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Home > Gilham Consulting Microsoft Notepad
Protect your Business Information for Free using Encrypting File System (EFS)

 

Every day, your users work with information that is valuable to your business. However, this same information—including your customer databases, product price lists, and financial information—is constantly at risk of discovery. You see the reports in the papers nearly every day: laptops are stolen, removable hard drives are sent to the wrong recipient. Savvy businesses realize they need help to secure their business information and protect it from inadvertent or deliberate disclosure.

That’s why Microsoft created Encrypting File System (EFS), a powerful tool for encrypting files and folders on servers and client computers. EFS helps secure confidential information that should not be disclosed without authorization, information that resides on remote servers or on portable computers such as laptops or netbooks, or confidential information on computers that are shared by multiple workers at a business. With EFS, you can protect your business’s information in case someone gains physical possession of the computer that the files reside on. Even people who are authorized to access the computer and its file system can’t view the data that they shouldn’t. Files are encrypted when you close them, but are automatically ready to use when you open them. If you change your mind about encrypting a file, clear the check box in the file's properties.

EFS is an integral part of the file system and is transparent to your users and applications; you don’t need to install any special software to work with encrypted files. It’s available on Windows Small Business Server (Windows SBS) 2008 and the Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate operating systems, including both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms.

How EFS works

EFS helps secure the information that is contained in your folders and files by creating a unique key that uses a combination of the server’s credentials and the user’s credentials. When you first apply EFS to a folder, any files that are created in that folder or moved into that folder are encrypted, and only you and the recovery agent are given access to encrypt or decrypt the file. You can give any other user access to individual files in this folder. However, users can only be added to the access list individually; it is not possible to grant an entire group access to a file. Also, although you can give users access to individual files, it is not possible to give users access to an entire folder.

After a folder is marked for encryption, it isn't necessary to manually mark the files in it for encryption. But when you move a file out of the encrypted folder, the file may be decrypted, depending on whether you move the file into an NTFS volume. The best practice is to keep a file in its encrypted folder until the file is no longer needed.

If a person or program doesn’t possess the correct key to read the encrypted file or folder, an “Access Denied” message appears. EFS is an excellent file encryption system—there is no "back door”—however, anybody who can obtain the user ID and password can log on as that user and decrypt that user's files.

Encrypting File System Best Practices

Because EFS is so secure, it’s critical to enforce a strong password policy. It’s also a best practice to archive and back up the recovery keys for your domain and keep them in a safe place to ensure recovery should the keys become damaged or lost. If you don’t take these precautions, you can permanently lose the information in encrypted files and folders. We will cover recovery keys in the next section of this post.

When encrypting removable media, it is important to keep in mind that the encrypted files will only be accessible on computers that have certificates for users who are listed as having access to the file (or the recovery agent key). This means that if you are working on an encrypted file at work, and you bring it home to finish up on your home computer, you will only be able to access this file if your home computer has your user certificate.

Similarly, you should take great care when you enable EFS on a SharePoint site. Any user who has access to a SharePoint site can encrypt any file on that site. However, once that file is encrypted, only users listed as having access to that file (or the recovery agent) will be able to access it.

For more information on EFS Best Practices, read this TechNet article*: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223316/en-us.

Using Encrypting File System

As previously mentioned, it is essential to back up your user certificates and recovery key before you use EFS to encrypt anything on your computer or the server. Once you have backed up these certificates, you can encrypt folders and files either directly or using group policy.

<snip>

Read the rest @> The Official SBS Blog : Help Secure your Business Information using Encrypting File System

How to: Integrate Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 with Exchange 2010 OWA/CAS

 

One of the new features of Outlook Web App (OWA) in Exchange 2010 is the ability for OWA to act as an IM client if you have Office Communications Server (OCS) in your environment. Once configured, you’ll be able to see and manage your buddy list, manage presence, as well as participate in IM conversations while logged in to OWA. Configuring this integration requires a number of steps on each of your Exchange 2010 Client Access Servers (CAS’). Many of the changes discussed in this blog post will cause brief service interruptions so it is highly recommended that you perform this work during a maintenance window where these interruptions are tolerable.

