Key Steps to Modernize your Storage

Removing Complex Storage Silos and Connecting with the Cloud
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Microsoft Catching Up to Amazon in Security Clearances for Cloud

Microsoft is getting close to getting the certification needed to host the government's most sensitive, classified information -- something Amazon Web Services already has, Bloomberg reported • The certification would give Microsoft an edge over other bidders for the contentious multibillion-dollar cloud services contract Pentagon is seeking to award • A federal market analyst for Bloomberg Government said there were only two real competitors for the contract -- Amazon and Microsoft -- based on the security accreditation process alone • The Defense Department is moving slowly toward issuing a final request for proposals for the JEDI, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, contract
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

What You Need to Know Before Starting a Windows 10 Migration

Date: Tuesday, July 24, 2018Time: 12:00 PM Eastern Daylight TimeDuration: 1 hour Windows 8 remains a popular OS in businesses around the globe. However, the world has changed significantly since its release in 2012. Attackers and threats such as malw
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Microsoft Facial Recognition Search Improves Skin & Gender Detection

The company addressed cultural biases in their algorithms by re-examining their datasets and refining their algorithms. Also this week: Google is offering access to a free class that gives developers an introduction to augmented reality, right as Microsoft made free AV dev kits available for the Windows Mixed Reality and Project Kinect for Azure platforms.
by Richard Hay, Lisa Schmeiser via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Cloud East Meets Cloud West: Google and Tencent Go for Linux Foundation Platinum

Google has upped its commitment to the Linux Foundation from silver to top tier platinum • The move came on the heels of Tencent joining at the same level • Both companies have been working to gain traction in the competitive public cloud markets
by Christine Hall via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

HPE Discover: Exploring the Potential of Blockchain in IoT

Blockchain in IoT: The potential of the tech convergence depends on an organization’s willingness to support unprecedented collaboration with other companies.
by Brian Buntz via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Cloudtenna's File Discovery Tool Streamlines Workflow Through Machine Learning

File discovery is a big problem for IT administrators and users -- for different reasons. Cloudtenna aims to reduce search time for users and unpleasant security or compliance surprises for IT admins.
by Lisa Schmeiser via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-11

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by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-6

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-9

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-3

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by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-1

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-7

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-5

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-10

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-13

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-4

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-12

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-14

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5-15

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla. Sed blandit libero volutpat sed cras. Tellus elementum sagittis vitae et
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-12

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-7

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-11

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-6

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-13

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-3

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-8

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-9

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-5

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4-15

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-2

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-1

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-3

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-4

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-7

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-6

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-5

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-9

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-8

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-11

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-10

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-13

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-12

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-15

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3-14

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

AI Risk: We Can't Trust Critical Infrastructure to Artificial Intelligence--Yet

When it comes to critical infrastructure management, the AI risk is higher than the reward.
by Christopher Tozzi via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

What's Up Doc? This AI Might Know Better Than Your Physician

Babylon Healthcare Services Ltd., the fast-growing mobile medical consultation service, said its artificial intelligence software, in tests, can assess common conditions more accurately than human doctors.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Puppet's Cisco-Led $42M Round Going to Cloud and Containers

Open source automation developer Puppet has raised $42 million in Series F funding • Funding was led by Cisco and included EDBI, Kleiner Perkins, True Ventures, and VMware • The money will be spent to expand cloud and container portfolio " through organic growth or acquisition"
by Christine Hall via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Google Exec Says Microsoft Beat Search Giant to Buy GitHub

Microsoft Corp. agreed to pay $7.5 billion for GitHub earlier in June, but it wasn’t the only interested party. Google was in the running too, according to Diane Greene, head of the company’s cloud arm.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

PowerShell Script to Deploy Veeam Backup & Replication

Here's how to deploy Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 with Update 3 to a virtual machine.
by Veeam Guest Blogger via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-6

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-5

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-4

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-7

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-2

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-24

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-3

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2-1

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 1-2

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so
by ITP Test Author 1 via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

