Red 1406dgd

Foley: How Fast Can Microsoft Go?
June 2014 VOL.20 NO.6 REDMONDMAG.COM

Microsft Azure Remote
Debuts at TechEd
Facebook Your
Enterprise with Yammer
Windows 8.1 Update
Inside Power BI
HYPER-V MOVES
INTO THE FAST LANE
The Microsoft hypervisor is gaining more respect and
usage for datacenter and hybrid cloud virtualization.
Untitled-1 1 4/29/14 9:48 AM
FEATURES
20 5 Tools for Hybrid Collaboration
As Offce 365 growth continues to rise, most organizations using SharePoint
Online look to integrate with on-premises versions.
22 First Look: Power BI
Microsoft forges design, analysis and
presentation into a simple, cohesive strategy
with this important new tool.
30 Facebook Your Enterprise
Introduce social networking to your company with Microsoft Yammer deployed
on SharePoint and Offce 365.
32 Inside the New
Windows 8.1 Update
A guide to the latest release of Windows
and why Microsoft may have fnally made it
more appealing for enterprise users.
The Independent Voice of the Microsoft IT Community
Redmond
Contents
JUNE 201 4
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHUTTERSTOCK/REDMOND STAFF
COVER STORY
10 Migrate to Hyper-V
How to use the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter to switch from VMware
hypervisors to Hyper-V.
REDMOND REPORT
4 Redmond Extends
Microsoft Azure
to Devices at TechEd
New Azure RemoteApp
application delivery service
based on Microsoft RDS
will bring Offce and nearly
1,300 apps to iOS, Android,
Windows and Mac devices.
TECH & TOOLS WATCH
6 Violin Boosts
Performance with
Windows Flash Array
LogMeIn Upgrades
Join.me for Enterprise IT
Riverbed Boosts Branch
Of ce Converged
Infrastructure
COLUMNS
2 Redmond View:
Jefrey Schwartz
Microsoft Builds on
Mobile-First, Cloud-First
34 Decision Maker:
Don Jones
Some IT Managers
Are Just Fit To Be Certifed
38 Windows Insider:
Greg Shields
An Easily Missed Diamond
in the Rough
40 Foley on Microsoft:
Mary Jo Foley
How Fast Can Microsofts
Trains Go Without a
Derailment?
Hyper-V Moves
into the Fast Lane
The Microsoft hypervisor is gaining more respect and
usage for datacenter and hybrid cloud virtualization.
Page 8
2 | June 2014 | Redmond | Redmondmag.com |
annual TechEd conference in Houston.
While Microsoft didnt preview the next
release of Windows Server or System
Center, the offerings and previews
the company introduced suggest its
mobile-frst, cloud-frst strategy is
more than just the slogan du jour.
Consider the fact that Satya Nadella
used his frst public appearance as the
new Microsoft CEO to launch Offce
365 for the iPad and the Enterprise
Mobility Suite, noted Corporate Vice
President Brad Anderson. The two
things he announced was Offce going
cross-platform and the introduction
of the Enterprise Mobility Suite,
Anderson said. I think that helps you
to understand the importance of the
mobility suite.
Redmonds focus on extending
Microsoft Azure with new features
such as ExpressRoute, which gives
organizations dedicated high-speed
connections from their datacenters to
the Microsoft cloud and co-location
facilities via carrier MPLS connections,
underscores the companys hybrid
cloud strategy is predicated on offering
enterprise-grade compute and storage.
While Azure remains in the shadow of
Amazon Web Services cloud offerings,
its making substantial progress.
Microsoft says Azure now hosts 25
trillion storage objects, 2.5 million
requests per second, 1 million SQL
databases and 300 million Azure
Active Directory users, which process
13 billion authentications per week.
It appears Microsoft is now in tune
with the realities of the IT world and
choices consumers are making. No longer
do Microsoft offcials shun the Apple
iOS or Google Android. In fact, they
have embraced the competing platforms.
Executives at Microsoft appear
reinvigorated by the path Nadella has
articulated with mobile-frst, cloud-
frst. Anderson told us hes having
more fun than hes had in the past 15
years. Its a great time to be at
Microsoft, Anderson said. Now,
company offcials are hoping IT
decision makers feel its a great time
to be a Microsoft customer. R
Microsoft Builds on
Mobile-First, Cloud-First
A
t a workshop in Redmond last month, Microsoft gave
a deep dive on quite a few new releases for enterprise
IT pros and developers, outlined by the company at its
by Jefrey Schwartz
RedmondView
Redmond
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REDMONDMAG. COM
JUNE 201 4
VOL. 20
NO. 6
Editorial Staf
Editor Jefrey Schwartz
Group Managing Editor Wendy Hernandez
Contributing Editors
Mary Jo Foley
Don Jones
Greg Shields
Art Staf
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President & Neal Vitale
Chief Executive Of cer
Senior Vice President & Richard Vitale
Chief Financial Of cer
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Vice President, Finance & Christopher M. Coates
Administration
Vice President, Erik A. Lindgren
Information Technology &
Application Development
Vice President, David F. Myers
Event Operations
Chairman of the Board Jefrey S. Klein
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Untitled-2 1 4/11/14 11:09 AM
RedmondReport
By Jefrey Schwartz
R
edmond wants customers to
consider its Microsoft Azure
cloud service as an extension of
datacenters and a platform for managing
mobile devices. That was the focus of
its annual TechEd conference held in
Houston last month.
Company offcials at TechEd empha-
sized the Azure cloud service and
Azure Active Directory can deliver
secure enterprise infrastructure to all
forms of mobile devices. You cannot
have a cloud without connected devices,
said Corporate Vice President Brad
Anderson in the TechEd opening
keynote. As you think about the
connected devices, without that cloud,
all you have is potential that goes
with it. He added: The amount of
information that will be at our
fngertips will be amazing.
Key to putting that information at
the users fngertips will be empowering
IT to protect enterprise data, while at
the same time giving the user access
to information from any device. The
new Azure RemoteApp will let IT
deliver Windows applications to most
any device including Windows tablets,
Macs, iPads and Android tablets.
The Azure RemoteApp uses Microsoft
Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and
rearchitects it for the cloud so customers
can deliver applications to users from
Azure or they can use their own remote
desktop implementations, explained
Mike Schutz, general manager for
Windows Server Management. With
Azure RemoteApp, the front-end of
the application runs in Azure. Instead
of running it in their datacenter, they
can run it in ours, Schutz said.
The preview of Azure RemoteApp
is now available to organizations that
want to let up to 20 users test the app.
The company hasnt determined how
it will offer the service from a pricing
and subscription model. The service
will be designed to let organizations
keep data centrally located, and will
support about 1,300 applications now
running on Windows, but will initially
support Offce in the preview release.
Microsoft hasnt committed to when
it will release the offering but the
company is targeting the end of the
year. Every organization I talk to has
a very large inventory of Windows
applications theyre looking to deliver
to mobile devices, Anderson said.
With Azure RemoteApp, users can
scale up and down, so their capital
expenditure goes down dramatically.
Mobile Device
Management
Anderson also said Microsoft intends
to be aggressive on the mobile device
management (MDM) front. The
recently announced Microsoft
Enterprise Mobility Suite will cost $4
per user per month regardless of the
number of devices supported, Anderson
announced. The company is taking
on a number of entrenched leaders,
including Good Technology, Mobile
Iron and AirWatch, which VMware
Inc. acquired last year.
The company also announced admin-
istrators will be able to manage Offce
for iPad, iPhone and Android devices.
This Windows Intune component of
the Enterprise Mobility Suite will let
administrators manage line-of-business
apps running on Android and iOS.
Microsoft is delivering the Enterprise
Mobility Suite via Windows InTune.
Looking to help organizations control
how data is used on employee-owned
devices, Microsoft previewed a new
feature for Windows InTune that will
effectively put wrappers or containers
on fles to put restriction on how that
data is used and shared. That would
allow IT to prohibit employees from
copying or forwarding fles. It helps
put policy controls around what the
end user can do with that particular
app, Schutz said. The plan is to offer
it with InTune and Offce 365, but the
company is looking at how customers
can use it to put these wrappers on
other applications.
Azure Files
Another service Microsoft is betting
IT will fnd appealing is Microsoft
Azure Files. Anderson revealed Azure
Files at TechEd, which is available for
preview. Because most applications
that run on-premises today are written
using a Server Message Block (SMB)
fle share for storage, Azure Files does
the same thing in the cloud. An
New Azure RemoteApp application delivery service based on Microsoft
RDS will bring Of ce and nearly 1,300 apps to iOS, Android, Windows
and Mac devices.
Redmond Extends Microsoft Azure
to Devices at TechEd
Brad Anderson,
CVP, Cloud
& Enterprise
RedmondReport
application in Azure can use shared
storage over the SMB protocol and be
presented in Azure storage.
Azure Files is based on the standard
SMB 2.1 protocol, and will allow for
shared readers and writers. It will also
work on-premises, allowing users to
access their storage accounts without
having to spin up a virtual machine
(VM) and mange an SMB share. The
beneft is Azure Files will let IT orga-
nizations create single fle shares avail-
able from multiple VMs.
