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sandy ingram

Microsoft cloud computing & cloud services - So much more than just BPOS - Microsoft Pa... - 0 views

  • Windows Azure - flexible, familiar environment to create applications and services for the cloud.
  • Windows Intune - simplifies how businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7
  • Microsoft Office Web Apps - online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, giving you the freedom to access, edit, and share Microsoft Office documents from virtually anywhere.
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  • Microsoft SQL Azure - provides a highly scalable, multi-tenant database that you don't have to install, setup, patch or manage.
  • Microsoft Exchange Online - highly secure hosted e-mail with "anywhere access" for your employees.  Starts at just $5 per user per month.
  • Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange - helps protect businesses' inbound and outbound e-mail from spam, viruses, phishing scams, and e-mail policy violations.
  • Microsoft SharePoint Online - gives your business a highly secure, central location where employees can collaborate and share documents.
  • Microsoft Office Live Meeting - provides real-time, Web-hosted conferencing so you can connect with colleagues and engage clients from almost anywhere – without the cost of travel.
  • Microsoft Office Communications Online - delivers robust messaging functionality for real-time communication via text, voice, and video.
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online - helps you find, keep, and grow business relationships by centralizing customer information and streamlining processes with a system that quickly adapts to new demands.
  • Windows Live ID - identity and authentication system provided by Windows Live that lets you create universal sign in credentials across diverse applications.
  • Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) - brings together online versions of Microsoft's messaging and collaboration solutions, including: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online.
  • Hopefully in the information above, you can see that when it comes to Microsoft cloud computing and Microsoft cloud services, BPOS is just one aspect and offering available, but it goes far beyond just that.  Whether you are a business or a partner, the opportunity that cloud computing/cloud services and Microsoft brings to you are very exciting and continue to expand each and every day.
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    The journey leading up to where we are today has been taking place for 15 years now, starting way back with Windows Live and Hotmail. Since then, the services and offerings served up online through cloud from Microsoft have continued and expanded. Today, there are a number of cloud based solutions available, enabling individuals and businesses around the world to do so much. Here's a look at some of these, with links to more information about each and trials of these for you:
sandy ingram

California Choose Microsoft Cloud Services to "improve data security, simplify e-mail a... - 0 views

  • CSC (NYSE: CSC) announced today that the State of California awarded the company a contract to migrate its current multiple e-mail applications to a cloud-based solution with Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)
  • Work under this contract will support Governor Schwarzenegger's executive order and the state's efforts to improve information technology (IT) infrastructure, increase government efficiency, save costs and consolidate IT functions under the Office of the State Chief Information Officer.
  • “This is part of our efforts to consolidate and standardize information technology infrastructure to reduce costs and enhance productivity,” stated Teri Takai, chief information officer of the State of California
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  • CSC will provide Microsoft Cloud Services in a secure cloud environment offering comprehensive e-mail and legal eDiscovery services and collaboration tools for mobile users. CSC will also provide migration services to the new cloud solution and will standardize e-mail across all state agencies that select the service, potentially eliminating up to 130 e-mail systems that currently utilize three different e-mail platforms.
  • The Microsoft Cloud Services will improve data security, simplify e-mail administration, enhance agency collaboration and improve responsiveness to public information requests.
  • “California joins a growing number of state and local government customers across the country turning to Microsoft’s cloud-based software and services to maximize the return on their technology investment,”
  • said Gail Thomas-Flynn, vice president of State and Local Government at Microsoft.
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    "CSC (NYSE: CSC) announced today that the State of California awarded the company a contract to migrate its current multiple e-mail applications to a cloud-based solution with Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)."
sandy ingram