GPUs Increasingly Rule the Supercomputer World

NVIDIA GPUs now power five of the world’s seven fastest systems and 17 of the 20 most energy efficient systems identified by Top500.org, the non-profit that ranks supercomputers • The world's fastest supercomputer, the Department of Energy's Summit, utilizes 27,648 Volta Tensor Core GPUs • The rate of performance gains for GPUs far outpaces traditional CPUs
by Christine Hall via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

The Office 365 data misconception

With Office 365, it’s your data. You own it. You control it. — Office 365 Trust Center.
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

An Introduction to Holographic Storage

Holographic storage offers tremendous capacity and blazingly fast read speeds--at least in theory.
by Brien Posey via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 7

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 14

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 11

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 9

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 12

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 10

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 8

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 13

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 6

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 15

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 1

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by a
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

European Collaboration Summit follow up: Tutorial Scripts and Identity Manager Demos

Many thanks to everyone who attended the European Collaboration Summit in Mainz, Germany, last month. It’s safe to say that the event overall was a runaway success and yes, we have already started planning for the 2019 edition!

At the event, I promised to publish some additional resources. These are a little later than I had hoped but with a new job and a variety of “more important” things on a rather large to-do list, the delay was inevitable. At any rate, this post serves as a landing page for these resources.

Tutorial Attendees: SharePoint 2016 Automation Toolkit

For those who attended the Infrastructure PowerClass hosted by Thomas Vochten and I, the scripts we showed and discussed for building out the On Premises portions of the Hybrid Labs are over here on GitHub. This toolkit has been used to build thousands of customer farms and has also been used at other pre/post conference events such as Microsoft Ignite. More details and so on can be found in the readme. I am not offering support for this toolkit. I will answer questions on it if they are easy to deal with quickly. But I will not be engaging in any debates about their worth, nor any religious arguments about DSC! :)

The 2013 version will be published over the next couple of weeks.

Don’t worry about GitHub if you are not familiar with it.
Within the page, there is the ability to download the files as a ZIP file – without having to do the whole “install some tools, clone, open” dance that the developers love so much! :)

 

Identity Manager & SharePoint Server Demos

During my session on User Profiles there wasn’t enough time to complete the demonstrations. As promised I’ve put together a 90 minute video of the complete demos, with some additional explanations and remarks.  This is hosted over on YouTube. Apologies in advanced for the slightly annoying sound quality. I had, erm, a slight ‘accident’ with my mic stand earlier today that will mean a trip to the music store in the near future – drat! :)

 

Identity Manager & SharePoint Server Scripts

All of the scripts used within the above demos, and indeed at other conferences, are also available over here on GitHub.


I hope some of you find these resources useful and once again, thanks for helping make #CollabSummit 2018 the single best community technology event on the planet!

 

I’m outta here like I dropped a couple tables in a production database!

s.

by Spence via harbar.net

Ex-Defense Official ‘Alarmed’ About Google Retreat From AI Plan

A former top U.S. Defense Department official said Tuesday he was "alarmed" by a recent decision by Alphabet Inc.’s Google to withdraw from work on a department initiative applying artificial intelligence tools to analyzing drone footage.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Amazon Has Plenty of Foes in Pentagon Cloud Deal

The coalition of companies jockeying with Amazon.com Inc. for a lucrative Pentagon computing contract is far bigger than previously reported, signaling there’s added heft behind efforts to keep the work from going exclusively to the world’s largest cloud services provider.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Salesforce Staff Ask CEO to Revisit Ties With Border Agency

Hundreds of Salesforce.com Inc. employees signed a letter to Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff criticizing the company’s contracts with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, the latest in a series of staff protests at technology firms over government work.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

SUSE Unveils SUSE Linux Enterprise 15, Its Latest Multimodal OS

Using a code base that's common with other SUSE products, SLE15 is built to make it easier and more efficient for enterprises to run multiple platforms alongside each other, including cloud, containers, on-premises IT and more.
by Todd R. Weiss via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 7

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 8

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 2

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 5

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 9

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 10

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 3

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 6

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 11

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 4

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 1

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 12

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 15

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITP Test Article 13

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by
by ITP Test Author via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Mexico Cyber Attacks Raise Alarm Bells Ahead of Sunday Vote

