Join Rob Gerber, myself and others at the Angelbeat event in Doral Florida.

I’ll be talking about Enterprise Device Management and Security, come on join us!

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/miami-november-21-registration-12852404889

For the month of October and November we are thrilled to have special guest authors from the Canadian MVP Award Program contributing posts around their favourite tips, tricks & features of SQL 2014.  For the next few weeks, we will be posting a different article from one of our Canadian SQL Server MVPs each week.  We hope you enjoy them, please feel free to leave a comment

Todd McDermid is a Data Warehouse Lead with Metrie, a leading manufacturer and distributor of mouldings, doors, and interior finishing products in North America.  He’s passionate about building up tools and breaking down barriers between the business and valuable insights derived from their own data.

As a SQL Server MVP who works with data warehouses all day, I’m a big fan of building resilient automation into every process.  That includes where your data comes alive most often – in spreadsheets.  It would be great if your users took advantage of new features, like those in Power BI.  But honestly, most spreadsheets don’t – because enterprises are typically years behind the curve of adopting new technology, and analysts stick to tried-and-true techniques.  So push for better use of what you have now as well – even if it’s Excel 2007 against a plain relational SQL Server database.

Spreadsheet users love to use VLOOKUP to help communicate their analyses to readers.  Sometimes it’s used directly in the presentation layer to display an end result.  Quite frequently, it’s used internally in the workbook to massage vast tables of data.  But using it does have its weak points:

• The “key” value you’re looking up has to be the first column in the range you specify to VLOOKUP.  This means you sometimes have to rearrange your data in a way to fit the function of the spreadsheet, rather than the function of the business purpose it’s used for – or duplicate and hide a bunch of columns.

• The value you want returned specifies the column as an offset from the start of the range.  This means that if you ever insert or delete columns inside that range… your VLOOKUP (at best) breaks.  At worst, it still returns values… but completely wrong ones!  This happens more often than you might think...

• You have to type out the formula.  Sure, you can use selection by mouse to fill in the ranges, but everything else is typed and prone to error.  Especially the return column index number.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could give those analysts a way to get what they wanted while adding in a little “enterprise-grade” resiliency into their automation?  Specifically, I’m looking to provide methods that will fill similar use cases as VLOOKUP, but remove the weaknesses above.

Our Test Case

Who doesn’t want a Surface Pro 3?  I’d take one… but which one?  Let’s do some research to help us demonstrate the alternatives to VLOOKUP.  First, I’ve made a dataset of Surface Pro 3 specs and prices by using Power Query pointed at a Wikipedia article (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface_Pro_3).  After some cosmetic data manipulation, I’ve got a table in my spreadsheet.  Download it from here (link to spreadsheet) to follow along.  The “Surface Pro 3 Dataset” sheet has the results of the Power Query, and “Traditional VLOOKUP” has a simple lookup defined on it.

Keep in mind this is for demonstration purposes only – if this were the real use case, there would be no point applying my suggestions – this data is too simple!  But when you scale up to larger and more complex datasets, what comes next isn’t overkill – it’s necessary.

Improving VLOOKUP a Step at a Time

Step 1 - MATCH

One of the problems we mentioned with VLOOKUP is the column index parameter.  If you change the Power Query to alter the column order, your VLOOKUP fails.  Even worse… it may not be obvious how to fix it, because your VLOOKUP referred to the “old column” by a number, which may not give you enough information to figure out which “new column” you should be referring to.

This is easy to fix by using the MATCH function.  Instead of typing a number in to the parameter, we’re going to use MATCH to find the column name we want, return the index of it, and have VLOOKUP use that.

That solves the VLOOKUP dependence on column order.  The eagle eyed will now correctly point out that we have introduced a dependence on column name.  This is still an improvement, because the function self-documents that you’re looking for price.  If we happen to change the column name, we can use search and replace to help fix the dependent formulas.  You can’t do that with a vanilla VLOOKUP.

Step 2 – INDEX and MATCH

Another problem we talked about with VLOOKUP is the range given in the second parameter.  The limitation is that the “key” column must always be to the left of the value you’re looking for.  Not a large constraint, but it can negatively affect the design of your tables, and the size of your workbook.

We can address that by using the INDEX and MATCH functions together rather than the VLOOKUP alone.  MATCH is doing half the work – finding the row with the model; INDEX is doing the other half – returning the price on the row.

We’ve solved several problems here.  The first about column order is solved, because INDEX only needs to know the column of return values, and MATCH only needs to know the column of lookup values.  We’ve solved the dependence on column order as in Step 1, just differently.  Even better, the new function isn’t dependent on column name either.  If we rename a column in our source table, the function fixes itself.  We do still need that “model key” column in the source data however…

Use PivotTables instead of Tables, with GETPIVOTDATA

Now it’s time for something completely different.  This could cause anxiety in your analysts, because it’s not VLOOKUP, or something very similar like INDEX.  But it can be a LOT easier to use, and is very resilient to change.  It does only work for values that you’re aggregating – it won’t do a plain lookup for a text value.

Your analysts probably use Pivot Tables from time to time already.  (Sometimes it’s just because they still want to use VLOOKUP instead of a SUMIF.)  I’ve seen analysts build a Pivot Table to summarize numbers, then use a VLOOKUP on it to rearrange the values into their presentation format, or as a basis for charting.  Because when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

This does involve creating a pivot table where we never needed one before – but as you know, in complex data situations, if your data resides in Excel, it is likely going to be summarized in a pivot table.  Or, you’re querying a PowerPivot model, SSAS cube, or other source that can be presented in pivot table form.

Either way – looking up a value in a pivot table is going to be the easiest thing you’ve ever started – no documentation required.  To get started, just press “=” in a cell, and go find the value you want.  You’ll end up with something like this:

=GETPIVOTDATA("Price Tier (USD)",$F$1,"CPU model","i5","Internal Storage","128 GB")

You can’t build a VLOOKUP, INDEX, or MATCH that easily.  From here, linking in the dynamics to match the other queries is simple – and very resilient to sheet changes.

A quick breakdown of the parameters to GETPIVOTDATA (see the full MSDN page here) is straightforward: The measurement we want (Price Tier), the location of the Pivot Table, then a string of filter name/value pairs.  If you play with the function, you’ll see you can add or remove filters as much as you like (as long as you use legal names!) and it just works.  The key point is that whichever filters you use – make sure that value is actually visible in the pivot table.  If it’s not, the function won’t find the value and will return #REF.  Any other manipulation of the pivot table itself – moving elements from rows to filters to columns makes no difference.

Tomatoe, Tomahto

There are many ways to get something done in Excel – we’ve just shown three ways to look up a price based on attributes.  Download the sample workbook and try it out yourself – all of the alternatives work just fine.  But keep resiliency to change in mind when you’re building your spreadsheets, and you’ll be happy when someone tells you the workbook you made years ago still just works.

Today’s (Cloud) Tip…

Did you know that if you sign up for Office 365 or Windows Intune, your tenant could be deleted after the subscription is expired?

But if you sign up for a tenant directly from Windows Azure, this tenant will never be deleted.

You can get a Windows Azure Active Directory without the need of a Windows Azure subscription by using the following link…

http://account.windowsazure.com/Organization

You can then manage many aspects of this tenant using the Office 365 portal (even if you don’t have an Office 365 subscription).

Tenants have a special tag that the tenant provisioning (or de-provisioning) service takes a look at to determine whether or not to delete a tenant.

by Rob Farley, LobsterPot Solutions

The Analytics Platform System, with its MPP SQL Server engine (SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse) can deliver performance and scalability for analytics workloads that you may not have expected from SQL Server. But there are key differences in working with SQL Server PDW and SQL Server Enterprise Edition that one should be aware of in order to take full advantage of the SQL Server PDW capabilities. One of the most important considerations when tuning queries in Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse is the minimisation of data movement. This post shows a useful technique regarding the identification of redundant joins through additional predicates that simulate check constraints.