The Fed 2011 Agenda: Rush to the Cloud ! - 0 views

  • The new 25-point plan establishes a Data Center Consolidation Task Force with a goal of reducing the number of data centers by 800 as of 2015.
  • The plan also touts scalability as a reason for embracing the cloud over traditional solutions. It cited the example of a private-sector company doing video editing that experienced a surge of demand and was able, using the cloud, to scale from 50 to 4,000 virtual machines in three days.
  • There's an expectation that moving applications such as e-mail to the cloud will facilitate data center consolidation and reduce IT budgets. Some federal agencies have already awarded contracts to move e-mail to the cloud. In addition, the government has selected a dozen vendors to supply Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas).
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  • Google and Microsoft want the government’s cloud business and they’ve undertaken a PR campaign including announcements of high-profile contract awards. The General Services Administration (GSA) recently awarded Unisys and Google a contract to host e-mail in the cloud. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) selected Dell to supply Microsoft Online Services for the migration of 120,000 users and 21 e-mail systems to the cloud.
  • Microsoft was the winner of a Department of the Interior contract for moving e-mail to the cloud, a selection that Google protested. Google and its reseller, Onix Networking Corp, have filed suit against the Department of the Interior to overturn that selection.
  • Both Google Apps for Government and BPOS have been certified as being compliant with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). Being given FISMA Authority to Operate (ATO) is a certification the cloud infrastructure is a secure, trusted environment for government applications and databases they use.
  • The federal contracts for hosting e-mail in the cloud are not the first Big Government embrace of hosted e-mail. Microsoft reportedly has several hundred state and local agencies using its cloud services. New York City recently announced it will adopt Microsoft BPOS for 30,000 city users.
  • The State of California awarded a contract to Microsoft and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) for the migration of 130 of e-mail systems to Microsoft BPOS.
  • The State of Minnesota Office of Enterprise Technology (OET) announced an agreement with Microsoft to migrate Exchange e-mail and other communications services to BPOS in a private cloud.
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    "In December 2010, the government's CIO, Vivek Kundra, released a 25-point plan for an overhaul of Federal IT that emphasizes a cloud-first policy for federal agencies. Currently the federal government is on pace to spend $79 billion on IT this year, with more than 20% going to infrastructure spending. Because the US government has spent $600 billion on IT over the past decade, the plan's intent is to reduce IT spending by the federal government."
sandy ingram

Study: Cloud Cuts Carbon Emissions: Companies running applications in the cloud can red... - 0 views

  • “The IT industry had this nagging question – as more and more services move to the cloud, do they consume more or less energy?” Bernard said. “This study found that you can migrate existing infrastructure to the cloud and see not only growth in productivity but a reduction in energy consumption for those services.”
  • The study was aimed at understanding how the cloud performs differently from an on-premises environment, said Josh Whitney, corporate sustainability strategy lead with WSP. Using a methodology aligned to the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) standards, Accenture and WSP compared the energy use and carbon emissions per user for Exchange Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM with their cloud-based equivalents: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The results suggest that for widely deployed and commonly used applications such as e-mail, content sharing and customer relationship management, the cloud can enable significant reduction in carbon emissions.
  • “The findings are actually pretty impressive,” Whitney said. “I think this study provides further reinforcement of the benefits of the cloud beyond the bottom line. It provides one of the first quantitative and measurable analyses of the impact that cloud computing can have directly compared to a traditional deployment of IT within a company.”
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  • The study pointed to several other factors that drove down emissions and consumption, including the fact that datacenters operate servers at much higher utilization rates and are physically constructed to reduce power loss.
  • Mike Ehrenberg, a technical fellow and chief architect for Microsoft Dynamics, said the study’s findings should reinforce for customers the benefits of moving to the cloud.
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    "A new study released today found that companies running applications in the cloud can reduce their carbon emissions by 30 percent or more compared with running those same applications in their own infrastructure. The study, "Cloud Computing and Sustainability: The Environmental Benefits of Moving to the Cloud," was commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by Accenture, a global management consulting, technology consulting and technology outsourcing company, and WSP Environment & Energy, an environmental consulting group. "
sandy ingram

City and County of San Francisco Adopts Microsoft Cloud Solution: This solution will he... - 0 views

  • “The City and County of San Francisco has always been forward-thinking in leveraging technology to improve the services it provides,” said Gail Thomas Flynn, vice president of U.S. State and Local Government at Microsoft Corp. “We are excited at the opportunity to equip and support the employees of San Francisco with the tools they need to better serve the people of San Francisco.”
  • Several competing solutions were examined based on criteria that included price, security, functionality, flexibility, SLA-backed service, proven record for support, and integration with existing infrastructure and tools.
  • “By moving to the Microsoft platform, we not only get immediate improvements to our system, but we gain a disaster-resilient system that provides the most modern information tools, with solid support provisions that can scale with the needs of our constituents,” San Francisco Chief Information Officer Jon Walton said.
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    "SAN FRANCISCO - May 18, 2011 - The City and County of San Francisco today announced that it will upgrade and consolidate its multiple citywide email systems used by more than 23,000 employees as part of its ongoing efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of its services and reduce IT management costs. "A key part of serving a community as diverse and vibrant as ours starts with making the right investments in information technology," San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee said. "It is our responsibility to make decisions that are fiscally responsible, forward-looking, and improve the services that city and county employees provide to our constituents.""
sandy ingram