Cyber attacks against Mexican financial institutions and reports of alleged election interference around the world are fueling concerns among analysts that the nation’s presidential vote on Sunday may become a target for hackers.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Musk-Backed Bot Conquers E-Gamer Teams in AI Breakthrough

The achievement puts San Francisco-based OpenAI, whose backers include billionaire Elon Musk, ahead of other artificial-intelligence researchers in developing software that can master complex games.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Wayfair v. South Dakota: Internet Sales Tax Decision Will Have Wide-Ranging Effects

The Wayfair v. South Dakota case is one of three Supreme Court cases whose impact will reach far beyond Internet sales tax.
by Tim Ford via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

RPC Server Unavailable when creating a SharePoint Farm… the curse of dodgy legacy NetDOM!

Every so often a real blast from the past comes back to haunt me. Usually it’s some obscure “infrastructure” gubbins – you know, the sort of thing that 80% of so called IT Pros knew in 1999. These days thou. Not so much.

With SharePoint in particular there is a whole boat load of legacy. Not that legacy is bad. Lot’s of it is awesome. That’s why the product remains so successful. On the other hand some of it is real, real, real nasty!  :)

It always seems to come in waves. Over the last two weeks I’ve had six emails regarding problems creating the first server in a SharePoint Farm. The ye olde “An error occurred while getting information about the user SPFarm at server fabrikam.com: The RPC server is unavailable”.

Naturally, there are a whole bunch of wild goose chases out there on the interwebz about how to potentially resolve this issue. Most of them are complete claptrap. Or even worse, a ‘support bot’ automated answer, something like “are you running as an administrator?” :)

Now this old chestnut can have a multitude of root causes and the API that raises this exception isn’t very clever about that – it just bubbles it back up the stack. As you might imagine, when SharePoint was first developed nobody was sat there running through all the various deployment scenarios and fire testing every code path to ensure a nice neat experience for the next 20+ years.  But more importantly 17-18 years ago, idempotent, designed to be managed via automation and state independence were not so much of a thing as they are now.  Let’s say we do it via PowerShell using New-SPConfigurationDatabase. That isn’t doing one thing. It’s doing a WHOLE BUNCH of things. All masked via the Server Side OM. The same is true if we use the Configuration Wizard. After all, they are both simply masks or wrappers for the OM.

The real problem with this error (and others like it), when creating a Farm, is that it only partly fails. The Configuration database is created on the SQL Server. It’s sitting there pretty happy. Indeed, it will have 711 Objects. New-SPConfigurationDatabase has sorta kinda worked. Even though it’s raised an exception. But it’s not really worked, and as soon as we go to the next stage of farm creation (typically Initialize-SPResourceSecurity) that will fail as well, with the error “Cannot perform security configuration because the configuration database does not exist.  You must create or join to a configuration database before doing security configuration.”

Interesting. Most people will actually check if the Farm exists after New-SPConfigurationDatabase by calling Get-SPFarm. This is mainly because the very first “build a farm using PowerShell” posts included this. However, in this case – it is entirely worthless. because Get-SPFarm will report the farm exists and that it is Online.

The sample script that virtually everyone has been following since SharePoint 2010 is entirely flawed. There is zero point in calling Get-SPFarm at this point. If New-SPConfigurationDatabase works it appears to be a nice little bit of defensive coding. And it does actually deal with some other errors that can occur. But it won’t help in the case of bubbled up exceptions from dependencies.

What we ACTUALLY should be doing here is restarting the PowerShell session entirely. Indeed if you try and do anything which would otherwise be sensible, like removing and adding the Snap In – it will likely crash the process anyway. Indeed. if you just leave it sitting there for a bit, the process will crash all on it’s own. How do you like those apples?

This is an absolutely critical thing to realise about the Administration OM and the PowerShell that wraps it. This is why delivering true desired state configuration for SharePoint is currently impossible. The only way to catch this is to catch it. Neither the OM nor the PowerShell cmdlets are designed or developed to be leveraged in an automation first approach. Doesn’t mean we can’t get pretty close, but as soon as you start delving into the details, it becomes obvious just how much work is required to do all the things the back end OM doesn’t.  And how exactly does one create a DSC resource that can detect a failed process, know exactly when it failed, and kick off another one to carry on? Yeah, exactly.

