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In the series of VMware or Microsoft I take a look at the ability to migrate running Virtual Machines in Virtual environments. VMware has been very solid with this technology for years, and Windows Server has grown in leaps and bounds in regards to live migration. I think the article may surprise you. Enjoy!

...(read more)

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Windows Server 2012 R2 180-day Free Download + Companion Jumpstart Course and Virtual Labs

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Installation and Deployment – System Center 2012 SP1 New Online Virtual Labs

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Offering	Language	Start Date	Description
Corporate Accounts Accelerate: Windows 8.1 and Office 365 ProPlus	EGN	05.09.2013	The Windows Accelerate program for CA (CA Accelerate) presents an excellent opportunity for BG’s and Subsidiaries to collaborate with select partners on delivering one-day, 1:Many workshops showcasing some of the most exciting features of Windows 8.1 and Office 365 and accelerate the sales pipeline through 1:many App Clinics and 1:many IT Pro Bootcamps for Windows 8.1 and Office 365
Cloud 1-2-3 Webinar Series: Driving Demand for Your Cloud Practice	ENG	12.09.2013	Do you want to learn how to drive demand for your cloud practice? Join experts as we discuss how to use Ready-to-Go Marketing resources and Microsoft Community Connections to target existing and new customers. Understand how to reach new customers through your local community and drive attendance to your events using customer email campaign and event resources. Discover how web syndication and digital media can create demand for your services and soak up best practices and prescriptive guidance offered by Microsoft experts.
Windows Azure ISV Partner Community Call: What’s New with GTM: Windows Azure Go-to-Market Program Updates for FY14	ENG	18.09.2013	These community calls are designed to showcase how Microsoft can help you promote and grow your Windows Azure applications while giving you technology insights that help you expand your cloud capabilities. Our goal is to bring you relevant Go-To-Market (GTM) programs, trainings and technology updates to help you stay at the forefront of IT and marketing innovations.
Selling to Education in the New World of Devices and Services	ENG	24.09.2013	This is the first AER Webcast for FY14. It will focus on the Opportunity Office 365 for Education offers partners and surface all the resources and materials needed to be successful during the year.

Hello,

Just sharing with you this new Multi-Tenant Scalability Guidance for Exchange 2013.

This document contains high-level guidance for properly scaling and deploying a multi-tenant Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 solution. It includes details of testing performed in Microsoft labs to validate the scalability of the product and suggests methods that can be used during the design and deployment process to mitigate potential risks associated with such solutions.

Multi-Tenant Scalability Guidance for Exchange Server 2013 from Official Microsoft Download
Center

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39941&WT.mc_id=rss_alldownloads_all

Cheers,

João Ribeiro

Hello All, time for another post, this time on Pool Corruption. Many of the STOP errors we in Support see are pool-related. For example, the one I saw some days ago:

X64_0x3B_nt!ExDeferredFreePool+249

Other common pool-related STOP errors include 0x1E, 0x50, 0xA, and 0x8E.

Quite often, the stack in such cases reveals an offending (third party) driver. Also often however, there is no clear indication of what might have happened. Take note also, that simply having a driver on the stack does not make it the culprit of the crash: it could have simply tripped over a corruption that was caused by another driver at an earlier point in time. In most cases, one memory dump is not enough, and we need additional information in subsequent dumps to find the root cause of the problem. We can obtain such info by enabling Driver Verifier. The options to specify related to Pool issues are Special Pool and Pool Tracking, under the Standard Flags:

STANDARD FLAGS:
These flags are considered standard options for Driver Verifier and can be
set using '/standard' or by the combination of the options: '/flags 0x209BB'
bit 0 (0x00000001) - Special pool
bit 1 (0x00000002) - Force IRQL checking
bit 3 (0x00000008) - Pool tracking
bit 4 (0x00000010) - I/O verification
bit 5 (0x00000020) - Deadlock detection
bit 7 (0x00000080) - DMA checking
bit 8 (0x00000100) - Security checks
bit 11 (0x00000800) - Miscellaneous checks
bit 17 (0x00020000) - DDI compliance checking

The syntax to enable this: "verifier /flags 0x9 /all". This needs a reboot to be effective. Should you want to enable this run-time: "verifier /volatile /flags 0x9 /adddriver *". No reboot needed, but verification will also not be persistent across reboots. Please refer to the Driver Verifer link above for further information.

As a bonus, when enabling Pool Tracking, we also enable TrackNblOwner, which comes in handy when debugging network problems, as my friend and colleague Karim explains here.