Steven Cloherty: Microsoft Online Services Risk Management | Charles | Channel 9 - 0 views

  • The Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) has recently earned the Statement on Auditing Standard (SAS) No. 70 Type II, Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 compliance, and the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) 27001 standard – among others.  In addition, Microsoft has launched a new dedicated government cloud as part of the Business Productivity Online Suite to meet the most rigorous government requirements for security and privacy, including complying with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Learn how these and other certifications help ensure our customers security, privacy, and business continuity. 
sandy ingram

Microsoft Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Team Blog : EDiscovery in SharePoint Serv... - 0 views

  • In this post, I want to highlight three major improvements in SharePoint that support eDiscovery. You can: Manage holds and conduct eDiscovery searches on any site collection Use SharePoint Server Search or FAST Search for SharePoint out of box to search and process content Automatically copy eDiscovery search results to a separate repository for further analysis
  • SharePoint Sever 2010 addresses the Information Management, Identification, Preservation and Collection stages
  • Hold and eDiscovery is a site level feature that can be activated on any site.
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  • Activating this feature creates a new category in Site Settings that provides links to Holds and Hold Reports lists
  • With the Hold and eDiscovery feature you can create holds in the hold list and then manually add content to the relevant hold by clicking on Compliance Details from the drop down menu for individual items.
  • What if you have a large amount of items you want to find and add to a hold? For that you can use the features on the Discover and hold content page, which is a settings page in Site Settings. From this page you can specify a search query and then preview the results. The configured search service (SharePoint Search Server or FAST Search for SharePoint) will automatically be used. You can then select the option to keep items on hold in place so they cannot be edited or deleted, or if you have configured a Content Organizer Send to location in Central Administration you can have content copied to another site and placed on hold
  • When searching and processing, the search will by default be scoped to the entire Site Collection and run with elevated permissions so all content can be discovered
  • In summary, SharePoint Server 2010 contains key features that make it an essential aspect of your eDiscovery strategy. With the new SharePoint Server 2010 capabilities you can easily apply proper retention policies for all content and make it easier to discover content if an eDiscovery event occurs. eDiscovery often prescribes tight deadlines for production. SharePoint 2010 helps you find the right content and deliver it faster.
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    i everyone, I am Quentin Christensen and I work on document and records management functionality for SharePoint. Electronic discovery (commonly referred to as eDiscovery) is an area we are supporting with new set of capabilities in SharePoint Server 2010. In case you are not familiar with eDiscovery, it is the process of finding, preserving, analyzing and producing content in electronic formats as required by litigation or investigations. eDiscovery is an important concern for all of our customers and given that SharePoint has grown to be an integral part of collaboration, document, and records management for many organizations, we recognize the need to support the eDiscovery process for SharePoint content. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 included a hold feature that could be used for eDiscovery, but it was scoped to the Records Center site template. With SharePoint Server 2010 the eDiscovery capabilities have been greatly expanded to provide more functionality and the power to use these features across your entire SharePoint deployment. In this post, I want to highlight three major improvements in SharePoint that support eDiscovery. You can: Manage holds and conduct eDiscovery searches on any site collection Use SharePoint Server Search or FAST Search for SharePoint out of box to search and process content Automatically copy eDiscovery search results to a separate repository for further analysis
sandy ingram

Organizational Accountability is Key to Protecting Users' Privacy - Microsoft Privacy &... - 0 views