You’ll need to download two packages in order to proceed:

<snip>

Read the rest @> How to Integrate Office Communications Server 2007 R2 with Exchange 2010 : Brian Desmond's Blog

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010 Released

 

All organizations need to manage identities, credentials, and resources. Some lucky organizations only have to deal with one directory, but most have to deal with multiple directory trees and application-specific identity sources. The IT departments in those organizations are expected to deliver this management efficiently, cost-effectively, and securely. When this management goes bad, IT departments can lose the ability to be agile, and custom solutions created to manage identities can inhibit their ability to adapt to business change efficiently. These solutions may require manual intervention, inevitably resulting in higher costs.

What organizations need is a comprehensive identity and access management solution that can integrate certificate and smart card management with the traditional identity management lifecycle, while it brings a level of self-service management to users. Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 (FIM) is a component of Microsoft’s Identity & Access Management solution that brings powerful capabilities, administrative tools, and enhanced automation to organizations to help them efficiently manage identities.

FIM is not the first identity management product from Microsoft. FIM has evolved from Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007, which was previously Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003, which originated from Microsoft Metadirectory Services (MMS). These products provide two, stable engines for delivering the core services of FIM. These engines deliver core provisioning and synchronization services between different systems, as well as certificate and smart card management. FIM then builds on previous releases by wrapping these core services in a rich management environment, including workflows and self-service capabilities for end users, making it easier for IT Administrators to manage the identity management lifecycle, and enabling them to delegate some tasks to end users.

How does FIM make identity management easier? FIM 2010 provides the ability to manage multiple credentials in an integrated manner. IT Administrators have centralized management tools where they can view and define policies, such as defining smart card templates and processes for resetting PINs.

Today, IT Administrators often spend time adding people to groups, removing people from groups (if they are ever told access is no longer needed ), creating and managing accounts, or at least trying to. When a new hire arrives at a company it can turn into a departmental sweepstakes - “Guess the date when Joe will have access to our systems?” When you think about your organization, think of all the accounts you have. You have an network account, then you almost certainly have an email account, which is also almost certainly a member of a number of distribution groups, an account in the finance system so you get paid, and an account in a customer relationship system. Then there are the file shares and web sites which you have access to internally. Finally, like me, you may have a building access card that may be a smart card with certificates on it. All of these have to be created, authorized, and issued. This is what FIM does, or moreover, this is what FIM enables the IT Administrators to do more efficiently.

When new hire “Joe” starts, he may well go through some new employee orientation. At that point, the HR representative could add or approve “Joe” in their system. Then “Joe” officially exists. In the background, FIM has seen this change because of the policies defined by the Administrators. FIM now starts the enrollment process, a network access account is created, a corresponding email account is created, requests for certificates are generated, and requests are sent to the appropriate people to authorize the creation of accounts in the CRM system or the finance system. At every stage, the policy and workflow dictates who gets notified to authorize the change. So when “Joe” gets to the security office to have his picture taken and added to his access card, the card can be loaded with the right certificates and “Joe” can walk into his new department all ready to go.

This isn’t a one way process. Should “Joe” leave, when his final salary is paid, FIM can reverse all these changes, certificates can be revoked and accounts disabled, etc. FIM also provides the IT Administrators the ability to delegate certain information management tasks to users. During “Joe’s” employment, he can self-manage some of his own identity information such as his mobile phone number, as well as reset his password or smart card PIN. Tasks like password or PIN reset, in estimates, can cost around $35 per request, which can quickly accumulate over the course of a year.

FIM allows IT Administrators to spend more time managing their systems' security, and less time managing people’s identity. In the next part we will look at the self-service capabilities in FIM, and how access management of resources can be delegated to end users.

Related Resources

Videos / Webcasts

TechNet Webcast: Forefront Identity Manager 2010: Technical Overview and Deployment

TechNet Webcast: Forefront Identity Manager 2010: Deploying FIM

TechNet Webcast: Identity and Access Management Solution

Webcast: Forefront Identity Manager 2010 – Technical Overview and Feature drill-down

TechNet Edge Video: Forefront Identity Manager- Reducing cost of group management

TechNet Edge Video: Identity and Access Management Solution
Channel 9 Video: Alex Weinert on Forefront Identity Manager 2010

Datasheets and downloads
Identity and Access Management Datasheet

Trial Download FIM 2010

Manage Your Organization's Identity with Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 | Media | TechNet Edge

Microsoft Thinks VDI Might Not be the Answer to Every Desktop Scenario

 

With the launch of Windows 7, more and more organisations are weighing up their options for their desktop strategy going forward, with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI, becoming an attractive option with popularity growing almost daily. The question however, still remains. Is VDI the answer to your desktop problems? Certain vendors would lead you to believe that it is, yet, if all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem is going to look like a nail. Microsoft, with Partners such as Citrix, Quest and Ericom to name but a few, take a different approach, with Microsoft in particular focusing on the 'Optimised Desktop' as a starting point for discussion. An optimised desktop to me, may look very different to you, so it's incredibly important to perform a thorough assessment of your users, and business requirements, before deciding on a particular solution to optimise your desktops.