Microsoft also announced the general
availability of Azure ExpressRoute,
which lets organizations connect their
datacenters directly to Azure without
having to use an Internet connection.
The service is based on MPLS connect-
ivity from carriers and co-location
operators including AT&T, BT,
Equinix Inc., Level 3 Communications
LLC, SingTel, TelecityGroup, Verizon
and Zadara Storage.
ExpressRoute will appeal to those who
want reliable, faster and inherently more
secure connectivity, and Microsoft
talked up this capability for those who
want to use Azure for disaster recovery
and business continuity. Customers
can have direct lines to the Azure
backbone with provisioned bandwidth
so no competing with Facebook and
Twitter on the way to Azure datacenters,
Anderson said.
Azure Site Recovery
The recently introduced Microsoft
Hyper-V Recovery Manager is now
called Azure Recovery Manager. Thats
because the company is letting customers
use Azure as an alternate backup
location for those who dont have a
viable backup site. Hyper-V Recovery
Manager offered that functionality to
customers with a secondary site.
Among some other new offerings
launched at TechEd:
Microsoft Antimalware for Azure:
Released to preview, the service lets
organizations install an anti-malware
agent protecting both cloud services
and VMs. Redmond also said
Symantec Corp. and Trend Micro
Systems Inc. will offer services to
protect Azure and VMs.
Encryption: Microsoft will offer
encryption on Offce 365, guaran-
teeing all fles stored in SharePoint
Online and OneDrive for Business
are encrypted with their own security
keys. It will be available in July.
Data loss protection: Microsoft is
extending the data loss protection
technology offered in Exchangeit
will be expanded to also include
documents stored in SharePoint
Online, OneDrive for Business
and those with Offce 365
E3 subscriptions. R
Jeffrey Schwartz is the editor of Redmond.
You need your Microsoft, Cisco, or CompTIA certifcations to advance. Now you can earn these as part of an IT
degree. WGU offers bachelors and masters degree programs that are designed to ft your busy life. Were online,
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Tech&ToolsWatch
Violin Boosts Performance
with Windows Flash Array
With the release of Windows Server 2012 R2, and more specifcally Windows
Storage Server 2012 R2, Microsoft is testing the limits of fash storage. With
help from Microsoft, Violin Memory Inc. is now offering its new Windows
Flash Array. The converged storage-server appliance is bundled with every
component of Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 including SMB 3.0 Direct
over RDMA and powered by dual Intel Xeon E5-2448L processors.
The two companies spent the past 18 months developing the new 3U dual-cluster
arrays that IT can use as networked-attached storage (NAS), according to Eric
Herzog, Violins new CMO and senior VP of business development. Microsoft
wrote custom code in Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Storage Server
2012 R2, which interfaces with the Violin Windows Flash Array, Herzog
explains. The Windows Flash Array comes with an OEM version of Windows
Storage Server.
Customers do not need to buy Windows Storage Server, they do not need to
buy blade servers, nor do they need to buy the RDMA 10 gig-embedded NICs,
those all come prepackaged in the array ready to go, and we do Level 1 and
Level 2 support on Windows Server 2012 R2, Herzog says.
Based on feedback from 12 beta customers, including Microsoft, the company
claims its new array has double the write performance with SQL Server of any
other array, with a 54 percent improvement when measuring SQL Server reads,
a 41 percent boost with Hyper-V and 30 percent improved application server uti-
lization. Its especially well-suited for any business application using SQL Server
and it can extend the performance of Hyper-V and virtual desktop infrastructure
implementations. Its designed to ensure latencies of under 500 microseconds.
Violin is currently offering a 64TB confguration with a list price of
$800,000. Systems with less capacity are planned for later in the year. It can
scale up to four systems, the outer limit of Windows Storage Server 2012 R2
today. As future versions of Windows Storage Server offer higher capacity,
the Windows Storage Array will scale accordingly, according to Herzog.
Customers do need to use third-party tiering products, he notes. R
by Jefrey Schwartz
LogMeIn Upgrades
Join.me for Enterprise IT
The popular join.me is best known as the free screen-sharing tool that many IT
administrators use to troubleshoot remote PC users, as well as to conduct online
meetings. Now its parent company LogMeIn is offering an enterprise version.
LogMeIn says the new enterprise edition will make it easier to manage, customize
and deploy. The company claims join.me is used by tens of millions of users
with more than 1 million frst-time users. The enterprise release will support
deployments of more than 25 users, support single sign-on via Active Directory
Federation Services and Active Directory sync, advanced user policies and per-
missions for both groups and individuals, user access controls, 100GB managed
online storage for sharing and recording meetings, and Outlook integration.
Pre-paid enterprise subscriptions for join.me enterprise cost $19 per user
per month. R
Riverbed
Boosts
Branch Of ce
Converged
Infrastructure
Riverbed Technology has turned
granite into steel. The company
re-launched its Granite Solution, a
converged infrastructure appliance
it introduced two years ago, with
the new name SteelFusion.
But the change is more than just a
new brand. SteelFusion 3.0 offers a
sixfold improvement in performance
and a threefold improvement in
capacityup to 100TB, the
company said.
Long known for its branch offce
WAN optimization hardware,
SteelFusion brings the same
concept in the form of converged
appliances for remote locations.
The SteelFusion branch offce
appliance provides converged
compute, storage, networking and
virtualization different from typical
converged appliances from the likes
of Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Inc. and
Hewlett-Packard Co. The Riverbed
offering stores data centrally at the
datacenter or headquarters location
and streams it to the branch offce
rather than storing data at each
remote location.
Riverbed says the new release also
offers improved integration with
EMC Corp. and NetApp SANs
with support for NetApp cluster
mode and EMC VNX2 snapshots.
It also has an improved backup and
recovery support with a new
recovery agent, an enhanced,
scale-out architecture and is better
suited for VDI- and CAD/CAM-
type implementations. R
See more Tech & Tools Watch
at Redmondmag.com
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C OV E R S T O R Y | Microsoft Hyper-V
W
hen UMC Health System frst started virtualiz-
ing its server farms, VMware Inc. offered the only
suitable hypervisor platform available. Nearly a
decade later, 55 percent of the Lubbock, Texas-based hospital
and regional healthcare providers infrastructure has some
300 virtualized applications predominantly with the VMware
ESX and vSphere platform. Now, as the 3,200-employee
organization serving parts of Texas and New Mexico moves
to virtualize the remaining infrastructure, its planning to do
so primarily with Microsoft Hyper-V instead. Hyper-V is
also now replacing Citrix XenServer for its 600 virtual desk-
tops at UMC Health System. Once unthinkable, thats become
more feasible and commonplace over the past two years as
Hyper-V has become more enterprise-ready, particularly with
Windows Server 2012 R2.
We started looking at Hyper-V because a lot of the features
are now very competitive and some are even a step above in
performance, such as disk deduplication, says Chris Akeroyd,
UMC Health Systems director of IT infrastructure. Like
many IT decision makers, until recently Akeroyd and his
team had largely shunned Hyper-V for business-critical sys-
tems. When Microsoft frst released Hyper-V in 2008, we
shrugged our shoulders and said no, Akeroyd recalls. We
didnt think it was a competitive product. Windows Server
2012 piqued our interest and then R2 came out and thats
when we started putting it in.
A growing number of shops like UMC
Health System are moving more busi-
ness-critical workloads to Hyper-V.
In 2013, VMware accounted for 53
percent of hypervisors deployed last
year, according to data released in
April by IT market researcher IDC.
While VMware still shipped a
The Microsoft hypervisor is gaining more respect and usage for
datacenter and hybrid cloud virtualization.
By Jefrey Schwartz
HYPER-V MOVES
INTO THE FAST LANE
PHOT PH OGRAPHY BY S B HUTTERSTOCK
| Redmondmag.com | Redmond | June 2014 | 9
majority, Hyper-V accounted for 29 percent of hypervisors
shipped. VMware still accounts for 67 percent of hypervisors
installed, according to a recent online survey of 515 Redmond
magazine readers. Hyper-V accounts for 28 percent and
Citrix XenServer 4 percent. While respondents were from
enterprises of different sizes, the majority were midsize and
small shops. In the competitive hypervisor race, few would
dispute Microsoft is picking up speed.
We are seeing Hyper-V growth. Every quarter it seems
were pretty much winning a point of share or more while
VMware has been losing share for quite a while now, says
Jeff Woolsey, Microsofts principal program manager for
Windows Server and System Center. Analyst Mark Bowker
of The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) adds: VMware has
had tremendous success over the past seven years, and lets
face it, Microsoft was lagging from a features and functions
perspective. Now I think now theyre pretty much on par.
Strong Incentives
Hyper-V could also get a boost from the looming expiration of
Windows Server 2003, which Microsoft will stop supporting
in July 2015. Organizations upgrading to Windows Server
2012 R2 will have a strong incentive to consider Hyper-V,
considering it comes with the server OS. Most of these cus-
tomers with Enterprise Agreements already have Windows
Server and System Center, they already have our stack,
says Woolsley. We tell them you can continue to write that
check to VMware but you own our entire Microsoft private
cloud stack. Indeed, the Microsoft private and hybrid cloud
OS story is also driving the move to Hyper-V, Woolsey says.