Pool Tracking creates an in-memory database to store thread stacks related to pool allocations. By default, this is 65536 (0x10000) entries, but in cases where this is not enough, we can allocate up to 1048576 entries (0x100000), through the VerifierPoolTracesLength registry value under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Note: only Windows 8 and higher. Each database entry is 128 bytes, so allocating one million (1048576) of these, only costs us 128MB of physical RAM, as the stack trace database is in Nonpaged Pool.

Thoughts? Comments? Let me know!

Office 365 に関する2013 年 8 月の主なニュースをまとめてみました。あなたが見逃しているかもしれないニュースも一覧でご覧になることができますので、この機会にぜひご覧ください。

8 月 1 日: 米マイクロソフト、Androidスマホ向けOfficeアプリを提供 - 日本は利用不可 (マイナビ News)
8 月 7 日: プライベートCA Gleas、セシオスのSeciossLinkとのID連携を実現～「Office365認証強化パッケージ」における端末制限の管理業務を効率化　～ (ZDNet)
8 月 19 日: 「ネット上に本社ができた」　全国7カ所で戦う油圧工具メーカーの“ソーシャル経営術” (IT Media)
8 月 19 日: リバーベッド、WAN最適化ソフト「RiOS」新版--負荷にあわせて経路を自動選択 (ZDNet)
8 月 23 日: 【連載】Office 365で始めるクラウド活用 (1) Office 365とは? (マイナビ News)
8 月 23 日: アブポイント、Microsoft SharePoint向けの3製品を国内提供開始 (マイナビ News)
8 月 26 日: Office 2003も来年4月にサポート終了、クラウドへの切り替えを急げ (日経BP)
8 月 27 日: ヤマハがOffice 365を導入、31カ国の約1万2000人が利用 (IT Pro)
8 月 28 日: Office 2003のサポート終了に伴い、クラウド版Office 365 ProPlusへの移行相次ぐ (IT Pro)
8 月 28 日: SkyDrive Proの基本容量が7Gバイトから25Gバイトに (IT Media)
8 月 29 日: Officeのパッケージとどちらがお得？「Office 365」の実体を解説 (PC Online)
8 月 29 日: ソフトバンクBB　「XP マイグレーションセンター」を開設　OS移行の効率化と生産性向上を訴求 (BCN BizOnline)
8 月 29 日: Outlook Web Appのモバイル利用を強力にサポートする「ExLook Light」の提供を発表 (PR Times)

過去のニュースはこちら。

Office 365 関連ニュース 2013 年 7 月のまとめ

Uptime is king. Virtual machines in business represent some workload, whether in whole or as part of an application or service. And we don’t ever want it to go down. Technologies such as VMotion and Live Migration included in vSphere and Hyper-V are our best friends when it comes to being able to flexibly move machines and their storage from place to place while keeping that moving machine up and running throughout.

So, what’s the real difference between how VMware does it and how Microsoft does it?

That’s the topic of today’s article in our “VMware or Microsoft?” series. My buddy Matt Hester gives you all the interesting details.

READ HIS EXCELLENT ARTICLE HERE

在過去，企業僅須倚靠主事者的豐厚歷練，或許就能功成名就；惟如今市場變遷加劇、影響因子更形複雜，企業唯有取決商業智慧(BI)與資料倉儲(DW)，方可從龐大資料萃取致勝線索，在激烈商戰中脫穎而出。

時序拉回 1995 年，兩個來自台灣的留學生，在美國矽谷聯手創立 MetaEdge，爾後憑藉建置大型倉儲的專業諮詢能力，逐步闖出名號；到了 2000 年 7 月，MetaEdge 在台灣設立「捷智商訊科技」，期望運用在美國練就的知識與經驗，協助台灣企業儘速進入商業智慧之堂奧，透過資料的整合運用掌握決勝關鍵。

環顧當時資料倉儲市場，幾乎為少數廠商所把持，捷智商訊卻毅然押寶於尚屬初生之犢的 SQL Server 2000，作為拓展業務的起始點，並打下 SQL Server 2000 在台的首樁資料倉儲建置案，因而種下了爾後 12 年與微軟的不解之緣。

該公司諮詢服務部專案經理陳雅芬回顧當年， SQL Server 2000 不管在 BI 前端展現、資料探勘 (Data Mining) 及 ETL 等功能，乃至於大量平行處理 (MPP) 技術實力，都還有迎頭趕上的空間，所以初期在列強環伺下，幾場硬仗確實打得辛苦，但有幾個重要理由，撐起了捷智商訊奮戰不懈的動能。

