Exchange 2010 SP2 makes hybrid deployment with Office 365 easier

Exchange 2010 SP2 was released earlier this week and one of the new features seems very interesting for those who are planning hybrid deployment of Exchange 2010 with Office 365.

Exchange 2010 SP2 introduces the hybrid configuration wizard which replaces approximately 50 of the manual steps to configure hybrid deployment with a few inputs and just six clicks of your mouse.

More information about the new wizard can be found from Technet.

I have to definitely try it myself when I get some spare time to play around with SP2 and Office 365 again.

Technical documentation for Windows Server Protocols and authentication 101

Yesterday I rediscovered a great resource about Windows Server protocols when I was debugging SMB2 and Kerberos V5 traffic between Windows 7 client, Netapp filer and DC on Windows Server 2008 R2.

I found out a page on MSDN that contains the technical documents for the Windows Server Protocols (WSPP) documentation set. Especially [MS-SPNG]: Simple and Protected GSS-API Negotiation Mechanism (SPNEGO) Extension, [MS-KILE]: Kerberos Protocol Extensions and [MS-SMB2]: Server Message Block (SMB) Version 2 Protocol Specification

I also found helpful blog post on Microsoft Open Specifications Support Team Blog explaining authentication in Windows.

FIM 2010 R2 Release Candidate available

Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2 Release Candidate is announced. FIM 2010 R2 RC can be downloaded from Connect web site. Technical information and release notes are available in TechNet Library.

64-bit DirSync now available from Office 365 portal

64-bit version of Directory Synchronization tool is released. 64-bit DirSync is based on FIM 2010 when the old 32-bit version was based on ILM. You need to have 64-bit standard or enterprise edition of Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2. More information can be found from Office 365 blog.

Security Compliance Manager version 2.0.20.0 released

Long time no post... No explanations this time. ;)

Microsoft Security Compliance Manager version 2 has been released few weeks ago. Take a look at it if you want to access and automate all of your organization’s security baselines in one centralized location.

The tool allows you to implement security baselines for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Hyper-V, Windows 7, Windows Vista SP2, Windows XP SP3, BitLocker Drive Encryption, Windows Internet Explorer 9, Windows Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft Office 2010, and Microsoft Office 2007 SP2. Tool allows you to compare your own production GPOs against Microsoft's guidance. You can export either tested Microsoft's baselines or your own customized baselines directly to group policies which you can import to your AD.

Vacation is almost over and time to start evaluating FIM 2010 R2

It's been a while since the last post. I've been on vacation pretty much the whole summer so no new work related entries here.

But now I decided to post links to FIM 2010 R2 beta program and FIM 2010 resources, including FIM 2010 R2 beta docs.

Free online course on Implementing Forefront Identity Manager 2010

Our organization is evaluating Forefront Identity Manager 2010 (R2 when released) to see if it could be our new IdM solution. So today I was searching for some basic background information and how to implement FIM and found this free online Ramp Up course on implementing Forefront Identity Manager 2010. That course was published a year ago but on a quick look the content seems to be still valid.

Course introduces and explains the features and capabilities of FIM, and provides an overview of the solution scenarios that FIM addresses. As the course is intended for persons who have no previous experience on FIM it begins from the basics. Every topic has an article describing the module content, a video presentation on each topic as well as virtual lab which can be run directly on browser. Looks like a great resource to learn about FIM 2010!