Azure is powered by Hyper-V, he adds.
Scores of other third-party partners tell Redmond theyre
seeing increased plans to implement or expand their use of
Hyper-V and have started supporting or stepped up support
for the Microsoft hypervisor in their wares (see whos jumping
on the Hyper-V bandwagon at Redmond.com/HyperV0614).
Hyper V is coming on very fast, says Dave Mountain, vice
president of marketing at Bluestripe Software Inc., which last
month added Windows Server 2012 R2 support for FactFinder,
the companys monitoring and reporting add-on to System
Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager. We see a lot of
accounts focused heavily on Hyper-V in two favors: one is the
VMs themselves become a much easier to manage plat-
form once they go virtual, and the second is the move to
private cloud. Inside of larger organizations, there is a
strong desire to have a more refned way to interact with
the different business units and groups, and private cloud
becomes a very, very strong organizational entity, more so
than technical.
Even those with roots in the open source community are
now investing in Hyper-V. Arsalan Farooq, CEO of Covirture
Corp., a supplier of open source hypervisor management
tools for the datacenter and hybrid and public clouds, says his
company recently added support for Hyper-V after observing
strong interest in it following the release of Windows Server
2012 R2. Thats especially the case for IT organizations that
want to use Hyper-V to deliver self-service capacity. To my
surprise, people love doing this for Hyper-V, Farooq says.
Thats a great place for Hyper-V to be a tremendous platform.
Windows Server 2012 R2 is great, our customers love it and
they want to put modern virtualization on top of it.
While ESG analyst Bowker is seeing increased interest in
Hyper-V, its measured. I dont see a broad market-wide fre
underneath IT to take their VMware investment and move
it to Hyper-V, Bowker says. Indeed, adding Hyper-V to new
installations and running it alongside VMware has become
a relatively straightforward task, thanks to tools and broad
support from ISVs and infrastructure suppliers.
Migration Madness
However, switching existing VMware to Hyper-V is a much
more complex undertaking. One might compare it to switching
an Oracle database to SQL Server or moving to a different
backup and recovery platform. Changing these OSes is anal-
ogous to repairing a jet engine mid-fight or changing the
tires of a car while its in motion.
I tend to doubt many are doing a full migration at this
point, says IDC analyst Al Gillen. Our research finds
that VMware is very, very sticky. Gillen for some time has
noted Hyper-Vs incremental increase in share.
Microsoft is making a strong effort to get customers
to make that conversion using its free tool called Virtual
Machine Converter, which lets administrators move VMware
VMs to Hyper-V. The company released a new 2.0 version
in April (see Migrate to Hyper-V, p. 10).
Still, experts believe those actually converting existing
VMware systems to Hyper-V is relatively small. I think its
a great move for Microsoft to be able to have the ability and
have a tool in [its] toolbox to be able to do so, Bowker says.
The fact is there will be some folks [who] do that migration,
and having a tool in their toolbox to do that is good. But
most is net new, where people are building new virtual
machines as opposed to migrating away.
For example, Peak 10 Inc., a Charlotte, N.C.-based cloud
provider, has run its 24 datacenters throughout the United
States on vSphere since 2006. While seeing the growth of
Hyper-V, Peak 10, a Microsoft and VMware partner, doesnt
plan to change out its existing virtual infrastructure, says
Ken Seitz, director of product strategy. The cost to change
is pretty high, Seitz says. Mostly from re-skilling our
staff and having to support multiple environments, were
able to get the functionality we continue to need out of that
environment. But we certainly see Hyper-V becoming more
prevalent with our customers as their virtualization plat-
form of choice and we are extending more services to help
complement that.
The Redmond survey found 21 percent of those who consider
VMware their primary hypervisor platform have plans to
migrate that infrastructure to Hyper-V. But when asked whether
theyll actually add new Hyper-V servers moving forward, 17
percent said they will do so but keep existing VMware infra-
structure in place, while only 8 percent say they plan to actually
migrate VMware systems over. Another 9 percent say they
already moved those systems to Hyper-V. Yet speaking to the
A
growing number of organizations are starting to
show an interest in using Microsoft Hyper-V to vir-
tualize their infrastructures. With the improvements
to Hyper-V introduced in the latest release of Windows
Server, its become feasible to run it alongside existing
VMware virtual environments as explained earlier this year
(Redmondmag.com/Posey0214). But when it comes to
migrating from VMware, theres more heavy lifting involved.
In its latest effort to make migrating from VMware less
of an obstacle, Microsoft has upgraded its Virtual Machine
Converter, the companys free tool for converting VMware
virtual machines (VMs) into Hyper-V VMs. Although there
are a number of different conversion tools available, there
are two things that make the Microsoft Virtual Machine
Converter attractive: its free and easy to use.
The company released version 2.0 of the Microsoft Virtual
Machine Converter in late March. When you go to the down-
load page (bit.ly/1m1IGVH), youll have the opportunity
to obtain the installer for the Microsoft Virtual Machine
Converter, but you can also use the same link to download
the tools documentation.
System Requirements
While its easy to use (assuming you work from the GUI),
theres some prep work required prior to using the tool.
First, you must set up a computer to run the Virtual Machine
Converter. The computer you use can be physical or virtual,
but it must have suffcient storage space to accommodate a
full copy of the VMs youre converting.
The computer youll use for the conversion must run Windows
Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server
2012 R2. In addition, the systems must have the Microsoft
.NET Framework (version 3.5 plus either version 4 or ver-
sion 4.5, depending on the OS). Finally, youll need to install
Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 with
Update 1 or higher.
Besides making sure the machine set to run the conversion
process is properly confgured, youll also need to set up a fle
share on your Hyper-V Server. The Virtual Machine Converter
will copy the virtual hard disks (VHDs) to this fle share.
If Hyper-V is running in a clustered confguration, you can
create a fle share on any node with enough free local stor-
age space to accommodate the VM. After the conversion is
complete you can move the VM to a cluster shared volume.
How to use the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter to switch
from VMware hypervisors to Hyper-V.
By Brien M. Posey
Migrate to Hyper-V
Figure 1. You must specify a UNC path on your Hyper-V server.
stickiness of VMware, 47 percent dont have plans to move
to Hyper-V. At the same time, ESG research shows VMwares
license growth has slowed down signifcantly Bowker says.
For its part, UMC Health System last year started putting
new Hyper-V instances in as proof of concepts, testing such
benchmarks as uptime, resiliency and how manageable it was.
There was still a lot of doubt around itwe had to prove it
to ourselves, Akeroyd says. Once we were comfortable with
our ability to manage it and make it work and how the ins
and outs of the product worked, I started setting up my test
environments on all the different servers and watched how
those performed.
Like the majority of organizations embracing Hyper-V,
Akeroyd is looking at a dual hypervisor environment under
a common management platform. In his case, thats System
Center Virtual Machine Manager. Were still taking a very
slow, cautious approach to it, he says. Were not supplanting
or replacing VMware today, thats not our goal at this point.
Were running a mixed environment, were waiting to see
what the next releases of both look like. Were looking to see
whos going to come on top of this hypervisor world. R
Jeffrey Schwarz is editor of Redmond.
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The Installation Process
You can install the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter by
double-clicking the MVMC_Setup.MSI fle you previously
downloaded. When you do, Windows will launch the Microsoft
Virtual Machine Converter Setup Wizard.
Click Next to bypass the wizards Welcome screen and
youll see a prompt asking you to accept the End User License
Agreement. After doing so, click Next and youll have a
chance to specify the installation path. The default path
should be fne for most deployments. Click Next, followed
by Install to install the Virtual Machine Converter. When
the installation process completes, click Finish.
Performing a VM Conversion
The easiest way to convert a VM is to open File Explorer and
navigate to C:\Program Files\Virtual Machine Converter
(or the path that you specifed during the installation) and
then double-click on the MVMC.GUI.EXE fle. This will
cause Windows to launch the Virtual Machine Converter
with a GUI interface.
When the Virtual Machine Converter opens, youll see a
Before You Begin screen that explains what the tool is and
reminds you to check the Administration Guide for a list
of supported guest OSes. Click Next and youll see a screen
asking you if you want to perform a migration to Azure or to
Hyper-V. The remaining steps vary considerably depending
on which option you choose.
Again, the focus of this article is to explain how to migrate a
VM from vSphere 5.5 to Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V.
The VM Im using for this demonstration is running Windows
Server 2012 R2 as a guest OS.
First, choose the Migrate to Hyper-V option and click
Next, which will prompt you to specify either the IP address
or the Fully Qualifed Domain Name of your Hyper-V host,
as well as a set of administrative credentials.
Click Next, and youll be prompted to provide a location in
which to store the converted VHD fles. Its worth noting youll
have to provide a UNC path to a fle share (see Figure 1, p. 10).
Of course, this assumes youre migrating the VM to
Hyper-V. As an alternative, you can migrate the VM to the
Microsoft Azure public cloud service, but the focus of this
article is on Windows Server.