首先，他們看見微軟對於資料倉儲「永不放棄」的決心，預知在不久的將來，SQL Server 終將推進到不遜於知名系統的高效水平；其次，依據捷智商訊深耕市場的理解，以一般企業 BI 應用需求而論，SQL Server 要想妥善因應，肯定綽綽有餘，因此企業終將有所覺醒，意欲佈建資料倉儲，未必需要砸大錢投資名牌產品。

此後的發展，果真一如捷智商訊的預期。在功能面部分，隨著 SQL 2000、2005、2008、2012、2012 R2 版本精進，舉凡 BI 前端展現、資料探勘及 ETL 等功能不僅日益茁壯，且愈來愈講求使用者體驗的「無感轉移」，陳雅芬指出，比方說現今企業無須繁複 Coding，即可動用SharePoint Server 直接設計儀表板 (Dashboard)，便是最好的例子；而在效能部分，一來伴隨硬體運算的多核心發展脈絡，使 SQL Server 的資料分散處理能力愈趨強韌，二來則在 2011 年搭載大型強效伺服器推出 PDW(Parallel Data Warehouse)，亦使 SQL Server 順勢養成 MPP 能量。

洞悉客戶需求　推展多元解決方案

事實上，選擇一個好的資料倉儲平台，不過是企業 BI 專案成功的首部曲，至於剩下的最後一哩路，則有賴專業服務廠商憑著對客戶關鍵系統(譬如銀行業的核心帳務系統、製造業的 ERP)、產業 Know-how 之深切理解，進而運用資料建模 (Data Modeling) 功力，因應不同應用主題，協助建構資料超市、資料探勘系統，此即為捷智商訊的價值所在。

陳雅芬表示，論及企業資料整合運用的演進歷程，一開始利用資料倉儲技術，先將龐大資料轉換為可用的資產，接著才是根據行銷策略、客戶管理、風險控管、客戶服務等各個應用主題，逐一延展出不同分析系統。捷智商訊秉持長期深耕金融業達十餘年的深厚歷練，一路與客戶共同成長，屢屢以單一個案作為靈感，發展出切中產業實際需求的解決方案。

「早在以往，舉凡存放款、基金、開戶等資料，均散落在金融業的不同系統，若欲將之統整並進行線上分析，確實存在莫大挑戰，但如果不做，肯定無從拓展商機！」陳雅芬說，有鑑於客戶需求若渴，捷智商訊推出整合式客戶關係管理與行銷應用系統 (iCRM)，因而深獲好評，爾後再循此模式，根據新版巴塞爾協定、國際會計準則 (IFRS) 等新需求的出現，接續催生金融監理法規報表平台、IFRS 不動產管理系統、授信評分卡、銷售績效管理暨互動關係管理系統等多項產品，一步步幫助客戶，將 BI 應用效益拉升到極致。

一向擅長承作金融業 DW 專案的捷智商訊，其實早已將觸角拓展至其他領域，不僅借助微軟 SQL Server 及 SharePoint Server 等產品，協助政府機關打造首長決策支援系統，亦沿用相同技術根基，多次協助大型製造商滿足財務分析(例如產品分潤、費用分析)、產線分析等績效管理需求，甚至針對某電子公司將全球資料倉儲系統轉換至 SQL Server 平台的案例，也曾提供一臂助力。

已具海量資料能量　靜待商機浮現

今時今日，隨著企業開始關注網際網路、社交網路及大量非結構化資料的分析需求，從而使得海量資料 (Big Data) 議題猶如旱地拔蔥，躍為 IT 業界的新寵。早在 2011 年間，當此議題尚未大鳴大放之際，捷智商訊即已深入研究 Hadoop 等分散式運算技術，並開始偕同夥伴探尋相關商機。

只可惜，無論台灣或大陸的大型用戶，即便是看似最能因海量資料技術而受惠的電信公司，迄今都僅止於小型 Pilot Run 或少部分概念驗證 (PoC) 階段，尚未見到大規模的部署。然陳雅芬堅信，網路資料爆炸性增長，實為不可逆的趨勢，今後只要有任何海量資料分析的成功案例浮現，其餘企業便可望大量跟進，到了那時，蓄勢待發許久的捷智商訊，也將運用微軟已然準備就緒的 Big Data 工具，包括 SQL Server、PDW 乃至於 Hadoop Adapter 等等，致力協助客戶，實現其所欲獲得的商業價值。

想了解更多嗎?詳細訊息請參考下列網址 :

http://www.microsoft.com/taiwan/sqlserver/database_adviser_service/metaedge.aspx

Meu nome é Luciano Lima e hoje irei atualizá-los sobre as últimas notícias do TechNet Wiki internacional da Austrália.