  • The conference has commenced this morning in Jerusalem, a city of both ancient traditions and thoroughly modern influences, and I was reminded of how that same dynamic is true of privacy in the Internet age.  Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data.  These privacy guidelines have served as the basis for numerous privacy laws in place across the globe.  Yet, even these privacy principles need to keep pace with the changing information environment.  In my remarks today at a panel discussion titled “Notice and Consent:  Illusion or Reality?”, I suggested that individual participation through mediums such as notice and consent remains important to safeguarding users’ privacy, but by itself does not afford enough protection.  This is particularly true given the explosion of information collection and use that is the fuel of today’s Internet economy. The same is true of the various legal frameworks that govern data collection, usage, and sharing.  Both are important, but neither is sufficient on its own.
  • Alongside individual participation and regulatory oversight, another vital aspect of privacy protection is often overlooked: the role and responsibility of the organization in maintaining and protecting personal data.
  • Microsoft’s view, as outlined in a new white paper released today at the conference, is that organizations’ privacy policies and data management practices most directly influence whether users’ personal information is kept safe or exposed to risk. Therefore, we believe that organizations—including Microsoft—must hold themselves accountable for acting to protect users’ interests and taking appropriate measures to safeguard privacy and personal data, even in the absence of specific regulatory mandates.
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    "This week, more than 400 policymakers, privacy advocates and industry representatives will be converging in Israel for the 32nd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. "
sandy ingram

The Cloud's Green Advantage - Forbes.com - 0 views

  • When small organizations (100 users) move to the cloud, the effective carbon footprint reduction could be up to a 90% savings by using a shared cloud environment instead of their own local servers
  • For large corporations, the savings are typically 30% or more. In a case study with a large consumer-goods company, the team calculated that 32% of energy use and resulting carbon emissions could be saved by moving 50,000 e-mail users in North America and Europe to Microsoft's equivalent cloud offering.
  • What accounts for these significant energy savings? Think of cloud computing as being like mass transit. The data center is essentially getting computing applications to carpool or take the bus instead of sitting in their own individual servers. However, unlike mass transit, there is no sacrifice in convenience or performance with this move. Consider the disappointing fact that a typical server in a company often runs at about 10% of capacity, meaning there are lots of servers out there drawing power without doing much computing
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  • The economies of scale of cloud data centers allow much higher utilization of servers, dynamic provisioning to better match server capacity to demand, and multi-tenancy to serve thousands of organizations with one set of shared infrastructure.
  • The efficiency benefits of the cloud won't be realized unless customers are thoughtful about decommissioning or repurposing unused servers, and cloud providers like Microsoft continue to innovate in the name of greater and greater efficiency.
  • For companies with their own large-scale infrastructure, this study identifies the key drivers that will let them optimize for the greatest efficiency as well.
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    "In his piece, "Cloud Computing Meets Energy Management," William Clifford makes important points about the need to optimize the efficiency of both cloud data centers and on-premise computing. However, a new study released this week challenges his assertion that cloud computing "just transfers the consumption problem to another location." The findings suggest instead that cloud computing can significantly reduce the overall net energy use of business computing needs."
sandy ingram

Malicious insider attacks to rise: "This is one of the most significant threats compani... - 0 views

  • Microsoft said so-called "malicious insider" breaches are on the rise and will worsen in the present downturn.
  • "This is one of the most significant threats companies face,"
  • "The malicious insider is classed as the greatest security concern because they have access, and relatively easy access, to corporate assets," said Mr Leland.
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  • The problem is not just a serious one for business.
  • "The national security and economic health of the United States depend on the security, stability and integrity of our nation's cyberspace, both in the public and private sectors,"
  • A report last week by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and data-protection research group, found that 88% of data breaches were caused by simple negligence on the part of staff.
  • While insider attacks are lower in number, Mr Rowney said they can be more devastating because the employee knows where "the crown jewels" are kept
  • Verizon indicates these protections are a critical form of risk management that no enterprise can no longer afford to ignore.
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    "This is one of the most significant threats companies face,"
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    People to Google: Doug Leland, Microsoft John Brennan, the President's top adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security. Kevin Rowney, Symantec, founder of the firm's Data Loss Prevention Unit
sandy ingram

Cloud Computing: what every business owner and consumer should know (A work in progress) - 0 views

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    Over the last few years, both consumers and corporate clients have rushed to move their data to .the cloud,.1 adopting web-based applications and storage solutions provided by companies that include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Over 69% of Americans use webmail services, store data online, or otherwise use software programs such as word processing applications whose functionality is in the cloud. This trend is only going to continue. The shift to cloud computing exposes end-users to privacy invasion and fraud by hackers. Cloud computing also leaves users vulnerable to significant invasions of privacy by the government, resulting in the evisceration of traditional Fourth Amendment protections of a person's private files and documents. These very real risks associated with the cloud computing model are not communicated to consumers, who are thus unable to make an informed decision when evaluating cloud based services.
sandy ingram