To help with the assessment, Microsoft has developed an IPD Guide known as Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios, which aims to segregate users into categories, based on their usage patterns and business requirements. These categories include Office, Mobile, Task, Home, and Contract Worker, with each having different needs to perform their role effectively. Now, there is no perfect description that will be applicable 100% of the time, but it's a great starting point. Take me as an example. I'm on the road a great deal, so the things that are important to me, to do my job effectively, include streamlined access to my corporate data, combined with local access when on the road. Security of data, both locally, and on removable devices, but also applications being provided locally, that can be used when I'm not connected to the internal network. I'm sure I'm not alone with that description, so you'll agree that a Virtual Desktop, in a datacenter, isn't the ideal solution for me, as I can't always guarantee a network connection, so to be productive, an offline solution, utilising in-box features of Windows 7, like DirectAccess, BranchCache and BitLocker, with App-V for streamlined applications offers me the best solution.

If on the other hand, I fell into the Task Worker category, perhaps in a Call-Center, or Warehouse type environment, a session-based experience (TS or RDS) would offer me the simplest, most cost effective way of working effectively. Task Workers by nature, don't need to be installing, configuring, tweaking or modifying an OS, so a well-managed session-based environment is ideal, and will allow the organisation to provide users with a working environment at a higher density than an equivalent VDI rollout, with a strong ROI to boot, with simpler licensing, and storage requirements.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't designed to dismiss VDI as 'the way to go', as for certain segments of the organisation, it could be perfect. It allows users to retain their power user status, with a rich, true desktop environment, plus overcomes barriers where certain applications won't run in a session-based environment. It can also bring a very dynamic edge to desktop delivery, enabling an agile infrastructure that can adapt to change quickly. The key thing to think about is, ensure you perform a thorough assessment, and don't simply move your current desktop problems into the datacenter, but instead, use this as an opportunity to optimise, with the right technologies, for the right user, to enable them to do their job more effectively. That answer may or may not be VDI.

With Windows 7, the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack, and Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2, the options around the Optimised Desktop have never been greater, so I encourage you to make use of the tools and resources available, and ensure your desktop of the future is the right one for your business.

Read the whole article source @> virtualboy : TechNet Article: VDI is the answer. Now, what was the question?

Creating Hyper-V Virtual Machine Templates for VDI or SCVMM Library

My friend Brian Posey writes a great article on creating template and clones of Hyper-V virtual machines.  This relevant for VDI or using System Center Virtual Machine Manager to deploy machines from a template library.

Although it is relatively easy to make a clone of a virtual machine, the cloning process is less than intuitive. This article series shows you how to avoid disaster by creating a virtual machine clone in the proper way.

You have probably heard that server virtualization products such as Hyper-V make it easy to clone virtual server images or to move virtual servers to new hardware. However, if you ever actually tried to build a server image and then clone it, you might have been surprised by how non intuitive the process actually was.

The first time that I ever had to create a virtual machine clone, I was a little taken back. All I kept hearing about was how easy the process was. Because of that, I really expected the Hyper-V Manager to have a Clone Virtual Machine button. As you have probably already guessed though, such a button simply does not exist.

Since that time, I have tried a lot of different methods to cloning virtual machines. Some of them have worked, and some of them have not. Since there are so many techniques that you could potentially use, I wanted to take the opportunity and explain which cloning techniques actually work, and why.