O destaque desta semana vai para Leandro Carvalho, que escreveu vários artigos sobre o Hyper-V.

Leandro Carvalho é especialista em Hyper-V e é uma referência para a comunidade.

Websites: http://leandroesc.wordpress.com/ (Inglês)

http://msmvps.com/blogs/msvirtualization/ (Português)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leandroeduardo

Autor do Livro: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook

A lista abaixo você pode ver os artigos sobre dicas para o Hyper-V escrita por ele:

Excelente trabalho!

Venha você também fazer parte do time dos Wiki Ninjas contribuindo com a comunidade Microsoft.

Siga o Twitter do WikiNinjas Brasil e a página oficial do TechNet Wiki nos links abaixo:

Hello Community, Luciano Lima here today to update you on the latest news in the TechNet Wiki international community from Australia.

The highlight of this week goes to Leandro Carvalho, who wrote several of articles about Hyper-V.

Leandro Carvalho is a specialist in Hyper-V and is a reference to the community.

Websites: http://leandroesc.wordpress.com/ (English)

http://msmvps.com/blogs/msvirtualization/ (Portuguese)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/leandroeduardo

Author: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Cookbook

Listed below you can see the articles about tips for Hyper-V written by him:

Great work!

Big hugs go to the TechNet Wiki community, keep up the contribution, have a great Friday and don’t forget to tweet #TNWIKI and follow us:

@WikiNinjas

@WikiNinjas_BR

www.facebook.com/TechNetWiki

Gemeinsam mit unseren Partnern vor Ort stellen wir in den kommenden Monaten in einer bundesweiten Veranstaltungsreihe die Einsatzmöglichkeiten unserer neuesten Produktgeneration vor: Von Windows 8 über Office 365 oder Windows Server 2012 bis hin zur Integration von Windows Phone 8 und den Tablets der “Surface”-Reihe in das Microsoft-Ökosystem. Interessant sind die Info-Events insbesondere für professionelle Anwender sowie kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen , die Microsoft Lösungen bereits produktiv...(read more)

Für Office 365 hat die Microsoft Office Division in dieser Woche gleich drei für Unternehmen relevante Updates angekündigt. Diese betreffen sowohl SkyDrive Pro als auch SharePoint Online und Exchange Online.

Mehr Speicher für SkyDrive Pro und leichtere Sharing-Funktion
Für SkyDrive Pro – dem Microsoft Cloud-Speicher für Unternehmen – stehen ab sofort drei zentrale Neuerungen zur Verfügung:

25 GB SkyDrive Pro-Speicher für jeden Nutzer statt bisher 7 GB
Mögliche Erweiterung des Standardspeichers für jeden Nutzer von 25 GB auf 50 oder 100 GB
„Shared with Me“-Ansicht erleichtert das Auffinden von geteilten Ordern und Dokumenten

Mit SkyDrive Pro können Mitarbeiter bis zu 20.000 Dokumente in ihrer persönlichen Bibliothek speichern und über die verschiedenen Endgeräte, von Windows Phone und Windows 8 bis iOS und Android Devices, sicher synchronisieren. Das ermöglicht ihnen, jederzeit auf ihre relevante Daten zuzugreifen und sie beispielsweise über die Office Web Apps auch direkt von unterwegs aus zu bearbeiten. Unternehmen wie die Hamburg Port Authority, RWE, Sanrio– bekannt durch die Figur Hello Kitty – Gildemeister oder DORMA gehören dabei zu den Unternehmen, die bereits heute Office 365 erfolgreich einsetzen oder einführen. Sie profitieren sofort von den Updates.

Ihre Anforderungen an flexible Arbeitszeitmodelle, kreative und ortsunabhängig Projektgestaltung und Home Office Optionen hatten einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf die jetzt vorgestellten Weiterentwicklungen von Office 365. So erweitert sich mit dem Update der Standardspeicher für jeden neuen und bestehenden Nutzer von 7 GB auf 25 GB. Benötigen Mitarbeiter zusätzlichen Speicherplatz, lässt sich dieser schrittweise auf bis zu 50 GB oder 100 GB erweitern. Auf dem Weg in die neue Welt des Arbeitens ist das ein hilfreicher Baustein.

