Hola amigos, en la última entrega de esta serie hablé acerca de Azure Powershell que es una plataforma muy robusta que me permite administrar una o varias suscripciones de Azure usando comandos Powershell, de modo que puedo realizar toda clase de tareas usando Azure Powershell y sacando provecho de toda su potencia. ¿Qué se puede hacer con esta herramienta? TODO simplemente, desde encender/apagar máquinas, agregar discos, cambiar las redes virtuales, crear sitios web… por sólo citar unos pocos ejemplos.

Pues bien, resulta que también es posible usar otra herramienta que también usa línea de comandos y se denomina “Azure Cross-Platform Command-Line Interface” o simplemente XPLAT-CLI. Con ella podemos interactuar con Azure de una manera que vamos a ver a continuación.

Posteriormente ustedes pueden escoger aquella con la que se sientan más cómodos entre Azure Powershell y xplat-cli.

xplat-cli está hecha en JavaScript y requiere Node.js. Está implementada usando el SDK de Azure para Node.js y se encuentra bajo la licencia Apache 2.0. Si quieren consultar el repositorio del proyecto se encuentra en https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-tools-xplat

¿Cómo instalarla? En el caso de las máquinas Windows hay que descargar el instalador que se encuentra Aquí el instalador se denomina WindowsAzureXPlatCLI.3f.3f.3fnew.exe. Una vez descargado procedemos  ejecutarlo.

Seleccionamos Install

Luego I Accept

Espero que el proceso se complete

Presiono Finish

¡Ya quedó instalado!

Ahora debo ejecutar una línea de comandos CMD como administrador

Una vez se esté en la línea de comandos, hay que ir a la ruta C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\CLI que es la ruta por defecto de la instalación de la plataforma xplat-cli

Estando allí podemos escribir azure para ver los comandos y opciones disponibles:

Ahora al igual que en el caso de Azure Powershell hay que establecer conexión hacia la suscripción de Azure, esto se puede hacer de dos maneras: Haciendo login con un usuario autorizado para ingresar a la suscripción o descargando las credenciales de dicha suscripción.

Vamos a usar el segundo método, que me ofrece la ventaja de que una vez tenga descargadas las credenciales me basta con abrir la línea de comandos con privilegios en la ruta -C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\CLI- y ya puedo interactuar con mi suscripción.

Lo primero que debo hacer es tener abierto mi portal de Azure en la suscripción que quiero conectar, y una vez estando allí debo escribir lo siguiente:

azure account download

Inmediatamente se abre una página wen en donde se indica que se va a descargar un archivo, el cual corresponde a las credenciales que vamos a usar para establecer nuestra conexión:

Ahora hay que importar ese archivo usando el comando azure account import

En mi caso el comando completo –Desde xplat-cli- es:

azure account import "d:\tmp\Windows Azure MSDN - Visual Studio Ultimate-12-29-2014-credentials.publishsettings"

Mis credenciales las descargué en la ruta D:\TMP y el archivo de mi ejemplo se denomina Windows Azure MSDN - Visual Studio Ultimate-12-29-2014-credentials.publishsettings

Si todo salió bien verán un mensaje similar al siguiente. Observen los mensajes en donde se indica que se descargaron las credenciales y que se importaron:

Ahora, ¡Estamos listos para interactuar con Azure!

Empecemos con ver las máquinas que tengo en mi suscripción, eso se hace con azure vm list

Observen que tengo 2 VMs en mi suscripción y se encuentran apagadas en este momento. También observen que la ruta de xplat-cli es D:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Azure, lo que indica que también puedo instalar el producto en la ruta que yo desee.

También observen que si bien ambas VMs están apagadas, una de ellas tiene dirección IP y la otra no. Ello se debe a que una de ellas fue apagada de manera que mantuviera su dirección de manera persistente y la otra no, lo cual puede tener implicaciones en los costos si la IP es pública y se reserva de manera permanente así la máquina está apagada.

Si quiero encender la máquina server01 uso el comando azure vm start server01 (Si ya lo notaron, toda acción debe empezar con la palabra “azure”)

Empezó el proceso… y ya terminó, la máquina está encendida:

Si la quiero apagar uso azure vm shutdown server01

Y si de nuevo listo mis VMs observen que server01 ya no tiene IP asignada, pues se apagó por defecto sin persistencia

Si quisiera que la VM conservara su dirección IP debo usar al final la opción –p  o --stay-provisioned, es decir:

azure vm shutdown server01 –p

o

azure vm shutdown server01 --stay-provisioned

Ahora voy a crear un sitio web en blanco denominado website01ab00. Recuerden que todo sitio web creado por defecto en Azure tiene el sufijo .azurewebsites.net, de modo que antes de crearlo debo verificar que no exista ya un sitio web con ese nombre público o FQDN, es decir website01ab00.azurewebsites.net no debe existir al momento de su creación.