The Challenge of Cloning Virtual Machines

Before I get started, I think that a little explanation of the challenges involved in cloning virtual machines is in order. The problem with cloning a virtual machine is that you can not have two identical computers on the same network. You can have machines that are almost identical, but they can not be 100% identical. The reason for this is that certain machine attributes are used as a means for identifying the machine on the network. Therefore, if you have two machines that are completely identical, then networking ceases to function. In case you are wondering, some of the things that have to be unique for each computer include:

  • The Windows Security Identifiers (SIDs)

  • The Media Access Control (MAC) address

  • The Internet Protocol (IP) address

  • The NetBIOS and Fully Qualified Domain (FQDN) names

Given that some system attributes are required to be unique, simply copying virtual hard drive files and building another virtual machine around them will not work. Out of curiosity, I actually tried to shut down a virtual machine, copy its files to another location, and create another virtual machine using those files. When I booted the new virtual machine I received the Blue Screen of Death.

As you have probably already figured out, successfully duplicating a virtual machine requires stripping any attributes that are required to be unique from the clone. There are at least two good ways of accomplishing this.

<snip>

Read the rest @> Cloning Hyper-V Virtual Machines the Right Way (Part 1 of 4)

GoGrid Dedicated and Virtual Server Hosting Review – Cool Concept, but Poor Technology and Service.

I wanted to tell you a few brief things about GoGrid server virtual or dedicated server hosting.I don’t talk much about hardware infrastructure on this blog.  I’m looking for the day of utility based computing that companies are bringing to market (Azure being one of them from Microsoft) where the platform owner can take responsibility for it’s efficient implementation.

In the mean time, customers need a hosting system that can run traditional windows applications, as well as evolve to integrate with cloud services.  I started using GoGrid after one of my customers needed Agile computing infrastructure for their national gym’s.  It looked great on paper, hybrid hosting of virtual or dedicated systems…with API to handle future load demands.  The reality turned out behind their flashy management application, the server reliability was really lacking.

GoGrid such a frustrating experience over the years…I must recommend that no business should use GoGrid or ServePath for virtual or dedicated servers due to completely unreliable server and billing infrastructure…two key areas your infrastructure partner needs to excel at.  Some issues I experienced we’re:

  • 6 Incidents of 3 day+ downtime due to multiple machines blue screening using they’re overloaded HyperVisors or other system errors.  3-4 servers running completely different windows applciations would blue screen out of 20 servers.  I’ve run 26 Hyper-V instances on a server for 2 years months without a blue screen.
  • I notified GoGrid of a billing problem on my account that caused it not to bill my credit card for over 8 months.  They ignored my requests for 6 months after I notified them on the second month they failed to bill my card.  Then they billed my card $1,800 without any warning.  While we don’t have issues with them collecting they’re fees, they could have at least warned customers of a large pending charge…especially when I notified them of a problem of their buggy bill system.
  • They run their dedicated “server hardware” with Shuttle PC’s.  I have nothing against shuttle, they we’re my first home built Microsoft Media Center…but not quite the speed needed for server class processing and reliability.
  • They’re answer to every root cause of the issue was to buy a more expensive virtual machine with more memory. 
  • I have spoken to both the director technical support and business development on numerous occasions about theses issues.  Their explanations over the years has been they are a “small and growing business” and took weeks to return my email regarding a billing issue we’re they charged my 8 times my normal bill amount.

I recommend Microsoft Azure or EC2 for customers that need reliability and great service for their cloud platform infrastructure…anything but GoGrid.

Microsoft’s Balmer on Cloud Computing: "All In"

 

Today, Microsoft held a live event from the University of Washington where Steve Ballmer outlined Microsoft's view on the power of clouds to drive innovation. (You can find replay, transcripts here.) This was a pivotal speech not only for the company, but for the industry as a whole.  For additional context you may find Dan Reed's blog post very revealing about how Microsoft view research insight into the current & future state of the cloud. 

Why is this pivotal?  Tone and Breadth. When you sit back and understand all of the investments we continue to make, you realize there is no other company investing in the cloud to drive the industry forward.  Many pundits have remained skeptical about Microsoft's commitment to evolve our offerings to meet the demands of the next wave of computing. Is Microsoft a leader, a follower, a fast follower, etc., where much of this debate has been isolated to one very specific market or segment.  It's unfortunate because if you zero on one tile, you aren't seeing the mosaic. Steve's tone was strong and unwavering, we are leading with the future.  He also discussed the sheer breadth of our cloud offerings from MSN, Xbox all the way to Azure etc. 