„Microsoft Office 365 nimmt innerhalb unserer IT-Strategie eine wichtige Rolle ein – sowohl bei der Etablierung einer einheitlichen Systemlandschaft als auch um die Zusammenarbeit unserer Mitarbeiter weiter zu verbessern“, erklärt Mark Dussy - Senior Manager Global Technology bei DORMA.

Das einfache Teilen von Dokumenten für eine schnelle Abstimmung und gemeinsame Bearbeitung mit den Kollegen ist eine weitere zentrale Funktion von SkyDrive Pro. Wer hier schon einmal die Erfahrung gemacht hat, freigegebene Dokumente oder Ordner nicht gleich zu finden oder ein weiteres Mal um das Dokument zu bitten, den unterstützt ab sofort die „Shared with Me“-Funktion. In dieser Ansicht lassen sich alle geteilten Dokumente und Ordner auf einen Blick erfassen. Und wie der Autor erhält man die Berechtigung, Dokumente zu bearbeiten, zu teilen oder herunterzuladen.

SharePoint Online und Exchange Online: Versionsverwaltung und größere Mailbox

Ebenfalls drei Neuerungen umfasst das Update für SharePoint Online. Zum einen wächst das allgemeine Upload-Limit von Dateien in SharePoint Online auf 2 GB pro Datei, zum anderen verlängert sich die Standardspeicherung im Papierkorb von 30 auf jetzt 90 Tage. Zusätzlich ermöglichen neue bereitgestellte SkyDrive Pro Bibliotheken die Verwaltung von bis zu zehn Versionen. Das stellt sicher, dass zukünftig keine relevanten Informationen verloren gehen. Und mit dem Update für Exchange Online können Nutzer ab heute auf ein größeres Mailbox-Volumen zugreifen.

Die neue SkyDrive Pro Apps für Windows 8 und iOS stehen ab sofort im Windows Store und im App Store zur Verfügung. Für weitere Informationen möchte ich Ihnen den Blog Post unserer US-amerikanischen Kollegen empfehlen: SkyDrive Pro increases storage and ease of sharing

Ein Video zu SkyDrive Pro finden Sie hier.

Posted by Frank Mihm-Gebauer
Communications Manager Anwendungs- und Infrastruktursoftware

Fought with a good problem yesterday.

After upgrading my System Center Virtual Machine Manager to 2012 R2; I could not change the SCVMM Settings in Team Foundation Server 2012 Lab Management to point to the new SCVMM server. I could add the library share, but not the host group.

The error was very cryptic, but I could guess that some PowerShell was not happy from the reference to commandlets and Get-Help. The screen shot is above, error text is below for the search engines to index.

"VMM is unable to process one or more of the provided cmdlet parameters. Type Get-Help NO_PARAM -full to view a list of defined parameters and complete descriptions. Then try the operation again."

I am not sure how I am supposed to type PowerShell into the Lab Management Settings window so now what? First a quick search online for "Lab Management Get-Help NO_PARAM" no hits, so drop the Lab Management and I find an old KB from SCVMM 2008; Virtual machines cannot migrate from a Windows Server 2008 stand-alone server to a Windows Server 2008 cluster after you upgrade to System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 with a very long title.

Virtual machines cannot migrate from a Windows Server 2008 stand-alone server to a Windows Server 2008 cluster after you upgrade to System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=975426

Which even though the article is from an old version of SCVMM it lets me know that there may be an issue with the SCVMM agent/console version. When using Lab Management in TFS you have to install the SCVMM console on the TFS server so this makes sense.

SCVMM Console version is 3.1.6011.0

SCVMM Server version is 3.1.7200.0

So after uninstalling the SCVMM 2012SP1 console and installing the SCVMM 2012R2 console and a quick reboot on the TFS server all works.

There wasn't much information on the error provided when the host group add fails so hopefully if anyone forgets the important step of upgrading the SCVMM console on the TFS server they will find this post and have the information to fix it.

I was working with my peer Andre today on our weekly update on Lync Dedicated Voice projects. Lately the challenge is that we have also been assisting with topology upgrades for many of the same customers so it is hard to remember which customer you spoke to for what purpose.

