Last year I did a little research project about Microsoft’s public cloud and how it cloud affect Small and Medium sized businesses. So I created a paper which should help Microsoft partners to decide how they can improve their services and solutions by using the Microsoft public cloud. I the paper I focused on Microsoft Office 365 and Windows Intune. This should be for the partner which do infrastructure solutions like Active Directory, Exchange and PC Management.

You can download this paper from my Windows Live SkyDrive.
The paper includes a lot of text copied from Microsoft documents and websites, and research I did by myself. All the sources should be marked, but if you find anything which is not marked please feel free to contact me.

For some courses at KTSI we need a CentOS to test some Linux spesific things like Apache and other stuff. The good thing, Windows 8 got Hyper-V and Hyper-V supports CentOS.

With Version 3.2 oft the Linux Integration Services Microsoft fixed also a bug which occurred in Windows 8.

1. First download CentOS
2. Download the Linux Integration Services Version 3.2 for Hyper-V
3. Start Hyper-V Manager and create a new Virtual Machine
4. Install CentOS 6.x
   
5. Reboot the virtual machine
6. Login as root
   
7. Mount the Linux Integration Services ISO from step 2
8. Now run the following commands in the virtual machine

   sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media
   sudo /media/install.sh
   

   

9. After you the Installation is completed you have to reboot the virtual machine again
   
10. done

The default password expiration policy of Office 365 is set to 90 days. That means that users have to change their password every 90 days. I think basicly this is a good and secure policy but maybe your company has other security policy or for some other reason you have to deactivate this. We can change this setting through PowerShell with the MicrosoftOnline PowerShell Module.

1. First connect to Office 365 via PowerShell more on this here
2. Now you can use the following cmdlet

   Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName user@contoso.com –PasswordNeverExpires $true

I have created a small Powershell Script which will you remind of existing VM Snapshots. You can use this and create a scheduled task for example each morning and it will send you an email with all existing VM snapshots or checkpoints. The Script uses the Powershell Commands of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 but should also work with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012.

# Check for Virtual Machine Manager Snapin
$PSSnapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq "Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager" }
if($PSSnapin -eq $null)
{
	Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager
}

# Connect to SCVMM Server
Get-VMMServer localhost

# Get Snapshots
$snapshots = Get-VMCheckpoint

# Check for existing Snapshots
if ($snapshots.count -gt 0){

	# Create the List of Snapshots
	$info = $snapshots | Format-Table VM, AddedTime, Name -auto | Out-String 

	# Mail Configuration
	# ==================

 	# Configuration
	$emailFrom = "user@mydomain.com"
 	$emailTo = "user@yourdomain.com"
 	$emailSubject = "VM Snapshot Reminder"
 	$emailMessage = "You have still some snapshots: `n `n" + $info + "`n Greetings your SCVMM Server"
 	$smtpServer = "mail.server.com"
 	$smtpUserName = "username" # This could be also in e-mail address format
 	$smtpPassword = "password"
	$smtpDomain = ""

	# SMTP Object
	$smtp = New-Object System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer)
	$mailCredentials = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential
 	$mailCredentials.Domain = $smtpDomain
 	$mailCredentials.UserName = $smtpUserName
 	$mailCredentials.Password = $smtpPassword
 	$smtp.Credentials = $mailCredentials  

 	# Send E-Mail
 	$smtp.Send($emailFrom, $emailTo, $emailSubject, $emailMessage)
 }

Windows Intune takes the Browser language as language of the Windows Intune Administrator Console. To change the language in the Windows Intune console you have to change the language setting of your browser. Internet Options –> General Tab –> Appearance Section –> Language Button and choose you the language which you prefer as language in your administrator console.

Cloud Talk: Rapid-fire interview. Roger Hofstetter, CEO, Genotec in Switzerland answers tough questions about cloud computing.

This is a small post how you can create the DNS records for Exchange Autodiscover in the Genotec Hosting Control Panel.

1. First login to the HCC (Hosting Control Center).
2. Navigate to Domainnames and choose your domain
3. (OPTIONAL) If you not already have, create a new A record for your mailserver (for example mail.the-it-crowd.ch)
   
4. (OPTIONAL) If you not already create a MX record for your domain, create a MX record
   
5. Create a CNAME for your autodiscover domain. Normally this is pointing to your mailserver. You could also use the allready exisiting mail.the-it-crowd.ch A record. But I would recommend you to create this CNAME.
   
6. Create the Autodiscover SRV record
   TYP: SRV HOST: _autodiscover._tcp.the-it-crowd.ch. DATA:
   0 0 443 autodiscover.the-it-crowd.ch.
   

Now I am still working with Office 365. I am still try to test all the features and also the support for mobile devices like the iPhone or Windows Phone 7. As a Windows Phone 7 developer I could get the beta for the next update of Windows Phone 7 called Mango. Now Mango will support Office 365. You can simply add your Office 365 account on your phone and this will connect you to Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.

What is missing in first beta of the Windows Phone 7 Mango update is Lync, but Microsoft is working on that.

After working with some test accounts in Microsoft Office 365 I realized I could not send mails to my own domain. In the Office 365 control panel everything looked right and the domain was active. I also added the mail addresses to the user accounts.

The error I got back was:

Final-Recipient: rfc822;thomas.maurer@thomasmaurer.ch Action: failed Status: 5.4.1 Diagnostic-Code: smtp;550 5.4.1 Relay Access Denied

After creating a support ticket with the Microsoft Office 365 the support called me and checked my account. Now the problem was I already added the domain to another Office 356 account. So the Forefront had the domain added as duplicated domain.

 You can check the status of your domains in Forefront by clicking on the Exchange Online Administration (Manage) like on the Overview site. Now you can click

Now on your Exchange Online Management page click on Mail Control on the left site.

On the right site you can click on Configure IP safelisting, perimeter message tracing, and e-mail policies.

Now in the Domain tap you can check if you have a domain entry whichs starts with “duplicated…..”. If you have a entry like that you have to open a support ticket and the Forefront Online Team will remove the entry from your Account and you have to add the Domain again.

By the way this was the first time I used the Microsoft Support for Office 365 and it was a really good experience. Microsoft really offers a great Service here with fast and qualified support.