From time to time, people stumble across the local user account called CLIUSR and wonder what it is, while you really don’t need to worry about it; we will cover it for the curious in this blog.

The CLIUSR account is a local user account created by the Failover Clustering feature when it is installed on Windows Server 2012 or later. Well, that’s easy enough, but why is this account here? Taking a step back, let’s take a look at why we are using this account

In the Windows Server 2003 and previous versions of the Cluster Service, a domain user account was used to start the Cluster Service. This Cluster Service Account (CSA) was used for forming the Cluster, joining a node, registry replication, etc. Basically, any kind of authentication that was done between nodes used this user account as a common identity.

A number of support issues were encountered as domain administrators were pushing down group policies that stripped rights away from domain user accounts, not taking into consideration that some of those user accounts were used to run services. An example of this is the Logon as a Service right. If the Cluster Service account did not have this right, it was not going to be able to start the Cluster Service. If you were using the same account for multiple clusters, then you could incur production downtime across a number of critical systems. You also had to deal with password changes in Active Directory. If you changed the user accounts password in AD, you also needed to change passwords across all Clusters/nodes that use the account.

In Windows Server 2008, we learned and redesigned everything about the way we use start the service to make it more resilient, less error prone, and easier to manage. We started using the built-in Network Service to start the Cluster Service. Keep in mind that this is not the full blown account, just simply a reduced privileged set. Changing it to this reduced account was a solution for the group policy issues.

For authentication purposes, it was switched over to use the computer object associated with the Cluster Name known as the Cluster Name Object (CNO)for a common identity. Because this CNO is a machine account in the domain, it will automatically rotate the password as defined by the domain’s policy for you (which is every 30 days by default).

Great!! No more domain user account and its password changes we have to account for. No more trying to remember which Cluster was using which account. Yes!! Ah, not so fast my friend. While this solved some major pain, it did have some side effects.

Starting in Windows Server 2008 R2, admins started virtualizing everything in their datacenters, including domain controllers. Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) was also introduced and became the standard for private cloud storage. Some admin’s completely embraced virtualization and virtualized every server in their datacenter, including to add domain controllers as a virtual machine to a Cluster and utilize the CSV drive to hold the VHD/VHDX of the VM.

This created a “chicken or the egg” scenario that many companies ended up in. In order to mount the CSV drive to get to the VMs, you had to contact a domain controller to get the CNO. However, you couldn’t start the domain controller because it was running on the CSV.

Having slow or unreliable connectivity to domain controllers also had effect on I/O to CSV drives. CSV does intra-cluster communication via SMB much like connecting to file shares. To connect with SMB, it needs to authenticate and in Windows Server 2008 R2, that involved authenticating the CNO with a remote domain controller.

For Windows Server 2012, we had to think about how we could take the best of both worlds and get around some of the issues we were seeing. We are still using the reduced Network Service privilege to start the Cluster Service, but now to remove all external dependencies we have a local (non-domain) user account for authentication between the nodes.

This local “user” account is not an administrative account or domain account. This account is automatically created for you on each of the nodes when you create a cluster or on a new node being added to the existing Cluster. This account is completely self-managed by the Cluster Service and handles automatically rotating the password for the account and synchronizing all the nodes for you. The CLIUSR password is rotated at the same frequency as the CNO, as defined by your domain policy (which is every 30 days by default). With it being a local account, it can authenticate and mount CSV so the virtualized domain controllers can start successfully. You can now virtualize all your domain controllers without fear. So we are increasing the resiliency and availability of the Cluster by reducing external dependencies.

This account is the CLIUSR account and is identified by its description.

One question that we get asked is if the CLIUSR account can be deleted. From a security standpoint, additional local accounts (not default) may get flagged during audits. If the network administrator isn’t sure what this account is for (i.e. they don’t read the description of “Failover Cluster Local Identity”), they may delete it without understanding the ramifications. For Failover Clustering to function properly, this account is necessary for authentication.

1. Joining node starts the Cluster Service and passes the CLIUSR credentials across.

2. All passes, so the node is allowed to join.

There is one extra safe guard we did to ensure continued success. If you accidentally delete the CLIUSR account, it will be recreated automatically when a node tries to join the Cluster.

Short story… the CLIUSR account is an internal component of the Cluster Service. It is completely self-managing and there is nothing you need to worry about regarding configuring and managing it. So leave it alone and let it do its job.

In Windows Server 2016, we will be taking this even a step further by leveraging certificates to allow Clusters to operate without any external dependencies of any kind. This allows you to create Clusters out of servers that reside in different domains or no domains at all. But that’s a blog for another day.

Hopefully, this answers any questions you have regarding the CLIUSR account and its use.

Enjoy,
John Marlin
Senior Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Group

Hello, Wiki Ninjas!
Today is Friday with International Community Update.

The end of September is as follows:

The topic of this month:

• Norwegian moved down 1 place. The language which order turned into is only Norwegian this month.
• The top 10 languages regained the number of the articles that decreased last month.

Thank you!!

Tomoaki Yoshizawa (yottun8)
TechNet Profile: Tomoaki Yoshizawa
twitter: @yottun8
Facebook: Tomoaki Yoshizawa
Blog: blog.yottun8.com

Die Deutsche Partnerkonferenz, kurz DPK, lädt vom 13. bis 14. Oktober 2015 nach Bremen ein. Bis dahin werden Euch unsere Kollegen in regelmäßigen Beiträgen über ihre Highlights informieren. Den Anfang machte Sebastian Grassl, Leiter Partner Strategie und Marketing bei der Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, mit 15 Marketingtipps in 45 Minuten. Unsere Office Kollegen berichten Euch in den folgenden Podcasts von ihren #DPK2015 Highlights rund um Office 365, Office 2016 und Co.

Thomas Roth, Product Marketing Manager Collaboration & Project Management Microsoft Deutschland, und Ulrike Grewe, Product Manager Office & Office auf mobilen Geräten Microsoft Deutschland, aus dem Applications and Services Team (ASM), das in unterschiedlichen Rollen und Funktionen die Produkte rundum Office und Office 365 verantwortet, haben in jeweils fünfminütigen Podcasts ihre Kollegen zu ihren Sessions und den Office Highlights auf der DPK befragt. Aber hört selbst:

Peter Fischer, Group Manager Microsoft Office Division Microsoft Deutschland, macht Partner und Interessenten neugierig auf seine Session zusammen mit den Kollegen Ulrike Grewe und Caroline Rünger "Der Moderne Arbeitsplatz – Der Pitch! Die Ziele! Unsere Zusammenarbeit!" und gibt den Partnern Tipps für eine erfolgreiche Zukunft am eigenen Arbeitsplatz und der ihrer Kunden.

• Podcast herunterladen (11 MB)
  

Thorsten Hübschen, verantwortlich für das Office Geschäft bei Microsoft Deutschland, gibt einen Ausblick auf die Session"Produktivität 4.0: Warum in Deutschland die Arbeitswelt gerade neu erfunden wird, was Office 365 damit zu tun hat, und wie Sie als Partner davon profitieren“ und einen Einblick, wie Arbeiten 4.0 am #Vertrauensarbeitsort und #OutOfOffice bei Microsoft bereits heute ausschaut, wieso wir Arbeit neu erfinden müssen und wie auch Partner und Kunden davon profitieren können!

• Podcast herunterladen (8 MB)
  

Ellen Kuder, Product Manager Office, Skype for Business Lead Microsoft Deutschland, erzählt, warum Skype for Business spannend ist und was die Teilnehmer in der Session"Skype for Business – den neuen Services auf den Zahn gefühlt" erwartet.

• Podcast herunterladen (6 MB)
  

Caroline Rünger, Product Marketing Manager Modern Mail & Enterprise Social Microsoft Deutschland, gibt einen Vorgeschmack auf ihre Session"Mail Compete: Wie Sie im Wettbewerb punkten & Erfolgsfaktoren für Migrationsprojekte" und erläutert, warum E-Mails nach wie vor wichtig sind.

• Podcast herunterladen (7 MB)
  

Elmar Witte, Product Marketing Manager für Office 365 Microsoft Deutschland, empfiehlt den Zuhörern die Session"Wer nutzt, gewinnt: Glückliche Kunden und langfristige Umsatzsicherung mit Office 365" und seinen Workshop zur neuen Demo-Plattform Office 365 Customer Immersion Experience (CIE).