Voy a usar el comando azure site create website01ab00

Como no le especifiqué la región en donde va a ser creado el sitio debo hacerlo, para este ejemplo voy a seleccionar East US

Observen que ya se creó sin problema el sitio web

Este sitio es un sitio que yo puedo actualizar usando FTP, FTPS o Visual Studio entre otras opciones.

Por último voy a crear otro sitio indicando la ubicación en la misma línea. Como no sé cuál es la sintaxis del comando puedo usar azure site create –h o azure site create –help para ver la ayuda

De ahí concluyo que puedo usar por ejemplo azure site create mywebsite01ab99 --location "North Central US" para crear un sitio denominado mynewwebsite01ab99.azurewebsites.net en la región"North Central US"

Observen que mi sitio recién creado ya abre: (Esto es un esqueleto o sitio en blanco, debo poblarlo posteriormente)

En realidad las posibilidades son enormes y aquí vimos unos pocos ejemplos para que se animen a usar esta herramienta. Por supuesto el siguiente paso es hacer scripts que permitan tener flujos de trabajo complejos para administrar de manera eficiente la plataforma.

Si quieren consultar más información acerca de los comandos y ver una completa guía de los mismos pueden consultar el siguiente link

Ojalá les haya gustado este último post del 2014, les deseo un Feliz Año 2015 para ustedes y sus familias, mucha felicidad y propónganse metas realizables y concretas.

Espero nos sigamos encontrando en este espacio y ¡Que viva Azure! Esto es el presente y futuro mis amigos.

A equipa de desenvolvimento de SharePoint lançou o Pacote Cumulativo de Outubro de 2014 para o SharePoint 2010.

Este pacote não é um pacote que contêm a instalação de todas as correcções para Foundation e Server, por isso é necessário fazer a instalação do Foundation e do Server em separado.

Nota: O Pacote Cumulativo de Outubro de 2014 é Pós-SP2. É recomendado que seja instalado o SP2 e o Pacote de Setembro antes de instalar o Pacote Cumulativo de Outubro.

Este pacote inclui todas as correcções desde o lançamento do Service Pack 1. Não contêm o Service Pack 2.

Os artigos para os Pacotes Cumulativos de Outubro encontram-se nas seguinte localizações:

• SharePoint Foundation 2010: no fixes released in October CU
• SharePoint Server 2010: KB 2899490
• Project Server 2010: KB 2899485, KB 2880539

A localização dos ficheiros encontram-se em:

• Download SharePoint Server 2010 October 2014 CU: 2899490
• Download Project Server 2010 October 2014 CU: 2899485, 2880539

Após a instalação de qualquer dos Pacotes Cumulativos em todos os servidores, terá sempre que se executar o Configuration Wizard, também em todos os Servidores da Farm. Nota: Os Pacotes Cumulativos são Pacotes Pós-SP1, o que indica que só deverão ser instalados num ambiente com o Service Pack 1 instalado, mas a recomendação será sempre a instalação num ambiente com o Service Pack 2 já instalado.

Informação relacionada.:

• Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products
• Updates for SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010
• Updates for Project Server 2010
• Updates for Enterprise Search Products

This is typically a slow week for people, so what better time than to post something fun about Exchange Online Protection!

Back in May I presented a session on EOP at TechEd North America 2014 which took place in Houston. To be a little different, I wrote a poem about EOP which I read to kick the presentation off. I have always enjoyed poetry and thought I'd try something different by beginning my EOP session with some rhymes. Here's that poem.

Hello to you my TechEd friends,
Thank you for joining me here.
Today we will learn of a wondrous service,
And you'll see, there's nothing to fear.
 
Email can sometimes come with spam,
And if you're not careful, a computer infection.
Lucky for you, we can prevent those two,
With Exchange Online Protection.
 
EOP is a breeze to deploy,
There's really nothing to it.
Listen closely and don't leave early,
You'll soon learn how to do it.
 
Add one domain or up to nine hundred,
Then create a connector or two.
Now point your MX over to us,
And like that, we're protecting you.
 
Now let's begin this break out session,
Silence those phones in your pocket.
And next time you log in to O365,
You'll really be able to rock it.

If you are interested in watching the session, which covers configuration and some interesting tidbits about EOP, it can be viewed on Channel 9.

See you in the new year!

A equipa de desenvolvimento de SharePoint lançou o Pacote Cumulativo de Outubro de 2014 para o SharePoint 2013.