Again, SharePoint itself doesn’t handle the exception it just bubbles it back. It does no clean up. Our box is shafted. So to speak. Until we delete the database, and of course restart (or create a new) PowerShell session. Thus, in order to deal with this properly, we’d need to catch the specific exception and handle it appropriately. Do some remoting and kill the database (using SQL Server PowerShell), then restart our session. In other words clean up after the mess that SharePoint has made for us.

But of course we also need to fix the root cause of the problem before retrying.

“The RPC server is unavailable” is one of the classic, generic, “we have no idea what happened, throw this” errors. Now we live in a modern, transformed, cloud first world, we only have one generic error, “access denied” :). But back in the day, when type was understood, we had lots of them.

Sometimes the RPC server really is unavailable. But when creating a SharePoint Farm there is a 98% chance your machine has multiple Network Interfaces, and the prioritised (default) NIC cannot route to the SQL Server. It looks like this.

In this example “Ethernet1” is a shared network to a backup device. The customer is using this network to separate farm traffic from management traffic. Is that a good idea? Well that’s a post for another time (or perhaps not!) but the thing is it’s extremely common. Even in IaaS lots of people do this.

If I move the “10net” network to the top of the list. Hey presto. No more RPC server is unavailable. It’s a common gotcha. The trouble is most people don’t know there even IS a NIC order. Never mind where in the UI to configure it. For over a decade all but one causes of this error, where I’ve been involved either as escalation or hands on, has been the NIC order.  It’s in my checklist before deploying farms – not that I really do that anymore, but whatever, that checklist doesn’t get updated much.

The good news is we can fix it with PowerShell, decent PowerShell….
Set-NetIPInterface -InterfaceIndex <index> -InterfaceMetric <new metric>

It of course shouldn’t be this way – the reason it is – is because the SharePoint APIs (especially the core Farm Admin ones) rely on some real legacy. In this case, what old timers refer to as the NetDOM stack. That’s an in joke related to an old utility used to hack AD things, back before there was a RTM AD and Microsoft were still doing NetBIOS. Now, it works. But that is the depth of a product like this. A rabbit’s warren of more or less every API made by Microsoft from around 1996 through to today. It would take a brave (and quite possibly barking mad) person indeed to make the decision to re-architect and re-implement the core admin stack.

Anyway the point of this post was to:

• document the 98% case cause and resolution (fix the NIC order, even if only temporarily whilst the farm is built) so I don’t have to actually explain it ever again (I hope!)
• provide a worked example of the importance of understanding how things are actually built, rather than merely the mask of veneer that so many products have today.

Not to be all Donald Rumsfeld, but remember with most things in life, and especially SharePoint - The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. You know?! :)

s.

by Spence via harbar.net

U.S. Supreme Court Bolsters Mobile-Phone Privacy Rights

Law enforcement officials generally need a warrant to get mobile-phone tower records that show someone’s location over an extended period, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a decision that bolsters digital privacy rights.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

The Push to Digitize the User

Learn How New Endpoints Are Paving the Way For Augmented Reality, AI, and Other Advanced Capabilities
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Intel Ousts CEO Krzanich After Relationship With Employee

Intel Corp. removed Brian Krzanich as chief executive officer after the chipmaker learned he previously had a consensual relationship with an employee, a violation of the company’s policies.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts

Earlier this year, a group of influential software engineers in Google’s cloud division surprised their superiors by refusing to work on a cutting-edge security feature. Known as “air gap,” the technology would have helped Google win sensitive military contracts.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Artificial Intelligence Ethics: Google’s Pentagon AI Move Highlights Brewing Issues

As the application of AI technology rapidly evolves, artificial intelligence ethics will only become more complicated.
by Terri Coles via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Web Giants Gird for Legal Headaches Under New EU Copyright Rules

New European Union rules, set for a vote on Wednesday, could force web services to actively prevent copyrighted content from appearing on their sites and apps. The regulation would also grant publishers new legal rights to seek compensation for snippets of articles that Google and other news aggregators post online.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

HPE Discover 2018: HPE to Invest $4B in Edge Computing Commitment

The company announced at its HPE Discover event in Las Vegas the increase in R&D spending on edge computing.
by Brian Buntz via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Aruba’s SD Branch Technology Could Simplify IoT Networking

At HPE Discover, Aruba Networks unveiled an integrated SD-WAN and LAN technology that could help address IoT networking challenges.
by Brian Buntz via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

New Book : Career Success with SharePoint and Office 365

We launched a book this past week.  It is available on Amazon right now.