• • • Podcast herunterladen (10 MB)
      
      

Julia Namdar, Assistant to Business Group Lead Microsoft Office Division, schließt mit einem Überblick über die DPK-Sessions der ASM an und lädt alle DPK-Teilnehmer ein an der Kaffeebar vorbeizuschauen

• Podcast herunterladen (7 MB)

Kurzum das gesamte ASM Team freut sich auf die #DPK2015 und den Austausch vor Ort in Bremen!

Summary: Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy, talks about using Windows PowerShell to sort, search, and to filter through a directory list.

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of my friends on Facebook posted a picture of a bunch of hardwood trees all decked out in fall colors. It was rather pretty. That is the down side to living in central Florida—I mean, I have never seen a palm tree in fall colors. Of course, it is 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius), so I guess we don’t really have fall. But the humidity is dropping (down to 55% instead of the usual 75%), so it feels cool outside.

Anyway, I am sitting outside checking email sent to scripter@microsoft.com on my Surface Pro 3 under a huge ZZ Top oak tree (the trees have long gray beards). I am sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea and munching on a piece of homemade carrot cake.

I like to spend a bit of time exploring the disk usage on my Surface Pro 3. It is not infinite, and even though I bought the largest internal storage and I have an additional little chip for storage, it still fills fast—especially with my Kindle reader and all the whitepapers I like to store. Windows PowerShell scripts take up nothing, but a big fluffy PDF file can easily eat up 25 or 30 Mbytes. With a hundred or so, there went 10% of my storage. Not to mention the ease of downloading apps. So I like to keep an eye on things.

I don’t know what happened to File Manager on my Surface Pro 3, but I really don’t need it because I have Windows PowerShell. I open the Windows PowerShell console, and I use Get-ChildItem to obtain a directory list. I then pipe the output to Out-GridView. Because I am sitting under a ZZ Top tree, balancing my Surface on my knee, and using a virtual keyboard, l am loving the short terse cmdlet aliases. Here is the command:

dir c:\fso | ogv

I can now look at the output in the grid. The command I typed appears in the title of the output grid:

When did all of these files appear? I want to see the files that were last written to since September 1 of this year. I can use my finger to press the Add Criteria button and to check the box beside the LastWriteTime property.

But my fingers seem a bit too wide to make that check very easily, so I use my stylus instead. It is very precise and is designed for making nice little checks in check boxes. So I add that, and then use the handwriting input box to add my date criteria. As you can see here, there is only one file that has been written to in the last month:

Sweet. So now I know that I am not really using the stuff in this folder, and I can easily move it to the cloud and free up some storage on my local device. Luckily, One Drive is quite nicely integrated into Windows 10.

WooHoo! And now I'm off to enjoy our lovely cool central Florida fall.

See you tomorrow...assuming the gators don’t get me.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy 

Microsoftは、IaaS (サービスとしてのインフラ)、PaaS (サービスとしてのプラットフォーム)、オンプレミス データセンター、ハイブリッド環境にわたって、WindowsとLinuxの両方をサポートする包括的な一連の統合ソリューションを提供しています。Azure Site Recovery (ASR) の堅牢な移行機能によって、このプラットフォームの利用がこれまでになく簡単になります。

ほんの数時間で、簡単なアプリケーションをAWSからAzureに移行する手順をご紹介するビデオと、その簡単な日本語解説をご覧いただくことができます。

▼ さらに記事を読む

皆様、こんにちは。認証・デバイス管理・セキュリティ担当の橘です。

今回は標的型攻撃対策 / サイバーセキュリティ対策をテーマに、

8月にリリースされた製品である Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA)についてご紹介を致します。


標的型攻撃の代表的なものには「標的型メール」が挙げられます。

「標的型メール」は悪意のある攻撃者が最終的な目的を達成するのための足掛かりの一つとして利用されることが一般的ですが、

その多くの場合は端末の認証情報を取得することを目的としていると考えられます。


「標的型メール」を通して取得された端末の認証情報 (ID / Password) は、

企業のネットワーク内に存在するより重要な情報を取得するために、

ネットワーク内の他の端末へのアクセスと認証情報の取得に利用されます。

そして、最終的には Active Directory ドメインのドメイン管理者の認証情報を取得し、

重要な情報の取得を誰にも気づかれないように実施します。

残念ながら、これらの悪意のある攻撃者の不正な活動は従来型のセキュリティ対策では発見が難しいのが現状となります。

つまり、企業には ID・認証情報を利用した悪意のある攻撃者の不正なアクセスやふるまいを検知できる仕組みが必要となります。

Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA) は上記の脅威への対策としてご活用頂けます。

ATA はActive Directory への認証情報を監視・学習することができます。

これにより、ネットワーク内に存在するユーザーが通常と異なる動作をしていないか、

悪意のある攻撃者が利用する Pass the Ticket や Pass the Hash などの 代表的な攻撃手法が行われていないかを検知します。

 (1) 悪意のある攻撃の検出

悪意のある既知の攻撃をほぼ瞬時に検出します。

・Pass-the-Ticket (PtT)

・Pass-the-Hash (PtH)

・Overpass-the-Hash

・PAC の偽造 (MS14-068)

・ゴールデン チケット

・スケルトン キー マルウェア

・アカウント列挙攻撃による偵察

・ブルート フォース

・リモート実行






(2) 異常な動作の検出

Machine Learning を活用した行動分析によって、疑わしいアクティビティや異常な動作を発見します。

・変則的なログイン

・未知の脅威

・パスワード共有

・侵入後の活動拡大

 
(3) セキュリティ問題とリスク

既知のセキュリティ問題を検出します。

・無効な信頼関係

・脆弱なプロトコル

・プロトコルの既知の 脆弱性

 
標的型攻撃、サイバー攻撃の脅威は日々増すばかりです。

これらの脅威への対策の一環として、ATA が皆様のお役に立てますと幸いです。

■ Advanced Threat Analytics 試用版
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-microsoft-advanced-threat-analytics
 

Summary: Use Windows PowerShell to display a filterable GUI list of files.

 How can I use Windows PowerShell to filter a list of files using a graphical user interface?

 Use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet to obtain a directory list, select all of the properties and pipe the output
           to the Out-GridView cmdlet, for example:

dir c:\fso | select * | ogv

Note  Dir is an alias for Get-ChildItem and ogv is an alias for Out-GridView.

Welcome to part 1 of this month’s Azure Partner Community blog series.

• Register for the October 15 community call
• Sign up for the Azure Partner email newsletter
• Join the Azure Partners group on Yammer

If you’ve followed Microsoft Azure for any length of time, you’ve probably heard or read about hybrid data centers. Hybrid data centers allow you to take the best of the on-premises world and expand it to include the best of the Azure world. It is truly one of the unique value propositions that Azure enables.

Virtual Machines are a big part of building a hybrid data center. Put them on Azure and you get a tremendous set of resources and opportunity for partners. This month’s Azure Partner Community focus is on re-introducing you to Azure Virtual Machines. We’ll take a look at some of the latest enhancements, design and implementation patterns, migrating to Azure, and how to protect your Azure VMs.

This post is based on the insights I’ve gained in the many conversations I’ve had with partners, about finding new growth areas for their businesses. These conversations, which usually start with the Business Decision Maker and/or a Practice Lead, frequently result in the addition or modification of practices or capabilities, and have three components:

• We look at the “why” behind Azure
• We assess the current state of the business
• We spend time brainstorming and establishing next steps

Let me give you a look are each of these in a little more detail. Since I can’t sit down and have this conversation with every one of you, I’ll share my thoughts on ways you can do a self-assessment.

The case for adding Azure to your data center practice

One way or another customers are asking for cloud solutions. You have an opportunity to be at the center of a growing market. As you can see in the quotes cited below, some customers are motivated by the new and exciting technology while others are looking for cost savings. It really is a matter of if, not when, customers will start embracing cloud. Partners are in a position to help these customers build solutions and plans that will grow and adapt with the ever-changing technology landscape. Azure is a great place to do it.

Assessing your current practice

The next part of the conversation might be the hardest to have, but it is also often the most meaningful. It is important to do some self-assessing. Here is a sample of some of the common questions:

• When you think about your business today, would you say you have a data center practice?
• Would you say you have an Azure practice?
• Are these two areas connected?
• Do they share a common set of capabilities or are they isolated?
• Are your sales teams ready to sell the solutions you have to offer?
• Are your sales teams incented to include the Azure solutions in their deals?
• Do you have a defined set of cloud-based service or solution offerings for customers?
• Do your financial reporting and goals align with movement to cloud solutions?
• Are your technical teams ready to support sales process and drive implementations?