Este pacote não é um pacote que contêm a instalação de todas as correcções para Foundation e Server, por isso é necessário fazer a instalação do Foundation e do Server em separado.

Nota: O Pacote Cumulativo de Outubro de 2014 é Pós-SP1. É necessário que seja instalado o SP1 ou o Pacote Publico de Março de 2013.

Atenção: Verifique como instalar um Pacote Cumulativo num ambiente que tenha o serviço de Pesquisa.

Anteriormente, os Pacotes Publicos para o SharePoint 2013 incluíam o executável e o ficheiro .CAB no ficheiro de instalação. Devido ao tamanho, o pacote está dividido em dois. Um contem o executável, e o outro o ficheiro CAB. São ambos necessários e tem que estar na mesma directoria para se poder instalar.

Este Pacote Cumulativo NÃO contem todas as correcções lançadas anteriormente. Este pacote não contem o Service Pack 1. Pode-se instalar o Service Pack 1 antes ou depois deste Pacote Cumulativo. É recomendado que se instale o Pacote de Setembro antes de instalar o de Outubro.

Os artigos para o Pacote de Outubro encontram-se nas seguinte localizações:

• KB 2889946 - SharePoint Foundation 2013 October 2014 CU
• KB 2899469, KB 2880962, KB 2880485 - SharePoint Server 2013 October 2014 CU
• KB 2752098 - Fix for SharePoint 2013 Indexing Connector for Documentum (if installed)
• KB 2889959 - Project Server 2013 October 2014 CU
• KB 2889898 - Office Web Apps Server 2013 October 2014 CU

A localização dos ficheiros encontram-se em::

• Download SharePoint Foundation 2013 October 2014 CU: 2889946
• Download SharePoint Server 2013 October 2014 CU: 2899469, 2880962, 2880485
• Download SharePoint 2013 Indexing Connector for Documentum October 2014 CU: 2752098
• Download Project Server 2013 October 2014 CU: 2889959
• Download Office Web Apps Server 2013 October 2014 CU: 2889898

Após a instalação de qualquer dos Pacotes Cumulativos em todos os servidores, terá sempre que se executar o Configuration Wizard, também em todos os Servidores da Farm. 

Referência:
Como instalar os pacotes cumulativos num ambiente que tem Search.

Informação relacionada:

• CHANGE: SharePoint 2013 Rollup Update for the December 2013 Cumulative Update Packaging
• How to: install update packages on a SharePoint 2013 farm where search component and high availability search topologies are enabled
• Update Center for Microsoft Office, Office Servers, and Related Products
• Common Question: What is the difference between a PU, a CU and a COD?
• SQL Server 2014 and SharePoint Server 2013

Hi everybody

As per Carol’s introduction post, she's letting you know what's new and hot in the docs for this month.

Reminders: Follow us on twitter (@TheRMSGuy) and join in our new RMS peer community at www.yammer.com/AskIPTeam.

Happy holiday, 

   Dan (on behalf of the RMS team)

The Documentation Library for Azure Rights Management has been updated on the web and the latest content has Updated: December 1, 2014 at the top of the topic.

Summary of the documentation available: Getting Started with Rights Management | Configuring Rights Management | Using Rights Management | Administering Rights Management by using Windows PowerShell

Plus, the Rights Management sharing application guides (admin guide and user guide) and FAQs (for Windows and mobile platforms).

We value customer feedback and try to incorporate it when possible.  Although we can't promise to make the docs perfect for everybody, we are committed to continual improvement.  If you have any feedback about the docs for the RMS sharing application, or for Azure RMS, email AskIPTeam@Microsoft.com.

There are no significant doc updates this month for the RMS sharing application.

What's New in the Documentation Library for Azure Rights Management, December 2014

The following information lists the topics that contain significant changes since the last update (November 2014).

Requirements for Azure Rights Management

- Updated for the following:

• The Cloud subscriptions that support Azure RMS section now has a link to the recently published Comparison of Rights Management Services (RMS) Offerings so that you can identify which Azure RMS features are supported for the different paying subscription.
• The Applications that support Azure RMS section now has a callout note that you can use FCI on Windows Server 2008 R2 if you use a custom management file task with an executable or script that connects directly to Azure RMS (the RMS connector cannot be used for FCI on Windows Server 2008 R2).
• The Client device capabilities section to provide more information about the table columns, and footnotes added for the iOS row, to clarify limited support for Office Online and OWA for iOS. In addition, added GigaTrust entries for Windows and Android. For more information about the GigaTrust additions, see our earlier December blog post, Support for RMS protected PDF and PPDFs in Adobe Reader.
• The Important callout note in the Applications that support Azure RMS section, to add Microsoft OneDrive for Business Online and Microsoft OneDrive for iPhone and iPad as not currently supported by Azure RMS.