Microsoft’s PDW, part of the Analytics Platform System (APS), offers scale-out technology for data warehouses. This involves spreading data across a number of SQL Server nodes and distributions, such that systems can host up to many petabytes of data. To achieve this, queries which use data from multiple distributions to satisfy joins must leverage the Data Movement Service (DMS) to relocate data during the execution of the query. This data movement is both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because it is the fundamental technology which allows the scale-out features to work, and a curse because it can be one of the most expensive parts of query execution. Furthermore, tuning to avoid data movement is something which many SQL Server query tuning experts have little experience, as it is unique to the Parallel Data Warehouse edition of SQL Server.

Regardless of whether data in PDW is stored in a column-store or row-store manner, or whether it is partitioned or not, there is a decision to be made as to whether a table is to be replicated or distributed. Replicated tables store a full copy of their data on each compute node of the system, while distributed tables distribute their data across distributions, of which there are eight on each compute node. In a system with six compute nodes, there would be forty-eight distributions, with an average of less than 2.1% (100% / 48) of the data in each distribution.

When deciding whether to distribute or replicate data, there are a number of considerations to bear in mind. Replicated data uses more storage and also has a larger management overhead, but can be more easily joined to data, as every SQL node has local access to replicated data. By distributing larger tables according to the hash of one of the table columns (known as the distribution key), the overhead of both reading and writing data is reduced – effectively reducing the size of databases by an order of magnitude.

Having decided to distribute data, choosing which column to use as the distribution key is driven by factors including the minimisation of data movement and the reduction of skew. Skew is important because if a distribution has much more than the average amount of data, this can affect query time. However, the minimisation of data movement is probably the most significant factor in distribution-key choice.

Joining two tables together involves identifying whether rows from each table match to according a number of predicates, but to do this, the two rows must be available on the same compute node. If one of the tables is replicated, this requirement is already satisfied (although it might need to be ‘trimmed’ to enable a left join), but if both tables are distributed, then the data is only known to be on the same node if one of the join predicates is an equality predicate between the distribution keys of the tables, and the data types of those keys are exactly identical (including nullability and length). More can be read about this in the excellent whitepaper about Query Execution in Parallel Data Warehouse.

To avoid data movement between commonly-performed joins, creativity is often needed by the data warehouse designers. This could involve the addition of extra columns to tables, such as adding the CustomerKey to many fact data tables (and using this as the distribution key), as joins between orders, items, payments, and other information required for a given report, as all these items are ultimately about a customer, and adding additional predicates to each join to alert the PDW Engine that only rows within the same distribution could possibly match. This is thinking that is alien for most data warehouse designers, who would typically feel that adding CustomerKey to a table not directly related to a Customer dimension is against best-practice advice.

Another technique commonly used by PDW data warehouse designers that is rarely seen in other SQL Server data warehouses is splitting tables up into two, either vertically or horizontally, whereas both are relatively common in PDW to avoid some of the problems that can often occur.

Splitting a table vertically is frequently done to reduce the impact of skew when the ideal distribution key for joins is not evenly distributed. Imagine the scenario of identifiable customers and unidentifiable customers, as increasingly the situation as stores have loyalty programs allowing them to identify a large portion (but not all) customers. For the analysis of shopping trends, it could be very useful to have data distributed by customer, but if half the customers are unknown, there will be a large amount of skew.

To solve this, sales could be split into two tables, such as Sales_KnownCustomer (distributed by CustomerKey) and Sales_UnknownCustomer (distributed by some other column). When analysing by customer, the table Sales_KnownCustomer could be used, including the CustomerKey as an additional (even if redundant) join predicate. A view performing a UNION ALL over the two tables could be used to allow reports that need to consider all Sales.

The query overhead of having the two tables is potentially high, especially if we consider tables for Sales, SaleItems, Deliveries, and more, which might all need to be split into two to avoid skew while minimising data movement, using CustomerKey as the distribution key when known to allow customer-based analysis, and SalesKey when the customer is unknown.

By distributing on a common key the impact is to effectively create mini-databases which are split out according to groups of customers, with all of the data about a particular customer residing in a single database. This is similar to the way that people scale out when doing so manually, rather than using a system such as PDW. Of course, there is a lot of additional overhead when trying to scale out manually, such as working out how to execute queries that do involve some amount of data movement.

By splitting up the tables into ones for known and unknown customers, queries that were looking something like the following:

SELECT …
FROM Sales AS s
JOIN SaleItems AS si
   ON si.SalesKey = s.SalesKey
JOIN Delivery_SaleItems AS dsi
   ON dsi.LineItemKey = si.LineItemKey
JOIN Deliveries AS d
   ON d.DeliveryKey = dsi.DeliveryKey

…would become something like:

SELECT …
FROM Sales_KnownCustomer AS s
JOIN SaleItems_KnownCustomer AS si
   ON si.SalesKey = s.SalesKey
   AND si.CustomerKey = s.CustomerKey
JOIN Delivery_SaleItems_KnownCustomer AS dsi
   ON dsi.LineItemKey = si.LineItemKey
   AND dsi.CustomerKey = s.CustomerKey
JOIN Deliveries_KnownCustomer AS d
   ON d.DeliveryKey = dsi.DeliveryKey
   AND d.CustomerKey = s.CustomerKey
UNION ALL
SELECT …
FROM Sales_UnknownCustomer AS s
JOIN SaleItems_UnknownCustomer AS li
   ON si.SalesKey = s.SalesKey
JOIN Delivery_SaleItems_UnknownCustomer AS dsi
   ON dsi.LineItemKey = s.LineItemKey
   AND dsi.SalesKey = s.SalesKey
JOIN Deliveries_UnknownCustomer AS d
   ON d.DeliveryKey = s.DeliveryKey
   AND d.SalesKey = s.SalesKey

I’m sure you can appreciate that this becomes a much larger effort for query writers, and the existence of views to simplify querying back to the earlier shape could be useful. If both CustomerKey and SalesKey were being used as distribution keys, then joins between the views would require both, but this can be incorporated into logical layers such as Data Source Views much more easily than using UNION ALL across the results of many joins. A DSV or Data Model could easily define relationships between tables using multiple columns so that self-serving reporting environments leverage the additional predicates.

The resultant query would look something like:

SELECT …
FROM Sales AS s
JOIN SaleItems AS li
   ON si.SalesKey = s.SalesKey
   AND si.CustomerKey = s.CustomerKey
JOIN Delivery_SaleItems AS dsi
   ON dsi.LineItemKey = si.LineItemKey
   AND dsi.CustomerKey = s.CustomerKey
   AND dsi.SalesKey = s.SalesKey
JOIN Deliveries AS d
   ON d.DeliveryKey = dsi.DeliveryKey
   AND d.CustomerKey = s.CustomerKey
   AND d.SalesKey = s.SalesKey

Joining multiple sets of tables which have been combined using UNION ALL is not the same as performing a UNION ALL of sets of tables which have been joined. Much like any high school mathematics teacher will happily explain that (a*b)+(c*d) is not the same as (a+c)*(b+d), additional combinations need to be considered when the logical order of joins and UNION ALLs.