Ways to add Azure to your company’s practice

One of the most enjoyable parts of the conversation is a brainstorming session. Together we’ll take a look at their existing offerings and then identify ways to attach Azure to those. In some cases, the partners will choose to extend current offerings and in some they will choose to build net-new practices. When it comes to a data center practice, here are some of the things we might look at in the brainstorming session.

Assessments. These are a great conversation starter. Helping your customers assess where they are at and build a roadmap for the future can add tremendous value. Assessments allow you to look for these things:

Beyond assessments, here are other services you can provide customers:

Design Services. Beyond assessments, partners have a great opportunity to help customers with the design of a hybrid or could data center. Cloud solutions that are designed for the long term will need partners who are experts at networking, storage, virtual machines, and more.

Project Services. There are a wide variety of project services you can offer. Things like upgrades, migrations, development, etc. are all areas to consider. If your customers use an app or process in a certain vertical industry, is there IP you could build to re-use and drive higher margins from?

Management and Monitoring. Every data center needs this to stay healthy. Help customers design solutions that work for them and are easy to use. Microsoft OMS is a great place to start. If customers don’t want to own this piece it presents a managed service opportunity for you.

Business Continuity Services.Azure Site Recovery can be used to protect VMWare, physical servers, and Hyper-V deployments. There is also an opportunity to take this on as a managed service as well. You can design, implement, test, report, and maintain DR solutions for your customers.

How to get started

If you’ve made the decision to extend your data center practice to Azure, and maybe add a new capability or solutions, there are a few commitments to make:

• Commit to building complete solutions with necessary marketing plans and support
• Commit to training and incenting your sales staff on the new solutions
• Commit to building and equipping your technical resources
• Commit to a timeframe to ramp resources and build lead gen campaign to build awareness and interest

I hope this look at the first part of the practice building discussion has been helpful. Over the next few October posts, I will focus on the sales and technical discussions we have around Azure and the hybrid data center.

Join me on October 15 for the Azure Partner Community call. We’ll look at a key component of the hybrid data center, Azure Express Route.

Welcome back for another analysis of contributions to TechNet Wiki over the last week.

First up, the weekly leader board snapshot...

Great to see so many great names and good friends in this list. Thank you all for making TNWiki so relevant.

As always, here are the results of another weekly crawl over the updated articles feed.

Most Revisions Award   Who has made the most individual revisions

#1 Ken Cenerelli with 180 revisions.

#2 Peter Geelen - MSFT with 117 revisions.

#3 Arleta Wanat with 95 revisions.

Just behind the winners but also worth a mention are:

#4 Andy ONeill with 47 revisions.

#5 [Kamlesh Kumar] with 18 revisions.

#6 Darshana Jayathilake with 11 revisions.

#7 .paul. _ with 11 revisions.

#8 Recep YUKSEL with 11 revisions.

#9 sergey vdovin (aka evolex) with 10 revisions.

#10 Luiz Henrique Lima Campos [MVP] with 9 revisions.

Most Articles Updated Award   Who has updated the most articles

#1 Ken Cenerelli with 165 articles.

#2 Peter Geelen - MSFT with 62 articles.

#3 Andy ONeill with 19 articles.

Just behind the winners but also worth a mention are:

#4 Arleta Wanat with 15 articles.

#5 Recep YUKSEL with 10 articles.

#6 Rodrigo Nascentes with 5 articles.

#7 Praveen Eppili with 4 articles.

#8 Shanky_621 with 4 articles.

#9 Nonki Takahashi with 3 articles.

#10 Luiz Henrique Lima Campos [MVP] with 3 articles.

Most Updated Article Award   Largest amount of updated content in a single article

The article to have the most change this week was Operations Management Suite (OMS) Ile Azure Backup Monitoring Islemi (tr-TR), by Emre ERBULMUS

This week's revisers were Recep YUKSEL& Emre ERBULMUS

This is a great article by Emre. Make long by all the mages, which count as a bonus in my length calculations.

Longest Article Award   Biggest article updated this week

This week's largest document to get some attention is Archive - Wiki Ninjas Blog Authoring Schedule , by Peter Geelen - MSFT

This week's reviser was Peter Geelen - MSFT

Peter administering some behind the scenes wok as always, keeping us all afloat. God bless him, and all that floats - thanks to his patch work and house keeping.

Most Revised Article Award   Article with the most revisions in a week

This week's most fiddled with article is TechNet Guru Contributions - September 2015, by XAML guy. It was revised 21 times last week.

This week's revisers were Darshana Jayathilake, SYEDSHANU, Tom Mohan, sergey vdovin (aka evolex), Rishabh Banga, Wim Beck, Pooja Baraskar, Andy ONeill, SAMIR FARHAT, SitrucHtims, Ed Price - MSFT, .paul. _, Jon Bryan, João Eduardo Sousa, Maruthachalam K, Carmelo La Monica, [Kamlesh Kumar]& Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan (Shani)

Guru greatness oozing from every pore of the competition page this month. Go feast your eyes and brain to the delights being served up.

As Guru often wins, this week's SECOND most fiddled with article is BizTalk Server: E-Books, by [Kamlesh Kumar]. It was revised 15 times last week.

This week's reviser was [Kamlesh Kumar]

Lots of resources listed here, definitely a bookmark for all BizTalk fans.

Most Popular Article Award   Collaboration is the name of the game!

The article to be updated by the most people this week is Azure: Summary of ISPs that Allow / Disallow Access from Port 445, by Jason Hogg - MSFT

Jumping past Guru, this comes next. A great resource, with lots of love from those around it. Thanks Jason.

This week's revisers were ray_terrill, Peter Geelen - MSFT, Jason Hogg - MSFT, Bowulf& zroiy

Ninja Edit Award   A ninja needs lightning fast reactions!

Below is a list of this week's fastest ninja edits. That's an edit to an article after another person

• Revision 61 of TechNet Guru Contributions - September 2015 was saved by Tom Mohan just 4 minutes after sergey vdovin (aka evolex)
• Revision 2 of Deploy Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus ( Office 2016) using SCCM 2012 R2 was saved by Vinnie Grack just 4 minutes after FZB
  
  Congratulations to Tom Mohan and Vinnie Grack! Joint winners this month!
  Also in the top ten are:
  
  
• Revision 1 of Deploy Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus ( Office 2016) using SCCM 2012 R2 was saved by FZB just 6 minutes after Vinnie Grack
• Revision 58 of TechNet Guru Contributions - September 2015 was saved by Rishabh Banga just 13 minutes after Wim Beck
• Revision 54 of TechNet Guru Contributions - September 2015 was saved by Andy ONeill just 25 minutes after SAMIR FARHAT
• Revision 51 of TechNet Guru Contributions - September 2015 was saved by Ed Price - MSFT just 38 minutes after .paul. _
• Revision 4 of Creating reports using OData Feed in Power BI was saved by Maruthachalam K just 60 minutes after Shanky_621
• Revision 3 of Azure: Summary of ISPs that Allow / Disallow Access from Port 445 was saved by Bowulf just 81 minutes after Jason Hogg - MSFT
• Revision 1 of Solving the Number One Problem In Computer Security: A Data-Driven Defense whitepaper was saved by Peter Geelen - MSFT just 81 minutes after Roger Aa. Grimes
• Revision 57 of TechNet Guru Contributions - September 2015 was saved by Wim Beck just 136 minutes after Rishabh Banga

Winner Summary   Let's celebrate our winners!

Below are a few statistics on this week's award winners.

Most Revisions Award Winner
The reviser is the winner of this category.

Ken Cenerelli

Ken Cenerelli has been interviewed on TechNet Wiki!

• 17 Aug '15: interview-with-net-developer-microsoft-mvp-and-wiki-ninja-ken-cenerelli

Ken Cenerelli has featured articles on TechNet Wiki!

• 11 Jun '15: Using Microsoft Application Insights in an MVC application

Ken Cenerelli has won 15 previous Top Contributor Awards. Most recent five shown below:

• 03 Oct '15: Most Revisions Award
• 03 Oct '15: Most Articles Updated Award
• 13 Sep '15: Most Revisions Award
• 13 Sep '15: Most Articles Updated Award
• 07 Sep '15: Most Revisions Award

Ken Cenerelli has TechNet Guru medals, for the following articles:

• In Mar '15: Creating an Microsoft Application Insights resource
• In Apr '15: Using Microsoft Application Insights in an MVC application
• In May '15: Custom Telemetry Events with TrackEvent in Microsoft Application Insights
• In May '15: Azure PowerShell cmdlets version updates
• In Jun '15: How to enable line numbers for C# in Visual Studio 2013
• In Jun '15: Wiki: How to Subscribe to the Wiki Ninjas Blog through RSS in Outlook 2013

Ken Cenerelli's profile page

Most Articles Award Winner
The reviser is the winner of this category.