During the call I thought it would be great if I had a way to find all my email from just this past week and created a new Search Folder called Mail for the Week.

I went straight to the Advanced tab for Criteria to get the date fields. Another added value is having the results grouped by folder which allows me to scroll through and find the ones with customer names.

Feel free to share custom search folders you have and how they help you professionally or personally.

TomL LCSKid

Interesting question came in from one of our good partners, Campana and Schott, concerning the update of the connection string for Excel reports based on OData when moving the Excel books between different Project Online tenants. This works just fine when just using the normal Excel features such as PivotTables – but you run into issues when you use add-ins such as the PowerPivot add-in for Excel 2013 – ( See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/whats-new-in-powerpivot-in-excel-2013-HA102893837.aspx for details of this interesting add-in ).

I’ll walk through the steps with a few screenshots just so it makes it clear what I’m talking about.

First I open Excel 2013, then on the DATA tab I select the From Other Sources option on the Get External Data section – and choose the OData option. In the dialog I enter a link to my OData feed of “https://blogfodder.sharepoint.com/sites/pwa/_api/ProjectData/Projects”

Then choose my Projects table (the only one showing as my Url was direct to my Projects)

And click Finish on the following dialog:

At this point I could just create a connection but I’ll choose a PivotTable report, as I don’t have much data so it won’t take long.

Selecting Project Name and Project Work gives me my simple list of names and total of work – and show how imaginative I am with my project naming on my test server.

At this point I could save the Excel workblook to the document library of my site – but I’ll just save locally as this step doesn’t really matter.

I now wanted to use this against a different Project Online PWA instance – so I can just open the Connections option on the DATA tab, select the datafeed and click Properties.

Under the Definition tab of the Connection Properties I can then change the Url, both in the Source section, and in the Base Url section and all will be good! I might also want to change the name – as it picks up the name from the original Url – but it doesn’t matter if you leave it the same (it will just confuse you and your users – but not Excel!)

I get a message when I click OK telling me that the connection in this workbook will no longer be identical to the connection defined in the external file located in my …\Documents\My Data Sources\DataFeed_1_blogfodder-sharepoint-com.odc file – and it will be removing the link to the file. I’m ok with that – so click Yes, and then close the Workbook connections dialog (when it has stopped thinking…)

The page refreshes and I see the list of Projects from the new instance I am referencing – though the Project names are just as unimaginative!

So no problem to change the data connection in this simple case. However, lets introduce PowerPivot into the mix.

I’ll follow the same steps – but this time I have activated the PowerPivot add-in for Excel 2013 – through the COM add-ins option in FILE, Options, Add-ins and Manage – selecting COM add-ins from the drop down:

I then have a POWERPIVOT tab and its own ribbon commands.

First I’ll follow the steps above to create the data connection, which I can then use for PowerPivot. I’ll not create the PivotTable this time. Once I have this data connection I can click the Manage option which opens the PowerPivot window, and I can see it has pulled in my data

I am going to make a simple edit – just to simulate some customization of my data – and change the heading EnterpriseProjectTypeDescription to EPTDesc (Right-click column heading – Rename Column) then save my workbook.

If I now want that PowerPivot to point somewhere else I go back to the sheet and the original connection and it has a message for me – Some properties cannot be changed because this connection was modified using PowerPivot add-in – the connection string area is greyed out.

And if I try and change in PowerPivot itself then all ways to change either directly in the feed Url or in the Advanced section just gives the same error – Cannot connect to the specified feed. Verify the connection and try again. Reason: The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error.

The PowerPivot folks have confirmed this is a limitation when using PowerPivot and are putting together some documentation.

There are possible alternatives – Trutz Stephani at Campana and Schott used a combination of tables and additional calculated columns to make it easier to have a re-deployable workbook. I took a look at Power Query too – part of the latest set of Power BI tools (Find out more at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/) – but the connection string is not in any form where you’d know what to change to move between instances – so no help there.

Thanks to Trutz from Campana and Schott, and to Jules from our support team for suggesting this might make a useful blog posting.

Research has shown that approximately 65% to 70% of organizations today have more than one hypervisor deployed. This presents a large opportunity for IT Professionals to increase their technical differentiation and value in the IT marketplace by supporting multiple hypervisors. Using this free eBook and the "Early Experts" study program, IT Professionals can easily extend their professional knowledge and skills to Windows Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V on a flexible schedule as time permits.

In this article, get started down your path as an "Early Expert" on Windows Server 2012 R2 ...