Notice that when we have (TableA1 UNION ALL TableA2) JOIN (TableB1 UNION ALL TableB2), we must perform joins not only between TableA1 and TableB1, and TableA2 and TableB2, but also TableA1 and TableB2, and TableB1 and TableA2. These last two combinations do not involve tables with common distribution keys, and therefore we would see data movement. This is despite the fact that we know that there can be no matching rows in those combinations, because some are for KnownCustomers and the others are for UnknownCustomers. Effectively, the relationships between the tables would be more like the following diagram:

There is an important stage of Query Optimization which must be considered here, and which can be leveraged to remove the need for data movement when this pattern is applied – that of Contradiction.

The contradiction algorithm is an incredibly useful but underappreciated stage of Query Optimization. Typically it is explained using an obvious contradiction such as WHERE 1=2. Notice the effect on the query plans of using this predicate.

Because the Query Optimizer recognises that no rows can possibly satisfy the predicate WHERE 1=2, it does not access the data structures seen in the first query plan.

This is useful, but many readers may not consider queries that use such an obvious contradiction are going to appear in their code.

But suppose the views that perform a UNION ALL are expressed in this form:

CREATE VIEW dbo.Sales AS
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Sales_KnownCustomer
WHERE CustomerID > 0
UNION ALL
SELECT *
FROM dbo.Sales_UnknownCustomer
WHERE CustomerID = 0;

Now, we see a different kind of behaviour.

Before the predicates are used, the query on the views is rewritten as follows (with SELECT clauses replaced by ellipses).

SELECT …
FROM   (SELECT …
        FROM   (SELECT ...
                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Sales_KnownCustomer] AS T4_1
                UNION ALL
                SELECT …
                FROM   [tempdb].[dbo].[TEMP_ID_4208] AS T4_1) AS T2_1
               INNER JOIN
               (SELECT …
                FROM   (SELECT …
                        FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[SaleItems_KnownCustomer] AS T5_1
                        UNION ALL
                        SELECT …
                        FROM   [tempdb].[dbo].[TEMP_ID_4209] AS T5_1) AS T3_1
                       INNER JOIN
                       (SELECT …
                        FROM   (SELECT …
                                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Delivery_SaleItems_KnownCustomer] AS T6_1
                                UNION ALL
                                SELECT …
                                FROM   [tempdb].[dbo].[TEMP_ID_4210] AS T6_1) AS T4_1
                               INNER JOIN
                               (SELECT …
                                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Deliveries_KnownCustomer] AS T6_1
                                UNION ALL
                                SELECT …
                                FROM   [tempdb].[dbo].[TEMP_ID_4211] AS T6_1) AS T4_2
                               ON (([T4_2].[CustomerKey] = [T4_1].[CustomerKey])
                                   AND ([T4_2].[SalesKey] = [T4_1].[SalesKey])
                                       AND ([T4_2].[DeliveryKey] = [T4_1].[DeliveryKey]))) AS T3_2
                       ON (([T3_1].[CustomerKey] = [T3_2].[CustomerKey])
                           AND ([T3_1].[SalesKey] = [T3_2].[SalesKey])
                               AND ([T3_2].[SaleItemKey] = [T3_1].[SaleItemKey]))) AS T2_2
               ON (([T2_2].[CustomerKey] = [T2_1].[CustomerKey])
                   AND ([T2_2].[SalesKey] = [T2_1].[SalesKey]))) AS T1_1

Whereas with the inclusion of the additional predicates, the query simplifies to:

SELECT …
FROM   (SELECT …
        FROM   (SELECT …
                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Sales_KnownCustomer] AS T4_1
                WHERE  ([T4_1].[CustomerKey] > 0)) AS T3_1
               INNER JOIN
               (SELECT …
                FROM   (SELECT …
                        FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[SaleItems_KnownCustomer] AS T5_1
                        WHERE  ([T5_1].[CustomerKey] > 0)) AS T4_1
                       INNER JOIN
                       (SELECT …
                        FROM   (SELECT …
                                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Delivery_SaleItems_KnownCustomer] AS T6_1
                                WHERE  ([T6_1].[CustomerKey] > 0)) AS T5_1
                               INNER JOIN
                               (SELECT …
                                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Deliveries_KnownCustomer] AS T6_1
                                WHERE  ([T6_1].[CustomerKey] > 0)) AS T5_2
                               ON (([T5_2].[CustomerKey] = [T5_1].[CustomerKey])
                                   AND ([T5_2].[SalesKey] = [T5_1].[SalesKey])
                                       AND ([T5_2].[DeliveryKey] = [T5_1].[DeliveryKey]))) AS T4_2
                       ON (([T4_1].[CustomerKey] = [T4_2].[CustomerKey])
                           AND ([T4_1].[SalesKey] = [T4_2].[SalesKey])
                               AND ([T4_2].[SaleItemKey] = [T4_1].[SaleItemKey]))) AS T3_2
               ON (([T3_2].[CustomerKey] = [T3_1].[CustomerKey])
                   AND ([T3_2].[SalesKey] = [T3_1].[SalesKey]))
        UNION ALL
        SELECT …
        FROM   (SELECT …
                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Sales_UnknownCustomer] AS T4_1
                WHERE  ([T4_1].[CustomerKey] = 0)) AS T3_1
               INNER JOIN
               (SELECT …
                FROM   (SELECT …
                        FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[SaleItems_UnknownCustomer] AS T5_1
                        WHERE  ([T5_1].[CustomerKey] = 0)) AS T4_1
                       INNER JOIN
                       (SELECT …
                        FROM   (SELECT …
                                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Delivery_SaleItems_UnknownCustomer] AS T6_1
                                WHERE  ([T6_1].[CustomerKey] = 0)) AS T5_1
                               INNER JOIN
                               (SELECT …
                                FROM   [sample_vsplit].[dbo].[Deliveries_UnknownCustomer] AS T6_1
                                WHERE  ([T6_1].[CustomerKey] = 0)) AS T5_2
                               ON (([T5_2].[CustomerKey] = [T5_1].[CustomerKey])
                                   AND ([T5_2].[SalesKey] = [T5_1].[SalesKey])
                                       AND ([T5_2].[DeliveryKey] = [T5_1].[DeliveryKey]))) AS T4_2
                       ON (([T4_1].[CustomerKey] = [T4_2].[CustomerKey])
                           AND ([T4_1].[SalesKey] = [T4_2].[SalesKey])
                               AND ([T4_2].[SaleItemKey] = [T4_1].[SaleItemKey]))) AS T3_2
               ON (([T3_2].[CustomerKey] = [T3_1].[CustomerKey])
                   AND ([T3_2].[SalesKey] = [T3_1].[SalesKey]))) AS T1_1

This may seem more complex – it’s certainly longer – but this is the original, preferred version of the join. This is a powerful rewrite of the query.

Furthermore, the astute PDW-familiar reader will quickly realise that the UNION ALL of two local queries (queries that don’t require data movement) is also local, and that therefore, this query is completely local. The TEMP_ID_NNNNN tables in the first rewrite are more evidence that data movement has been required.

When the two plans are shown using PDW’s EXPLAIN keyword, the significance is shown even clearer.

The first plan appears as following, and it is obvious that there is a large amount of data movement involved.

The queries passed in are identical, but the altered definitions of the views have removed the need for any data movement at all. This should allow your query to run a little faster. Ok, a lot faster.

Summary

When splitting distributed tables vertically to avoid skew, views over those tables should include predicates which reiterate the conditions that cause the data to be populated into each table. This provides additional information to the PDW Engine that can remove unnecessary data movement, resulting in much-improved performance, both for standard reports using designed queries, and ad hoc reports that use a data model.

It is sad that sometimes I don’t know about all of the cool stuff at Microsoft, even though I work here. This week, I was lamenting the need to scan receipts and mail them to myself when a friend say “why don’t you use Office Lens?” I said “what?” (snappy repartee is my thing).