SURVEY: Data-breach costs rising, 84% repeat offenders - 0 views

  • The study measured the direct costs of a data breach, such as hiring forensic experts; notifying consumers; setting up telephone hotlines to field queries from concerned or affected customers; offering free credit monitoring subscriptions; and discounts for future products and services.
    • sandy ingram
       
      THE COST OF A DATA BREACH The study measured the direct costs of a data breach, such as hiring forensic experts; notifying consumers; setting up telephone hotlines to field queries from concerned or affected customers; offering free credit monitoring subscriptions; and discounts for future products and services. Company's stock price, which in some cases can be substantial. CASE STUDY when the nation's sixth largest credit and debit card processor -- Heartland Payment Systems -- disclosed a breach that could affect millions of customers, the company's stock price took a nosedive. Shares of Heartland's stock lost 42 percent of their value the day after that disclosure, closing at a 52-week low of $8.18. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY A breach often exposes proprietary data that can jeopardize millions of dollars invested in research and development.
    • sandy ingram
       
      COST TO YOUR BRAND "The first thing companies say when they have a breach is 'Well, we'll implement encryption and data leak prevention technologies, and maybe do more training'," Dunkelberger said. "That's great, but what amount of brand damage has to occur in these public disclosures before we see changes made to the way companies handle not just consumers' personal information, but also the intellectual property that drives their businesses?"
  • "The first thing companies say when they have a breach is 'Well, we'll implement encryption and data leak prevention technologies, and maybe do more training'," Dunkelberger said. "That's great, but what amount of brand damage has to occur in these public disclosures before we see changes made to the way companies handle not just consumers' personal information, but also the intellectual property that drives their businesses?"
  • Microsoft patched for the worm affecting Heartland 4 months ago.
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    the Ponemon Institute, a Tucson, Ariz., based independent research company, found that companies spent roughly $202 per consumer record compromised. The same study put the total cost of a breach in 2007 at $6.3 million, and roughly $4.7 million in 2006.
sandy ingram

Small Companies Look to #Cloud for Savings in 2011 - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • As of April 2010, only about 7% of small-business owners were using cloud services, but that number is expected to grow to more than 10% by mid-2011, according to a survey by technology-research firm IDC.
  • Half of small firms that use "the cloud" say it has improved their bottom line, according to a survey this fall by Microsoft Corp., which provides cloud services.
  • A number of surveys show that some business owners are hesitant to try cloud computing because they don't want to stray from familiar systems or invest in new ones. Some owners that have made the switch, however, say it has been a boon to their cash-strapped firms.
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  • Garey Willbanks, owner of Boiler Management Ltd. in Houston, says he pays about $600 a month to store information in the cloud. He estimates that is less than a tenth of what he would pay if he hired technology personnel to run an in-house storage server.
  • In June, Michael Tracy, a private law practitioner in Irvine, Calif., decided to try Nextpoint, a cloud-based program for attorneys. He had previously spent $10,000 to $12,000 a year licensing software that would organize materials before a trial. The problem was he needed it just a few times a year. By contrast, Mr. Tracy pays for Nextpoint only when he uses it, and he anticipates spending just $4,000 to $6,000 a year on the service.
  • "If you already have tight control over your company, your expenses may drop 10% to 20%,"
  • Despite the savings, there are risks. Security breaches, for instance, can happen if the cloud provider isn't reliable. "If they make money directly from you, then they will want to secure [your information]," Mr. Enderle says. "If they make it through advertising," they may be more likely to sell the information to advertisers, he says.
  • Others fear that they might lose their information, or have to spend a lot of time transferring data, if they want out.
  • "So make sure it's the right provider and that you're ready to be in it for the long haul."
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    "A growing number of small-business owners are expected to try cloud computing services next year, hoping to trim costs and stay up and running if disaster strikes. Cloud computing refers to any service that operates over an Internet connection, allowing immediate access from any computer or mobile device with Web access. Business owners can access software or store information-such as customer contacts, accounting data and presentations-and leave the technical maintenance to the cloud provider. "
sandy ingram

Governance 101: Best practices for creating and managing team sites - SharePoint Online... - 0 views

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    If you're a team site owner, it's a good idea to create a governance model to address your site's policies, processes, roles, and responsibilities.
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