It also managed to get to the Number 1 spot in Hot New Releases in Career Guides!  That’s pretty cool!  These numbers change all the time, so for now we are basking in the glory.

We are brand new to the world of authoring books and the learning curve has been nothing short of gargantuan! It’s a whole new world out there people! Well, it is for us anyway.

The main thing we’ve learnt is that there are over a billion books published on Amazon.  The only way to get your spot in the sunlight, is by getting book reviews.  And it can’t just be from your mom or sister, no, it has to be “people you don’t know”.  What….?  Do you know how many people we are connected to on social media?!  Anyway, it’s not clear how Amazon decides who’s friends and family and who isn’t, but ultimately, there needs to be a minimum of 10 reviews on your book before the Amazon algorithms kick and stuff starts to happen properly.  We’ve got one.

If you are kind enough to have been following this blog so sometime, and kind enough to buy the book, (it’s on special for a couple of weeks during launch), then please would you write a review on Amazon for us if you think it added any value to you.  Try be specific about what it is you liked please.  And of course, if you didn’t like, we won’t take offence to that either.  We will learn from it and do better next time.  (And trust me, there is going to be a next time).  If you loved it, please also share it with people who are busy hating their jobs.

Happy reading.  We can’t wait to see what you thought.

 

by Veronique Palmer via Views from Veronique

Public Cloud Provider Infrastructure Spending Hits 9-Quarter High

Public cloud providers spent more on infrastructure hardware and software in Q1 2018; and other news.
by Nicole Henderson via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Batch Conversion of HTML Files to PDFs Using Adobe Acrobat DX

Lots of times as a consultant, I need to get content in one format into another format. It usually means a lot of content, stored in all sorts of ways. I cut my teeth on this kind of work way back in the 1980s when I worked at Bain & Company. Consulting teams there would bring us all sorts of junk (“some sort of magnetic media”) and want to make sense of it. Because of this, I’m rarely scared of data conversions. It’s also one of the reasons I love Sharegate so much – for SharePoint, it makes much of this type of work easy!

In one of my current projects, I need to export content from multiple SharePoint 2007 sites to be loaded into a third party platform. The content is stored in lists and I can easily export it with Sharegate. However, there is a Rich Text field – the most important field, of course – and the content in that field can far exceed Excel’s 32k character limit in a single cell.

Instead, I’m using Microsoft Access (more about this later) and some VBA to export the Rich Text to HTML files. I’ll have thousands of them, and I need to convert them to PDFs.

Surprisingly, Binging and Googling took me to all sorts of fly-by-night possibilities, but not the most obvious one. Adobe Acrobat DC does this right out of the box! I didn’t even find this on the Adobe support site.

Choose Files / Create Multiple PDF Files…

 

Select your input files. LOTS of formats supported here.

Choose your output options. You can even prefix or postfix your file names.

Watch it run…

And you’re done. In my first test, converting about 400 HTML files, some with embedded images, took about 10 minutes.

This post is as much for future me as it is for anyone else, but I hope it will help some others out.

by Marc D Anderson via Marc D Anderson's Blog

Microsoft Removes Mention of Cloud Work for ICE After Protests

Microsoft Corp. scrubbed an online reference to its work for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the agency faces criticism for its role in separating families at the U.S.-Mexican border.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Google Is Training Machines to Predict When a Patient Will Die

Google has created a tool that could forecast a host of patient outcomes, including how long people may stay in hospitals, their odds of re-admission and chances they will soon die.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

A Panic Shared is a Panic Halved

We live in a society where appearances are everything.  We are expected to just put on a brave face, suck it up and not bother anyone with our issues. We are expected to never show weakness, vulnerability, or Heaven forbid, fear.  So many people living in quiet desperation.  Social media doesn’t help.  People look so gloriously happy and successful on Facebook, don’t they. And when you’re feeling like the world’s biggest loser, it just depresses you even more to look at any of it.