Ken Cenerelli

Ken Cenerelli is mentioned above.

Most Updated Article Award Winner
The author is the winner, as it is their article that has had the changes.

Emre ERBULMUS

This is the first Top Contributors award for Emre ERBULMUS on TechNet Wiki! Congratulations Emre ERBULMUS!

Emre ERBULMUS has not yet had any interviews, featured articles or TechNet Guru medals (see below)

Emre ERBULMUS's profile page

Longest Article Award Winner
The author is the winner, as it is their article that is so long!

Peter Geelen - MSFT

Peter Geelen - MSFT has been interviewed on TechNet Wiki!

• 26 Dec '11: interview-with-a-forefront-identity-manager-mvp-peter-geelen-wiki-tips-experiences-amp-tips-on-becoming-an-mvp

Peter Geelen - MSFT has featured articles on TechNet Wiki!

• 19 Aug '11: Wiki: How to Automatically Add a Table of Contents (TOC) to Your TechNet Wiki Article
• 05 Sep '11: Forefront Identity Manager Resources
• 03 Jan '12: FIM 2010 Wiki Articles
• 08 May '12: How to Use PowerShell to Create a Wiki Catalog Page
• 09 Mar '13: FIM 2010 Software Solutions from Partners
• 11 Apr '15: Wiki Governance: Copyright, Privacy & Piracy

Peter Geelen - MSFT has won 58 previous Top Contributor Awards. Most recent five shown below:

• 03 Oct '15: Most Revisions Award
• 03 Oct '15: Most Articles Updated Award
• 03 Oct '15: Longest Article Award for archive-wiki-ninjas-blog-authoring-schedule
• 07 Sep '15: Most Revisions Award
• 07 Sep '15: Most Articles Updated Award

Peter Geelen - MSFT has TechNet Guru medals, for the following articles:

• In Nov '14: Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) - Resource Portal

Peter Geelen - MSFT's profile page

Most Revised Article Winner
The author is the winner, as it is their article that has ben changed the most

XAML guy

XAML guy has been interviewed on TechNet Wiki!

• 23 Oct '12: interview-with-2-wikininjas-peter-laker-amp-ana-paula-de-almeida
• 28 Oct '13: interview-with-quot-xaml-guy-quot

XAML guy has featured articles on TechNet Wiki!

• 11 Nov '12: TechNet Wiki Widget (Windows 8)
• 23 Nov '12: Blackboard Design Pattern: A Practical Example - Radar Defense System

XAML guy has won 90 previous Top Contributor Awards. Most recent five shown below:

• 03 Oct '15: Most Revised Article Award for technet-guru-contributions-september-2015
• 13 Sep '15: Most Popular Article Award for technet-guru-contributions-september-2015
• 07 Sep '15: Most Revised Article Award for technet-guru-contributions-august-2015
• 07 Sep '15: Most Popular Article Award for technet-guru-contributions-september-2015
• 07 Sep '15: Most Popular Article Award for technet-guru-contributions-august-2015

XAML guy has TechNet Guru medals, for the following articles:

• In Jun '13: WPF: How to manage available/selected lists. Simple examples. MVVM and Code behind
• In Jul '13: WPF Data, Item and Control Templates - Minimum code, maximum awesome
• In Aug '13: Best ComboBox Tutorial Ever
• In Oct '13: WPF: Watermarked TextBox and PasswordBox
• In May '14: TechNet Guru Competition: Judge System Explanation
• In Jun '14: History and Technology Behind the TechNet Wiki Ninja Belt Calculator
• In Mar '15: Convert and Edit Microsoft Office Live Meeting Recordings

XAML guy's profile page

[Kamlesh Kumar]

This is the first Top Contributors award for [Kamlesh Kumar] on TechNet Wiki! Congratulations [Kamlesh Kumar]!

[Kamlesh Kumar] has not yet had any interviews, featured articles or TechNet Guru medals (see below)

[Kamlesh Kumar]'s profile page

Most Popular Article Winner
The author is the winner, as it is their article that has had the most attention.

Jason Hogg - MSFT

This is the first Top Contributors award for Jason Hogg - MSFT on TechNet Wiki! Congratulations Jason Hogg - MSFT!

Jason Hogg - MSFT has not yet had any interviews, featured articles or TechNet Guru medals (see below)

Jason Hogg - MSFT's profile page

Ninja Edit Award Winner
The author is the reviser, for it is their hand that is quickest!

Tom Mohan

Tom Mohan has been interviewed on TechNet Wiki!

• 22 Jun '15: interview-with-a-wiki-ninja-and-expert-net-developer-tom-mohan

This is the first Top Contributors award for Tom Mohan on TechNet Wiki! Congratulations Tom Mohan!

Tom Mohan has TechNet Guru medals, for the following articles:

• In Mar '15: Zen coding with Visual Studio
• In Mar '15: .NET: Equality Features
• In Mar '15: Asynchronous data binding using IsAsync and Delay
• In Apr '15: .NET 4.5 Read-Only Interfaces
• In Apr '15: VariableSizedWrapGrid
• In Apr '15: WPF: MultiBinding and IMultiValueConverter
• In May '15: Getting Started With WCF
• In May '15: Data Input Validation In WPF : Validation With Exception
• In Jun '15: .NET: Handle Unmanaged Resources

Tom Mohan has not yet had any featured articles (see below)

Tom Mohan's profile page

Vinnie Grack

This is the first Top Contributors award for Vinnie Grack on TechNet Wiki! Congratulations Vinnie Grack!

Vinnie Grack has not yet had any interviews, featured articles or TechNet Guru medals (see below)

Vinnie Grack's profile page

What a lot of stuff coming in! Summer is truly over, as I think it was Andy that said, things will pick up after the Summer ends. Well, welcome back everyone, and thank you for returning!

Best regards,
Pete Laker (XAML guy)

• More about TechNet Wiki Ninja Belts
• Get nominated for a TechNet Wiki Featured Article
• More about being interviewed on TechNet Wiki blogs
• And if you want to get listed HERE, you'd better get busy! :D

Already from the day TechNet Wiki first saw the light of day on 25 feb 2010, it has been encouraging the contributors (commonly known as Wiki Ninjas) to contribute boldly and edit gently.

With a very small community of a few contributors, the TNWiki grew significantly over time.

This also means that the TechNet Wiki is a living platform and the growth has a significant impact on the contributors community.

Significant impact on rules, guidelines and operations too.

TechNet Wiki started off with:

• TechNet Wiki: Getting Started
• Wiki: Code of Conduct  (http://aka.ms/WikiCodeOfConduct)

The Getting started has some key information like (but not only):

• How to Build Community
• Things That Destroy Community

Some time after the initial launch, the community started building more detailed guidelines, like:

• Wiki Governance: Types of Articles Not Appropriate for TechNet Wiki

Over time a collection of Wiki guidelines was defined:

• Wiki: Governance and Guidelines Portal
• Wiki: User Experience Guidelines
• Wiki Governance: Guideline on Publishing Videos

I want to highlight the introduction by Durval Ramos on the guideline for publishing videos.
In fact it does apply to the core functionality of TNWiki.

(quote) "The "good practice" in the TechNet Wiki, for articles with "videos", requires that you need a brief description of the video content and if there is "source code" for a solution, this must also be written in the body of the article. All this is intended to reduce some cases of sharing videos that end up not adding content to TNWiki, since it is not possible to index information within the videos, only on texts added in articles and in this case some videos are "lost" giving the impression that there's no great value.

It will also increase the visibility of your content, since several other search engines can find your articles.

Also add a description in the section "Introduction" and other content whenever you believe will enhance your article, for example a section "References" adding links from the Microsoft Web sites for more information on the subject or; about where to download an application, or on any content referring to your personal website (if that is relevant to the topic of the article).

You can also add a "See Also" section to link to other articles on the same subject within the TNWiki, like "Windows 10 survival guide" or the "Platforms", which increases browsing your content on TechNet Portals and also ends up evolving your profile within the community."

Why do we need these rules and guidelines?

If we don't apply rules, we can't manage TechNet Wiki (or any other platform) and it quickly turns into the Wild-Wild-West.
We will lose value and lose our community very very quickly.