Anyway, here is a blog that talks all about it on the Office blog: http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/17/office-lens-a-onenote-scanner-for-your-pocket/

And here is a quick video that demos it …

Unfortunately for Android and IOS users, it is only available on Windows Phone for now.

~ @securityjones

Avec Pascal Saulière, Architecte Infrastructure, nous avons enregistré un podcast sur les nouveautés concernant la donnée, au sens large du terme.

Ce podcast fait suite au Podcast 0 qui est disponible ici.

Ce podcast présente les nouveautés annoncées lors du Teched qui a eu lieu à Barcelone fin octobre et au PASS Summit qui a eu lieu début novembre à Seattle. Comme vous pourrez l’entendre durant ce podcast, il y a de nombreuses nouveautés autour de l’intégration de données et son traitement en temps réel. Ce qui est de bon augure pour la mouvance actuelle autour de l’IoT (Internet of Things). Ci-dessous, une illustration de certaines de ces nouveautés positionnées en fonction du cycle de vie de la donnée :

Au programme de ce podcast nous avons :

De l’intégration et de l’ingestion de données avec :

• Azure Data Factory (Preview)
• Event Hubs

Du traitement “presque” temps réel avec :

• HDInsight Storm (Preview)
• Stream Analytics (Preview)
• Machine Learning (Preview)

De la base de données avec les nouveautés autour de SQL 2014 et Azure DB :

La plupart de ces nouveautés ont été annoncées lors des keynote du PASS Summit qui sont disponibles ici.

• SQL 2014 et le support du « non-clustered column store index » sur les tables « In-Memory » (Annonce)
• Query Store : pour le stockage des plans d’exécution (Annonce)
• AlwaysON et support du « Listener » interne dans les machines virtuelles (IaaS)
• Stretch Table : table SQL ayant une partie sur site et une autre dans le Cloud. (Annonce)

• Augmentation des tailles des bases de données Azure SQL (Annonce)
• Support du column-store index avec les bases de données Azure SQL (Annonce)
• Extension des capacités de programmation (support du CLR, extension du T-SQL,…) (Annonce)
• Nouveaux évènements pour surveiller et piloter le service Azure SQL (Annonce)

Power BI

Les annonces faîtes au PASS Summit sont disponibles en vidéo ici

• Excel

• Power Query : nouvelles Sources de données et nouvelles transformations
• Power Query : intégration avec les algorithmes de Machine Learning
• Power Map : cartes personnalisées

• Office 365 / Power BI

• Retour sur la « Gateway »
• Modification des rapports en mode web et fusion des graphiques
• Annonce des tableaux de bord

Franck Mercier

Sessions de formation gratuites :

• Microsoft Virtual Academy : http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/

Pour tester Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, SQL Server 2012 et SQL Server 2014 CTP2, vous pouvez télécharger gratuitement la version d’évaluation disponible sous la forme :

Windows Server 2012 :

• d'une image ISO : http://aka.ms/jeveuxwindows2012
• d'un fichier VHD avec un système préinstallé : http://aka.ms/jeveuxwindows2012

SQL Server 2012 :

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh225126.aspx

Evaluation SQL Server 2014 CTP2 :

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dn205290.aspx

Evaluation Power BI :

• http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/powerbi/default.aspx#fbid=URTAc3eQRIw

Testez Azure gratuitement pendant un mois :

• http://aka.ms/Azure0Euro

Eine für Entwickler interessante und positive Woche neigt sich dem Ende zu: Nach drei Tagen Technical Summit bauen wir gerade noch in Berlin unsere Zelte ab. Kein Geringerer als Satya Nadella hat die wichtigste deutsche Konferenz eröffnet. „Der neue Microsoft-CEO zeigt so seine Wertschätzung für IT-Profis und Entwickler“, schreibt heise online dazu. Das stimmt.

Satya Nadella sprach in Berlin über die Entwicklung von Microsoft hin zu einem Anbieter von Produktivitäts- und Plattform-Lösungen in einer „Mobile first, Cloud first“-Welt. Dabei geht es nicht um die Mobilität des Devices, sondern um die des Nutzers und der soll, geräte- und plattformunabhängig Anwendungen und Dienste nutzen können.

Die rund 800 Entwickler und IT-Professionals fahren mit vielen neuen Eindrücken und Wissen über unsere Cloud Services und Data Plattform, über moderne Infrastruktur- und Enterprise Mobility-Lösungen, über unsere Produktivitätssuite Office 365 und die Entwicklung von Anwendungen und die entsprechenden Werkzeuge – kurz, über die gesamte Bandbreite der Microsoft Technologien im Gepäck nach Hause. Vieles davon haben wir ganz frisch auf der Connect(); angekündigt, der virtuellen Entwicklerkonferenz von Microsoft, die live aus New York mit Keynotes von Scott Guthrie, S. Somasegar und Scott Hanselman übertragen wurde.

Microsoft hat „großartige Neuigkeiten“ verkündet, schreibt Caschys Blog, t3n schreibt von einem "großen Schritt": Wir haben gestern unsere Entwicklungsplattform .NET zur Open Source-Technologie gemacht. Damit können Entwickler plattformübergreifende Anwendungen nun quelloffen programmieren. Microsoft hat dazu neue und kostenfreie Angebote rund um Visual Studio für das Erstellen von „Mobile first, Cloud first“-Anwendungen präsentiert.

Diese Neuheiten haben nicht nur bei unseren Gästen, sondern auch in den Medien für viel Aufmerksamkeit gesorgt. Tatsächlich sprengen wir mit diesen Ankündigungen Grenzen, auch unsere eigenen. Wir tun das, weil wir allen Menschen mehr Produktivität auf allen Plattformen und Geräten bieten wollen. Nicht Technologien stehen für uns dabei im Vordergrund, auch nicht unsere eigenen, sondern die Nutzer, die unabhängig von Zeit und Ort arbeiten und kreativ sein möchten. Wir sind in den vergangenen Monaten mit unseren Lösungen oft über unsere Grenzen gegangen, haben Office für iPad auf den Markt gebracht, dem bald auch Office für Android folgen wird. Wir sind Partnerschaften mit Unternehmen wie Dropbox und Salesforce eingegangen, die nicht zu unseren natürlichen Verbündeten gehören. Warum? Weil die Anwender das so wollen. Sie möchten Produktivität nicht auf bestimmte Anwendungen oder Geräte beschränkt sehen, sondern überall und mit allen ihren Geräten produktiv sein.

Die logische Fortsetzung dieser Offenheit ist nun die Öffnung unserer Plattformen. Mit dem Schritt, aus .NET eine Open Source-Plattform zu machen, intensiviert Microsoft die Zusammenarbeit mit der weltweiten Open Source-Community, die sich nun auch an künftigen Optimierungen von .NET im Rahmen der .NET Foundation beteiligen kann.

Für Entwickler wie IT-Pros gleichermaßen interessant waren auch die vielen Neuigkeiten bei Microsoft Azure, die John Shewchuk, Technical Fellow und CTO der Microsoft Developer Platform, in seiner Keynote am zweiten Tag des Technical Summit vorgestellt hat, darunter zum Beispiel die Azure Event Hubs, Express Route, Azure Batch oder die Windows 10 Technical Preview. Lesen Sie weitere Details auf unseren Entwickler- und IT-Pro-Portalen, in Kürze werden auch alle Tracks des Technical Summit on–demand zur Verfügung stehen.

Die Woche geht nun zu Ende. Nach den vielen Ankündigungen und Präsentationen ist das auch gut so, denn das müssen wir alle auch mal sacken lassen. Aber dann geht es schon bald mit unserer gemeinsamen Arbeit weiter und für viele neue Freunde erst richtig los. Wir von Microsoft begleiten sie dabei, Schritt für Schritt.