Microsoft at the core is a software company. It's simply what we do and we do it really well. Cloud, Distributing Computing, Grid, Utility, SaaS, et al (insert market term du jour) are all evolving terms that seek to define this next step in computing.  Whether you are a bleeding edge cloud purist or a first generation Fortran geek with punch cards, you agree on one thing: It's all software!  We get that and it's why we are 'all in' when it comes to driving the software industry forward to meet the demands of a new model.  We really see this next wave as another opportunity to use great software to propel new scenarios.

Over 12 years ago, I was part of a small start up (Pandesic) that was SaaS before it was called SaaS. (It was called Application Service Providers then).  And Microsoft's technology was at the core of what used to drive for the cloud. At the time we needed a way to make our three tier architecture behave in real time transactions for commerce at scale.  We used DCOM and IIS at the heart.  Once we had a customer make an appearence on the Oprah show to sell his book, we called Microsoft for help to understand how to scale.  When we luanched a commerce site for adidas and the Womens World Cup, we called Microsoft.  From then to now, Microsoft has been at the heart of the software for many companies. So for me, I've lived with Microsoft at the heart of the early cloud and now I am a part of that continued push here at HQ.

Which brings me to my first point, experience matters. Only Microsoft provides a comprehensive set of cloud services with the reliability, security and global reach you expect for your business.  We do this without compromise.  Going to the cloud should not come with caveats. The same great tools, manageability, control you have today should be offered in the cloud if you want it.  Our recent announcements to provide a Government cloud with the highest level of security measures, industry certifications etc means we get it.  The fact that you can be a small business who wants an easy way to provide mail and collaboration with Microsoft Online, means we get it.  For the developers, Azure really demonstrates how our experience is helping to drive the future of cloud platforms.

Second, Microsoft is full completely committed the cloud.  If you are customer who wants to be there now, you can use any one of our products to support your strategy.  If you aren't there yet, but want to be in the future, this is what we mean when we say 'cloud on your terms'. By having Microsoft technology, you can be assured your onramp is there when you want it. It's about confidence in the roadmap and responsible innovation.  I meet with lots of customers who want to know where we are going.  Simply talking about our investment in data centers and Gen4 concepts means we build for a cloud at scale.   From the ground up, most of our products now are also built for the cloud. They can work in a orchestrated ways across multipe run time environments, whether its a PC, Phone, Browser from our data center to yours.

Finally,  Microsoft is a leader in cloud services.  MSN and Windows Live alone get over 600Billion (with a 'b') visits a month. We process nearly 10B Live Messenger messages a day.  Now with Microsoft Online, we've scaled to over a 1 million paying customers in 36 countries.  Numbers alone aren't meant to impress so much as impress upon you just how much we remain a leader in the cloud today. From the media center to the data center, we are a leader.

So if you are an IT Pro who is trying to understand "Why Microsoft" for the cloud, I'll hope you'll take some time to understand what we offer, possibly start a trial (Azure / MS Online) and see how we can help you meet your strategic needs.

Why Microsoft : Microsoft on Cloud Computing: "All In" & Why Microsoft

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM2007) and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) Video Walkthrough

For integration of System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM 2007) and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) for automated Windows Deployments.

Are you struggling with setting up SCCM 2007 Operating System Deployment and integrating MDT? - download and view the video walkthrough that shows you how to:

  • Setup the server environment for SCCM 2007 OS deployment
  • Configure the SCCM 2007 Site Settings
  • Configure the SCCM 2007 Computer Management Settings
  • Configure the SCCM 2007 Operating System Deployment Settings
  • Setup and use MDT integration with SCCM 2007
  • Add a reference machine object to SCCM 2007
  • Create a build and capture reference image for mass deployment using SCCM 2007

View the SCCM and MDT Video Walkthrough from the Windows Media Servers here!

View the SCCM and MDT Video Walkthrough from the TechNet Edge Media Servers here!

The download pack contains the following high resolution (1024 x 768) narrated video

  • SCCM2007 and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Setup and Config.wmv

From: The Deployment Guys : SCCM 2007 and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - Video Walkthrough

Microsoft Perspective on SharePoint 2010 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Expanding on my original SharePoint 2007 SEO article, here is a great follow up by Jean-Paul at Microsoft.

SEO involves configuring site structure, navigation, page content, metadata and labels to improve search engine relevance and ranking and aims at making it easier for customers and partners to find you through search engines, notably via Bing and Google.