The VMware server doesnt need preparation, but you must
make sure its running a supported VMware version. The
Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter is designed to work
with vSphere 4.1, 5.1 and 5.5. Also supported are vCenter,
ESX and ESXi 5.5.
Ideally, the VMs youre converting should be running
Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, or Windows
8 as a guest OS. When converting a VM running one of
these OSes, the Virtual Machine Converter will actually
uninstall the VMware Tools from the VM as a part of the
conversion process (the VMware Tools will be disabled, but
not uninstalled if the VM is in an offine state). This VM
conversion tool also now supports various Linux builds
including CentOS, Debian, Oracle, Red Hat Enterprise,
SuSE Enterprise and Ubuntu. However, the VMware Tools
are not automatically uninstalled from Linux VMs.
Figure 2. The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter displays
your VMware virtual machines.
Figure 4. The conversion process consists of several
diferent steps.
Figure 3. Take a moment to verify the information displayed
on the summary screen is correct.
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As such, it might be necessary to create a fle share with read/
write permissions on your Hyper-V server prior to continuing.
As you can see in Figure 1, you must also choose whether
to create a fxed size or a dynamically expanding VHD. Further,
youll also have to choose whether to create a VHD or a
VHDX. As a general rule, its best to create a fxed-length
VHDX unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise.
Click Next and youll see a screen asking you for the address
and credentials for your VMware server. You can connect to
a vCenter server, or to an ESX or an ESXi server. When you
click Next, the Virtual Machine Converter will validate your
credentials and will then display a list of the VMs running on
the VMware server youve specifed (see Figure 2, p. 12).
Select the VM you want to convert and then click Next. At
this point, youll see a screen explaining VMware VMs can be
converted whether theyre powered on or off. If the VM is pow-
ered on, however, youll have to connect to the VM in order
for the VMware tools to be uninstalled. As such, you can use
this screen to control the fnal power state of both the source
and destination VM, as well as provide a set of administrative
credentials that can be used to remove the VMware Tools.
Click Next and the credentials that youve specifed will be
validated. If the validation process fails, take a moment to make
sure the VM has remote access enabled and that the account
youve specifed has been granted remote access permissions.
The next thing youll have to do is specify a location to
store the converted VHD files. Although you previously
specifed a location on the Hyper-V server, you must now
specify a location on the computer on which youre running
the Virtual Machine Converter.
Click Next and the Virtual Machine Converter will take
a moment to validate your settings. Assuming everything is
correct, youll see a summary screen (see Figure 3, p. 12).
Click Finish and the conversion process will begin. There
are a number of tasks that must complete as a part of the
conversion process (see Figure 4, p. 12). The amount of
time it takes these tasks to complete depends largely on the
resources that have been allocated to your VM.
After the conversion process was complete, I was able to boot
the VM in Hyper-V without any problems (see Figure 5).
During my tests, once the VM had booted, I logged into
the VM and verified it was still functional and that the
VMware Tools had been removed.
One of the nice things about the way the conversion process
works is it doesnt expose your VMs to unnecessary risks.
As noted, the wizard requires credentials for your VMware
server and for your Hyper-V server, but it also needs access to
storage space on the server on which the wizard is running.
The reason for this is the wizard doesnt attempt to directly
modify the VMware VM. Instead, the wizard takes a snapshot
of the VM prior to making any modifcations. The modifed
VM is copied from the VMware server to the local server
on which the wizard is running, and then the snapshot is
restored, thereby returning the VMware copy of the VM to
its original state.
The reason this is so important is there are many things
which can potentially go wrong during the conversion pro-
cess. That being the case, its comforting to know the wizard
protects your original VMware VM. My VMware VM still
existed even after the conversion process had completed. I
wanted to check the state of the VM, so I powered it up and
verifed that the VMware Tools were still installed.
Observations and Recommendations
The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter does a good
job but it isnt the best tool for every situation. If you need
to convert a few VMs from VMware to Hyper-V then the
Virtual Machine Converter can certainly do that. However,
the Virtual Machine Converter lacks any sort of bulk con-
version mechanism (unless you want to script the conversion
process through Windows PowerShell). As such, the Virtual
Machine Converter probably isnt going to be the tool of
choice for converting large numbers of VMs. R
Brien M. Posey is a seven-time Microsoft MVP with more than
two decades of IT experience. Hes written thousands of articles
and several dozen books on a wide variety of IT topics. Visit his
Web site at brienposey.com.
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discussion will take place at the TechMentor conference in Redmond, Wash., on Aug. 12.
Figure 5. The VMware virtual machine is now running
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F E AT U R E | S h a r e P o i n t & Of f i c e 3 6 5
K2 Appit
K2 released a version of its workow platform that lets business
users create workows that work with both SharePoint 2013
and Of ce 365. The latest release of K2 Appit lets users
build workow processes that can pull from lists and libraries
across various SharePoint sites and diferent versions of
the Microsoft collaboration platform, whether on-premises
or online. The new K2 Appit release also lets users create
custom forms and workows and tie SharePoint content
with data in other business systems. Its also optimized for
building mobile apps, while letting users reuse workow. K2
Appit is now available as a service and as perpetual licenses.
Metalogix Content Matrix
Metalogix launched a new version of its Content Matrix,
which includes a SharePoint migration tool. The new Content
Matrix 7 ofers substantially improved performance, more
ne-grained permissions, which let administrators delegate
certain functions to trusted business users for reorganization
of content, handling bulk metadata and copy-and-move
functions. It also supports the movement of SharePoint
legacy code to SharePoint 2013 and provides Of ce 365
support for hybrid implementations.
H3 Solutions Mobile Entre
H3 Solutions Inc. recently launched its Mobile Entre for
Of ce 365 Preview. It ofers mobile collaboration, providing
features not available through the default SharePoint interface
such as discussion boards and improved calendar views. In
addition, it optimizes document editing, task management
T
he number of users subscribing to Microsoft Offce
365 is now up to 4.4 million, making it one of the
fastest-growing mainstream cloud services. While
Microsoft is seeing strong momentum for Offce 365espe-
cially among those looking to move away from running
Exchange Server on-premisesits less clear how many are
using SharePoint Online.
A number of indicators suggest the number is on the rise,
albeit incrementally. For example, a survey by tools vendor
Metalogix International GmbH conducted during the recent
SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas found only 9 percent
were using Offce 365, while 59 percent indicated they plan
to keep their SharePoint infrastructures on-premises. Thats
because Office 365 doesnt currently allow users to move
their custom-developed apps to the cloud. But Office 365
is well-suited for hybrid deployments where portions run
on-premises and others via Offce 365. According to the survey,
29 percent plan such hybrid deployments.
Demand for Offce 365 has doubled since last year, while
a large number of organizations are planning to roll out
SharePoint 2013, Metalogix CEO Steven Murphy says.
More importantly, the enterprise has made a decision what
content will stay on-premises and what will be deployed on
Offce 365, Murphy says. As a result, there are a number
of tools that help organizations migrate, deploy and manage
SharePoint and Offce 365.
and provides enhanced search. It also provides customization
such as modifying the way content is presented and organized.
A new custom mobile app builder is available as Visual Studio
extensions to deploy mobile apps as SharePoint apps.
AvePoint DocAve Online
AvePoint Inc. has updated its Microsoft Azure-hosted
DocAve Online tool for managing Of ce 365. The new
service pack 3 release now ofers policy enforcement by
managing all sites to ensure theyre in compliance with an
organizations governance guidelines, granular content
protection to ensure users can recover SharePoint Online,
Exchange Online or OneDrive Pro instance. The new release
also generates conguration reports that can inform managers
who created, modied, or deleted content and view security
and settings across SharePoint Online tenants.
HiSoftware Site Sherif
While HiSoftware Inc. security and compliance software has
supported SharePoint for two years, the company is now
ofering a new tool for simpler permissions management.
The new HiSoftware Site Sherif lets admins control access
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F E AT U R E | Microsoft Power BI
M
icrosofts business intelligence (BI) strategy for years
has been all over the place. No one can argue the sheer
number of BI tools Microsoft offersfrom SQL Server
and SharePoint on the back-end, to everything from Access
and Performance Point Dashboard Designer in between and
on the client side. The last time I counted there were 26 tools
spread over a dozen products, each unique in its own way.
While Microsoft continues to enhance its portfolio of BI
tools, the recently released Power BI introduces new capabilities
integrated into familiar platforms, namely Excel 2013, Offce
365 and SharePoint 2013. Looking past the technology and fea-
tures, Power BI establishes the roadmap for creating extremely
powerful, interactive self-service BI solutions (see Figure 1).
With Power BI, Microsoft has committed to focusing on Excel
as a BI design and analysis tool, while using SharePoint to
manage and present the resulting reports and dashboards.
For a moment, forget everything else you know about
the myriad of BI tools you may already be using. The new
Microsoft Power BI makes Excel the front-end design and
analytics tool using SharePoint as the conduit to other data
sources. Power BI brings to life the notion of design and sur-
face analytics using Excel and SharePoint. Dont worry,
Ill address the white elephant in the room (Offce 365), too.