Preparing for Azure Rights Management

- Updated to clarify that there no specific groups that you must enable for mailboxes; instead, enable mailboxes for the groups that you will use with Azure Rights Management. For example, when you configure custom templates in the Azure Management Portal, you cannot select groups unless they are mailbox-enabled.

Configuring Custom Templates for Azure Rights Management

- Updated the Exchange Online Only subsection in the Refreshing templates for users section, with the additional step to run the Set-RMSTemplate cmdlet with the Type parameter set to Distribution for each template that you want displayed in OWA.

Deploying the Azure Rights Management Connector

- Updated for the following:

• In the introduction, clarified that If you manage your own tenant key for Azure RMS (the bring you own key, or BYOK scenario), the RMS connector and the on-premises servers that use it do not access the hardware security module (HSM) that contains your tenant key. This is because all cryptographic operations that use the tenant key are performed in Azure RMS, and not on-premises.
• A tip in the prerequisites section that if you are using Outlook Web Access or mobile devices that use Exchange ActiveSync IRM and it is critical that you maintain access to emails and attachments that are protected by Azure RMS, we recommend that you deploy a load-balanced group of connector servers to ensure high availability.
• Added the mailbox server role as also requiring configuration to use the RMS connector when you use Exchange Server 2013.

Frequently Asked Questions for Azure Rights Management

- New entry:

• What features can or can’t be used with the different subscriptions for Azure RMS?

USE MASTER GO ALTER DATABASE @anBenedetti SET OFFLINE WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE GO #SQLServer#SQLFamily#HappyNewYear

— Andrea Benedetti (@anBenedetti) 30 Dicembre 2014

A divulgação do prêmio TechNet Wiki Day de Novembro é muito especial.

Além de ser a última premiação divulgada em 2014, houve um envolvimento da Comunidade na confecção e atualização de diversos artigos.

Em alguns artigos foi possível ver a essência do TechNet Wiki: o trabalho compartilhado do conhecimento.

Entre os diversos artigos criados pela Comunidade, poucos foram selecionados entre os melhores para o prêmio TechNet Wiki Day.

O nível técnico dos artigos vencedores demonstra que a qualidade dos nossos artigos está cada mês melhor.

Sempre é importante enfatizar que a Comissão de Seleção de Artigos valoriza principalmente os artigos que respeitam e compreendem os padrões indicados no artigo Wiki: User Experience Guidelines.

Esta orientação do Conselho da Comunidade procura incentivar todos na Comunidade à produzirem artigos técnicos de alto nível.

O uso de Boas Práticas na produção de artigos, acompanhado de uma boa solução, é um dos principais fatores para vencer o prêmio TechNet Wiki Day.

A votação dos 3 melhores artigos de Novembro foi aproximada e certamente detalhes separaram estes artigos.

Todos os 5 artigos relacionados merecem esse prêmio pelo auxílio de seu conteúdo para as Comunidades TechNet e MSDN. 

Com satisfação apresentamos abaixo os artigos vencedores deste mês:

	Ouro: Grupos de Colaboração do Office 365 por Mauricio Cassemiro
	Prata: Serviço de Gerenciamento no Microsoft Azure (E-mail Alerts) por Vinicius Mozart
	Bronze: Concepção de uma Windows Runtime Apps por Priscila Mayumi Sato

 

Alguns outros artigos foram lembrados pela Comissão de Seleção de Artigos, mas os artigos abaixo também foram citados entre os melhores da Comunidade neste mês de Novembro:

- Windows 10 - Utilizando a função de copiar e colar no prompt de comando por Marcelo Strippoli

- Convertendo objetos para o padrão JSON em Views do ASP.NET MVC por Renato Groffe

 

Parabéns à todos os artigos vencedores e seus autores.

O artigo medalha de Ouro: Grupos de Colaboração do Office 365, também será divulgado no Blog Wiki Ninjas Internacional, passará à ser reconhecido pela tag TechNet Wiki Day WINNER.

 

Parabéns Mauricio Cassemiro e obrigado por contribuir com nossa Comunidade Microsoft TechNet Wiki.

Até +,

Wiki Ninja Durval Ramos ( Blog, Twitter, Wiki, Perfil )

I was testing out the new CU 11 for Management Reporter 2012 today with Dynamics GP 2015. After the installation and configuration, I was trying to enable the integration and I noticed that the option to add the companies to MR for the DataMart adaptor was missing in Management Reporter Configuration Console.