Ein Beitrag von Peter Jaeger
Senior Director Developer Experience & Evangelism (DX) und
Mitglied der Geschäftsleitung von Microsoft Deutschland

Interesting blog posting on the measures that Microsoft has in place to prepare for emerging security threats to Office 365 as well as Microsoft Azure.

Read it here: http://blogs.office.com/2014/11/05/inside-cloud-assume-breach-practices-action-microsoft-prepare-emerging-security-threats-office-365/

Tim Rains - Director de Seguridad Cibernética y Estrategia para la Nube

Cada año por estas fechas, comienzo a recibir una serie de preguntas de los clientes que esperan ansiosamente el último volumen del Informe de Inteligencia de Seguridad de Microsoft. Los clientes quieren entender mejor las últimas tendencias de amenazas, los cambios en el comportamiento criminal cibernético, las nuevas técnicas utilizadas y las familias de malware más frecuentes. Por supuesto que también quieren orientación práctica que ayude a proteger su organización y clientes. Hoy, me complace compartir que acabamos de publicar el Volumen 17 del Informe de Inteligencia de Seguridad de Microsoft (SIRv17).

Representa el informe más completo de inteligencia sobre amenazas en la industria. Proporciona datos y puntos de vista sobre malware, explotaciones y vulnerabilidades basados ​​en datos de más de mil millones de sistemas en todo el mundo y algunos de los servicios en línea más concurridos. También incluye una guía práctica para ayudar los profesionales de TI a administrar el riesgo. El último informe, el Volumen 17, se centra en el primer semestre de 2014, con datos sobre las tendencias de los últimos trimestres.

En mis viajes por el mundo y al hablar con los clientes, comúnmente me preguntan: ¿qué hay de nuevo en el último informe? Para los principiantes, tenemos una nueva sección dedicada a asegurar las credenciales de las cuentas. También incluimos una inmersión profunda en la eficacia del software antivirus de prueba ya caducado, así como una sección que da una idea de cómo la Unidad de Microsoft contra el Crimen Digital hace las interrupciones de botnets.

En un futuro próximo, colocaré blogs sobre algunas de las principales conclusiones que he encontrado como las más interesantes, pero ¿por qué esperar? Descargue hoy el informe en www.microsoft.com/sir

Sobre el autor

Tim Rains

Director de Seguridad Cibernética y Estrategia para la Nube  

Original:

http://blogs.microsoft.com/cybertrust/2014/11/12/billions-of-data-one-cybersecurity-report-now-available-sirv17/

Por Tim Rains -  Diretor , ciber & estratégia de computação em nuvem 

A esta altura todos anos,  começo a ter um certo número de perguntas de clientes ansiosamente à espera do último volume do Relatório de Inteligência de Segurança da Microsoft. Os clientes querem entender melhor as mais recentes tendências de ameaça, as mudanças que vemos no criminoso cibernético  para obter seu comportamento, as novas técnicas que estão sendo usadas, e as famílias de malware que são mais prevalentes. É claro que eles  também querem orientações acionáveis que lhes ajudem a proteger à sua organização e aos seus clientes. Hoje, sinto-me feliz de compartilhar o Volume 17 do Relatório de Inteligência de Segurança da Microsoft (SIRv17).

O Relatório de Inteligência de Segurança da Microsoft é a maior relatório de inteligência do setor e o mais abrangente. Ela fornece dados e insights sobre malware, exploits e vulnerabilidades,  baseado em dados de mais de mil sistemas no mundo todo e alguns dos serviços online mais movimentados. A ação também inclui orientação para ajudar os profissionais de TI a gerenciar riscos. O mais recente relatório, o Volume 17, concentra-se no primeiro semestre de 2014, com dados de tendência para os últimos trimestres.

Como eu viajo ao redor do mundo para falar com os clientes,  a pergunta mais frequente é – “o que há de novo no mais recente relatório?.” Para os iniciantes, temos uma nova seção dedicada a garantir as credenciais da conta. Incluímos também uma análise mais profunda sobre a eficácia de  um software antivírus em “trial mode”, bem como uma seção que fornece uma visão geral sobre o Digital Crime Unity da Microsoft  (DCU) e como fazem interrupções de botnets.

No futuro, vou escrever um blog sobre alguns dos principais resultados que achei mais interessantes, enquanto isso, baixe o relatório hoje em www.microsoft.com/sir

Sobre o Autor

Tim Rains

Director, ciber & estratégia de computação em nuvem

Original:

http://blogs.microsoft.com/cybertrust/2014/11/12/billions-of-data-one-cybersecurity-report-now-available-sirv17/ 

Hi all,

I wanted to publish this article for people that might be encountering a port exhaustion scenario with their servers. With the current existing tools, there is no nice and easy way to determine if your machine might be encountering a port exhaustion scenario and if so, what process is consuming the most ephemeral ports. Hopefully with this information, you should be able to quickly identify if you might be encountering a port exhaustion scenario with your servers and which process is responsible.

Symptoms of Port Exhaustion

System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.

- or -

System.Net.WebException: Unable to connect to the remote server

Identify port exhaustion using ETL Tracing

• On the affected machine, currently in state, open administrator command prompt and run the following command:
  • Netsh trace start scenario=netconnection capture=yes
• Attempt to establish an outbound connection and reproduce the issue
• Stop the trace using:
  • Netsh trace stop
• Now that you have the trace captured from the machine, download and install network monitor 3.4 and load the trace.
• Open the ETL trace in netmon, and then use the following display filter to identify any 'STATUS_TOO_MANY_ADDRESSES' which would be an indicator of port exhaustion

• Wscore_MicrosoftWindowsWinsockAFD.AFD_EVENT_BIND.Status.LENTStatus.Code == 0x209

Ok so cool, now you know you are running out of ephemeral ports on your machine and that is the reason you can no longer establish outgoing connections. Now what?

Identify the Process(es) consuming ports using Process Explorer

The next step then at this point would be to identify the process that is consuming all the ephemeral ports. The easiest way to do this is to download and use process explorer from sysinternals.

• Download the Process Explorer tool and extract the procexp.exe onto the affected machine that is currently in state
• Launch Process Explorer as Administrator
  
  • Failing to launch as Administrator w/ UAC enabled will prevent the services from loading
• Navigate to View and select 'Show Lower Pane'
• Navigate to View > Select Columns and within the Process Performance tab, checkmark 'Handle Count'
• Sort the processes by Handle Count to locate the services consuming the most handles on the OS
• Within the Lower Pane, sort the results by Name
• At this point, you will then want to examine the processes to locate \device\afd which is an indication that the process has an ephemeral port opened. Since we running into a ephemeral port exhaustion, you will want to locate a process where you see thousands of instances of \device\afd defined.

In my scenario above in the screenshot, I don't have port exhaustion but I wanted to make sure I provided an image for clarification purposes of what you are looking for. Once you have identified the process that is consuming the ephemeral ports, you will want to follow up with the necessary company that owns that component to have them investigate further to determine if there is a issue with the code or if you are encountering another environment factor.

Let me know if this is helpful!

Related Articles:

Process Explorer v16.04

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Network Monitor 3.4

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4865

I run a domain in Azure, meaning I have domain controllers and a lot of VMs joined to my domain. I run applications on those VMs such as System Center 2012 R2 components, SQL Server, customer web portals, Active Directory Federation Services, and so on. In any production environment I like to utilize static IPs and when running my services in Azure, there’s no exception.