Just reach out.  Find someone you trust and open up to them.  Make sure it is someone who is going to give you constructive advice and leave you feeling lighter, empowered – and better!  Not worse.  There is no need to panic, or feel embarrassed in asking for help.  Most of the time, people want to help, they just don’t know how.  Asking for help usually energizes the person you asked, it kicks people into solution and caring mode – and that’s good for everybody.

by Veronique Palmer via Views from Veronique

WWDC 2018: 5 Biggest Mobile Highlights from the Apple Developer Conference

The June Apple developer conference included a number of mobile-focused announcements with enterprise impact.
by Paul Heltzel via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Amazon Facing Questions From U.S. Senators About Echo Privacy

Amazon.com Inc. is facing questions from U.S. lawmakers about consumer privacy regarding its popular voice-activated Echo speakers, after an incident last month when an Oregon couple’s conversation was recorded by their device and sent to an acquaintance without their knowledge.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

10 Leading Public Cloud Migration Services Providers

Many firms opt to use a cloud migration services provider to help them move on-premises workloads to public cloud environments. Here are 10 of the leading cloud migration providers.
by Nicole Henderson via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITPro SnapShot: What Else Happened This Week? (June 8 - 15, 2018)

ITPro SnapShot offers a short and snappy round-up on the week's industry-related announcements and news around the globe. Here's what happened in the last week.
by Richard Hay via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Inside Arm’s and KEPCO’s Smart Grid Technology Partnership

Why Arm is providing white-glove IoT services to the largest electric utility in South Korea.
by Brian Buntz via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

How Dropbox Re-architected Its Cloud to Use Higher-Density Storage

The team wrote new software and re-designed hardware to dramatically accelerate SMR-drive performance.
by Wylie Wong via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Apple to Close IPhone Security Loophole Used by Law Enforcement

Apple plans to eliminate an iPhone security vulnerability that has been used by U.S. law enforcement agencies to hack into the devices during investigations.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

If You’re A Facebook User, You’re Also a Research Subject

The company’s long been conflicted about how to work with social scientists, and now runs several programs, each reflecting the contorted relationship Facebook has with external scrutiny.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

When Field Service Technicians Are Like Fighter Pilots

To keep up with IoT, many field service technicians must up their digital game.
by Brian Buntz via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

IBM Cloud Last in Line to Adopt Availability Zones

Big Blue's Cloud either hopes hopes availability zones will help it catch Azure, or keep GCP safely behind them.
by Christine Hall via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

IoT World Europe: Siemens' Chief Shares Best, Worst of IIoT

Devina Pasta, chief digitalization officer at Siemens, lays out her favorite Industrial IoT case study at IoT World Europe and explains how “pilot purgatory” can be avoided.
by Jeremy Coward via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

World Cup Soccer 2018 Draws Fans and Cybercriminals Alike

Security firms are warning companies and consumers about a variety of World Cup Soccer 2018 cyber scams.
by Jeffrey Burt via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Apple Tries to Stop Developers From Sharing Data on Friends

Apple Inc. changed its App Store rules last week to limit how developers use information about iPhone owners’ friends and other contacts, quietly closing a loophole that let app makers store and share data without many people’s consent.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Amazon’s Clever Machines Are Moving From the Warehouse to Headquarters

The people who command six-figure salaries to negotiate multimillion-dollar deals with major brands are being replaced by software that predicts what shoppers want and how much to charge for it. Amazon’s algorithms, refined through years of monitoring customer behavior, are getting the Seattle-based company out of the guessing game.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Docker Brings Federated Application Management to Enterprise Offering

The container company says the new ability will allow customers who run multicloud IT operations to easily manage containers across several different cloud services.
by Lisa Schmeiser via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Productivity Apps for Mac Expand with Office 2019 Testing