I realized that the set up was in Dynamics GP and I went to Tools >> Setup >> System >> Reporting Tools Setup and configured the MR Service location and clicked OK, hoping this will enable the companies into MR. However, it was not to be the case. After doing some research and checking with Ryan, I came to realize that there was an option in the Company Setup which needs to be turned on in order for the specific company to be integrated into Management Reporter.

To access this, you need to go to Tools >> Setup >> Company >> Company. Click on the Options button and you would see a new section called Management Reporter as shown below.

We can enable the General Ledger Reporting and Analytical Accounting Reporting for a company inside Management Reporter from this section. Once the option is turned on, we can exit Configuration Console, open it again to see that this GP company has been integrated into Management Reporter.

Ryan from the Corporate Performance Management team has blogged about this as well here.

I hope this helps…

Until next post!

2014 год был продуктивным для Microsoft Azure – платформа вышла на новые рынки, в лидеры по PaaS, IaaS и хранилищу, согласно Gartner, вышло много новых сервисов (из любимых лично мной обновлений, например, то, что теперь Azure Backup поддерживает клиентские версии Windows). Следящие за развитием платформы могли заметить, что параллельно сервисам, использующимся в целях корпоративных, начали появляться сервисы, ориентированные еще и на научную среду – чего только машинное обучение как сервис и развитие HPC стоило. В 2015 году нас ждет еще много интересного.
Ребрендинг Windows Azure в Microsoft Azure также стал большой новостью – то, что на платформе Microsoft огромное количество ресурсов используется клиентами из OSS, показывает, что платформа не только мощная, но и открытая.

Январь 2014

PCI Compliance и Hyper-V Recovery ManagerвGA

Март 2014

• Поддержка ПО Oracleв Azure– в GA
• WindowsAzureменяет имя наMicrosoftAzure
• Azure приходит в Китай

Апрель 2014

• Выход в свет превью-версии нового портала
• Анонсирована поддержка Chefи Puppet
• Cерьезные изменения в веб-сайтах – улучшенная поддержка SSL. Здесь же и новые планы использования.
• Autoscale в GA
• Анонсирована поддержка Hadoop 2.2 в HDinsight (+Avro library)

Май 2014

• Microsoft покупает GreenButton – HPC-как-сервис
• GA ExpressRoute
• GA Azure Import/Export
• Превью API Management
• Антивирус-как-сервис для виртуальных машин
• УлучшеннаяпроизводительностьSQL Database
• Microsoft покупаетCapptain – мобильнаяаналитика
• SAP сертифицирует решения для Azure

Июнь 2014

• Microsoft ввела телефонную поддержку SLES 11 SP3
• AzureHDInsightтеперь поддерживает Hadoop 2.4 с запросами в 100 раз быстрее
• Azure HDInsight – кластеры Hbase в превью
• Azure Traffic Manager – балансировка нагрузки на внеоблачные точки и «взвешенные» Round Robin
• Docker – выход на Azure

Июль 2014

• Анонс машинного обучения как сервиса
• ReverseDNS: поддержка в облачных сервисах
• Сотрудничество с Google и Docker

Август 2014

• AzureResourceManagerToolsвпревью – продвинутое управление ресурсами
• RavenHQ – вмагазине Azure Store
• MyGet – в магазине Azure Store
• DocumentDB – в превью
• Azure HDInsight – поддержкаApache HBase™вGA
• VMDepotдоступен в галерее образов виртуальных машин – OSSпрямо из коробки
• Azure Search – в превью

Сентябрь 2014

• Azure Media Services– запускLive Streaming
• Вебсайты: поддержкаVPN
• API Managementв GA
• Azure Media Service: DASH Live Streaming

Октябрь

• Elastic Scale (шардинг) впревьюдля Azure SQL Database
• Azure Backup: поддержка Windows Server 2008
• AzureDocumentDB: опыт использования на примере MSNHealthиFitness
• Hadoop: превьюподдержкиStorm
• Azure Websites Migration Assistant:анонсинструменталегкоймиграциивеб-сайтовизIIS воблако
• AzureStreamAnalytics: обработкасобытийвреальномвремени

Ноябрь

• Azure Search: поддержка новых языков, включая русский
• AzureHDInsight: поддержкабольшогоколичестваHadoop-relatedпроектов, включая Sparkи модулейR

Декабрь

• DockerConEurope 2014 – важныеанонсыизмираDockerиAzure
• Azure Security — на SSL 3.0
• PremiumStorage: высокопроизводительные SSD-диски для виртуальных машин
• AzureHDInsight: ещебольшешаблоновдляпроектовHadoop-related: Spark, R, GiraphиSolr

С Новым Годом!

We launched this blog in June 2014 with the intent of sharing important advances and practical knowledge accumulated by Microsoft in the field of ML. After six months of regular posts, many of them authored by world-leading ML researchers and practitioners, we are seeing tens of thousands of readers such as yourself regularly visiting our blog site where, we hope, you are finding articles of value and relevance to your own ML journeys.