Windows Server 2012 R2 is the next major release of Windows Server … and it’s almost HERE! As announced on Brad Anderson’s In The Cloud blog, this new R2 release has already been released to manufacturing (RTM) for our OEM partners and will be generally available in just a few short weeks on October 18th.

In this article, I provide a brief introduction to some of the new capabilities that I’m most excited about, along with the steps that you can use to download a new eBook for FREE: Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release.

What’s New with Windows Server 2012 R2?

LOTS! The new capabilities of Windows Server 2012 R2 provide substantial enhancements when building a Private Cloud foundation across key areas such as Virtualization, Storage, Networking, High Availability and Disaster Recovery. In particular, some of my favorite new features that “R2” adds include:

Virtualization
Generation 2 VMs, Super-fast Live VM Migrations, Online VM Storage resizing, Live cloning of running VMs, Online backup of Linux VMs … and MORE!
Software-Defined Storage
Automated storage tiering, Dynamic storage rebalancing, Storage IO Control, Online VM Deduplication … and MORE!
Robust High Availability
Simplified VM clustering, Protected network monitoring … and MORE!
Software-Defined Networking
Windows Network Virtualization Gateway, Virtual RSS, Dynamic “Flowlet” load-balancing … and MORE!
Disaster Recovery
Site-to-Site replication RPOs down to 30 seconds, Tertiary replication … and MORE!

Whew! But … there’s STILL MORE!

The above list is just a small subset of the exciting new capabilities in Windows Server 2012 R2!

Are you using Active Directory?
Supporting BYOD devices?
Running Web Sites on Windows Server?
Do you manage Printers?
Integrating with Public Cloud services?

Well, all those areas have been improved as well with new features and capabilities!

How can I quickly learn about these new features?

Great question!Mitch Tulloch and our Windows Server team recently released a new 108-page eBook, Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release. This eBook provides a detailed technical overview of the enhancements noted above so that you can quickly get up-to-speed with these capabilities and Get Ready for R2!

This eBook includes 6 detailed chapters on the following topics:

Chapter 1: Cloud OS
Chapter 2: Hyper-V
Chapter 3: Storage
Chapter 4: Clustering
Chapter 5: Networking
Chapter 6: Other enhancements

Get this 108-page eBook for FREE!

We’re making this new eBook available as a FREE resource for you to quickly learn about the new features in Windows Server 2012 R2 … Just follow the steps below to get it delivered directly to you!

Get this eBook for FREE!

Get this FREE eBook!

Download the Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation Kit– Be sure to grab the VHD download with Server GUI. ( You’ll need this to build a Study Lab so that you can follow along with the eBook )
Shortly after downloading your Evaluation Kit, you’ll receive an email titled “Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Evaluation: Start Here”
Forward the email received in Step 2 above to EarlyExperts@Microsoft.com. You'll receive an email in response with your free eBook!

While you’re waiting … Build Your Lab!

While you’re waiting to receive your FREE eBook, get started with building your lab using the evaluation kit you downloaded above. You can build your lab as a dual-boot environment on your existing PC using the downloaded VHD by following these steps:

Do It:Build Your Lab using Boot-to-VHD

Alternatively, if you don’t have access to any PC hardware, you can also build your lab online using our FREE Windows Azure trial program:

Do It:Build Your Server Lab in the Clouds

We'll begin releasing additional hands-on study materials in the next few weeks as next steps in the "R2" edition of the "Early Experts" program. In the meantime, when you receive your FREE eBook, be sure to read at least Chapter 1 to get prepared for the upcoming hands-on materials.

Read:Chapter 1 - Cloud OS in the FREE eBook that you'll receive.

What’s New with Windows Server 2012 R2?

Virtualization
Generation 2 VMs, Super-fast Live VM Migrations, Online VM Storage resizing, Live cloning of running VMs, Online backup of Linux VMs … and MORE!
Software-Defined Storage
Automated storage tiering, Dynamic storage rebalancing, Storage IO Control, Online VM Deduplication … and MORE!
Robust High Availability
Simplified VM clustering, Protected network monitoring … and MORE!
Software-Defined Networking
Windows Network Virtualization Gateway, Virtual RSS, Dynamic “Flowlet” load-balancing … and MORE!
Disaster Recovery
Site-to-Site replication RPOs down to 30 seconds, Tertiary replication … and MORE!

Whew! But … there’s STILL MORE!

The above list is just a small subset of the exciting new capabilities in Windows Server 2012 R2!