Just realize that the TNWiki is a living community and a moving target.
So we need to adapt our behavior, our rules and guidelines accordingly to keep in best shape.

This also means that rules and guidelines evolve to guarantee the Wiki operations.

I invite you to have a good look at these 2 key articles and bookmark them:

• http://aka.ms/notForTNWiki
• http://aka.ms/WikiPersonalisation

If you need more in depth information feel free to dig up my previous post on the Wiki blog.

Lately, we're encountering a growing interest of spam users and fake accounts attacking genuine valid articles (not easy to counteract), instead of creating spam articles (which we detect immediately).

So I want to draw a clear line here.

We welcome you to the TNWIki and are very happy you want you to contribute to TechNet Wiki.
But make sure you do understand the rules, guidelines and expected behavior, that is a primary condition to participate.

If it's not clear or you need help, please do ask for help (like the Wiki Forum at http://aka.ms/WikiForum)

But, if you have malicious intent or an evil motive, just know the community will shorten your Wiki life very quickly.
And if you wish to play your own game and don't want to comply to the rules, look for a different play ground.

When you feel like bending the rules, you'll get a clear warning, 1 time, maybe 2 times.
Articles that explicitly violate the rules and guidelines will be removed.
Sadly enough the number of violations is growing.

But we rather prefer to think positively as a Wiki Ninja: Contribute boldly, edit gently!  

Shine like a Wiki Ninja and be proud to help build our community!
It's easy to keep clear and spend your time on useful content!

Gmail を利用しているお客様が、なるべく簡単に Office 365 に移行する手順をご説明するビデオをご利用になれます。20 分弱で視聴することができますので、ぜひご利用ください。

IMAP を利用して Gmail から Office 365 に移行する (日本語音声をご利用になれます)

(Please visit the site to view this video)

また、記事の形でも手順を確認することができます。Office のサポートページで手順を確認しましょう。

▼ 記事「Google Apps メールボックスを Office 365 に移行する」を読む

Summary: Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy, talks about what is Windows PowerShell-like scripting.

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Before Internet streaming, before Nabster, before CD-ROMs, before cassette tapes, and before 8-track tapes, there were things called records. Now it seems that all technology related to music (unless you are talking about live acoustic performances) are subject to some kind of something that will cause them to fail.

With records, it was a scratches. Not the invisible sorts of scratches that cause DVDs to fail—no, I mean serious scratches that came from someone bumping the record player while the record was playing, which created a new groove in the record. When that happened, the same portion of the record would play over and over and over in an infinite loop that required manual intervention.

It is the same thing with Windows PowerShell. Specifically, conversations about Windows PowerShell and scripting. I hear it over and over and over—the criticism “that is not very PowerShell-like."

What is PowerShell-like?

The conversation goes something like this...

You can do the same thing in Windows PowerShell more than a dozen different ways, and that is bad for noobies because they learn bad habits. And although their code might work now, later when they need to do xyz, it will not be very effective, and they will have to learn a different technique.

And your point is?

The thing is that the reason Windows PowerShell is so flexible, is so that you can work the way that you want to work. You can quickly come up to speed writing Windows PowerShell code in the manner that you like.

For example, I have seen Windows PowerShell scripts that were basically .NET C# code, but it was written using Windows PowerShell syntax—so instead of calling Get-Date, the writer used [System.DateTime]::Now.

Is there anything wrong with that? Not really. If the Windows PowerShell script runs without errors, guess what? It is a Windows PowerShell script. You may not be taking advantage of all the neat things that Windows PowerShell has to offer, but it is a Windows PowerShell script.

I have also seen Windows PowerShell scripts that were basically VBScript script, but it was written in Windows PowerShell. And once again, the script worked. It ran without errors—but yeah, they could have leveraged the Windows PowerShell advantage.

I have also seen Windows PowerShell scripts that were basically C++ code, and they called the Win32 APIs. Sometimes they were doing things that could not be done any other way. Other times, I think they were just experimenting—or maybe that is the way they like to write code. Who knows…

There are people who seem to insist on using WMI to access the registry, instead of using the Windows PowerShell registry provider, and others who insist on using .NET registry classes to read the registry. I have even seen some people use the VBScript RegRead and RegWrite to do the same. You know what? If it works for you, that is cool with me.

Can’t learn everything at once

We learn by doing. So if you come to a complete halt and start over, it will take you several weeks before you can begin to do anything in Windows PowerShell. Or, if you take a class, you will be out for at least a week. Some places run so lean, that they can’t afford that level of disruption. So Windows PowerShell makes it easy to transition.

You learn a few minor syntax things, learn a few concepts, and immediately you are becoming productive. You will, hopefully, begin to learn new things each week, and add to your level of Windows PowerShell knowledge.

Now, what about the standard argument that a noobie will run into problems trying to do new things in the old way? Well, that is what I call a teachable moment. Maybe before learning “the Windows PowerShell way of doing things,” the noobie thought it was simply syntax changes. But when the noobie finds out there is a reason or a real advantage to learning a more PowerShell-centric method of doing things, he will move forward.

So many PowerShell advantages

Windows PowerShell offers many powerful features, and it continues to add to these features with every new release of the operating system and every iteration of Windows PowerShell. It is certainly possible to get away without these new features, but they do offer substantial advantages, and they can shorten your learning curve and increase your productivity. DSC is a major new example, but so are workflows, CIM, WINRM, and so on.

Writing as if Windows PowerShell is VBScript, C#, or C++misses a whole raft of new features that can make easier-to-read code and easier-to-write code.

So fire up the Windows PowerShell ISE and start writing. Whatever your style, whatever your technique, it is your code in the end, after all. You can learn all of the nuances of Windows PowerShell later.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy

Today, one of the biggest challenge in India is illiteracy and it leads to various other complications including steady growth of crime YoY basis.

As far as stats, 29 percent of children drop out before completing five years of primary school, and 43 percent before finishing upper primary school. High school completion is only 42 percent. This lands India among the top five nations for out-of-school children of primary school age, with 1.4 million 6 to 11 year olds not attending school.

In many ways schools are not equipped to handle the full population – there is a teacher shortage of 689,000 teachers in primary schools, only 53 percent of schools have functional girls’ toilets and 74 percent have access to drinking water. Without immediate and urgent help, these children cannot effectively progress in the education system, and so improving the quality of learning in schools is the next big challenge.

Our 300+ strong influencer base across the country including MVPs, MSPs, College Students, Faculties, and User Groups Leads decided to take up this challenge with us as part of “Digital Citizenship” program on September 19, 2015 and help support the country to grow.

Many colleges, NGO/NPO and Microsoft Innovations Centers across the country also joined in this mission to spread digital literacy and higher education options among young citizens of India.

Across 22 cities, towns and villages in a day with 190 schools and 11000 children from VII to XII standard, is what we call Community Day 2015.

And, as we promised to ourselves, we certainly created a buzz and excitement among our younger generation about computers and higher education. And, this was the key take-away from this activity.

We handed over a small career tracker to each of these kids. We asked them if they wish to study further and learn computers. Also, we asked them about their experience of this day. Few of the print media partners were also there to catch all the excitement.

We asked our influencers about their experience and here are few of their thoughts:

“It’s a good program conducted by Microsoft. I was very happy to visit schools and educate them on e-based learning and computers. I hope such sessions will be conducted in future too.”

“I will be mentoring all the students in this school for computer education in future as well. I have informed the Head mistress to call me for any free sessions.”

“Session was too good. Students request us to come back for helping or teaching them. They have dreams in their eyes and want someone to show them right direction. We are very thankful to Microsoft team for such a grateful opportunity. THANK YOU SO MUCH”

Going forward, we are working on defining a process where we can coach our newly built young influencer pool who have contributed in this cause and made an impact, to grow themselves first.