As we take one final look back at the year 2014, we figured we would share the top 10 most-read posts of 2014. Here they are, listed below, in increasing order of popularity.

10. Machine Learning, meet Computer Vision
Jamie Shotton, Antonio Criminisi and Sebastian Nowozin explore the challenges of computer vision and touch on the powerful ML technique of decision forests for pixel-wise classification.

9. Python Tools for Visual Studio now integrates with Azure Machine Learning
Shahrokh Mortazavi talks about Python support in Azure ML, including the powerful Python centric Data Science IDE, PTVS – a completely free and open source tool that is helping democratize ML and advanced analytics. 

8. Vowpal Wabbit for Fast Learning
John Langford shares information about the speedy VW open source ML system sponsored by Microsoft.

7. Machine Learning and Text Analytics
Dr. Ashok Chandra talks about how we are now able to take advantage of signals to determine the salient entities being discussed in textual articles.

6.The Joy (and Hard Work) of Machine Learning
Joseph Sirosh discusses how enterprises can tap into the potential of ML to deliver enormous value in diverse applications that can improve customer experience, reduce the risk of systemic failures, grow revenue and bring about significant cost savings.

5. Machine Learning Trends from NIPS 2014
John Platt shares 3 exciting trends he saw at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) 2014 conference in Montreal this year.

4. What is Machine Learning?
John Platt provides some much-needed context around ML and also shares a taxonomy of ML applications.

3. Twenty Years of Machine Learning at Microsoft
John Platt discusses Microsoft’s 20+ years of experience in creating ML systems and applying them to real world problems, including what it takes to actually deploy ML in production.

2.How Azure ML Partners are Innovating for their Customers
At the Worldwide Partner Conference, Joseph Sirosh talks about how Azure ML – which is changing the game for building ML applications at scale and in the cloud – is being used by Microsoft’s partners to rapidly build novel solutions for our customers.

1. Rapid Progress in Automatic Image Captioning
John Platt talks about the exciting progress researchers have made in creating systems to automatically generate descriptive captions of images.

We wish our readers a very happy and productive 2015!   

ML Blog Team

The Azure Service Management REST API can be a great compliment to the Azure PowerShell module when automating certain Azure cloud tasks for which there's not yet a defined set of PowerShell cmdlets.  In previous articles, we've leveraged this API for specific scenarios, such as:

• Configuring health monitoring alert rules for Azure VMs
• Listing current client VPN connections on Azure Point-to-Site VPNs
• Revoking and reinstating client VPN certificates for Azure Point-to-Site VPNs

However, in each of our previous articles, we've used management certificates to authenticate to our Azure subscription when calling the Azure Service Management REST API. Azure Active Directory is being used by many organizations for centralized authentication to Azure via the Azure Management Portal, Azure PowerShell using the Add-AzureAccount cmdlet, and to other cloud-based applications (over 2,400 third-party apps as of the date of this article).  This prompted me to consider leveraging Azure AD for Azure API authentication as an alternative to management certificates.

,

In this article, we'll step through the process of authenticating to the Azure Service Management REST API using Azure Active Directory via PowerShell.  Leveraging these capabilities together gives us a consistent authentication and scripting experience, along with the extensibility that the Azure API provides.

Along the way, we'll also show a useful example for keeping track of the administrators and co-administrators for your Azure subscription.

Starting with Outlook 2013, forwarding a meeting has a different effect on the existing meeting in the organizer and attendee’s calendars. If you are a meeting attendee that frequently forwards meetings to other users, then you will want to know about a particular Outlook 2013 enhancement.

Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 behavior

Let’s start with the behavior in previous versions of Outlook. If you used Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 to forward a meeting, the additional recipient was immediately reflected not only in your Scheduling Assistant, but also in the Scheduling Assistant of both the new attendee and the organizer.

Here are some screenshots to help you visualize the behavior. User A uses Outlook 2010 to organize a meeting and invites User B:

User B opens the meeting invitation and sees this in her Scheduling Assistant view:

User B accepts the meeting invitation, but also decides her colleague might want to attend, so she forwards the meeting to User C. Once forwarded, User B’s Scheduling Assistant now shows User C as an attendee:

Additionally, User C now shows as an optional attendee on the organizer’s Scheduling Assistant:

