Some handy white papers about Office 365 
Security in Office 365 White Paper
Tag: Microsoft
The “Exchange Server 2010 Technical Video Series” on TechCenter
The Microsoft Exchange team has produced a new portfolio of videos designed to give customers a fundamental technical education on Exchange Server 2010.
The objective of the video series is to provide an introductory curriculum for IT professionals to learn more about the benefits of Exchange Server 2010. While TechNet provides great technical documentation at a more granular level, this video series should help bridge the gap for those who are new to Exchange 2010 and still trying to learn about the technical fundamentals of the product.
Each video runs 20-30 minutes long and includes an overview of the workload as well as a technical demonstration of 3-4 core scenarios related to that workload. The “Exchange Server 2010 Technical Video Series” is hosted by Ann Vu and presented by subject matter experts from the Microsoft Exchange team.
The Video’s can you find HERE.
Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer
The Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer reads an Active Directory configuration using LDAP, and then automatically generates a Visio diagram of your Active Directory and /or your Exchange Server topology. The diagramms may include domains, sites, servers, organizational units, DFS-R, administrative groups, routing groups and connectors and can be changed manually in Visio if needed.
Some Schreenshots:
Download Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer HERE
Microsoft Office 365 Jump Start
The Microsoft Office 365 Jumpstart series provides an excellent perspective of the overall value Office 365 provides to modern organizations in terms of productivity, access, familiarity, security, control and reliability.
- Office 365 Jump Start (01): Microsoft Office 365 Overview for IT Pros
- Office 365 Jump Start (02): Deploying Clients For Office 365
- Office 365 Jump Start (03): Microsoft Office 365 Administration & Automation Using Windows PowerShell™
- Office 365 Jump Start (04): Microsoft Office 365 Identity and Access Solutions
- Office 365 Jump Start (05): Microsoft Office 365 Directory Synchronization
- Office 365 Jump Start (06): Exchange Online Overview for IT Pros
- Office 365 Jump Start (07): Microsoft Exchange Online Administration
- Office 365 Jump Start (08): Microsoft Staged Exchange Online Migration
- Office 365 Jump Start (09): Hybrid Options with Exchange Server & Exchange Online
- Office 365 Jump Start (10): Exchange Online Archiving & Compliance
- Office 365 Jump Start (11): Lync Online Overview & Configuration for IT Pros
- Office 365 Jump Start (12): SharePoint Online Overview
- Office 365 Jump Start (13): SharePoint Online Administration
- Office 365 Jump Start (14): SharePoint Online Extensibility & Customization
- Office 365 Jump Start (15): Office 365 Deployment Overview
Exchange Video’s from TechEd North America 2011
Some interesting video’s from TechEd North America 2011 about Exchange 2010 
- EXL302 Archiving and Discovery in Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1 and Exchange Online | Krish Sundaresan
- EXL306 Best Practices for Virtualization of Microsoft Exchange 2010 | Jim Lucey, Jeff Mealiffe
- EXL307 Load Balancing with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 | Andrew Ehrensing
- EXL309 Microsoft Exchange Online in Microsoft Office 365: Migration Case Study | John Logan, Danny Kim, Ann Vu
- EXL310 Microsoft Exchange Online in Microsoft Office 365: Simple Migration Live! | Ram Poornalingam
- EXL311 Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office 365: How to Set Up a Hybrid Deployment | Jim Lucey
- EXL312 Designing Microsoft Exchange 2010 Mailbox High Availability for Failure Domains | Ross Smith IV
- EXL313 Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Tips and Tricks | Scott Schnoll
- EXL322 Microsoft Exchange Online: Unified Messaging in Microsoft Office 365 | Michael Wilson
- EXL324 Top 10 Insights on Development of Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 against Microsoft Office 365 | Albert Kooiman, Robin Thomas
- EXL326 What’s New in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2: Featuring GAL Segmentation | Greg Taylor
- EXL327 Real-World Site Resilience Design in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 | Robert Gillies
- EXL401 Exchange Server 2010 High Availability Management and Operations | Scott Schnoll
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 Beta 1 Available
Microsoft has just released as a public beta the newest version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 with a few important updates:
- Supporting System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012.