Also, we are working on defining a plan on how we can keep touching these schools to make sure we don’t lose the excitement and the hope which we created among these children. If we can influence 1% of them also to pursue better education/digital education, this activity will be successful

PS: A digital movie coming shortly around “Community Day 2015”

本系列文已經介紹 SQL Server 2016 在安全性、混合雲應用、效能調校及開發等方面所推出的嶄新功能或改良， SQL Server 2016 搶先看系列中您可以看到：

l 安全性相關：動態資料遮罩、Always Encrypted、資料列層級安全性。

l 混合雲應用相關：受管理的備份、Stretch Database、資料庫檔案快照備份、備份至 URL 支援 Azure 儲存體區塊 Blob。

l 效能調校相關：Live Query Statistics、Query Store、多重 tempdb 資料檔。

l 開發相關：支援 JSON 格式輸出、Temporal Tables。

當然 SQL Server 2016 的新功能不只如此，隨著 CTP 版本的陸續釋出，將會有更多令人期待的功能被實作出來，請鎖定 TechNet 台灣部落格，我們會持續為各位帶來第一手的消息。

除了上述功能外，還有哪些是 SQL Server 2016 搶先看系列還沒介紹到的呢？本文將介紹用來提升查詢效能的資料行存放區索引（columnstore indexes）在這個版本幾項重要的改良。

本文章將包含以下重點：

• 資料行存放區索引
• 各版本資料行存放區索引功能比較
• 建立資料表時指定資料行存放區索引
• 可更新資料的非叢集資料行存放區索引
• 於叢集資料行存放區索引的Btree索引
• 記憶體最佳化資料表支援資料行存放區索引
• 支援使用篩選條件來定義的非叢集資料行存放區索引
• 使用叢集資料行存放區索引的資料表支援建立外部索引鍵
• 綜合比較

資料行存放區索引

資料行存放區索引是SQL Server 用來處理大型資料或資料倉儲工作負載進行唯讀查詢時，提供查詢效能改善及藉由高度資料壓縮來降低儲存成本及 IO 的一項重要技術。使用時須考慮其特性及使用情境，對於使用完整資料表掃描的查詢，資料行存放區索引則相當有用，若查詢是要查找資料搜尋特定的值則不適用。

SQL Server 2012、SQL Server 2012 PDW（Parallel Data Warehouse） 和 SQL Server 2014 支援使用資料行存放區索引來加速資料倉儲的查詢，其中，SQL Server 2012 導入非叢集資料行存放區索引，和以「批次」為單位來處理資料的向量式查詢執行功能；SQL Server 2014 新增了可更新的叢集資料行存放區索引，到了 SQL Server 2016 更強化資料行存放區索引多項功能。

各版本資料行存放區索引功能比較

下表為 SQL Server 2016 資料行存放區索引的功能列表，以及與其他版本的比較。

光看功能描述想必不是很清楚，因此我們就以實際的範例來介紹這些新功能該如何實作。

建立資料表時指定資料行存放區索引

SQL Server 2012/2014 不允許在建立資料表時同時建立資料行存放區索引，因此必須先建立資料表，再以 ALTER DATABASE 陳述式來建立資料行存放區索引，例如下列T-SQL指令碼：

現在不論是叢集或非叢集資料行存放區索引，都可以在建立資料表時一併建立，例如下列 T-SQL 指令碼：

執行結果如下圖所示：

可更新資料的非叢集資料行存放區索引

在 SQL Server 2012/2014 一旦在資料表中建立非叢集資料行存放區索引，當您嘗試對資料表進行 INSERT、UPDATE、DELETE 或 MERGE 等 DML 操作時，會發生類似下圖的錯誤訊息。

由錯誤訊息可看出，必須先暫時將非叢集資料行存放區索引停用，待完成資料異動相關的 DML 操作後再重建索引，例如下列 T-SQL 指令碼。

SQL Server 2016 的非叢集資料行存放區索引現在支援 DML 操作，換言之，您可以在建立非叢集資料行存放區索引的堆積或資料表任意進行資料異動，不需要像之前那樣先停用再重建非叢集資料行存放區索引（如下圖所示）。

於叢集資料行存放區索引的 Btree 索引

在 SQL Server 2012/2014 無法於具有叢集資料行存放區索引的資料表中建立非叢集索引，如同錯誤訊息所示，必須以非叢集資料行存放區索引來取代叢集資料行存放區索引才可以建立非叢集索引。

而 SQL Server 2016 取消上述限制，增加支援在叢集資料行存放區索引的資料表中建立一個以上的非叢集索引，例如下列 T-SQL 指令碼：

執行結果如下圖所示：

記憶體最佳化資料表支援資料行存放區索引

SQL Server 2016 支援在記憶體最佳化資料表使用資料行存放區索引，使得記憶體最佳化資料表的查詢效能更為提升，但僅限叢集資料行存放區索引，非叢集資料行存放區索引則不支援。

下列 T-SQL 指令碼示範建立記憶體最佳化資料表，並於建立資料表時新增叢集資料行存放區索引。

執行結果如下圖所示：

支援使用篩選條件來定義的非叢集資料行存放區索引

篩選索引是最佳化的非叢集索引，藉由篩選述詞對資料表中的部分資料列建立索引，與針對所有資料列的索引相較之下，具備提升查詢效能和計畫的品質及降低索引維護和儲存成本等優勢。

SQL Server 2016 增加在非叢集資料行存放區索引支援篩選條件的功能，以使用篩選索引所帶來的好處，例如下列的 T-SQL 指令碼。

執行結果如下圖所示：

使用叢集資料行存放區索引的資料表支援建立外部索引鍵

在 SQL Server 2014 若資料表已經存在叢集資料行存放區索引，在建立外部索引鍵時會發生下圖的錯誤訊息。

SQL Server 2016 已經取消這項限制，您可以在具有叢集資料行存放區索引的資料表中建立外部索引鍵，例如下列的 T-SQL 指令碼。

執行結果如下圖所示：

綜合比較

最後我們以幾個不同情境來比較不同索引在資料彙總的效能差異，本實驗會在 3 個含有 62,563,201 個資料列的資料表（如下圖所示）分別建立「叢集索引和非叢集索引(內含資料行)」、「叢集資料行存放區索引和非叢集索引(內含資料行)」和「叢集索引和非叢集資料行存放區索引」。

相關資料表定義及索引說明如下：

一、 TransactionDetails 資料表的結構及索引定義如下圖所示。

接著以下列 T-SQL 進行來測試使用「叢集索引和非叢集索引(內含資料行)」的效能。

執行結果如下圖所示：

二、 TransactionDetailsCI 資料表的結構及索引定義如下圖所示。

以下列 T-SQL 進行來測試使用「叢集資料行存放區索引和非叢集索引(內含資料行)」的效能。

執行結果如下圖所示：

由執行計畫可看到叢集資料行存放區索引使用到批次執行模式。

三、 TransactionDetailsNCI 資料表的結構及索引定義如下圖所示。

以下列 T-SQL 進行來測試使用「叢集索引和非叢集資料行存放區索引」的效能。

執行結果如下圖所示：

由執行計畫可看到非叢集資料行存放區索引使用到批次執行模式。

上述測試結果整理如下表：

上述測試是以測試資料來模擬，但已經可以看出資料行存放區索引在提升查詢效能上的效果，但可能會因為伺服器硬體規格、資料表結構設計和工作負載等客觀條件而有所不同，各位可以依實際環境來斟酌使用，以找出最適合的索引組合。

The Wiki Quantum nerds will recognize the observer effect as the change an observation makes to the subject of observation...
Sounds utterly complicated, right? It's not.

By posting this post, I've changed the observed statistics...

Let me explain...

On this blog just a few minutes ago we had 10 posts in October. No 11, eh ... now 12.

Last month 16. That's a fact that won't change any more.

But how did we do since our Wiki Ninjas blog launched in 2011?

Simple:

Sure you want some more..
How did we do as blog team in global (on Wiki Ninjas EN) ?

The blog posters with 10 blogs and more:

Let's take a view on the other Wiki ninja's blogs...

Brazilian Portuguese:http://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjasbr/

The French Wiki ninja's on : http://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjasfr/

And also the Turkish Ninjas on: http://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjastr/

Just another way of saying thank you for the continued and continuous (or is it continuum) way to keep the TechNet Wiki mechanics going!

Keep posting your valuable ideas and helpful content to the TechNet Wiki, because that's driving the blog too!

Summary: Use Windows PowerShell to send information for a command to a separate information stream.

 How can I use Windows PowerShell to send information to a user via a separate information stream,
           without changing the default information preference variable?

 In Windows PowerShell 5.0, use the new Write-Information cmdlet, for example:

gps ; Write-Information "process information" -InformationAction continue

Note  gps is an alias for the Get-Process cmdlet.

Jarod Greene is the Vice President of Product Marketing for Cherwell Software,™ a leader in IT service management (ITSM) and business enablement solutions. As a former Gartner® analyst, Jarod spent ten years covering the ITSM industry, with a focus on processes, organizational structure and enabling technologies.

In our current tech landscape of apps, cloud service providers and devices a-plenty, the IT service desk spends less and less time dealing with a standard set of hardware problems on company-issued machines. But it’s still hiring like it does.

Traditionally, the service desk has been staffed by junior-level associates who are highly skilled technicians. The job has been an entry point for working in a broader role in IT, offering a training ground where the business and IT connect, and the pain points are not only seen, but fully experienced. Turnover can be high—the most recent HDI® Support Center and Salary Report shows an 11% staff attrition rate for Level 1 support analysts.

The challenge these days is that new positions at the service desk are generally comprised of entry-level roles with entry-level salaries. Most highly talented, technical people coming out of MIT and Georgia Tech are not willing to work at the service desk—much less stay there long enough to become managers that pursue a conventional path to more highly paid and influential IT roles.

So how do you find the people who have the right blend of skills needed to fill today’s challenging and critical IT service desk role?

In 2015, it’s time to consider throwing out your singular requirement for technical know-how, and focus on finding people who are good with people. The ability to get end users through their struggles with Salesforce on their mobile devices is knowledge that can be taught. But the abilities to understand a broader set of business technology needs, treat people with empathy, communicate in language that can be understood by internal “customers”, and capture interactions and support processes with clarity and precision are skills that are far more difficult to teach.

In order to build a truly successful IT team in today’s complex technology ecosystem, start looking to hire people with the following skills:

1. Ability to troubleshoot multiple cloud-based services, devices and operating systems

When a marketing manager has trouble with the Marketo® marketing automation platform, does he call IT first? Not necessarily—he might call a peer first, then do a Google® search, and then call Marketo. What about a Macbook® that’s shutting off randomly? A business user might talk to someone in IT, and that person may escalate the case up the chain to an in-house specialist—who may ultimately recommend a trip to the Genius Bar at the Mac Store for help.

In the past, by comparison, most software packages were procured and managed in-house, and solutions bought off the shelf were highly customized to meet the needs of the organization. The CRM system was hosted in the company’s data center, and everyone’s desktop was connected to the company’s network at all times. There was no Marketo and no VPN to remote into.

Now things are decoupled and virtualized. This change has benefits, but it also means that when your user has an issue, you need to figure out where the point of failure is across many different potential points of failure. That’s not easy.

Managing an IT service desk in 2015 means having technicians that understand a landscape filled with multiple service providers, devices and operating systems. The people working with business users need to understand how those services are consumed, for what purpose, how that purpose serves the business and the impacts various types of issues have upon the business.

Service desk analysts are not offering end-to-end technical support for every program and every device. They’re getting a busy salesperson or the accounting lead headed in the right direction towards the help they need, as quickly as possible.

It’s less about “Let me take control over your device or what’s broken?” and more about “It worked yesterday for you. What changed between now and then among the many elements that comprise the service you’re consuming right now?” That’s a skill set traditional service desk professionals often don’t possess, yet it’s becoming more and more imperative.

2. Exceptional customer service skills

How do you run your service desk interviews? Here’s a tip: don’t ask anyone to unscrew the bottom of a laptop and take you on a tour of what’s inside. Find out the last time they encountered an irate customer, calmed them down and got them through their challenge.

Traditionally, there has been an adversarial relationship between the service desk and the business user, where the technician is frustrated because of the user’s lack of technical know-how. Today many business users speak “tech.” OK, maybe not in the same way an IT person does. But their level of digital literacy is light years ahead of their 1990’s counterparts. As such, the service desk analyst needs be respectful, assess the level of tech savvy of the business users and adjust the way they interact with them. The technician isn’t reading from a script, but is rather engaged in a dialogue.

Your service desk should be staffed by people who can quickly get to know the people on the other line and understand their frustrations. The conversations should sound something like this: “I understand why you’re frustrated. You’re in accounting. It’s the end of quarter and you can’t access a crucial application. The fact that you’re in accounting and it’s the end of quarter makes this the most important thing we do today.”

Service desk people need the skill set to gather context based on their conversations and keep broader business goals in mind. They are not there to fix machines, they are there to make sure the business is successful vis-à-vis its users.

3. Excellent collaboration and communication skills

When an IT ticket is opened, getting to a resolution can be very easy or very difficult. A lot depends on how the ticket is written. If the description lacks detail about the level of urgency, the nature of the problem or its complexity, the IT technicians tasked with solving the issue will suffer—as will the end users they are trying to serve.

Service desk staff have a lot to consider when opening a ticket. For example, everyone knows that silos exist between different IT specialties within a company. The person generating the ticket should know this and understand how to communicate the issue so that the right people are involved, at the right time, in the right way. Proper translation of the initial service desk call, enhanced with the appropriate level of detail, is critical for your internal team. Anything that’s not written down didn’t happen and creates extra work for the tier three technician whose time is too precious to waste.

Think of it as journalism. You need people who can ask the right questions, capture information skillfully and communicate it effectively so that everyone involved is set up for success. Your service desk analysts are both a translators and facilitators. They should be the first and only point of contact, assuming everything goes smoothly.

Find people who can write, tell a story and communicate. Those are the abilities that will help your team move faster internally, provide the service your business consumers expect and move the business forward.

Hire for Empathy, Teach the Tech

There is a war for talent. If you want lasting, successful service desk teams, you really shouldn’t look to the technical arena. You can teach the technical. Consider instead hiring from the hospitality industry, retail or other verticals that place a premium on teaching customer service, people skills and empathy. These skills should comprise the core of your team. Hire people who can talk to business users, capture their stories, translate them into tech and see them through to resolution.

If you’re an IT lead at a company, your reputation depends on business users’ interactions with the service desk. The people you hire need to match the new realities of IT so everyone can be successful together.

For further reading, be sure to download Cherwell Software’s eBook on how to step up your IT service desk game, and add real value to the business.

2015年 10 月 14 日 (日本時間)、マイクロソフトは計 6 件 (緊急 3 件、重要 3 件) の新規セキュリティ情報を公開しました。また、4 件の既存のセキュリティ アドバイザリを更新し、3 件の既存のセキュリティ情報を更新しています。なお、今月の「悪意のあるソフトウェアの削除ツール」では、新たに確認した 7 種類のマルウェアに対応しています。

悪用が公開されているものもありますので、お客様はできるだけ早期に、今月公開のセキュリティ更新プログラムを適用するようお願いします。

■ 更新されたセキュリティ アドバイザリ (4 件)

• セキュリティ アドバイザリ 2960358「.NET TLS で RC4 を無効化するための更新プログラム」
  影響を受けるソフトウェアの表に .NET Framework 3.5 アプリケーションを実行している Windows 10 システムおよび .NET Framework 4.5/4.5.1/4.5.2 アプリケーションを実行しており .NET Framework 4.6 がインストールされているシステムを追加しました。また、これらの構成を実行しているお客様へTLS の RC4 を手動で無効にする手順を提供しました。

• セキュリティ アドバイザリ 3042058「既定の暗号スイートの優先度の設定の更新プログラム」
  当初は 2015 年 5 月 13 日に Microsoft ダウンロード センター (DLC) からのみリリースされた既定の暗号スイートの優先度の設定の更新プログラム (3042058) が、Microsoft Update (MU) および Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) からも入手可能になったことをお知らせしました。

• セキュリティ アドバイザリ 2755801「Internet Explorer および Microsoft Edge 上の Adobe Flash Player の脆弱性に対応する更新プログラム」
  Adobe セキュリティ速報 APSB15-25で説明されている脆弱性を解決する Internet Explorer 10、Internet Explorer 11 および Microsoft Edge 用の更新プログラム 3099406 を公開しました。

• セキュリティ アドバイザリ 3097966「不注意で発行されたデジタル証明書により、なりすましが行われる」
  Windows のコードの整合性コンポーネントを修正する更新プログラムが利用可能になったことをお知らせしました。これは、このアドバイザリで対処した 4 件のデジタル証明書の信頼の除外を拡張し、カーネル モードのコード署名も除外します。

■ 既存のセキュリティ情報の更新 (3件)

• セキュリティ情報 MS15-046「Microsoft Office の脆弱性により、リモートでコードが実行される (3057181)」
  以前にリリースされた更新プログラム (2965282) の問題を解決する Microsoft Office 2007 の新しい更新プログラム (3085544) が利用可能になったことをお知らせしました。
• セキュリティ情報 MS15-081「Microsoft Office の脆弱性により、リモートでコードが実行される (3080790)」
  Microsoft Office 2016、Microsoft Visio 2016、および Microsoft Word 2016 の更新プログラム パッケージが利用可能になったことをお知らせしました。
• セキュリティ情報 MS15-099「Microsoft Office の脆弱性により、リモートでコードが実行される (3089664)」
  Microsoft Excel 2016 の更新プログラム パッケージが利用可能になったことをお知らせしました。 

■ 2015年 10月のセキュリティ情報一覧

各セキュリティ情報の概要、各脆弱性の悪用可能性指標 (Exploitability Index)、影響を受けるソフトウェアの一覧などがご覧いただけます。
https://technet.microsoft.com/ja-jp/library/security/ms15-Oct

マイクロソフトは新たに確認した脆弱性について、次の 6 件の新しいセキュリティ情報を公開しました。

Summary: Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy, talks about using Windows PowerShell to parse a network trace log.

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. Today I want to talk a little bit about using Windows PowerShell to parse a network trace log. In yesterday’s blog post, Packet Sniffing with PowerShell: Getting Started, I talked using Windows PowerShell to do a network trace.

Yesterday, I created a network trace log. I can use that log, or I can create a new log.

            Note  These commands require that Windows PowerShell is elevated.

When I create a new NetEvent session with the New-NetEventSession cmdlet, it returns a NetEvent session object:

PS C:\> New-NetEventSession -Name "Session1"

Name               : Session1

CaptureMode        : SaveToFile

LocalFilePath      : C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\NetEvent

                     Trace.etl

MaxFileSize        : 250 MB

TraceBufferSize    : 0 KB

MaxNumberOfBuffers : 0

SessionStatus      : NotRunning

This object contains the path to the log file. I like to store the results in a variable so that I can easily access the log file without having to do a lot of typing. This is shown here:

PS C:\> $session = New-NetEventSession -Name "Session1"

PS C:\> $session.LocalFilePath

C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\NetEventTrace.etl

After I add my event provider and start the session, I can begin the logging, as shown here:

PS C:\> Add-NetEventProvider -Name "Microsoft-Windows-TCPIP" -SessionName "Session1"

Name            : Microsoft-Windows-TCPIP

SessionName     : Session1

Level           : 4

MatchAnyKeyword : 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

MatchAllKeyword : 0x0

PS C:\> Start-NetEventSession -Name "Session1"

After doing the trace, I stop the session:

Stop-NetEventSession -Name session1

Examine the trace log

Now I use the Get-WinEvent cmdlet to examine the trace log. To do this, I like to read the contents into a variable so I can parse it. This is where storing the path to the log comes in handy. Here is the command:

$log = Get-WinEvent -Path $session.LocalFilePath –Oldest

   Note  The trace log must be read in reverse order, so the –Oldest switch is required. Otherwise, an error occurs.

I can inspect the first record by indexing into the collection:

PS C:\> $log[0]

   ProviderName: Microsoft-Windows-TCPIP

TimeCreated                     Id LevelDisplayName Message

-----------                     -- ---------------- -------

10/12/2015 3:22:06 PM         1300 Information      TCP: connection 0xffffe001cc3...

But it becomes more interesting to look at event IDs or to try to parse the message block. For example, I can look at the message block by accessing the Messageproperty:

PS C:\> $log[0].Message

TCP: connection 0xffffe001cc33cd10 (local=192.168.0.7:52259 remote=127.0.0.1:443) exists. State = CloseWaitState. PID = 2640.

Here, I look at a specific ID:

PS C:\> $log.Where({$_.id -eq 1348})

   ProviderName: Microsoft-Windows-TCPIP

TimeCreated                     Id LevelDisplayName Message

-----------                     -- ---------------- -------

10/12/2015 3:23:00 PM         1348 Information      TCP: CTCP DataTransferTimeout...

10/12/2015 3:23:00 PM         1348 Information      TCP: CTCP DataTransferTimeout...

10/12/2015 3:23:00 PM         1348 Information      TCP: CTCP DataTransferTimeout...

10/12/2015 3:23:00 PM         1348 Information      TCP: CTCP DataTransferTimeout...

10/12/2015 3:23:01 PM         1348 Information      TCP: CTCP DataTransferTimeout...

<output truncated>

How many of those events were there? I can find that out by the count:

PS C:\> $log.Where({$_.id -eq 1348}).count

72

As shown here, I can sort by ID and do a count:

PS C:\> $log | group id -NoElement | sort count -Descending

Count Name

----- ----

 1188 1074

  649 1332

  628 1157

  364 1156

  359 1158

  196 1159

  189 1229

  189 1331

  137 1051

   72 1187

   72 1351

   72 1079

   72 1348

   68 1193

   52 1086

   40 1300

<output truncated>

Well, is an ID 1074 a good thing or a bad thing? I can easily find out by looking at a sample event, and then examining the message string:

PS C:\> $log.Where({$_.id -eq 1074})[0]

   ProviderName: Microsoft-Windows-TCPIP

TimeCreated                     Id LevelDisplayName Message

-----------                     -- ---------------- -------

10/12/2015 3:22:08 PM         1074 Information      TCP: connection 0xffffe001d35...

PS C:\> $log.Where({$_.id -eq 1074})[0].message

TCP: connection 0xffffe001d3537c00: Received data with number of bytes = 186. ThSeq

= 2458887771.

PS C:\>

If I am not sure as to what time frame I am working with, I can look at the first and last events in my log:

PS C:\> $log | select -Last 1

   ProviderName: Microsoft-Windows-TCPIP

TimeCreated                     Id LevelDisplayName Message

-----------                     -- ---------------- -------

10/12/2015 3:24:15 PM         1193 Information      TCP: endpoint/connection 0xff...

PS C:\> $log | select -First 1

   ProviderName: Microsoft-Windows-TCPIP

TimeCreated                     Id LevelDisplayName Message

-----------                     -- ---------------- -------

10/12/2015 3:22:06 PM         1300 Information      TCP: connection 0xffffe001cc3...

So, it looks like only a couple minutes. To know for sure, I can create a new timespan that represents the amount of log time:

PS C:\> New-TimeSpan -end ($log | select -Last 1).timecreated -start ($log | select -first 1).Timecreated

Days              : 0

Hours             : 0

Minutes           : 2

Seconds           : 9

Milliseconds      : 628

Ticks             : 1296282580

TotalDays         : 0.00150032706018519

TotalHours        : 0.0360078494444444

TotalMinutes      : 2.16047096666667

TotalSeconds      : 129.628258

TotalMilliseconds : 129628.258

That is all there is to using Windows PowerShell to parse a network log. Join me tomorrow when I will talk about more cool stuff.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy 

I'm Lyle Dodge and I'm a Senior Program Manager in Microsoft IT. I work in the centralized hosting team which manages our on premise and public cloud environments for internal IT customers. This means tens of thousands of servers (virtual and some physical), database servers and other infrastructure across multiple physical datacenters and the public Azure cloud. Our organization is undergoing rapid transformation from classical operations management to managing / hosting subscriptions for our customers who are using DevOps to deploy much faster than before. This creates opportunities for centralized automation across thousands of Azure subscriptions to reduce costs and increase the acceleration of capabilities. On this blog, I’ll cover a bunch of things that our hosting team does in the enterprise. I’ll take questions from the comments, from our teams, and from sessions I do at the Executive Briefing Center in Redmond on the Microsoft IT + Azure topic.

How Microsoft IT is Organized

First off – let’s talk about how we’re organized in IT. Microsoft IT is organized as a group of business process units (BPUs) that focus on specific functions. Some things are centralized, some not. For example, we’re migrating to a single Visual Studio Online instance across all IT to enable a lot of scenarios. DevOps is being achieved across the org, however teams are going at different paces of adoption.

One of the BPUs is our org, Enterprise Infrastructure Services (EIS), led by Brad Bell. His organization covers internal support for the company, networking for IT and campus buildings globally, and our infrastructure organization, Service Deployment & Operations (SDO) led by Rick Stover.

SDO doesn’t manage the Azure platform, or Office 365 or Lync – the product groups manage those. The best way to think of us for this series is your internal IT hosting team in a large enterprise. We help make sure the environments are secure, up to date on patches, help customers migrate from older to newer server systems upon release, beta test stuff that hasn’t been released, and help provide feedback to the product groups on things an enterprise needs in future product versions.

Next up…

Put your questions in the comments, or you can contact me directly at lyle.dodge@microsoft.com.  I may not get back to you right away, but I’ll be collecting questions and posting answers to this blog. I’m expecting this to be a very active blog – it’s amazing the rate at which the Azure and System Center teams are releasing features.

Next topic – what are we thinking about subscription management, resource groups, role based access control, and what the announcements at AzureCon have changed on some of our thinking.