This behavior allows User B to see User C as an attendee within the Scheduling Assistant. However, it gives User B a potentially incorrect view of who is attending the meeting. Continuing with the above example, let us say User C decides to decline the meeting request. Since User B is not the organizer, she will not receive a meeting notification indicating User C declined the meeting. She is also unable to use the Meeting Tracking feature to see who accepted or declined the meeting. Hence, User B may use the Scheduling Assistant to attempt to identify the meeting attendees. In this scenario, it can look to User B as if User C may attend the meeting, since User C is listed under the “All Attendees” list:

Enhanced Outlook 2013 behavior

The above scenario can give User B an unrealistic view of who will attend the meeting. Because of that, this behavior is improved starting with Outlook 2013. In Outlook 2013, the forwarder’s view of the Scheduling Assistant is not automatically updated after forwarding the meeting. In order for the forwarder’s view of the Scheduling Assistant to update, the meeting organizer must send a meeting update to all attendees. Only after the organizer’s update is sent does the forwarder’s view of the Scheduling Assistant reflect the updated list of attendees.

To show this functionality change, let us use the same example as before. User A invites User B to a meeting:

User B opens the meeting invitation and sees this in her Scheduling Assistant view:

User B accepts the meeting invitation, but also decides that her colleague might want to attend, so she forwards the meeting to User C. Once forwarded, User C is added as an optional attendee to the meeting organizer’s (User A’s) Scheduling Assistant:

However, the main difference here is that User B’s Scheduling Assistant is not automatically updated:

During this process, User A (the meeting organizer) receives a meeting forward notification:

Later, when User C processes the meeting, the meeting response (ex. Accept, Decline, or Tentative) is received by the organizer. In this example, User C accepted the meeting:

If User A wants to ensure everyone sees an updated view of the attendees, User A must simply open the meeting and click the “Send Update” button to send the update to all attendees:

After sending the update, User B’s view of the Scheduling Assistant is updated to reflect User C as an attendee:

As you can see, Outlook 2013 meeting forwarding behavior is intentionally different to ensure that any attendee who forwards a meeting does not mistake who is and is not attending the meeting.

This article consolidates the various feature of the day write ups by the product group for Dynamics GP 2015.

• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Workflow Payables Batches
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Receivables Batch Approval
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Vendor Approval Workflow
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Project Expense
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Service Based Architecture
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Service Based Architecture Deployment
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: HR/P Workflow Navigation List
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Employee W4 and Workflow
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Direct Deposit and Workflow
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Employee Paystubs
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Team Manger Employee Profile, Skills and Training
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Fixed Assets Year End Report
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Create Refreshable Excel Reports
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Payment Terms - Transaction Calculation
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Payment Terms - Discount Date Calculation
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Copy Home Page and Area Page
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Management Reporter Integration
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Management Reporter Integration Setup
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Management Reporter in Business Analyzer
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Business Analyzer Cross Platform
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Management Reporter Content in Business Analyzer
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Purchase Requisitions
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Direct Deposit with Workflow
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Existing Purchase Order Warning
• Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 Feature of the Day: Management Reporter Data Integration

Hope this helps…

Until next post!

Summary: Learn about resources to help you learn about Windows PowerShell.

 What do you recommend for online resources to learn about Windows PowerShell and find answers and help for script issues.

 The Script Center is the landing page to start. From there, you can go to the Script Center Repository,
           the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog, and the Official Scripting Guys Forum. There is also a tab on that page
           for Learn. This will take you to some webcasts that the Scripting Guy (Ed Wilson) made to help you get started. 
           Powershell.org also has many resources from the Windows PowerShell community.  

Note  Today's PowerTip is supplied by Windows PowerShell MVP, Teresa Wilson.

I recently had a case where we encountered an "issue" where users granted full mailbox access and send-on-behalf-of to a shared mailbox were able to use OWA to send as the shared mailbox.

First, let's take a step back and review permissions. I've summarized it in a table here:

If a manager grants a user full mailbox access, they'll be able to log onto the mailbox (OWA -> Open mailbox, Outlook -> Open these additional mailboxes). If a manager grants a user delegate access (using Outlook), they'll have to use Outlook's File -> Open functionality and choose a particular folder. If it is a special/default folder like the Calendar, the delegate will be able to use OWA's calendar view to view/edit the manager's calendar. In both these cases, the delegates won't be able to send as or send on behalf of the manager because mailbox and mail sending permissions are of two different types.

Also something else to note: there are many ways to grant these permissions and I've only put down the Exchange PowerShell version. You can use Outlook, Exchange Management Console, Exchange Admin Center, and a host of other GUI tools to achieve the right permissions as long as they modify the appropriate data structures.