Out-Of-The-Box, SharePoint 2010 is far more SEO-friendly: far more semantic HTML (which helps with WCAG 2.0 AA compliance), powerful metadata management and capture, SEO feature on publishing pages, are only a few of those enhancements.  In addition, Microsoft released the new IIS 7.0 SEO Toolkit, which helps Web developers, hosting providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search engine-friendly. The Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing your Robots and Sitemaps files. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of this toolkit: 

Improve the volume and quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines

The Site Analysis module allows users to analyze local and external Web sites with the purpose of optimizing the site's content, structure, and URLs for search engine crawlers. In addition, the Site Analysis module can be used to discover common problems in the site content that negatively affects the site visitor experience. The Site Analysis tool includes a large set of pre-built reports to analyze the sites compliance with SEO recommendations and to discover problems on the site, such as broken links, duplicate resources, or performance issues. The Site Analysis module also supports building custom queries against the data gathered during crawling.

Control how search engines access and display Web content

The Robots Exclusion module enables Web site owners to manage the robots.txt file from within the IIS Manager interface. This file is used to control the indexing of specified URLs, by disallowing search engine crawlers from accessing them. Users have the choice to view their sites using a physical or a logical hierarchal view; and from within that view, they can choose to disallow specific files or folders of the Web application. In addition, users can manually enter a path or modify a selected path, including wildcards. By using a graphical interface, users benefit from having a clear understanding of what sections of the Web site are disallowed and from avoiding any typing mistakes.

Inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing

The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module enables Web site owners to manage the sitemap files and sitemap indexes on the site, application, and folder level to help keep search engines up to date. The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module allows the most important URLs to be listed and ranked in the sitemap.xml file. In addition, the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module helps to ensure the Sitemap.xml file does not contain any broken links.

Site Analysis Features
  • Fully featured crawler engine

    • Configurable number of concurrent requests to allow users to crawl their Web site without incurring additional processing. This can be configured from 1 to 16 concurrent requests.

    • Support for Robots.txt, allowing you to customize the locations where the crawler should analyze and which locations should be ignored.

    • Support for Sitemap files allowing you to specify additional locations to be analyzed.

    • Support for overriding ‘noindex’ and ‘nofollow’ metatags to allow you to analyze pages to help improve customer experience even when search engines will not process them.

    • Configurable limits for analysis, maximum number of URLs to download, and maximum number of kilobytes to download per URL.

    • Configurable options for including content from only your directories or the entire site and sub domains.

  • View detailed summary of Web site analysis results through a rich dashboard

  • Feature rich Query Builder interface that allows you to build custom reports

  • Quick access to common tasks

  • Display of detailed information for each URL

  • View detailed route analysis showing unique routes to better understand the way search engines reach your content

Robots Exclusion Features
  • Display of robots content in a friendly user interface

  • Support for filtering, grouping, and sorting

  • Ability to add ‘disallow’ and ‘allow’ paths using a logical view of your Web site from the result of site analysis processing

  • Ability to add sitemap locations

Sitemap and Sitemap Index Features
  • Display of sitemaps and sitemap index files in a simple user interface

  • Support for grouping and sorting

  • Ability to add/edit/remove sitemap and sitemap index files

  • Ability to add new URL’s to sitemap and sitemap index files using a physical or logical view of your Web site

  • Ability to register a sitemap or sitemap index into the robots exclusion file

Read the original article @> SharePoint Experts Blog : A note on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Understanding SQL Server Joins Basics (Query and Internals)

Great post by Biplab Paul on SQL joins and por/cons of each one on his blog.

I love to explain things in much simpler way but SQL Joins are one of those concepts which are not so simple to explain and I really spend a lot of time in scribbling on White Board for this. But finally I found an article from Jeff Atwood where he did an incredible job by simply using Venn Diagrams to explain the whole concept. I will take few extract from his article but rest you can read from his blog.

INNER JOIN:

SELECT * FROM TableA

INNER JOIN TableB

ON TableA.name = TableB.name

 

clip_image002

OUTER JOIN (1):

SELECT * FROM TableA

FULL OUTER JOIN TableB

ON TableA.name = TableB.name

clip_image004

OUTER JOIN (2):

SELECT * FROM TableA

LEFT OUTER JOIN TableB

ON TableA.name = TableB.name

 

clip_image006

OUTER JOIN (3):

SELECT * FROM TableA

LEFT OUTER JOIN TableB

ON TableA.name = TableB.name

WHERE TableB.id IS null

 

clip_image008

OUTER JOIN (4):

SELECT * FROM TableA

RIGHT OUTER JOIN TableB

ON TableA.name = TableB.name

 

clip_image009

 

OUTER JOIN (5):

SELECT * FROM TableA

FULL OUTER JOIN TableB

ON TableA.name = TableB.name

WHERE TableA.id IS null

OR TableB.id IS null

clip_image011

CROSS APPLY (1):  without Where Clause

SELECT p.SalesPersonID, t.Name AS Territory

FROM Sales.SalesPerson p

CROSS JOIN Sales.SalesTerritory t

ORDER BY p.SalesPersonID

Note: This can’t be represented by Venn Diagrams but above would multiply all the contents of First Table with all the contents of the second table.

 

CROSS APPLY (2): with Where Clause

SELECT p.SalesPersonID, t.Name AS Territory

FROM Sales.SalesPerson p

CROSS JOIN Sales.SalesTerritory t

WHERE p.TerritoryID = t.TerritoryID

ORDER BY p.SalesPersonID

clip_image012

Now when we understood these different types of Joins, let’s talk about some of the internal on How these joins would work internally within SQL Server.

<snip>

 

Read the rest @> Few things which you may find helpful!! : Simplifying SQL Server Joins (Query and Internals)

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 About John

John Gilham is the veteran Microsoft solutions consultant located in San Diego, CA.

Gilham Consulting customer's utilize his small firm for Microsoft technology integration including:

  • IT infrastructure design (Hyper-V, AD, DNS, automated platform deployments)
  • Microsoft security solutions (PKI, NAP, 802.1x, Forefront)
  • Unified Messaging & VOIP (Exchange 2007 & OCS 2007)
  • System Center Management Solutions (SCDPM, SCVMM, SCCM, and SCOM)
  • IT and Data Center Operations
  • IT project management

They choose Gilham Consulting due to their proven track record in delivering Microsoft centric solutions.  John's customers’ have ranged in size from Fortune 100 companies, non-profits, and well funded startups all across North America.

He believes that Microsoft products, when managed and architected properly, allow the best platform for organizations to automate and track their business processes to serve their customers more effectively.

This blog is a collection of the better references we've stumbled across on Microsoft infrastructure best practices relevant to our current or future projects.

Please enjoy, correct, and contribute!

 Latest Posts

Protect your Business Information for Free using Encrypting File System (EFS)New
How to: Integrate Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 with Exchange 2010 OWA/CAS
Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010 Released
Microsoft Thinks VDI Might Not be the Answer to Every Desktop Scenario
Creating Hyper-V Virtual Machine Templates for VDI or SCVMM Library
GoGrid Dedicated and Virtual Server Hosting Review – Cool Concept, but Poor Technology and Service.
Microsoft’s Balmer on Cloud Computing: "All In"
System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM2007) and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) Video Walkthrough
Microsoft Perspective on SharePoint 2010 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Understanding SQL Server Joins Basics (Query and Internals)
Simple Xcopy Backup of Hyper-V VMs
App-V 4.6 Released – Get the Training Materials to Learn to Sequence Applications
Windows Desktop Optimization – Which Technology Solution Depends on your Users
Microsoft Desktop Virtualization Webcast (VDI)
Support for Two Exchange 2010 Servers Separated in Multi-site Architecture
Remote Desktop (Terminal Services) Session Host Capacity Planning in Windows Server 2008 R2 for Physical and Virtual Machines
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security: Step-by-Step Guide to Deploying Windows Firewall and IPsec Policies
Automatically Test Application Compatibility for New Apps on Terminal Server/RDS Farm using the RDS Application Compatibility Analyzer
Hyper-V Live Migration Network Configuration Best Practices
Forrester Research Posts on Legal Implications of Cloud Computing
Planning for an Automated Windows 7 Upgrade from Windows XP
A CIO Check List for eDiscovery and Litigation
Microsoft Announces New SharePoint 2010 Certifications
Transitioning Client Access Servers (CAS, OWA and ActiveSync) to Exchange Server 2010
Exchange 2010 Transport Architecture Diagrams Available for Download
Microsoft Forefront TMG Categories for Web URL Filtering/Blocking
Microsoft OCS 2010 New Features
Operation and Failover of Resource Hosting Subsystem (RHS) In Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters
Migrating Exchange 2003 or 2007 ActiveSync to Exchange 2010
Problem Application Candidates for Virtualization with Microsoft App-V
BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) fully supported on Exchange 2010 RU1
How to setup an Exchange 2010 CAS Array to Load Balance MAPI
Getting started with BI in SharePoint Server 2010
Microsoft Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide Series
Simple Windows Server 2008 Core Configuration Tool
SCVMM 2008 R2 VM Processor Hardware Profile CPU Type
Windows Server 2008 R2 Feature Diagram Poster
Intelligent App & Infrastructure Monitoring with Service Level Dashboards using System Center Operations Manager
Microsoft Technet OCS Resources
Direct Access and Unified Access Gateway (UAG) -- Better Together
Guided Tour inside the Windows Azure Cloud Server Farm Containers
The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger and Opportunity
Unattended SharePoint 2010 Install with PowerShell
Video: Developing SharePoint Microsoft Online Sandbox Solutions
SharePoint 2010 Beta Install Error: Failed to create sample data
Introduction to Microsoft CRM/XRM for a .Net Developer
Microsoft Office 2010 Leverages Click-to-Run Delivering Office Over the Web
Screencast: SharePoint 2010 for Project Management
Windows Azure Platform Training Kit
Business Value Impact (ROI) of Windows Server 2008 R2 (by Forrester)
Business Value Impact (ROI) of Exchange 2010 (by Forrester)
Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 Released
Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server RTM Capacity Planning Guide
Understanding Exchange 2010 High Availability (Clustering) and Site Resilience
SharePoint 2010 Central Administration “Blogthrough”
OCS 2007 R2 Edge Server Remote Access Configuration Guide
SharePoint 2010 Overview Training - New User Interface, Troubleshooting, and Development Planning
Hyper-V Storage & Disaster Recovery with Third Party Storage Vendors
Complete Guide to SharePoint (MOSS) 2007 Content Deployment
Office Communicator SIP Registration Trace Analysis
Create Windows 7 System Image Backup
OCS 2007 R2 Cannot Start Office Communications Server Monitoring Agent (RtcQmsAgent)
OCS 2007 R2 Activation Failure
GUI Tool to Author Your Own PowerShell Cmdlets
Microsoft VDI Explained: Remote Desktop Services Virtualization (RDS-V) for Windows 2008 R2 & Windows 7
Application Compatibility Mitigation Best Practices for Remote Desktop Services
RemoteApp and Desktop Connection in Windows 2008 R2
Exchange 2007 Features Dropped in Exchange 2010
Manage Linux, Unix, and Solaris with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007 R2 Cross Platform Update
SQL Server 2008 Hardening, Security, Compliance & Auditing
New Features for Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services (RDS or Terminal Services)
The Hidden Trap in BI and Analytics
BranchCache Deployment Guide for Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7
Exchange 2010 Server RTM’s
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Update Coming November 2009
Convert Physical Server or Workstation to VHD (Hyper-V, Xen, Virtual PC) – Microsoft Sysinternals Releases Free Disk2VHD Utility
Planning a DirectAccess Network Access Guide
Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 RC1 Released
Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway
End User Password Reset in Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM)
Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 R2 SIP Trunk Providers
Move WSUS Content Updates and Database Files to a Different Volume on Small Business Server (SBS)
Configuring Exchange Server 2007 ActiveSync for iPhone OS 3.1 (and prior)
Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Will Support Windows Server 2008 R2
SharePoint in Plain English
Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2, PreCallDiagnostic Resource Kit Tool
Why ERP Is Still So Hard - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
Utility to Install Windows Source Files from USB Flash Drive (Windows 7, Vista, WinPE and Windows Server 2008)
Microsoft Response to the Flawed VMware Cost-Per-Application Calculator (Comparing Hyper-V Price)
Danger! Do not implement SharePoint in your Organization!
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Available for Download
BlackBerry Client Support for Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2
Maximum VM’s in a Microsoft Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Cluster
System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 R3 Announced
The Exchange 2007 Transport Dumpster Information
Malware Threats on the Rise. WPA Wireless Security Vulnerabilities
Why Microsoft Office VBA Still Makes Sense
Free Microsoft SharePoint Training: SharePoint Productivity Hub
Microsoft DPM 2007 Configuration Analyzer
Using SMTP Relay with Exchange Online


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