Are you using Active Directory?
Supporting BYOD devices?
Running Web Sites on Windows Server?
Do you manage Printers?
Integrating with Public Cloud services?

Well, all those areas have been improved as well with new features and capabilities!

How can I quickly learn about these new features?

This eBook includes 6 detailed chapters on the following topics:

Chapter 1: Cloud OS
Chapter 2: Hyper-V
Chapter 3: Storage
Chapter 4: Clustering
Chapter 5: Networking
Chapter 6: Other enhancements

Get this 108-page eBook for FREE!

Get this eBook for FREE!

Get this FREE eBook!

Download the Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation Kit– Be sure to grab the VHD download with Server GUI. ( You’ll need this to build a Study Lab so that you can follow along with the eBook )
Shortly after downloading your Evaluation Kit, you’ll receive an email titled “Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Evaluation: Start Here”
Forward the email received in Step 2 above to EarlyExperts@Microsoft.com. You'll receive an email in response with your free eBook!

While you’re waiting … Build Your Lab!

Do It:Build Your Lab using Boot-to-VHD

Alternatively, if you don’t have access to any PC hardware, you can also build your lab online using our FREE Windows Azure trial program:

Do It:Build Your Server Lab in the Clouds

Read:Chapter 1 - Cloud OS in the FREE eBook that you'll receive.

What’s New with Windows Server 2012 R2?

Virtualization
Generation 2 VMs, Super-fast Live VM Migrations, Online VM Storage resizing, Live cloning of running VMs, Online backup of Linux VMs … and MORE!
Software-Defined Storage
Automated storage tiering, Dynamic storage rebalancing, Storage IO Control, Online VM Deduplication … and MORE!
Robust High Availability
Simplified VM clustering, Protected network monitoring … and MORE!
Software-Defined Networking
Windows Network Virtualization Gateway, Virtual RSS, Dynamic “Flowlet” load-balancing … and MORE!
Disaster Recovery
Site-to-Site replication RPOs down to 30 seconds, Tertiary replication … and MORE!

Whew! But … there’s STILL MORE!

The above list is just a small subset of the exciting new capabilities in Windows Server 2012 R2!

Are you using Active Directory?
Supporting BYOD devices?
Running Web Sites on Windows Server?
Do you manage Printers?
Integrating with Public Cloud services?

Well, all those areas have been improved as well with new features and capabilities!

How can I quickly learn about these new features?

This eBook includes 6 detailed chapters on the following topics:

Chapter 1: Cloud OS
Chapter 2: Hyper-V
Chapter 3: Storage
Chapter 4: Clustering
Chapter 5: Networking
Chapter 6: Other enhancements

Get this 108-page eBook for FREE!

Get this eBook for FREE!

Get this FREE eBook!

Download the Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation Kit– Be sure to grab the VHD download with Server GUI. ( You’ll need this to build a Study Lab so that you can follow along with the eBook )
Shortly after downloading your Evaluation Kit, you’ll receive an email titled “Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Evaluation: Start Here”
Forward the email received in Step 2 above to EarlyExperts@Microsoft.com. You'll receive an email in response with your free eBook!

While you’re waiting … Build Your Lab!

Do It:Build Your Lab using Boot-to-VHD

Alternatively, if you don’t have access to any PC hardware, you can also build your lab online using our FREE Windows Azure trial program:

Do It:Build Your Server Lab in the Clouds

Read:Chapter 1 - Cloud OS in the FREE eBook that you'll receive.

洞悉客戶需求 推展多元解決方案

已具海量資料能量 靜待商機浮現

What’s New with Windows Server 2012 R2?

Whew! But … there’s STILL MORE!

How can I quickly learn about these new features?

Get this 108-page eBook for FREE!

Get this FREE eBook!

While you’re waiting … Build Your Lab!

Other articles you may be interested in …

What’s New with Windows Server 2012 R2?

Whew! But … there’s STILL MORE!

How can I quickly learn about these new features?

Get this 108-page eBook for FREE!

Get this FREE eBook!

While you’re waiting … Build Your Lab!

Other articles you may be interested in …

What’s New with Windows Server 2012 R2?

Whew! But … there’s STILL MORE!

How can I quickly learn about these new features?

Get this 108-page eBook for FREE!

Get this FREE eBook!

While you’re waiting … Build Your Lab!

Other articles you may be interested in …

洞悉客戶需求　推展多元解決方案

已具海量資料能量　靜待商機浮現