Excel 2013: Design and Analysis Tool
For years weve been able to analyze and chart data using
Excel. Its arguably the most popular BI tool on the planet.
Power BI takes us leagues further by leveraging new Excel
2013 built-in features and free add-ins, which include Power
Pivot, Power View, Power Query and Power Map (see Figure 2
and Figure 3, p. 24).
Power Pivot (see Figure 4, p. 24) is a data-modeling tool,
used to create data relationships, calculated felds and key per-
formance indicators (KPIs). Its the very core of any BI solution.
Once you launch Power Pivot using the Manage button, youll
get a new window with a dedicated Ribbon containing Home
(Figure 5, p. 26), Design (Figure 6, p. 26) and Advanced
tabs (Figure 7, p. 26).
Power Pivot isnt newit was initially released in Excel 2010
as a downloadable add-in, but now its included in Excel 2013.
One particularly nice feature of Power Pivot is it opens in a
separate window. As a BI designer, youll appreciate the con-
venience of switching windows to correct your model as you
design your analytics.
Under Get External Data Group, on the Home tab of the
Power Pivot Ribbon, youll notice quite a number of pre-built
data connections and you can also create your own. Some
of the more interesting connections include: SQL Azure,
IBM DB2, Microsoft Analysis Services, Power Pivot, Oracle,
Teradata, Sybase, OData, Excel and text fles.
First Look:
Figure 1. The Microsoft self-service business intelligence stack.
Microsoft forges design, analysis and presentation into a
simple, cohesive strategy with this important new tool.
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The most important thing to know is using these connections
will only bring the data into memory. It doesnt actually import
data as rows of a spreadsheet. This means analysis relying on
Power Pivot data sources and models will run fast and smash
through the 1,048,000 maximum rows of a spreadsheet. More
data and more power equals better analysis leading to better
business decisions.
Keeping data in memory and using a refreshable connector
means youre working with data in real time, and increases
the odds of having updated and accurate data, assuming your
data stewards are on the ball.
Power Query (see Figure 8, p. 26) is basically a connection
manager and query tool on steroids, allowing Excel to connect
to a wide variety of data sources, both internal and external to
the organization. Microsoft says this Excel add-on (download-
able at bit.ly/1gs69Py) enhances BI by simplifying discovery
and access. It includes a public search feature, only intended
for use in the United States.
Unlike Power Pivot, Power Query will import the resulting
data as rows into an XLS fle. This is particularly useful when
data needs additional transformation, or when the source is
changing, such as querying data from a weather Web site.
Even though Excel has had data connections for many years
and still does, Power Query provides more granular control
over those data sources.
An important feature of Power Query is the ability to query
online search. Using freely available, online data sources
allows you to compare your internal data to your peers or
industry norms.
One example of how this might be useful is a health-care
provider, which
might look at its
Medicare receipts
compared to others
in the same or dif-
ferent states (see
Figure 9, p. 26).
Of course, the data
returned by Power
Query can also be added to the models in Power Pivot,
allowing you to create even more insight.
Power View is the Report writer/dashboard is easy to use
and makes everything else forgettable. Once you insert a
Power View report from the Insert tab of the Excel Ribbon,
a new Power View sheet is inserted as a tab right next to your
workbook tabs (see Figure 10, p. 28).
Power View will automatically display the tables and columns
you manage through Power Pivot or return using Power
Query in a familiar pane on the right side of the Excel window
(see Figure 11, p. 28).
Once you select felds or drag tables into the Power View
Report, the Design tab will present additional options for
creating your analytics (see Figure 12, p. 28). The Table
action in the Switch Virtualization group allows you to
change the presentation of your table data to various formats
such as tabular, matrix, charts or maps. Anyone who regularly
creates charts in Excel will appreciate the improvements.
The familiar Slicer is also available. If you arent familiar
with the Slicer in Excel, its effectively a filter, but a filter
that can control the presentation of any or all tables, charts
and maps on the screen. Drill into your slicer and the entire
presentation changes.
Power Map is for geo-spatial reporting and analysis. Its an
add-in for Excel and can be downloaded from bit.ly/1cQc8vf.
When you frst click on Power Map from the Inset tab on
the Excel Ribbon, a new Power Map Window will display.
Using Power Map requires your data has some geo-locator
information from which to plotcountry, state, even ZIP code
work, but precision work is best with geo-locator (lat/lon).
Figure 3. Power View and Power Map appear as groups in the Insert tab of the Ribbon.
Figure 2. Power Query and Power Pivot appear as new tabs in the Excel Ribbon.
Figure 4. The Power Pivot tab on the Ribbon lets you create and manage your data models.
Untitled-6 1 5/12/14 4:13 PM
The output of a Power Map analysis is viewed in neither
Excel nor SharePoint. Its simply a movie to watch. Using
Power Map you can see how data changes over time. Its a seri-
ous eye-opener and impactful tool. For more on Power Map,
Microsoft has created demos worth exploring, which you can
check out at bit.ly/1mRImvM.
SharePoint Surfacing
Analytics
Leveraging SharePoint, reports
created using Excel can be pre-
sented on Web pages. Microsoft
utilizes Excel Services and Power
Pivot Services for SharePoint
to make this happen. Both
are available in SharePoint
on-premises and Power BI for
Offce 365 sites.
This is where the story can
take different twists and turns.
The Microsoft Cloud First
model has introduced a few fea-
tures in Power BI for Offce 365
simply not currently available in
SharePoint on-premises.
Exclusive to Power BI for Offce 365 is the Power BI Site. The
Power BI Site can surface both Power View and traditional
Excel Services dashboards created in Excel. It introduces new
ways of managing featured and favorite reports, it schedules
report updates and, overall, provides a more pleasing UX.
Figure 5. Power Pivot Ribbon showing actions on the Home tab.
Figure 6. Power Pivot Ribbon showing actions on the Design tab.
Figure 7. Power Pivot Ribbon showing actions on the Advanced tab.
Figure 8. Power Query tab on the Excel Ribbon.
Figure 9. A health-care provider can query resources from the governments Medicare site.
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Another exclusive feature to Power BI on Offce 365 is Q&A.
Microsoft calls it a natural language-based experience for
interacting with data. It uses natural language to find,
understand and report over your data.
By entering natural language into a search query, Q&A fnds
the best case report, applies
flters and presents the results
to the user.
In case anyone gets really
blown away by Q&A, just
remember Q&A doesnt
auto-magically create an
analytic on the fy. It relies on
the reports and analysis you
created and stored in your
Power BI libraries. It helps to
easily locate, flter and present
the most relevant report. Your
life as a report designer doesnt
go away. In fact, youll want
to exact some care so your
reports appear in the correct
context when searched.
Watching demonstrations of
Q&A stimulates you to think
about some really futuristic
applications. How cool would
it be for the new CFO, on day one, to simply enter queries
and get reports with no human interaction, or tickets to the
help desk? Another possibility: I could speak my query and
get the resulting analytic to display on my navigation system,
while driving to visit a customer.
Connecting the Dots
One important technology that falls into neither Excel nor
SharePoint (on-premises or Offce 365) is the Data Manage-
ment Gateway. When the situation arises that a Power BI
solution running in the cloud needs to reach back behind
your corporate firewall to pull in data securely, Microsoft
has an app for that, the Data Management Gateway. The
Data Management Gateway is a client agent that runs as a
Windows Service. Setup is straight forward, but should be
left to IT professionals.
Power BI is setting the direction for the future. It doesnt
eliminate traditional Microsoft tools used to create enterprise
BI solutions, but it forges a new direction for self-service BI,
driving more capabilities into the hands of report designers
and power users.
Anyone interested in learning more about Power BI should
install the add-ins for Excel 2013 and start creating new
queries, models and reports. Once youve gotten comfort-
able with designing new reports and analysis, then its time
to decide how you want to make your report easy to fnd, use
and share.
Determining whether to use Excels Power BI features in
conjunction with Office 365, SharePoint on-premises or
a hybrid solution is a sizable discussion and decision. For
now, lets just agree that all three SharePoint scenarios are
possible and the decision probably rests with your current
investments, existing capabilities and how far into the cloud
youve already risen.
For most organizations, Power BI will be used by technical
support folks to build more valuable analysis easier and faster
than ever before. As a set of capabilities built on top of
already familiar tools, the learning curve should be minimal
and the output can be more intuitive, useful and inviting.
With Power BI, Microsoft has brought together an integrated
suite of tools to build greater insight, empowering users at
organizations of any size, regardless of technical skills or past
reporting experience. R
Pat Esposito is a SharePoint
consultant, architect, and developer
and principal of Blue Dog Technology
(bluedogtec.com). Hes also the
co-author of Microsoft SharePoint
2013 Disaster Recover Guide
(Packt Publishing, September
2013). A serial entrepreneur,
Esposito was a founding member
of Cheyenne Software and Multex
Services and former CEO of
IMPACT Management. Microsoft
recognized him as a SharePoint
Virtual Technology Solution
Professional (VTSP) and he was a
global partner of the year fnalist for
a health-care solution automating
Patient Safety Rule 2E.