- Using Lite Touch Installation (LTI), great improvements in the client side look-n-feel.
- Also for LTI, behind-the-scenes enhancements for partitioning, UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), and user state migration.
- Some minor bugs fixed.
MDT 2012 Requirements
Same as MDT 2010:
- Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) 2.0. You can download it from here.
Note: The download page indicates that the WAIK version is “1”; but don’t worry, the actual version is 2.0. - MSXML 6.0
- PowerShell.
- .Net Framework 3.5 SP1. Available for download here.
Note: Even though .Net Framework 2.5 SP1 is not a requirement for MDT 2010 installation; one of its features, User-Driven Installation (UDI), does requires the latest Microsoft Framework installed.
MDT 2012 Look-n-Feel
For what I’ve seen so far, the user experience of the Deployment Workbench console is pretty much the same.
MDT 2012 Beta 1 Download
The beta is available in this link from Microsoft Connect,
Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) 6.0 Beta: Accelerate the adoption of Microsoft private and public cloud platforms
Planning your journey to the cloud just got a bit easier. The next release of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit—version 6.0 Beta—includes assessment capabilities to evaluate workloads for both public and private cloud platforms. With MAP 6.0 Beta, you now have the ability to identify workloads and estimate the infrastructure size and resources needed for both Windows Azure and Hyper-V Fast Track. Also new to MAP 6.0 Beta is the Office 365 client assessment, enhanced VMware inventory, and Oracle schema discovery and reporting. Expanded assessment and discovery capabilities from MAP help you streamline planning for your next migration project. Plan what’s next with MAP.
New features and benefits from MAP 6.0 Beta release help you:
· Analyze your portfolio of applications for a move to the Windows Azure Platform
· Accelerate planning to private cloud with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track onboarding
· Identify migration opportunities with enhanced heterogeneous server environment inventory
· Assess your client environment for Office 365 readiness
· Determine readiness for migration to Windows Internet Explorer 9
· Discover Oracle database schemas for migration to SQL Server
Download the beta materials on Connect:http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=219165
System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 Doesn’t Detect Tape Drives In Library
I’ve used System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) since the 2007 beta, primarily for SharePoint and SQL backups & Exchange Backups. At a customer they have one DPM server which backs up to disk and additionally to a HP MSL2024 Tape Library for long term protection. The runs Windows Server 2008 R2 with DPM 2010 since its release.
After updating de DPM Server with SP1 for Windows 2008 R2 en updated the drivers. I had some issues with DPM. What I found was that although DPM installed correctly it couldn’t see all the tape drives in the VTL. All the tape drives were visible in Device Manager and none were showing errors. I use the RECOMMENDED * HP StorageWorks Tape Drivers for Windows
In the DPM console under Management -> Libraries, the library was listed, but Total Drives was 0, rather than the expected 2. The DPM console showed the following error:
I followed the instructions to remap the drives here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb795782.aspx. The DPMLA.xml file produced by the tool was correct, showing the correct SCSI IDs, serial numbers etc. but DPM still couldn’t see the drives.
I found the solution to the problem on the DPM forum here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dpmtapebackuprecovery/thread/1d599443-7bf6-437a-bf12-52847fa7c8e5/ What I did is update the tape drive driver to the Inbox LTO driver as described on the forum and below:
1) Open device manager
2) Locate the tape drive
3) Right-click and look at the properties.
3) Under the DRIVER tab, select UPDATE DRIVER
a) Select the Install from list or specific location (Advanvced) – next.
b) Select Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install. – next.
c) Uncheck the Show comtabile hardware checkbox.
d) Highlight LTO under the manufacturer.
e) Highlight the LTO tape drive under model – then next.
f) This should install the Microsoft ltotape.sys driver.
4) Rescan the tape library in the DPM console – try to take another backup.
After following the above steps, all the two tape drives were visible in the DPM console.