One of the issues I run into when assigning a static IP to VMs running in Azure is the VMs periodically drop the DNS entry I’ve manually added. That’s because by default, Azure VMs utilize DHCP provided by Azure and if the DNS entry is blank in the virtual network settings, once in a while the NIC on the VMs will be set back to its default settings, i.e blank. To get around this issue the DNS server needs to be set under the virtual network configuration via the Azure portal (or through PowerShell) as shown in the image below.

However, what about setting DNS after the VMs have been deployed when DNS settings haven’t been defined in the virtual network settings beforehand?

The drawback to setting DNS in virtual network settings after VMs have been deployed, are VMs reboots are required to pick up the new DNS settings from Azure provided DHCP.

As a work around, we can remotely PowerShell to the VMs and set DNS temporarily so we can hold out for a reboot for a later time. I’ll discuss how to remotely access a VM via PowerShell later in this post.

First, it’s important to set the static IP for the VM and the following PowerShell commands show how to set a static IP for a VM in Azure:

Add-AzureAccount

get-AzureSubscription

select-azuresubscription "Azure subscription name"

$staticVM = Get-AzureVM -ServiceName cbdomain -Name myAzureVMname

set-AzureStaticVNetIP -VM $staticVM -IPAddress 172.16.0.20 | Update-AzureVM

Get-AzureStaticVNetIP -VM $staticVM

Remote PowerShell

Before remotely connecting to and Azure VM using PowerShell, we must locate the cloud service DNS name and the public port PowerShell is configured on. To find the cloud service DNS name the VM is running under navigate to the Azure Portal and select a VM then select dashboard and look on the right side of the page under DNS NAME.

To find the public PowerShell port, navigate to the VM in the Azure Portal and select ENDPOINTS. Under ENDPOINT note the public PowerShell port. Next open up Azure PowerShell and run the following command:

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName mydnsname.cloudapp.net -Port YourPSPort# -Credential username -UseSSL

Next we’ll want to set the DNS server (for example if we want to join and existing machine to the domain or access other machines by name). The following PowerShell commands show how to set DNS for the primary NIC my Azure VM (assuming the DNS setting were not set in Azure):

#sets DNS on NIC adapter

$wmi = Get-WmiObject win32_networkadapterconfiguration

$wmi.SetDNSServerSearchOrder("172.16.0.4")

Using the same PowerShell interface, run an ipconfig to make sure the DNS Server was set:

ipconfig /all | findstr /i "DNS Servers"

Conclusion

As you dive deeper into Azure, you’ll find that managing services and VMs are not much different than managing services and VMs (or even physical machines) on premises. Yes there are some differences and details to learn, however as we move into a cloud first and mobile first world, we’ll continually be challenged to discover and utilize innovative technologies to solve evolve our businesses. As a technology professional, you have a unique opportunity to bring these technologies to the forefront of your organization and bring those who are traditionally resistant to change on an exciting journey.

Summary: Use Windows PowerShell to find the WSMAN service settings on a local computer.

 How can I use Windows PowerShell to easily verify the WSMAN settings on my local computer?

 Open the Windows PowerShell ISE or console with admin rights, and then use the
           WSMAN provider to display the LocalHost\Service folder as shown here:

dir WSMan:\localhost\Service

Top Microsoft Support solutions for the most common issues experienced when you use Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (updated quarterly).

Support ended for Office 2003 products on April 8, 2014.

1. Solutions related to Database Availability Group (DAG):

• TechNet forums – Exchange Server 2010
• Rebuild an Entire Database Availability Group
• A seed operation might not succeed when the source mailbox database has many log files in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 DAG
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 DAG member remains in Maintenance Mode
• Warning 2174 and Error 2153 are logged on DAG member servers in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
• The Exchange Server is not a member of Exchange Trusted Subsystem
• The Microsoft Exchange Replication service crashes on Exchange Server 2010 DAG members
• Event ID 2153 is logged on each database availability group member in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
• You cannot add a new Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox database to DAG in a multi-site topology environment
• The replay queue length on passive copies of mailbox databases in Database Availability Group continues to increase in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

2. Solutions related to database will not mount or is dismounted:

• TechNet forums – Exchange Server 2010
• Information Store service crashes when you mount public folder databases on an Exchange Server 2010 server
• Mailbox database will not mount on startup
• Mount a Database
• You cannot create a new Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox database in a multiple domain environment
• Event ID 9519 "Error 0x80004005" is logged in the Application log when you try to mount a database in Exchange Server 2010 or in Exchange Server 2007

3. Solutions related to mobility and ActiveSync:

• Troubleshoot ActiveSync with Exchange Server
• Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer
• Current issues with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and third-party devices
• How to temporarily deactivate the kernel mode filter driver in Windows
• Under The Hood: Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Log Analysis
• Announcing the release of Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer
• Exchange ActiveSync: Frequently asked questions
• Technet forums - Exchange Previous Versions - Mobility and ActiveSync

4. Solutions related to client/server connection issues and delays:

• Outlook Connectivity Guided Walkthrough
• Outlook Anywhere users prompted for credentials when they try to connect to Exchange Server 2013
• Hotfix KB 2889951 for Outlook 2013 October 14, 2014 (Outlook-x-none.msp)
• How to temporarily deactivate the kernel mode filter driver in Windows
• File-Level Antivirus Scanning on Exchange 2010
• How to do performance tuning for NTLM authentication by using the MaxConcurrentApi setting
• Configuring Kerberos Authentication for Load-Balanced Client Access Servers
• Troubleshooting long running MAPI connections to Exchange Server 2010 through Network Load Balancers
• TechNet forums – Exchange Server 2010

5. Solutions related to Mailbox store:

• TechNet forums – Exchange Server 2010
• Managing Mailbox Servers
• Where Did That New Exchange 2010 Mailbox Go?
• The Store.exe process crashes on an Exchange Server 2010 mailbox server during Exchange database online maintenance
• Restore a Soft-Deleted Mailbox
• An Exchange Server 2010 database store grows unexpectedly large
• Exchange 2010 SP1: The Troubleshooters
• Exchange 2010 SP1: Database Integrity checking

Recently, Brazil and Turkey have performed great feats for TechNet and MSDN Communities.

We can see a special organization, the high knowledge on Products and Services and especially union to share Technical Articles by Turkish group.

The "Turkish Avengers Team" (TAT) !!!

Now you may be thinking: "God, Durval went crazy !!! He should be writing from Portuguese Community, looks like he scored a goal against Brazil team"...

No my friends, keep calm because I'm fine.

Let's be realistic to honor this team. They appear monthly in front of us always after read Progress in each Language, published by Tomoaki.

This growth in Portuguese and Turkish articles was very evident in his last post.

They are doing an amazing work, knowledge sharing quality to any people who speak Turkish language anywhere in the world.

YES!!! We also have Turkish citizens and people who admire Turkish Culture in several countries, including Brazil.

And for this reason and many others...

All standing ovation for Turkish Community !!!

This awesome picture where I'm cheering to TAT members was inspired by creativity of my friends Gokan Ozcifci and Davut Eren.

The important thing that all Communities, no matter the country or language have the ability to win a lot of games.

Believe it !

See you soon here !

Brazilian Wiki Ninja Durval

Liebe Podcast-Zuhörer,

Ausgabe 21/2014 des TechNet Newsflash ist ab sofort online unter folgendem Link verfügbar:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/5/6/B56DB709-07CA-4DE3-8F90-3CB99A2C01DD/TechNetFlash_21-2014.mp3

Den TechNet Newsflash in Schriftform finden Sie hier:

http://www.microsoft.com/germany/technet/newsflash/aktuell.htm

Den RSS Feed können Sie Sich über den folgenden Link abonnieren:

http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/technet/de-de/newsflash/tn_flash_podcast_archiv.xml

Wie immer wünschen wir Ihnen viel Freude beim Zuhören und dem anschließenden Durchstöbern der angekündigten Ressourcen!

Viele Grüße,

Sebastian Klenk& das TechNet Online-Team

P.S.: Ich hoffe, Ihnen hat der Microsoft Technical Summit 2014 in Berlin gefallen! Die Session-Recordings finden Sie in Kürze auf der Konferenz-Webseite. Vielen Dank, dass Sie dabei waren!

Top Microsoft Support solutions for the most common issues experienced when you use Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 (updated quarterly).

Support ended for Office 2003 products on April 8, 2014.

1. Solutions related to Outlook user connectivity issues:

• How to temporarily deactivate the kernel mode filter driver in Windows
• Exchange 2013 Client Access Server Configuration
• Outlook Anywhere
• Performance issues or delays when you connect to Exchange Server 2013 that is running in Windows Server
• Exchange 2013 Certificate Management UI
• Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer
• Certificate Principal Mismatch
• When, if and how do you modify Outlook Providers?

2. Solutions related to Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTPS):

• How to temporarily deactivate the kernel mode filter driver in Windows
• Exchange 2013 Client Access Server Configuration
• Outlook Anywhere
• Performance issues or delays when you connect to Exchange Server 2013 that is running in Windows Server
• Exchange 2013 Certificate Management UI: Exchange 2013 Help
• Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer
• Certificate Principal Mismatch
• When, if and how do you modify Outlook Providers?

3. Solutions related to Microsoft Outlook authentication prompt:

• How to temporarily deactivate the kernel mode filter driver in Windows
• Hotfix KB 2889951 for Outlook 2013 October 14, 2014 (Outlook-x-none.msp)
• Exchange 2013 Client Access Server Configuration
• Outlook Anywhere
• Performance issues or delays when you connect to Exchange Server 2013 that is running in Windows Server
• Exchange 2013 Certificate Management UI: Exchange 2013 Help
• Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer
• Certificate Principal Mismatch
• When, if and how do you modify Outlook Providers?

4. Solutions related to Client Connectivity – Outlook:

• Performance issues or delays when you connect to Exchange Server 2013 that is running
• How to temporarily deactivate the kernel mode filter driver in Windows
• Hotfix KB 2889951 for Outlook 2013 October 14, 2014 (Outlook-x-none.msp)
• Outlook Anywhere: Exchange 2013 Help
• White Paper: Exchange 2007 Autodiscover Service (applies to later versions)

5. Solutions related to inbound mail from the Internet:

• Use Telnet to Test SMTP Communication
• Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer
• DNS Query Failure Sensitivity
• Receive Connectors
• Configure Protocol Logging for POP3 and IMAP4

(この記事は 2014 年 10 月 29 日に Office Blogs に投稿された記事 New Lync for Mac adds Media Resiliency, Conversation History and OS X Yosemite supportの翻訳です。最新情報については、翻訳元の記事をご参照ください。)

今回は、Lync チームのプロダクト マネージャーを務める Barak Manor の記事をご紹介します。

このたび、Lync for Mac の最新バージョンがリリースされ、Microsoft サポート (機械翻訳)からダウンロードしていただけるようになりました。今回のバージョンでは、メディア復元と会話履歴という 2 つの新機能、そして Apple OS X Yosemite のサポートが追加されています。

メディア復元機能

当然ながら、完璧なネットワークというものは存在しません。そのため、一時的に問題が発生してしまった場合にも可能な限り優れたエクスペリエンスが提供されることをだれもが望んでいます。今回の更新では、ピアツーピア通話と Lync 会議におけるメディア復元機能が追加されました。この機能によって 2 つの重要なメリットがもたらされます。1 つ目のメリットは、ネットワーク接続が切断されてしまっても、30 秒以内に再び確立された場合には、会議への再参加やピアツーピア通話の再接続が自動的に行われることです。

(この処理はお客様ご自身でご確認いただけます。まず、ご利用の Mac 上で Lync ビデオ通話をセットアップします。次に、ネットワーク ケーブルの切断と再接続、またはワイヤレス接続の無効化と再有効化をすばやく行います。ネットワークが切断されるとビデオはフリーズしますが、接続が再確立された後には通話が再開されるところをご覧いただけるはずです。)

2 つ目のメリットとして、Lync Server または Lync Online への接続が失われた場合でも、ピアツーピア通話のメディア接続が維持されるようになります。そのため、プレゼンス情報が利用できなくなったとしても、音声通話を続けることが可能です。

会話履歴

旧バージョンの Lync for Mac では、Lync の会話の記録がローカルの Mac 上には保存されますが、Exchange 上には保存されませんでした。今回の更新では、Mac ユーザーと企業の管理者を対象として、会話履歴を改良するための 2 つの機能が追加されています。具体的には、ローカルだけでなく Exchange 上に会話履歴を保存するオプションが選択できるようになり、また、Lync for Mac クライアントに会話の履歴を表示する [History] タブ (下図参照) が追加されました。Exchange に保存すれば、ユーザーの会話履歴を複数のデバイスに反映できます。たとえば、複数の Mac をお持ちのユーザーは、どの Mac を使用しているときにも、手元の Mac のローカルに保存されている会話だけでなく、すべての会話を見直せるようになります。さらに、Exchange 上でのアーカイブによって電子情報開示が容易になる (英語)ほか、管理者の皆様によるその他のコンプライアンス関連のタスクも簡素化されます。

OS X Yosemite のサポート

過去 2 年間で、Apple は Mountain Lion、Mavericks、そしてつい先日の Yosemite と、3 つのバージョンの OS X をリリースしました。マイクロソフトではそのたびに、新しい Lync for Mac クライアントをテスト、リリースしています。今回も同様に、最新バージョンのクライアントで新しい OS X Yosemite をサポートしました。

最新バージョンの詳細については、マイクロソフトのサポート技術情報 (機械翻訳)でご確認いただけます。今回のリリースは、過去 2 年間の 10 回にわたる Lync for Mac の更新を基にした累積的なリリースです。この間に、以下に挙げるような重要な機能が多数追加されています。

• 通話中のビデオ カメラの動的な選択機能
• USB 周辺機器のサポート (ヘッドセット、スピーカーフォン、カメラなど)
• E911 機能と位置認識機能 (こちらのブログ記事を参照)
• デスクトップ共有での圧縮率の向上 (最大 10 倍) による、帯域幅と待機時間の削減
• 上司/管理者向けの委任の制御および管理の強化
• 自動検出の構成、Lync 会議の参加者一覧で音声会議プロバイダーを使用する発信者を確認する機能といった、Office 365 との統合の強化
• 各通話後、サーバーまたは Office 365 に記録される Quality of Experience (QoE) レポート
• 上司/管理者向けの制御および管理の強化

こうした機能強化を行ってもなお、マイクロソフトでは、Mac ユーザーの皆様にご満足いただくためにはさらなる取り組みが必要だと認識しています。今後も Lync for Mac を定期的に更新していく予定ですので、皆様からのご意見をお待ちしております。ぜひ、たくさんのご意見をお寄せください。

—Barak Manor

I was looking into the list of Azure PowerShell cmdlets and I could not find a page with all cmdlets and parameters in a single list. There are individual pages for each cmdlet on TechNet, but not all cmdlets in one page. There is a list of all cmdlets in one page, but that does not include the parameters as well.

However, since we have the Get-Command and Get-Help cmdlets, that is something that we can solve by writing a script. So, after installing the latest (as of 11/14/14) Azure PowerShell cmdlets, I wrote a little script to output all cmdlet names and parameters to HTML. Here’s that script:

$Cmdlet = "" | Select Name, Parameters
Get-command -Module Azure | % {
  Get-Help $_ | % {
    $ParameterSetCount = 1
    $CmdletName = $_.Name
    $ParameterSets = $_.syntax.syntaxItem
    $ParameterSets | % {

      $Cmdlet.Name=$CmdletName
      If ($ParameterSets.Count -gt 1) {
        $Cmdlet.Name+=” (“+$ParameterSetCount+”)”
        $ParameterSetCount++
      }

      $Parameters = $_.parameter
      $StringPar=””
      If ($Parameters) {
        $First=$true
        $Parameters | % {
          If ($First) {$First=$false} else {$StringPar+="%%"}
          $StringPar+= “ -“+$_.name+” “;
          if ($_.parameterValue -and ($_.parameterValue –notlike “Switch*”)) {
            $StringPar+= ”<”+$_.parameterValue+”> “
          }
        }
      }
      $StringPar=$StringPar.Replace(“Nullable``1”,””)
      $StringPar=$StringPar.Replace(“System.[[System.Int32, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089]]”,”Int32”)
      $StringPar=$StringPar.Replace(“System.[[System.Boolean, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089]]”,”Boolean”)
      $Cmdlet.parameters=$StringPar;

      $Cmdlet 
    }
  }
} | ConvertTo-HTML | Out-File D:\AzureCmdlets.HTML

I ended up having to make a few adjustments to make things work better for my specific purpose:

• If a cmdlet has more than one form (more than one parameter set), I listed them with a number next to the cmdlet name
• I added the data type next to the parameter name, enclosed in <angle brackets> (except for switch parameters)
• Certain data types were showing some additional info that I did not need (like “Nullable”), which I removed
• The script adds a “%%” mark between parameters. I later replaced those with HTML line breaks (“<BR>”)

Here is the output of the script, with some minor adjustments to the HTML:

こんにちは SharePoint サポートの森　健吾 (kenmori) です。

今回の投稿では、SharePoint Online または SharePoint 2013 サイト上のページからJSOM (JavaScriptオブジェクト モデル) を使用し、リストアイテムを CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) 操作する方法についてサンプルを記載します。

前回の REST に関する投稿で記載した通りですが、SharePoint のクライアント サイド API は、下記のような用途で使い分けされます。

CSOM

.NET ベースのクライアント サイド アプリケーションおよびプロバイダー ホスト型アプリ

JSOM

SharePoint サイト上のページから同じサイトのサイト コンテンツへのアクセス

REST (JavaScript)

SharePoint ホスト アプリのアプリ サイトからホスト サイトへのアクセス (ただし RequestExecutor を使用) (サンプル)

REST (コード)

.NET 以外のクライアント サイド アプリケーション およびプロバイダー ホスト型アプリ

今回のようなJSOM で自サイトに対してアクセスするサンプルを使用する機会は多いのですが、今すぐ動かすことができる形式で記載します。

実装しているサンプルプログラムの画面 UI と動作は、前回の REST (JavaScript) の投稿と全く同じです。プログラミングの記述形式だけが異なりますので比較しながらご参照ください。

タイトル : SharePoint REST サービスを使用したアイテムの CRUD 方法

アドレス : http://blogs.technet.com/b/sharepoint_support/archive/2014/11/08/sharepoint-rest-crud.aspx

事前準備

1. SharePoint のサイトのページ ライブラリ内にページを作成します。

2. スクリプト エディタ Web パーツを貼り付けます。

3. [Web パーツの編集]をクリックし、[スニペットの編集] をクリックします。

4. 表示されるテキスト内に下記のスクリプトを貼り付けます。

<script type="text/javascript" src="/SiteAssets/jquery-1.11.1.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="/_layouts/15/sp.runtime.debug.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="/_layouts/15/sp.debug.js"></script>

<script langauge="JavaScript">

<!--

var weburl = "https://tenant.sharepoint.com";

var listTitle = "customlist01";

var context;

var items;

$(document).ready(function () {

    context = new SP.ClientContext(weburl);

    GetListItems();

});

function GetListItems() {

  items = context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle(listTitle).getItems('');

  context.load(items);

  context.executeQueryAsync(renderData, onFail);

}

function QueryListItems() {

  var title = $("#title").val();

  if (title == "")

  {

    GetListItems();

    return;

  }

  var camlQuery = new SP.CamlQuery();

  camlQuery.set_viewXml("<View><Query><Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='Title'/><Value Type='Text'>" + title + "</Value></Eq></Where></Query></View>");

  items = context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle(listTitle).getItems(camlQuery);

  context.load(items);

  context.executeQueryAsync(renderData, onFail);

}

function renderData(data)

{

    var itemCollection = items.getEnumerator();

    var strres = "";

    // get the checkbox group

    while (itemCollection.moveNext()) {

        var item = itemCollection.get_current();

        strres += "<tr onclick=\"setItemDate(" + item.get_id() + ", '" + item.get_item('Title') + "')\">";

        strres += "<td>";

        strres += item.get_id();

        strres += "</td><td>";

        strres += item.get_item('Title');

        strres += "</td></tr>";

    }

    if (strres == "")

    {

        strres += "<tr><td>(Empty)</td></tr>";

    }

    strres = "<b>" + "Items on " + listTitle + "</b>"

     + "<br><br><table><tr><th>ID</th><th>Title</th></tr>"

     + strres + "</table>";

    $("#P1").html(strres);

}

function onFail(sender, args) {

    alert('Error:' + args.get_message());

}

function AddListItem() {

  var title = $("#title").val();

  var listitemCreationInfo = new SP.ListItemCreationInformation();

  var oitem = context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle(listTitle).addItem(listitemCreationInfo);

  oitem.set_item('Title', title);

  oitem.update();

  context.load(oitem);

  context.executeQueryAsync(GetListItems, onFail);

}

function UpdateListItem() {

  var id = $("#itemid").val();

  var title = $("#title").val();

  var oitem = context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle(listTitle).getItemById(id);

  oitem.set_item('Title', title);

  oitem.update();

  context.executeQueryAsync(GetListItems, onFail);

}

function DelListItem(){

  var id = $("#itemid").val()

  var oitem = context.get_web().get_lists().getByTitle(listTitle).getItemById(id);

  oitem.deleteObject();

  context.executeQueryAsync(GetListItems, onFail);

}

function setItemDate(itemid, title)

{

  $("#title").val(title);

  $("#itemid").val(itemid);

}

-->

</script>

<div id="P1"></div>

<br>

<table><tr>

<td>itemid :</td><td><input type="text" id="itemid"></td>

</tr><tr>

<td>title : </td><td><input type="text" id="title"></td>

</tr>

</table>

<br>

<input type="button" onclick="QueryListItems()" value="Query">

<input type="button" onclick="AddListItem()" value="Add">

<input type="button" onclick="UpdateListItem()" value="Update">

<input type="button" onclick="DelListItem()" value="Delete">

5. サンプル内にて、緑字で記載した jQuery ライブラリの位置、サイトの URL、リストのタイトルなどを調整します。

(補足 : jQuery ライブラリのパスを指定するにあたっては、http://jquery.com/download/　からダウンロードし、同サイトのリソース ライブラリなどに保存しておき、保存したパスを取得します。)

6. ページの保存を実施します。

上記操作を実施することで、リストアイテムを表示、追加、更新、削除できる最小限のサンプル Web パーツが完成しました。

下記に本投稿に関連する参考情報を記載いたします。

タイトル : [方法] SharePoint 2013 の JavaScript ライブラリ コードを使用して基本的な操作を完了する
アドレス : http://msdn.microsoft.com/ja-jp/library/office/jj163201(v=office.15).aspx

今回の投稿は以上になります。