Date and time: December 6, 2011 | 8am-11am PDT | Live online training
What time is that in my time zone?
Join Symon Perriman (Technical Evangelist for Private Cloud) and Elden Christensen (Principal Program Manager Lead for Clustering) to understand how Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering with Hyper-V provides critical infrastructure for any datacenter with VM high-availability and mobility. This event will provide an introduction to clustering, then focus on the design, deployment and management considerations for your highly-available datacenter or Private Cloud. Topics include hardware, validation, deployment, host clustering, guest clustering, virtualization, live migration, multi-site clustering, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 & 2012, and offers a wealth of best practices. No prior clustering knowledge is needed. Agenda: • Module 1: Introduction to clustering • Module 2: Hyper-V high-availability • Module 3: Private Cloud HA (System Center, Multi-Site)
REGISTER HERE
FAST University would like thank all of you who attended our October free technical webcast on Visual Best Bets and Document Thumbnails.
This webcast explored user interface features only available with FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint:
For your convenience, the recording of the webcast is now available online at the following location:
https://fast.omnisocial.mzinga.com/app/servlet/goTo?Page=CourseInfo&DirectLinkID=106771
Microsoft Learning Partners worldwide are now offering public and onsite classes on Microsoft Enterprise Search:
Information on upcoming classes can be found on the Microsoft Learning Class Locator website. If you have any questions about finding training classes in your particular region, please contact the FAST University team at fastuniv@microsoft.com.
The cloud is all the rage now, and it seems inevitable, as if the gods have seemingly decreed the next phase in the evolution of the continuum of computing. However, just four short years ago, when Nicolas Carr was writing “The Big Switch” 3 the concept of computing services as a utility was still controversial, but not to all. In the prologue to his book, he wrote about his visit to VeriCenter’s data center:
“As I stood there surveying the data center, I might as well have been a cartoon figure with a big light bulb flashing above my head. I realized that what I was standing in was a prototype of a new kind of power plant – a computing plant that would come to power our information age the way great electric plants powered the industrial age. Connected to the Net, this modern dynamo would deliver into our businesses and homes vast quantities of digitized information and data processing might. It would run all the complicated software programs that we used to have to install on our own computers. And, just like the earlier electric dynamos, it would operate with the efficiency never possible before. It would turn computing into cheap, universal commodity.
“This really is a utility,” I said to Sullivan. “He nodded, grinning.” This is the future.” 3
In just four short years, we have gone from the cloud being the future, to the cloud as being a standard deployment option for IT software services. One of the key enablers of cloud computing is the drive to virtualize and consolidate hardware. Once your computing environment is virtualized, taking the next step to deploy your virtual machines to an off premise data center, seems like a logical next step.
We support your drive to virtualize your data center services. All our enterprise software is tested running in a Hyper-V Server environment. For a list of our software and the supported virtualization environments navigate to: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957006. This document is updated regularly.
As the march to the cloud continues, the way we define or model this service is typically as an “operations model”. James Urquhart, summarizes it quite succinctly: “The cornerstone of everything I believe about the cloud can be summarized in one simple statement:
Cloud computing is an application-centric operations model.”4
How will operations have to evolve to meet the needs of this model? Mr. Urquhart goes on to break down operations to the following roles.
As you are reading this you are probably asking, “So what does all of this have to do with SharePoint, and in particular SharePoint search?” I feel it is important to first define how I look at cloud computing, i.e. as an application-centric operations model. We can now look specifically at SharePoint as one of the key applications.
In coming posts, I will look at SharePoint and its search services as part of Office 365 and as a SharePoint farm for a geographically dispersed application. In the mean time, I recommend you check out Jeff DeVerter’s series of blog posts on “Geographical SharePoint Redundancy” 1. Jeff is a SharePoint Architect at Rackspace Hosting and has architected some of the largest distributed SharePoint farms on the planet.
Reference:
1) DeVerter J (2011) Content Delivery Networks and SharePoint, SharePoint in the Cloud | LinkedIn Group
2) Wicklund, P. (2011) Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Deploying Cloud-Based Solutions, Microsoft Press
3) Carr, N. (2008) The Big Switch, rewiring the world, from Edison to Google. W. W. Norton and Company, page 5
4) Urquhart J (2011) What cloud boils down to for the enterprise , Gigaom
We look forward to your comments. If you have a technical tip you would like to share with your colleagues, send it to phelsel@microsoft.com to be included in a Technical Tips blog.
To learn more about Microsoft Learning | FAST University classes and to register, visit www.fastuniversity.com or contact us at fastuniv@microsoft.com.
By Philip E. Helsel
You know what started my day right this morning (besides coffee)? Being greeted by this story when I checked our Twitter account @MSLearning!
Earlier this year, CCI Learning launched the first pilot of the Microsoft IT Academy Program within a Canadian Federal penitentiary at the Frontenac Institution, a minimum security facility in Kingston, Ontario. Eight students successfully completed the Microsoft Word 2010 course and passed their Microsoft Office Specialist certification exams. This first class of students had an 80 percent pass rate, and two of the graduates went on to pass their Microsoft Excel exams as well! These eight men are taking steps to improve their lives and to give themselves a greater chance of finding meaningful work after they’ve paid their debt to society.
The ITA program was also introduced to inmates at the Pittsburgh Institute, another Federal prison in eastern Ontario. On day one, 35 potential students expressed interest and were involved in a discussion about technical training with counseling on how to get started. IW courses were taught at the Pittsburgh Institute this summer. We look forward to hearing more about their success soon.
You can read more about it here. Have a wonderful day!
80442A: Introduction to Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011This one-day instructor-led course provides an introduction to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. The course focuses on the user interface and working with the application and provides a foundation for other Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 courses. The course describes Microsoft Dynamics CRM concepts, the Web interface, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook® interface, searching, and reporting.Audience Profile:This course is intended for individuals who plan to implement, use, maintain, or support Microsoft Dynamics CRM in their organization. The course is also intended for anyone who wants to gain foundational knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.Course Syllabus: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Course.aspx?ID=80442A&Locale=en-us
Note: This course is available for download on the MCT Courseware Download Center and Partner Source. Thanks and hope you enjoy the courses.
Regards
Kevin Schimke, Content Project Manager || Microsoft Learning
Thanks to everyone who provided some suggestions for how we can improve the information provided in the score reports! A few people suggested that no changes were necessary (people who don't like the score report will continue to dislike it because they want a level of feedback we will never be able to provide (i.e., item level performance)), but I think your ideas could make the score report more informative even to those who are predispositioned to dislike it.
Here's what I boiled the suggestions down to:
Some of these are easy to implement, and I'll work to incorporate what I can. I also have some ideas that I'd like your opinion on, but I'll save that for a future post. For now, what do you think of these ideas? Do these thoughts give you other ideas on what you'd like to see included in score reports? Did I miss anything that you suggested and would like to see considered?
By the way, I loved Zeshan's idea about tying score reports to your MCP account and then linking those results to available training resources that could help someone improve in areas of weakness. I passed his idea on to the person who owns the MCP site to see what's possible. She's looking into it (she liked the idea too!), but she did say it's likely to take years rather than months.
One question that often comes up when I’m teaching a FAST Search for SharePoint class is this one: How can I remove an item from the index immediately? Why would you want to do this? The item could be confidential and you cannot wait until the next crawl. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Search provides an easy way to do this. By following the method described below, you can do this in Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, as well.
In order to remove an item from the index, the first thing you need to do is determine its identifier. Follow the steps below for the full procedure on how to remove an item from the index:
1 - Execute a query that will return the result you want in the Search Center and locate its URL, as shown below.
2 - Next, go to the Crawl Logs in the FAST Content SSA and search for the crawl log of the URL identified in the previous step. The information you are looking for is its Item ID.
Note: Another way to obtain the Item ID is to follow the instructions in the tutorial on How to View Search Results XML Data and add <Column Name="contentid"/> <Column Name="contentids"/> to the list of Fetched Properties.
3 - Now that you have the Item ID, all you need to do is execute the proper command to remove the item from the index. The command you will use is docpush, with specific parameters for content removal:
docpush -c sp -U -d ssic://<Item ID>
For my example above, this is the full command executed, along with its callback stating that the delete operation was successful:
At this point your item should be removed from the index. Return to the Search Center and execute another query to confirm that your item no longer appears in the search results, as shown below:
To learn other useful procedures, navigate to www.fastuniversity.com and register for the 5-day Microsoft Enterprise Search for Developers class or use the Microsoft Learning Course Locator to find a class in your area. For more information, contact a Microsoft Learning FAST University Education Consultant at fastuniv@microsoft.com. See you in class!
By Leonardo Souza, MCT
Libraries have been among my favorite places in the world since I learned to turn pages without ripping them. Everything seems possible when I'm physically surrounded by such a wealth of information: past, present and future.
Recently, the State of Hawaii added a whole new world of possibilities to its public library system: Microsoft IT Academy. Patrons of Hawaii State Public Library System (HSPLS) now have access to Microsoft training and certification products: e-learning, official course material and certification prep, covering subjects from Microsoft Office applications to programming and web development. Nearly one million people in Hawaii can now access these great resources both in-library and remotely, and prepare themselves to earn industry-recognized credentials and to succeed in the 21st century workplace.
Libraries are wonderful. Hawaii is magical. Now with Microsoft IT Academy, libraries in Hawaii are awesome!
You can get more details about this program in Microsoft News Center.
If you’re looking for the latest courses on Microsoft technologies, enhanced training, and best offers, look no further than the authorized source – Microsoft Learning partners. With Microsoft Learning partners, you get training you can trust.
Find classes delivered by a Microsoft Learning partner in your area.
It is with great pleasure that MSL announces the release of course 80311A: Service Industries in Microsoft Dynamics® AX 2012.
About this Course
This two-day instructor-led course provides students with an overview of the Project management functionality in Service Industries in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.This course covers the most important functionality in the module, including its setup and processes. It assumes course participants have baseline knowledge of the earlier version. Audience Profile
This course is intended for partners and customers with moderate to extensive knowledge of Project Management functionality in Service Industries.
Course Syllabus: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Course.aspx?ID=80311A&Locale=en-us
Note: This course is available for download on Partner Source, and will be available on the MCT Download Center 28 Nov 2011.
Thanks and I hope you enjoy the course.
Kind regards
Claire Bremer Nielsen,
Content Project Manager || Microsoft Learning