DPM 2010 Fix: Disk based recovery points are not deleted as per retention goals
When using System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 or 2010 (DPM) to backup your production servers, you might encounter a situation where the recovery point volumes for your protected data source keep running out of space and the number of days that DPM has recovery points for exceeds the desired retention range. If you run vssadmin list shadows, or run diskshadow.exe followed by list shadows all command, you can see that there are more shadow copies than there should be based on the desired retention goal. Also, if you manually run the DPM Power Shell pruneshadowcopies2010.ps1 script, no recovery points are removed, but there are no errors.
So what’s going on here? Most likely this is happening because the NetBIOS name of the DPM server is longer than 15 characters.
Resolution
To resolve the problem perform the following to truncate the name to the 15 character limit.
1) Using notepad, open C:\Program Files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin\pruneshadowcopiesDpm2010.ps1 (For DPM2010) or pruneshadowcopies.ps1 (For DPM 2007).
2) Locate the following entry:
$dpmservername = &"hostname"
3) Replace the &"hostname" with the truncated 15 character NetBIOS name of the DPM server. For example, if the DPM Server’s host name is "Long-DPM-server-name" then modify the entry as follows:
$dpmservername = "ward-dpm01.wardvissers.local"
4) Save the modified script.
5) Either run the script manually, or wait for it to run at midnight – then verify the shadow copies are being pruned as expected.
Now I have nice Green Protection Groups 
Special Thanks to J.C. Hornbeck
Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool
The Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool provides analysis of your on-premises environment in preparation for an Office 365 enterprise deployment. The readiness tool is integrated with the guidance provided in the web edition of the Microsoft Office 365 Beta Deployment Guide.
Download HERE
I run the tool in my test environment. See below the results
Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool
Beta
Office 365 Deployment Resource Kit build 01.00.00.00 
Click here for the Microsoft Office 365 Beta Deployment Guide for Enterprises
Domains
Deployment Guide: Adding Your Domain(s) to Office 365
All email domains discovered in your environment:
Total: 3
All primary email domains discovered:
Total: 2
Primary email domain suffixes with greater than 50 users:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1
User Identity and Account Provisioning
Active Directory
Statistics
Total number of domains discovered in your forest: 1
Estimated total number of users: 59
Estimated total number of contacts: 0
Estimated total number of groups: 54
Estimated total number of mailboxes: 53
Estimated total number of objects for Directory Synchronization: 113 
Note: Filters were applied to obtain the above object counts for an Office 365 deployment.
Forest and Domains
The following domains were discovered in your Active Directory forest:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1
Trusts
No forest trusts found 
You may deploy AD FS 2.0 and Directory Synchronization without multi-forest constraints
Schema and Forest/Domain Functionality Levels
Active Directory forest schema level: Windows Server 2008 R2
Exchange schema level: Exchange Server 2010 SP1
Domain Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2
Forest Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2
Domain Controller Functionality:Windows Server 2008 R2 
It appears that your Active Directory schema is prepared for Exchange Rich Coexistence 
Deployment Guide: Exchange Rich Coexistence Requirements
Deployment Guide: Active Directory Cleanup
samaccountname (user name) Attribute
Character length test passed 
Unsupported character test passed
givenname (first name) Attribute
Character length test passed 
Unsupported character test passed
Character length test passed 
Unsupported character test passed
Character length test passed 
Unsupported character test passed
mail (email address) Attribute
Character length test passed 
Unsupported character test passed 
No duplicates found
Character length test passed 
Unsupported character test passed
proxyaddresses (email addresses) Attribute
No duplicates found 
Unsupported character test passed
Directory Synchronization
Object count assessment:
Estimated number of objects for Directory Synchronization (entire forest): 113 
Deployment Guide: Object Count Considerations
Enterprise Admin rights: 
It appears that you are an enterprise admin
Directory Synchronization admin requirement met! 
Deployment Guide: Directory Synchronization Required Permissions
Active Directory recycle bin: 
Active Directory recycle bin is enabled in your forest this may impact your total object count quota for Directory Synchronization.
Office 365 Single Sign On and Identity
AD FS 2.0 Directory Cleanup Check:
UserPrincipalName (logon ID for Office 365) Attribute
Update values once you have verified your organization does not have any other application dependencies on the UserPrincipalName attribute. 
Deployment Guide: Active Directory Cleanup 
Unsupported characters test passed 
Spaces in logon value test passed 
Unicode character test passed 
Note: All Unicode characters will be converted to underscores (_) in the UserPrincipalName field. 
No UserPrincipalName duplicates found 
Discovered users without a user logon name (blank value) for UserPrincipalName
You will need to provide each user a UserPrincipalName in order for these users to sign into Office 365. 
Below is a list of your UserPrincipalName domain suffixes in use:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1 
Note: During the Office 365 Beta only one namespace (root and child domains) per AD FS 2.0 farm
Example contoso.com and root.contoso.com would require 1 AD FS 2.0 farm and fabrikam.com would require an additional AD FS 2.0 farm
Password length per domain:
Exchange Online
Discovered Exchange Server(s) on-premises:
Estimated total number of Exchange Servers: 1
Statistics:
Estimated total number of users with default mailbox size (True): 53
Estimated total number of users with larger than default mailbox size (False): 0
Estimated total number of objects with Exchange organization level quota: 6
Lync user assessment:
Estimated total number of users leveraging Office Communications/Lync on-premises: 2
Sip domains: 
The following sip domains were discovered:
wardvissers.local
Total: 1
User object count assessment: 
The number of user objects in your forest is supported. 
Deployment Guide: Object Count Considerations
Client and End User Experience
Deployment Guide: Rich Experience Client Requirements
Summary of client computer readiness (Office 365 single sign-on and rich client checks):
Below is an estimate of computer operating systems NOT ready for Office 365 rich client experience:
Total: 0 
Below is an estimate of computer operating systems ready for Office 365 rich client experience:
Windows XP Service Pack 3: 3
Windows 7 Service Pack 1: 3
Total: 6
IP Configuration:
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.60
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.1
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.150.254
Trace route to your default gateway:
Tracing route to 192.168.150.254 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 1 ms 2 ms 2 ms 192.168.150.254
Trace Route test to Exchange Online:
Tracing route to outlook.com [65.55.94.40]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 3 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.150.254
2 * 24 ms 25 ms 82.169.11.254
3 25 ms 26 ms 26 ms 195.69.145.20
4 145 ms 146 ms 144 ms 10.14.234.234
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 10.14.234.234 reports: Destination net unreachable.
Trace complete. 
For additional tests utilize the Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer
Port Query Tests:
Deployment Guide: Ports and Protocols 
portal.microsoft.com
Made a TCP 443 connection to portal.microsoftonline.com 
Outlook.com
Made a TCP 443 connection to outlook.com 
Outlook.com IMAP
Made a TCP 993 IMAP connection to outlook.com 
Outlook.com POP
Made a TCP 995 POP connection to outlook.com 
Outlook.com SMTP
Made a SMTP TCP 587 connection to outlook.com 
Active Directory Federation Services End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to nexus.microsoftonline.com 
Directory Synchronization End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to adminwebservice.microsoftonline.com 
Office 365 PowerShell End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to ps.microsoftonline.com 
Outlook.com PowerShell End Point
Made a TCP 443 connection to ps.outlook.com 
Office 365 Community End Point
Made a TCP 80 connection to community.office365.com 
Lync Online SIP Connection
Made a TCP 443 connection to sipdir.online.lync.com 
Lync Online Federation
Made a TCP 5061 connection to sipfed.online.lync.com
Domain Name System (DNS) name records checks: 
Found the following MX DNS record(s):
Server: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
wardvissers.local
primary name server = ward-dc01.wardvissers.local
responsible mail addr = hostmaster.wardvissers.local
serial = 761
refresh = 900 (15 mins)
retry = 600 (10 mins)
expire = 86400 (1 day)
default TTL = 3600 (1 hour)
Information Gathered On:
WARD-DC01
Date: za 07-05-2011
Start Time: 18:19
End Time: 18:21