the cloud.
  • Windows PowerShell command-line interface scripting capability.
• Block level incremental backups.
  • Automatic incremental backups track file and block level changes, only transferring the changed blocks, hence reducing the storage and bandwidth utilization.
  • Different point-in-time versions of the backups use storage efficiently by only storing the changed blocks between these versions.
• Data compression, encryption and throttling.
  • Data is compressed and encrypted on the server before being sent to Windows Azure over the network. As a result, Windows Azure Online Backup only places encrypted data in the cloud storage.
  • The encryption passphrase is not available in Windows Azure, and as a result data is never decrypted in the service.
  • Users can setup throttling and configure how Windows Azure Online Backup utilizes the network bandwidth when backing up or restoring information.
• Data integrity verified in the cloud.
  • Backed up data is also automatically checked for integrity once the backup is complete. As a result, any corruptions due to data transfer are automatically identified and repair is attempted in the next backup.
• Configurable retention policies.
  • Retention policies Configure and implement retention policies to help meet business policies and manage backup costs.

More information can be found here and here;
Nice article here on setting up Windows Azure Online Backup with DPM 2012 SP1;

Free ebook: Introducing Windows Server 2012 (RTM Edition)

Please see the links below to download one or all of the available formats. 

PDF - Introducing Windows Server 2012 RTM Edition - PDF ebook

EPUB – Introducing Windows Server 2012 RTM Edition – ePub format

MOBI – Introducing Windows Server 2012 RTM Edition – MOBI format (for Kindle)

• Building a foundation for Private Cloud
  Understand the latest improvements that takes Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V beyond basic virtualization: Increased VM scalability, Hyper-V extensible network switch, Network Virtualization, Improved Live Migration, Enhanced Quality of Service (QoS), Resource Metering and Hyper-V Replica.
• Designing a highly available, easy-to-manage multi-server platform
  Includes Failover Clustering Enhancements, SMB Transparent Failover, Live Storage Migration, NIC Teaming, Chkdsk improvements, DHCP Server Failover, Storage Spaces, Thin Provisioning, Server for NFS datastores, new multi-server Server  Manager, PowerShell 3.0 and Active Directory enhancements.

• Deploying web applications on-premise and in the cloud
  Includes improvements to scale, manage and deliver open Web Applications, such as: NUMA-aware scalability, Centralized SSL certificate support, IIS CPU Throttling, Dynamic IP Address Restrictions, FTP Logon Attempt Restrictions, WebSocket and HTML5 Support.
• Enabling modern anywhere, any-device workstyles
  Unified Remote Access, Simplified VDI deployment, User-Device Affinity, Enhanced BranchCache, Branch Office Direct Printing, Remote FX enhancements, Enhanced USB redirection, User Profile Disks, Dynamic Access Control, BitLocker enhancements and DNSSEC support.

More information can be found here and here;

Exchange Server 2010 Monitoring Management Pack re-released

The changes in the updated Exchange 2010 Monitoring Management Pack include:

• Fixes to Alerts – at times two events were logged for the same event.
• Ensure Correct Values are read.
• Log the event on local server where the TS is running.

The location of the updated Management Pack can be found here;

System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 Beta

Microsoft have just released the beta of SP1 for System Center Configuration Manager 2012 (plus updates to DPM and VMM etc.)

The beta includes;

Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012 Support
With this Beta release, all System Center 2012 SP1 components are now enabled to manage and run in a Windows Server 2012 environment.  System Center 2012 SP1 Beta also now supports the use of SQL Server 2012.

Network Virtualization
With System Center 2012 SP1 you can take advantage of the Virtual Machine Manager’s ability to manage Hyper-V network virtualization across multiple hosts, simplifying the creation of entire virtual networks.

Windows Azure Virtual Machine management
System Center 2012 SP1 now integrates with Windows Azure Virtual Machines enabling you to move on-premises Virtual Machines to run in Windows Azure and then manage from your on-premises System Center installation enabling a range of workload distribution and remote operations scenarios

Enhanced backup and recovery options
System Center 2012 SP1 Data Protection Manager adds the option to host server backups in the Windows Azure cloud, helping to protect against data loss and corruption while integrating directly into the existing backup administration interface in System Center. More details.

Management of Mac OS X clients and Linux and UNIX servers

The beta is available here more information can be found here and here.;

Windows Server 2012 / Windows 8 Hyper-V Hangs on Boot

There seems to be an issue with certain motherboards that have USB 3 controllers; when Microsoft Hyper-V is enabled and the Server / PC is rebooted the system just hangs at boot up.

The fix / workaround is to disable the USB 3 settings in the BIOS.

More information on this issue can be found here, here and here.

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator

Overview

The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) Solution Accelerator is a Microsoft-supported, stand-alone solution for the IT pro or solution provider who wants to convert VMware-based virtual machines and disks to Hyper-V®-based virtual machines and disks.

Converts and deploys virtual machines from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts including Hyper-V on Windows Server® 2012. As part of the machine conversion MVMC converts the virtual disks attached to the source virtual machine. It also migrates configuration such as memory, virtual processor and so on from the source virtual machine to the converted virtual machine deployed on Hyper-V. It adds virtual network interface cards (NICs) to the converted virtual machine on Hyper-V.

Converts VMware virtual disks to Hyper-V based virtual hard disks (VHDs).

Supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 4.1 and 5.0 hosts to Hyper-V.

More information and downloads can be found here;

Windows Management Framework 3.0 aka PowerShell 3

Overview

Windows Management Framework 3.0 makes some updated management functionality available to be installed on Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 & Windows Server 2008 SP2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 contains Windows PowerShell 3.0, WMI & WinRM.

Windows PowerShell 3.0
Some of the new features in Windows PowerShell 3.0 include:

• Workflow
  Windows PowerShell Workflow lets IT Pros and developers apply the benefits of workflows to the automation capabilities of Windows PowerShell. Workflows allow administrators to run long-running tasks (which can be made repeatable, frequent, parallelizable, interruptible, or restart-able) that can affect multiple managed computers or devices at the same time.
• Disconnected Sessions
  PowerShell sessions can be disconnected from the remote computer and reconnected later from the same computer or a different computer without losing state or causing running commands to fail.
• Robust Session Connectivity
  Remote sessions are resilient to network failures and will attempt to reconnect for several minutes. If connectivity cannot be re-established, the session will automatically disconnect itself so that it can be reconnected when network connectivity is restored.

More information and downloads can be found here;