Figure 10. Power View sheets inserted as tabs
in the Excel Ribbon.
Figure 11. Power View Field
Pane allows you to easily
select tables and columns.
Figure 12. Power View sheet with the Design tab selected.
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F E AT U R E | Microsoft Yammer
W
hen it comes to social networking using Microsoft
SharePoint, Yammer can be a great ft for enter-
prises looking to establish a secure Facebook-like
experience. The cloud-based Yammer service, which Microsoft
acquired in 2012 for $1.2 billion, is a viable alternative to
social networking features offered in SharePoint.
SharePoint Lists such as Announcements and Discussions
are rudimentary compared with the options available within
Yammer. Once your organization starts using Yammer, youll
quickly fnd opportunities to integrate its capabilities with
SharePoint. But its important to first understand how to
administer and deploy Yammer within SharePoint.
While integration with Yammer is available with SharePoint
2007 and SharePoint 2010, its best suited for the latest
SharePoint 2013 release. This integration will work with both
on-premises versions of SharePoint Server and SharePoint
Foundation 2013. Yammer will also work with the Microsoft
Offce 365 version of SharePoint Online Enterprise and stand-
alone SharePoint Enterprise plans.
The Yammer License
To integrate Yammer with SharePoint, youll need a Yammer
license, which Microsoft offers as a subscription-based service.
If youre working with an on-premises version of SharePoint,
youll need a separate Yammer license to integrate. Within
Microsoft Offce 365 Enterprise plans, the Yammer license
is already included.
If youre deploying or have already deployed SharePoint,
youll need to hide the Newsfeed that appears by default. Cur-
rently, the Newsfeed is seen by users within the personal area
of SharePoint, which a user sees when he clicks on Newsfeed
from the navigation at the top of the screen, or select About
Me within the dropdown options after clicking on his name.
The easiest way to hide the Newsfeed is to access the My
Site area (domainname-my.sharepoint.com), and follow the
following steps:
1. Select Settings, Site Settings.
2. Within the Look and Feel Category, select Quick Launch.
3. Click on the icon next to Newsfeed, and select Delete.
Yammer App
Whether you plan to deploy Yammer within an on-premises
or Offce 365 environment, youll need the app. From a techni-
cal standpoint, the download applies only to the 2013 version.
The on-premises app download can be obtained from the
Offce Store at bit.ly/1iJO9f3 and an example is shown in
Figure 1, opposite page.
For the Offce 365 installation of SharePoint, the app is also
available from the store but youll need to locate the app for
download through the Offce 365 portal:
1. Go to the SharePoint Admin panel (Select Admin and
choose SharePoint)
2. Click apps and select purchase apps.
3. Select the Yammer App for SharePoint and add.
This will add the app and activate the licensing for unlimited
users within the app portion of the portal.
Yammer Newsfeed for Of ce 365
By default, the Newsfeed is available within all versions of
SharePoint. In SharePoint 2013, which includes Offce 365,
Introduce social networking to your company with Microsoft
Yammer deployed on SharePoint and Of ce 365.
By Melanie Gass
facebook
Your Enterprise
the Newsfeed can be adjusted to default to Yammer. This is
helpful when, for example, youre working within the naviga-
tion across the top of the screen within Offce 365 and instead
of viewing Newsfeed, it will display as Yammer once activated.
To activate Yammer as the preferred Newsfeed, follow
these steps:
1. Make sure Yammer is activated frst. Within the Offce
365 dashboard, select included services and choose Yes.
Then activate Yammer Enterprise in My Network.
When prompted, select Activate Yammer Enterprise. It
may take up to 30 minutes to complete activation.
2. To adjust the default to Yammer, go to the SharePoint
Admin panel (Click Admin and select SharePoint) and
select settings. Within the Enterprise Social Collabora-
tion option choose use Yammer.com service.
Add App to the Site
In both the on-premises and Offce 365 versions of SharePoint,
the same options are available when applying the app within
the site. The Yammer app is applied at the site level and will
appear within the list or app options just as you would fnd
any list or library. To apply, youll create an app as you would
a list or library. Just go within the site, click Settings and
select Add an App. Then select Yammer App for SharePoint.
When prompted, select Trust It.
Keep in mind youll need to
add this to the My Site portion
to replace the Newsfeed that
was hidden.
Apply the App Part
An App Part, formerly known as
Web Parts, is a pre-defined set
of lists and libraries available in
SharePoint. While Web Parts are
still available, they tend to lend
themselves to options available
separate from lists and libraries.
Within the App Part options,
youll need to decide which feed
type to use from within Yammer.
In general three options are avail-
able and include a group feed, a
home feed and a comment feed.
Group feeds are great when you have a department site and a
Yammer group to match. A home feed would be general orga-
nization updates, and a comment feed could be used in lieu of
a blog post where specifc items or objects are discussed.
Follow these steps to apply the App Part and connect your
Yammer feed:
1. Select the page to apply. Click Settings and select
Edit Page.
2. Within the Insert Ribbon, click App Parts from within
the Parts grouping.
3. Locate Yammer feed and click Add.
4. Sign in to your Yammer account.
5. Select the feed type (see Figure 2).
6. Select a Network.
7. Select group ID or current page URL if applicable.
Yammer Management
Because the set up for Yammer within SharePoint is techni-
cally a pass-through feed from Yammer directly, all of the
management is completed within the Yammer portal. This
includes groups and access rights within the groups.
Keep in mind all users will need to log in with a username
and password into Yammer, and that same username will
need to match in order to allow authentication to the view the
feed within SharePoint. Yammer does allow for Single-Sign
On (SSO) integration for authentication.
SharePoint rights for viewing the page will still prevail, so
if a user doesnt have access to a page within SharePoint, he
will still be unable to view the information within SharePoint
and be limited to view within the Yammer portal directly. R
Melanie Gass is president of CenterPoint Solution, a New York-based
technology frm that provides training and consulting to corporations
worldwide on how to deploy, implement and manage Microsoft
productivity solutions. An expert on Microsoft software since
1998, she is known in the industry as The Microsoft Princess.
You can reach her at centerpointsolution.com.
Figure 1. The Yammer App for SharePoint in the Of ce Store.
Figure 2. Yammer App Part feed type selection.
F E AT U R E | Windows 8.1 Update
W
hen Microsoft rolled out Windows 8 two years ago,
it left a lot of users puzzled, confused and angry.
Gone was the familiar taskbar and ubiquitous Start
button, with its helpful fy-out menu and easy access to pro-
grams, settings and controls. In their place users encountered
an undiscovered countrya Windows experience tilted hard
to the needs of touch-based tablets rather than workaday
desktop and laptop computers.
For all the howling, Windows 8 was a decent OS suffering
from Jessica Rabbit syndrome: It wasnt bad software, it was
just drawn that way. And after a pair of free, fractional point
releasesWindows 8.1 and most recently Windows 8.1
UpdateMicrosoft has done a fne job redrawing its leading
OS to better ft the wants and needs of actual Windows users.
The good news is Microsoft has made Windows 8.1 Update
available free of charge, distributed via the Windows Update
facility. For many, that means the update has already arrived,
as Windows 8.1 Update was made available on April 2 to
MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and soon after was made
available to the public. But for consumers and businesses that
have opted to wait, you need to take stock soon. Consumers
must update tablets and PCs to Windows 8.1 Update by May
13, or lose access to automatic updates via the Windows Update
facility (the deadline for commercial users is Aug. 12). In short,
youll be frozen out of the regular Patch Tuesday releases,
not to mention the expected second update of Windows 8.1,
expected sometime before the end of this year.
To see if your hardware has been updated, go to your
update history by opening the Charms bar, clicking Settings
and then Update and recovery. Click Windows Update and
then click View your update history. In the list that appears,
look for an entry that begins with Windows 8.1 Update
and has the Knowledgebase number KB2919355. If it says
Successfully installed under the entry, youre all set.
Is the Windows 8.1 Update not present? Time to go get it.
Click the back button to return back to the Windows Update
screen, and click the Check Now button. After a brief wait,
the screen should update. Click the View details link. If
a Windows 8.1 Update item shows up in the Important
Updates section of the screen that comes up, you need to
check the item and click Install. It will take a while to down-
load and install the update, so be patient. Youll also need to
reboot your system once the install is complete.
Once youve rebooted, youll be running Windows 8.1
Update. The changes from Windows 8.1 are actually rather
subtle, ranging from obvious interface enhancements to
under-the-covers improvements that will appeal most to users
and admins. Lets take a look.
Return to Desktop
The frst version of Windows 8 was as much vision statement
as it was OS, announcing to the world that Microsoft gets
the emerging world of device and mobile computing in a way
that even Apple didntby presenting touch-savvy OSes
across phone, tablet, and rich client laptops and desktops. Say
this much for Microsoftit was bold. But the jarring transi-
tion between the touch-centric, modern UI and the traditional
Windows desktop was confusing, especially because the OS
favored the modern UI.
With Windows 8.1 Update, Microsoft brings a bit of
awareness to the party. If youre on a non-touch-enabled
desktop or laptop, the OS detects that and boots directly to
the desktop by default. But if youre using a tablet or touch-
capable laptop, Windows 8 instead boots to the modern UI
Start screen. Do you spend most of your time working with
traditional Windows applications on a touch-savvy laptop?
Force your PC to boot to the old Windows 7 desktop by
right-clicking the taskbar and clicking Properties. Click the
Navigation tab, and check the top checkbox in the Start
screen section. Hit OK, and now your PC will boot to the
old desktop on every sign-in or start-up. This tweak alone
could save millions in training and help desk costs.
Power and Search
The use of hardware detection to tune the Windows 8.1 Update
UI extends to the Start Screen. Laptop and PC users will notice
Inside the New
Windows 8.1 Update
A guide to the latest release of Windows and why Microsoft may
have nally made it more appealing for enterprise users.
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Featuring:
the Start Screen now displays Power and Search icons next to
the Account image at the upper-right corner of the Start screen.
The change eliminates the need to swipe or mouse hover the
Charms bar to reach these controls. The new controls wont
appear on tablets, however, in part to avoid accidental icon
touches when gripping a tablet screen. Of course, you can still
access these controls from the Charms bar by swiping from the
right, or via keyboard by pressing Windows Key+C.
The line between traditional and modern UI is further
blurred on the traditional Windows taskbar, where Windows
Store apps now appear alongside their old-style siblings. By
default when you go to the traditional desktop, any modern
apps you have running will appear on the taskbar, just as
running desktop apps do. But you can also pin modern apps
to the taskbar, making them always accessible from either
UI space. To do so, go to the Windows modern Start Screen
and long press or right-click the app tile you want to appear
on the taskbar. Click the Pin item and now the icon for that
modern app will appear on the traditional Windows taskbar
(see Figure 1). Click a Windows Store app on the taskbar,
and youll be whisked off to that app in the modern UI.
Just Like Old Times
Windows 8.1 Update adds familiar (and welcome) desktop
UI elements to the modern experience. All Windows Store
modern UI apps now sport an application bar, which appears
when you hover the mouse over the top edge of the screen on
a modern app. The app bar offers icons to close and minimize
Windows Store apps, as well as a system icon on the top left
that presents options for snapping the app to either the left
or right half of the display.
Microsoft also decided to make the taskbar a player in the
modern UI. Hover your cursor over the bottom edge of the
screen, and the desktop taskbarcomplete with all your pinned
iconsappears. Not only does the taskbar streamline navi-
gation to other pinned desktop and modern apps, it gives you
access to the taskbar Notifcation Area, including icon controls
for the system clock, volume, battery and sundry applications.
Before the recent update, if you were in Windows Explorer
and double-clicked an image, music or video fle, you would be
unceremoniously yanked out of the desktop interface to one of
the Windows 8 modern UI apps. For anyone working on a lap-
top or desktop PC, the transition was not only jarring, it often
made little sense. Windows 8.1 Update tunes that behavior. On
a tablet, Windows will still launch fles in an available modern
UI app, but on desktop and laptop PCs, the OS will instead
default to launching the associated traditional application.
Browser Refresh
The Windows 8.1 Update also refreshes Internet Explorer,
adding Enterprise Mode for Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11). IE
11 was initially released for Windows 8.1 systems in November
2013, but with Windows 8.1 Update, IE 11 gains improved
compatibility with older versions of IE. The new functional-
ity enables businesses to move to the latest and most secure
version of IE, while maintaining compatibility with existing
Web apps optimized for older versions of IE such as IE 8.
Enterprise Mode is a major beneft for organizations that
have been stuck on older versions of Internet Explorer because
existing Web apps or ActiveX controls wont work properly on
newer browser versions. With Enterprise Mode enabled, IE
will mimic the behavior of IE 8 for selected Web sites, even
telling querying applications that its the older version of the
browser to prevent brittle version checking algorithms from
causing programs to crash or shutdown. Users or administra-
tors specify a list of sites to be accessed using Enterprise Mode
and can toggle Enterprise Mode on or off when accessing
those sitesa great way to troubleshoot a misbehaving site
or app to see if IE versioning might be the culprit.
IE 11 Enterprise Mode isnt enabled in the latest version
of IE 11 by default. You have to enable it by launching the
Windows Local Group Policy Editor. Press the Windows
Key+R, type gpedit.msc in the Run dialog box that appears,
and press enter. In the left pane of the Local Group Policy
Editor window, drill down through User Configuration,
Administrative Templates and Windows Components to
Internet Explorer. Scroll down and youll fnd an item titled
Let users turn on and use Enterprise Mode from the Tools
menu. Double-click it, click the Enabled radio button. Once
enabled, users can toggle Enterprise Mode on and off for
the active Web site by clicking the Tools menu and clicking
Enterprise Mode.
Finally, Microsoft also added some welcome device awareness
to IE 11, detecting the size and type of device youre using
(from mini tablet to full-size desktop PC) and shaping the
browsing experience to suit. Working on an 8-inch tablet?
IE will render Web sites with smaller fonts, fewer on-screen
tabs and streamlined menus. You can also control when the
browser remains on-screen or hides away for full-screen
browsing depending on the type of device you use. R
Michael Desmond is editor in chief of MSDN Magazine and
former editor at large for Redmond.
Figure 1. Windows Store apps such as Windows Mail can now be accessed on the desktop taskbar.
by Don Jones
DecisionMaker
Some IT Managers
Are Just Fit To Be Certied
For example, recently a client asked
me to help develop a script that would
automatically manage the membership
of their workstations local Adminis-
trators group. With a big smile, I said,
You dont need to! Group Policy
does that! They sadly shook their
heads. We cant use Group Policy.
I stammered. But Were just not
allowed. Weve tried. Its a performance
problem. Yes, theres no question that
Group Policy can be a performance
problem, but you can say that about
any technology that hasnt been well
planned or well executed. Ethernet
switches can cause performance
problems, too, but I dont see people
rushing to unplug them.
Another client asked for help writing a
script that could monitor process perfor-
mance on remote computers. Performance
counters do that! I said. Cant turn on
Performance Monitor, I was told. I
Tried. Not allowed. So instead of using
the native, built-in, well-engineered
code to monitor performance, youre
going to write a script that will absolutely
have a heavier negative impact to do the
same thing? Yup. Oy, vey.
This is like saying you want to drive
a car, but youre not crazy about the
accelerator pedal because youve heard
it increases global warming. Youd
rather cut a hole in the foor pan of the
car, put the transmission in neutral,
and make like Fred Flintstone. Yeah,
you can do that. But the other kids are
going to make fun of you.
These attitudes typically come from
a massively misinformed management
team. In some cases, theyve got senior
IT people who dont know what theyre
talking about, and instead spew
mistruths that management accepts. In
some cases, these attitudes come from
years-old information no longer
relevant in todays technologies and
environments. These organizations
should not be making IT decisions, because
theyre wrong. Theyre creating their
own performance problems, their own
security holes, and their own operational
nightmaresand them blaming their
administrators, Microsoft, and everyone
else for the resulting problems.
I cant help but wonder what would
happen if IT people universally refused
to work for companies clearly unqualifed
to manage their own IT investments.
I bet many companies would have no
choice but to outsource.
How can you tell your organization
has adopted outlandish IT management
policies? The answer is simple. Anytime
youre trying to work around a prod-
ucts built-in features, or refuse to use
the products native functionality, you
might have a problem. The next test is
to justify your decision. Is it because
the product doesnt deliver a capability
in a way thats compatible with your
business requirements? For example,
if you dont use the native Windows
event log auditing because they dont
provide the level of detail you need to
remain compliant, then youre completely
justifed in shutting it off and doing
something else. But you need to
continually revalidate your argument
because products change. The event log of
today isnt the event log of 10 years ago.
If your reasons for not using a feature
stem from performance, security, or
manageability reasons, you need to
revisit those decisions nearly on an
annual basis, as even service packs and
patches can change functionality in
signifcant ways.
Heres another test: If you ask your
administrators to do something, they
offer a native solution, and you tell
them they cant use the native solution.
Then look at their faces. If they appear
gob smacked, youre probably wrong.
Revisit, revalidate and reconsider.
Ideally, youll always use technology
the way its meant to be used. Sometimes,
you wont, and if youve got valid reasons,
then fne. But ask around. See if other
organizations have come to the same
conclusions as you. If they havent, then
either youre a genius and everyone
else is wrong, or its time to take a
good, hard look in the mirror. R
Don Jones is a principal technologist for
strategic consulting frm Concentrated
Technology. You can contact him via
ConcentratedTech.com
A
n often-debated topic in the IT world is the value
of certifcation. Does an MCSE get you a job? Is it
worth more money? More respect? But after a few
recent customer conversations, Im starting to believe what
we need is certifcation for IT management. Not process
certifcation such as ISO, but a real look at whether the
organization has management practices and philosophies
that lead to successful IT.
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An Easily Missed Diamond
in the Rough
by Greg Shields
WindowsInsider
merely fnding its installation bits. The
VMware Web site advertises a down-
loadable Orchestrator 5.5 appliance,
but that appliance seemingly isnt
offered as an evaluation.
The place I never thought to look was
inside vCenter Server itself. Tucked
away in the ISOs vCenter-Server\
vCO subfolder was an inconspicuous
fle named vCenterOrchestrator.exe.
It took me another week to realize
the goldmine Id found. VMware
Orchestrator v5.5 can be a godsend
for vSphere administrators seeking
automation beyond command-line
scripting. With a little effort, its
plug-ins offer integration into Active
Directory and Windows PowerShell,
and a small handful of other useful
datacenter technologies.
After a day or two of poking around, I
could graphically construct a provisioning
workfow that would automatically spin
up VMs. I even built a multipage wizard
that would ask pertinent questions so as
to customize each VM as it was built.
Another day of work and Id integrated
Active Directory management and
Windows PowerShell-driven OS cus-
tomization into my workfow. I could
birth VMs into contextually appropriate
organizational units and global groups,
and then customize their OS confgu-
ration with a few Windows PowerShell
cmdlets. I could even create and
destroy user accounts for those pesky
developers always in need of the next
days pristine test environment.
Ive always believed good systems
administrators are by nature lazy. The
really good ones will automate the
mundane tasks out of their daily to-do
list. And so another few days decipher-
ing administrator guides and Id learned
how to customize an Orchestrator
webview (hint: Youll need the default_
webview.zip fle found on the client in c:\
program fles\vmware\orchestrator\
apps\lib). That bare-bones webview
gave my developers a single link to
build VMs whenever they wanted.
They were, of course, limited by the
rules Id coded into the wizard.
With a week of work, most of which
was searching the Web for useful
guidance online, Id graduated from
hand-building developer VMs to
giving them a short-enough rope to
do it themselves. Not a bad investment
in my book.
Yet while the fruit of my labor is a
shining example of automation done
right, the path to get there was fraught
with pound-head-on-table aggravation.
While VMware Orchestrator is indeed
a diamond, it is also quite rough.
One problem seems to be for whom
Orchestrator is really meant. As an IT
pro, I could envision a few neat ways it
might automate my mundane tasks. But
take a look at VMwares free instruc-
tional videos (bit.ly/1h7omRXl) and
you could easily surmise this tool is
meant for developers, not admins. I felt
a strangely heavy focus on developer
needs, and not nearly enough on those
of the everyday vSphere administrator.
That audience seems particularly odd,
considering how buried Orchestrators
installer is inside an ISO fle only an
admin might see.
Also perplexing is Orchestrators
emphasis on raw JavaScript to accomplish
much beyond the simplest of actions.
The tool arrives with a sizeable catalog
of pre-constructed workfows for
accomplishing common tasks, but I
found myself constrained by my own
insuffcient JavaScript experience in
building anything too exciting.
Orchestrators JavaScript foundation
in combination with its unintuitive
(but powerful, once you fgure it out)
UI feels like a learning curve too steep
for the average overworked IT pro.
Confounding, too, is VMwares
recent insistence on avoiding anything
resembling an installable client. The
client in Orchestrator v5.5 runs as a
Java appleta Java applet!which
hinders the experience in a few frus-
trating ways. Older versions used an
installed client application that seemed
to deliver a superior interface.
In the end, I was able to build the
self-service provisioning tool I needed.
And, Im impressed with the result.
That tool still needs work before it hits
production, but it offers a compelling
glimpse into the neat automations you
can build should you divert your focus
from just the vSphere Client alone. R
Greg Shields is a partner and principal tech-
nologist with Concentrated Technology, an IT
analysis and strategic consulting frm. You
can contact him at ConcentratedTech.com.
I
f you own a license for VMware vCenter Server, you
also own free use of vCenter Orchestrator. That tidbit of
information recently caught me off guard after a client
requested I build a short video training series on VMware
Orchestrator v5.5. I had an unexpectedly diffcult time
CONNECT WITH US:
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At Home, In the Of ce, On the Road
Untitled-2 1 5/13/14 10:26 AM
by Mary Jo Foley
FoleyOnMicrosoft
How Fast Can Microsofts Trains Go
Without a Derailment?
Today, annual updates of Windows
are now sounding ridiculously slow.
The developer team is rolling out
near-quarterly updates of Visual Studio
and even more frequent updates of
Team Foundation Service and Visual
Studio Online. The Microsoft engineers
at Yammer are now committing
toand actually deliveringmobile
app updates every week. The word
cadence is part of more than 50 of
the job postings on the Microsoft
career site at latest count.
The wheels were in motion for this
speedier schedule before Satya Nadella
was appointed CEO in February. Insiders
tell me the July 2013 One Microsoft
reorg is what really freed up teams
inside the company to change the long-
established plan/develop/ship pattern of
product delivery inside the company.
In Bing, nothing ships, Microsoft
Research Chief Peter Lee told me
recently. That quip refers to the fact
that the Bing team is often simultane-
ously test fighting more than 50 to
60 different technologies, and sometimes
delivers new elements to users more
than once a day. The Microsoft Azure
team is moving toward a similar
model, using telemetry data to tweak
services that are rolled out on a nearly
every-three-week basis.
Lee said Microsoft is working on
bringing this same mindset to Offce.
The Offce 365 team is already doing
near-monthly updates to the hosted
versions of Exchange, SharePoint and
Lync servers, but are making far fewer
regular tweaks to the Offce desktop
apps for Windows. But reworked
mobile-frst versions of Offce, such as
Offce Online (the Webifed versions
of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and
OneNote) and Offce for iPad are
updated faster and more regularly. Id
assume Microsoft is planning to follow
suit with the Gemini Metro-style
Offce suite thats still under develop-
ment once it debuts later this year.
Continuous development and auto-
matic delivery seem like fairly natural
complements to cloud services and
mobile apps. All hail cloud frst/
mobile frst. But what about locally
deployed, on-premises business apps?
Microsoft offcials, until recently,
have wavered as to the companys plans
for speeding up the delivery pace for
things such as Windows client and
server, Exchange, SQL Server, and
other business products. But earlier this
year, Microsoft alarmed more than a
few IT shops by drawing a line in the
deployment sand with the update release
for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server
2012 R2. After initially deciding to
require deployment of the update, rolled
out in early April, by mid-May, Microsoft
offcials softened their stance and gave
IT pros until August to deploy the
update in order to continue to receive
fxes and patches moving forward.
Whats good for consumers isnt
necessarily good for business usersat
least not until business users are able and
willing to make over their IT practices
regarding how and when app testing and
deployment happens. And Microsofts
track record with botched updates and
service packs hasnt made the company
any friends on this front. The Windows
team is grappling with this. Rumor has
it the company might change the way
it updates Windows based on which
SKU a user has. By the time Windows
9 hits in the early part of 2015, those
running a Modern SKU on certain
Windows tablets and phones would
have their OSes updated regularly and
automatically, while business users
would have more control over when
and how Microsoft updates their OSes.
Striking the balance in rolling out
updates and new versions is tough. Its
especially tough for a company with a
substantial part of its user base in the
enterprise. Itll be interesting to see in
another year what kinds of new policies
and controls Microsoft ends up putting
in place to try to make all its constituents
happy, or at least happier. R
Mary Jo Foley is editor of the ZDNet
All About Microsoft blog and has covered
Microsoft for more than two decades. Shes
the author ofMicrosoft 2.0(John Wiley
& Sons, 2008), which examines whats
next for Microsoft in the post-Gates era.
W
hat a difference a year makes.
When I argued Microsofts new need for
speed in my May 2013 column, few believed
Microsoft really could or would deliver Windows, Windows
Phone and Offce 365 updates at the much-accelerated rate
the Softies were promising.
GetMoreOnline
For more on the new Microsoft
release cadence, go to
Redmondmag.com/Foley0614.
Untitled-17 1 5/9/14 5:14 PM
1
For ITIC 2013 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Report, Feb. 2013, visit http://itic-corp.com/blog/2013/02/ibm-dell-fujitsu-stratus-get-highest-marks-in-itic-reliability-survey
2
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Monthly lease payments provided are for planning purposes only and may vary based on your credit and other factors. Lease offer provided is based on an FMV lease of 36 monthly payments.
Other restrictions may apply. Rates and offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice and may not be available in all countries.
IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts or new and serviceable used parts. Regardless, our warranty terms apply. For a copy of applicable product warranties, visit
http://www.ibm.com/servers/support/machine_warranties. IBM makes no representation or warranty regarding third-party products or services. IBM, the IBM logo, System x, Express
and Storwize are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks
of IBM or other companies. For a current list of IBM trademarks, see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All prices and savings estimates are subject to change without notice, may vary according to configuration, are based upon IBMs
estimated retail selling prices as of 03/18/2014 and may not include storage, hard drive, operating system or other features. Reseller prices and savings to end users may vary. Products
are subject to availability. This document was developed for of ferings in the United States. IBM may not of fer the products, features, or services discussed in this document in other
countries. Contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner for the most current pricing in your geographic area. 2014 IBM Corporation. All rights reserved.
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June 2014 VOL.20 NO.6 REDMONDMAG.COM

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