As it turns out, the "issue" I described earlier is a by-design behavior of Exchange and is documented here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/ehlro/archive/2012/04/06/full-mailbox-access-rights-send-on-behalf-send-as.aspx. Basically, full mailbox access + send-on-behalf-of rights = send as permissions. Even if you add an explicit deny for the send as right, delegates will still be able to send as the manager or shared mailbox. Usually, this issue surfaces with delegates because organizations grant delegates access to their manager's mailbox using 2 sets of permissions:

• The manager uses Outlook to grant a delegate access to their mailbox so the delegate receives copies of meeting requests and other delegate-y features. What's happening under the covers is that Outlook is performing a variety of configuration changes, including granting folder-level permissions and send-on-behalf-of rights.
• The Exchange administrator then grants the delegate full mailbox access to the manager's mailbox so the mailbox is automapped into the Outlook profile (what's really happening is that Autodiscover is returning an additional mailbox for Outlook to open).

I hope this adds some clarity to the different types of permissions used in Exchange and Outlook as I know it is a frequent source of confusion, even for me.

Cheers,

Matt

Jeff Stoffel

We often focus on selling the benefits of Office 365 to our mutual customers however sometimes forget the activities that take place after the sale.  If is important to remember that a successful Office 365 rollout focuses on driving adoption and helping everyone understand the benefits of working in a new way.

We have created a campaign that will provide resources to help you collaborate with and guide your SMB  customers to develop and execute a successful Office 365 rollout.  You will find step-by-step guidance in the Office 365 Usage and Deployment guide to help you plan an email campaign, execute a "Lunch and Learn" event, create excitement with posters and swag, deliver training and more.  Download and customize the email templates and other resources to support the rollout plans for your customers.

Our deployment and usage assets specific for SMBs have been posted on RTG for you to leverage.  A one-stop “tips & best practices” guide has been created which outlines the assets available and how/when to use them for SMB deployment.

Please be sure to check out the content and utilize with your Office 365 customers!

Top Microsoft Support solutions for the most common issues experienced when you use System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (updated quarterly).

1. Solutions related to the Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) Console Failures:

• KB: Changing the owner of a VM in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager causes the console to become unresponsive
• KB: The System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager console terminates unexpectedly with NullReferenceException
• KB: The VMMService service crashes after you add an ESX or ESXi cluster
• KB: The VMM service crashes when a virtual machine is refreshed - "Error converting data type int to smallint”
• Troubleshooting: The VMMSERVICE crashes multiple times a day and/or the SCVMM Console takes a long time to open
• Troubleshooting System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager
• System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) General Troubleshooting Guide

2. Solutions related to Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) Service  Failures:

• KB: The VMMService service crashes after you add an ESX or ESXi cluster - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• KB: Changing the owner of a VM in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager causes the console to become unresponsive - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• KB: The VMM service crashes when a virtual machine is refreshed - "Error converting data type int to smallint” - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• The Virtual Machine Manager Service crashes when you add a virtual machine host that has more than 16 logical processors in VMM 2008 R2
• Troubleshooting: The VMMSERVICE crashes multiple times a day and/or the SCVMM Console takes a long time to open - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• Troubleshooting System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager
• System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) General Troubleshooting Guide - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki

3. Solutions related to add or remove server and cluster:

• How to troubleshoot issues when adding a Hyper-V host in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager
• Adding and Managing Hyper-V Hosts and Scale-Out File ...
• Working Through an Unsupported Cluster Configuration Scenario in Virtual Machine Manager - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• KB: Error 2927 when you add a Hyper-V server or a Hyper-V cluster node in System Center VMM - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• KB: "Error 26184" when you assign a LUN to a cluster in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1
• SCVMM 2012- Creating a Highly Available VMM Server - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• How to troubleshoot the “Needs Attention” and “Not Responding” host status in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager

4. Solutions related to VMM failover and migration:

• KB: A live migration of a non-clustered virtual machine in Virtual Machine Manager fails with error 0x8007274D - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• How to increase the timeout for Migration Jobs in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• Virtual Machine Live Migration Overview
• Working Through an Unsupported Cluster Configuration Scenario in Virtual Machine Manager - System Center: Virtual Machine Manager Engineering Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
• Migrating Virtual Machines and Storage Overview
• Virtual Machine Storage Migration Overview
• System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) General Troubleshooting Guide - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki

5. Solutions related to host does not respond and needs attention error:

• How to troubleshoot the “Needs Attention” and “Not Responding” host status in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager
• Managing Hyper-V hosts using Virtual Machine Manager fails with Error: 0x8033803b after installing WMF 3.0
• Host: Needs Attention and Refresh Fails with Error 2910 ...
• How to troubleshoot issues when adding a Hyper-V host in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager
• Adding and Managing Hyper-V Hosts and Scale-Out File ...
• Troubleshooting System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager
• System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) General Troubleshooting Guide - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki