Discover how #Skype4B simplifies communications in the cloud.
This video illustrates how Office 365 and Skype for Business simplify all of your meeting essentials to just one relationship, one work stream, in the cloud and at a reduced cost.
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OneDrive for Business update on storage plans and Next Generation Sync Client
By Jeff Teper, corporate vice president for OneDrive and SharePoint as written on blogs.office.com
Today, I’d like to share an update on our OneDrive for Business storage plans, the availability of our Next Generation Sync Client and several other new capabilities we’re delivering in our December update.
Storage plans
Office 365 customers on our premium Enterprise, Government and Education plans will receive OneDrive for Business unlimited storage. Specifically, this includes unlimited storage for individuals in organizations with more than five people subscribing to one of the following plans:
Office 365 Enterprise E3, E4 and E5
Office 365 Government E3, E4 and E5
Office 365 Education
OneDrive for Business Plan 2 and SharePoint Online Plan 2
We will begin rolling out increased storage to these customers by the end of this month, starting with an automatic increase from 1 TB to 5 TB per user. We expect this rollout to complete by the end of March 2016. After this point, customers who want additional storage can request it as needed by contacting Microsoft support.
Customers on all other Office 365 Enterprise, Business and standalone plans that include OneDrive for Business will continue to receive 1 TB of storage per user. While customers on these plans will not receive the full unlimited benefit, we expect it will serve the vast majority of users. Today, most OneDrive for Business users consume significantly less than 1 TB.
Overall, we have taken too long to provide an update on our storage plans around OneDrive for Business. We also recognize we are disappointing customers who expected unlimited storage across every Office 365 plan, and I want to apologize for not meeting your expectations. We are committed to earning your business every day by delivering a great productivity and collaboration service and improving our communication approach.
Next Generation Sync Client for Windows and Mac
After a successful preview program, we are happy to report that the OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client is now available for deployment. Our top priorities for this release were improved reliability and performance, as well as delivering core capabilities such as selective sync, support for large files up to 10 GB in size and removing the 20,000 file sync limit. For IT Professionals, we’ve provided the ability to silently deploy and configure the client on behalf of your end users. The OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client is available for Windows 7, 8 and 10 (8.1 support will be added in the first quarter of 2016) and Mac OS X 10.9 and above. The Windows client is available today with the Mac client being available before the end of December 2015.
With this first release, the Next Generation Sync Client supports OneDrive for Business only, but we will add support for SharePoint document libraries in future releases. In the interim, if customers require sync for both OneDrive for Business and SharePoint document libraries, the Next Generation Sync Client is designed to work side-by-side with the existing sync client.
Additionally, we are actively working on other important features including Office integration to support the co-authoring of documents and sharing scenarios (planned for the second quarter of 2016), as well as a more seamless experience for users who are migrating from the existing sync client (planned for the first quarter of 2016).
Mobile updates
In addition to updates on our desktop offerings, we have several improvements for our mobile apps. First, we recently released a new OneDrive app for Windows 10 Mobile. This app offers all the essential capabilities to view, edit, delete, share and upload files onto both your personal OneDrive and OneDrive for Business storage services.
Users can easily manage their files and folders on their Windows 10 Mobile device.
A range of required actions such as view, edit, delete and share are available for the user.
We are also happy to announce the OneDrive for iOS app will support offline storage. You can selectively flag files for local availability and open them when disconnected. The updated app will be available before the end of December 2015. We first released offline storage on Android in September 2015 and will take this same capability to Windows 10 Mobile in the second quarter of 2016.
You can select one or more files to take offline.
All offline files can be accessed through a single view.
Lastly, Office Lens for iOS now supports uploading your content directly into OneDrive for Business. Office Lens is essentially a mobile scanner that lets you to take pictures of printed documents, business cards, expense receipts and even whiteboards, with automated cropping, trimming and searching of those images. We will add OneDrive for Business support to Android and Windows 10 Mobile in the first quarter of 2016.
Use the whiteboard capture feature to store all meeting notes in OneDrive for Business.
Access whiteboards, business cards and photos quickly and easily.
New capabilities for developers
We are also releasing exciting new value for developers. First, we created a new OneDrive for Business API that allows developers to programmatically access OneDrive for Business files. The API includes support for thumbnails, search, large file upload and sync changes. Developers can write directly to the OneDrive for Business API or access it via the Microsoft Graph. We also provided new tools and SDKs for Universal Windows, iOS and Android—including support for simple “file picker” integration that enables import and export of OneDrive for Business content. Finally, we released an updated preview of a JavaScript Picker SDK for web app file management. All developer tools and documentation can be found on the new OneDrive developer portal.
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Mike Saxby and Sean Ferrel talking about #mobility & #cloud at the 2015 NexGen Cloud Conference & Expo today.
Day: Thursday, December 10th
Time: 11:00 am - 11:30 am
Location: Convention Center - Upper Level Room 4 Cloud & Connectivity Track: Maximize Sales with Mobility + Cloud
Cloud and mobility solutions go hand-in-hand. Cloud enables mobile businesses and mobility drives cloud sales. Find out how you can maximize sales by pairing these in-demand solutions.
Speakers:
Mike Saxby, VP Business Development, Advantage Communications Group, LLC
Sean Ferrel, President/CEO, Managed Solution
About the Conference
The NexGen Cloud Conference & Expo is the only place where solution providers and vendor executives can connect to learn how cloud-based solutions are transforming the IT landscape. No matter what your position inside a solution provider organization—marketing, sales, or technical–NexGen is designed for you. With nearly 100 exhibitors and 55 leading speakers, attendees will gain insight into the hot technologies, trends, customer perspectives and market forecasts that will help you compete in the future.
Understand the disruptive impact of cloud on today’s customers and what you need to do compete in the future. Come and build your 2016 strategy here! Drive your knowledge to new heights at NexGen.
This two-day conference and trade show (preceded by an invite-only executive day) will provide solution providers with workshops, case studies, and specific steps needed to accelerate their cloud transformation. See more at: http://www.nexgencloudcon.com/#sthash.s7fnSSkf.dpuf
Below is a recap from 2014 conference.
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The workplace is changing. Learn new ways of working with Office 365 !
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Built to work nearly seamlessly with Azure, Deep Security provides a suite of security capabilities for your VMs in a single platform for cloud and hybrid deployments. Take advantage of the free 30-day trial and see how easy it is to get the security you need while preserving the agility of Azure. Visit Marketplace page
If your data lives with you on-site, it’s vulnerable to natural disasters. Keeping your data in the cloud, or using the cloud as a backup, helps protect your data from local events.
Most cloud services offer geo-redundant data centers. This means that they back up your data to more than one location. Here are four scenarios where the cloud makes a difference to your business continuity:
Hurricanes and tornadoes
If your business is in a hurricane or tornado zone, you might use ‘hardening’ to protect your servers. A hardened data center has hurricane shields for all windows and doors. The data center is on an upper floor and equipped with flood precautions such as pumps.
But, as Hurricane Sandy proved in 2012, even the best facility designs do little for protection when in the storm’s direct path. The storm tested the value of cloud services, colocation, and redundant facilities, proving that data is more secure when not tied to a single location.
Earthquakes
Data center providers know how to protect infrastructure. “Racks need to be bolted down and use seismic restraints. The facility must have multiple layers of redundancy,” writes Jason Verge for Data Center Knowledge.
“While the facility may navigate through an earthquake, it’s the outside infrastructure that poses the biggest threat,” writes Verge.
Even if the data center provider is well-prepared, damage due to unexpected disasters can put data at risk. Verge recommends that data center customers have a second deployment outside of known fault zones.
Solar flares
One threat you might not think of is solar flares. During a solar the sun flings large amounts of energy and particles into space. If this discharge hits the earth, it can damage and destroy electrical systems. It is like an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
Precautions for geomagnetic storms are the same as for other disasters. This includes backup power supplies and a disaster recovery plan.
Floods
The most common reason for floods is sudden and unexpected rainstorms. And with the rise in sea levels, there is even more risk of floods in our future. If a data center is in the wrong place, even the best-made plan might not be enough to keep it online.
Companies outside of regular flood zones should also take note. Even dry Phoenix experienced record-breaking flash flooding following the largest single day’s rain ever.
Surviving disaster
According to Tony Surma, CTO of Microsoft Disaster Response, “Information is a basic need in disaster response. It's right up there with food, water, and shelter. That is driving use of the cloud.”
When data is stored in the cloud, companies can “rapidly deploy resources on demand and accommodate large spikes in traffic. This is regardless of local conditions,” says Surma.
Dev-Test Starts with IT: Create simple, cloud-only dev-test configurations using Resource Manager templates
Sixty-five percent of developers say it’s too complicated and time-consuming to get dev-test resources.* It doesn’t have to be. This blog series will provide guidance on setting up dev-test environments with the help of the Microsoft cloud so that you can get the most out of dev-test in minutes—not hours or days.
Azure makes it easy to set up a dev-test environment for your applications and all of their components: web app, database, database server, storage, and any third-party services. Azure Resource Manager can help you simplify deployment and management of all of the app resources and services.
Resource Manager gives you the ability to deploy, manage, and monitor the components of your apps in a resource group, rather than handling services and resources individually. You can create resource groups and then move resources to different groups and add new resources to existing groups.
You can also use Resource Manager templates to quickly deploy apps within a new or existing resource group, including the following cloud-only dev-test configurations:
•Active Directory domain controllers, a highly available, two-server Active Directory Domain Services domain configuration
•SharePoint Server 2013, a three-server or nine-server SharePoint farm
•SQL Server AlwaysOn, a five-server SQL Server AlwaysOn with Availability Groups configuration
•WordPress Server, a WordPress Server running on Ubuntu
These are great starting points to explore Resource Manager templates before authoring your own.
REDMOND, Wash., and RALEIGH, N.C. — Nov. 4, 2015 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) and Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) on Wednesday announced a partnership that will help customers embrace hybrid cloud computing by providing greater choice and flexibility deploying Red Hat solutions on Microsoft Azure. As a key component of today’s announcement, Microsoft is offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the preferred choice for enterprise Linux workloads on Microsoft Azure. In addition, Microsoft and Red Hat are also working together to address common enterprise, ISV and developer needs for building, deploying and managing applications on Red Hat software across private and public clouds.
The two companies will host a webcast at 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m. PST Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015, to share more details.
Key elements of the partnership include the following:
Red Hat solutions available natively to Microsoft Azure customers. In the coming weeks, Microsoft Azure will become a Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider, enabling customers to run their Red Hat Enterprise Linux applications and workloads on Microsoft Azure. Red Hat Cloud Access subscribers will be able to bring their own virtual machine images to run in Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure customers can also take advantage of the full value of Red Hat’s application platform, including Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Red Hat JBoss Web Server, Red Hat Gluster Storage and OpenShift, Red Hat’s platform-as-a-service offering. In the coming months, Microsoft and Red Hat plan to provide Red Hat On-Demand — “pay-as-you-go” Red Hat Enterprise Linux images available in the Azure Marketplace, supported by Red Hat.
Integrated enterprise-grade support spanning hybrid environments. Customers will be offered cross-platform, cross-company support spanning the Microsoft and Red Hat offerings in an integrated way, unlike any previous partnership in the public cloud. By co-locating support teams on the same premises, the experience will be simple and seamless, at cloud speed.
Unified workload management across hybrid cloud deployments. Red Hat CloudForms will interoperate with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager, offering Red Hat CloudForms customers the ability to manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux on both Hyper-V and Microsoft Azure. Support for managing Azure workloads from Red Hat CloudForms is expected to be added in the next few months, extending the existing System Center capabilities for managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Collaboration on .NET for a new generation of application development capabilities. Expanding on the preview of .NET on Linux announced by Microsoft in April, developers will have access to .NET technologies across Red Hat offerings, including Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, jointly backed by Microsoft and Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be the primary development and reference operating system for .NET Core on Linux.
“This partnership is a powerful win for enterprises, ISVs and developers,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president for Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise division. “With this partnership, we are expanding our commitment to offering unmatched choice and flexibility in the cloud today, meeting customers where they are so they can do more with their hybrid cloud deployments — all while fulfilling the rigorous security and scalability requirements that enterprises demand.”
“The datacenter is heterogeneous, and the cloud is hybrid,” said Paul Cormier, president, Products and Technologies, Red Hat. “With Red Hat and the leader in enterprise cloud workloads joining forces, our customers are the winners today, as we unite on common solutions to help them solve challenges in this hybrid cloud. Together, we’re offering the most comprehensive support agreement for our mixed technologies to support customers.”
Additional information on the partnership is available on The Official Microsoft Blog and the Red Hat Blog. A live webcast with executives from both companies will begin at 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m. PST Wednesday and can be accessed by the general public at https://vts.inxpo.com/Launch/QReg.htm?ShowKey=28455. Following executive remarks, there will be a question and answer session. A replay of the webcast will be available shortly after the live event has ended.
About Red Hat Inc.
Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss, Gluster, OpenShift, CloudForms and the Shadowman logo are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries. The use of the word “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership between Red Hat and any other company.
Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.
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