Commercial customers can now begin testing more productivity apps for Mac with a preview of the upcoming Microsoft’s Office 2019 for Mac.
by Richard Hay via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Eric S. Raymond on Keeping the Bazaar Secure and Functional

Eric S. Raymond took the time at SELF to talk with ITPro Today about the need to "clean" legacy code, along with tips on how to help others maintain your code long after you're gone.
by Christine Hall via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Microsoft Judge Sees `Fatal' Flaw in Women's Group Bias Case

A 2011 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court requires plaintiffs to point to a common corporate policy or action that affected the women adversely, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart said Monday at a hearing in Seattle about whether to let the case proceed as a class action. He seemed skeptical about the Microsoft women’s ability to find commonality.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Rackspace Launches Data Center Colocation Service

Pitches space, power, network in 10 locations as “bridge” to cloud
by Yevgeniy Sverdlik via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Google Cloud Takes Center Stage at Cisco Live!

Cisco and Google Cloud CEOs pitch upcoming hybrid-cloud platform at Cisco’s biggest event of the year.
by Yevgeniy Sverdlik via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Net Neutrality Rules Expire as Backers Turn to Congress, Courts

The Obama-era net neutrality regulations that barred broadband providers from slowing or blocking internet traffic expired Monday, a major milestone in a debate that continues in the courts and Congress as Democrats press to restore the rules.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Learn and Master PowerShell with the two new learning paths at Pluralsight

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that I am a huge fan of Pluralsight for their content, and that I also create courses with them! One of the amazing things that Pluralsight created in the last year is learning paths, here is how they define a learning path:

It can be tough to know where to start learning. Paths combine specific courses and tools into one experience to teach you any given skill from start to finish. Paths are aligned to an individual’s knowledge level, to help you and your team develop the right skills in the right order.

Basically, it’s hand-picked courses on a certain topic, that will allow you to master a skill! Not only that, but they also have the Skill IQ, which is a quick test that will evaluate you on the subjects covered in that path, and tell you exactly what your strong points, and weak points are! It’s really a new learning experience that I love!

Back to PowerShell! In the past month, Pluralsight has released two new learning paths for PowerShell! The first one is called Windows PowerShell: Essentials and as the name says, after you finish this path, you should have the knowledge to create basic PowerShell scripts, handle errors, and automating processes! The path is made up of 6 courses, for a total of 16 hours of content! I have listened to most of the courses, and believe me, even as someone who does PowerShell almost daily, you will learn something! You can find the path over here: https://spvlad.com/PSEssentials

The next path is a more advanced one and it’s called Windows PowerShell: Scripting and Toolmaking . This path is longer, with 30 hours of content split up in 13 courses, this path covers some advanced topics, but knowing them will really take your scripts, and productivity to the next level! Here are some of the topics covered:

• Toolmaking fundamentals
• Building advanced PowerShell functions and modules -Best practices for PowerShell usage
• Reporting with PowerShell HTML
• Debugging PowerShell in VS Code
• Getting a grasp of PowerShell remoting fundamentals
• Accessing SQL Server databases with PowerShell
• Building PowerShell GUIs in WPF
• Testing PowerShell with Pester
• Utilizing Windows Workflows with PowerShell

As always, Pluralsight content is created by the best in the industry, and the list of Authors below should speak for itself!

Check out the paths at the following links, and make sure you share your experience in the comments!

• Windows PowerShell: Essentials: https://spvlad.com/PSEssentials
• Windows PowerShell: Scripting and Toolmaking : https://spvlad.com/PSScriptingAndToolmaking

 

Leave a comment and don’t forget to like the Absolute SharePoint Blog Page   on Facebook and to follow me on Twitter here  for the latest news and technical articles on SharePoint.  I am also a Pluralsight author, and you can view all the courses I created on my author page.

The post Learn and Master PowerShell with the two new learning paths at Pluralsight appeared first on Absolute SharePoint Blog by Vlad Catrinescu.

by Vlad Catrinescu via Absolute SharePoint Blog by Vlad Catrinescu

Microsoft Women Confront Company’s Worker-Friendly Image

The women allege the company paid them less than men, stalled career advancement and froze them out following maternity leave. While Microsoft has denied any discrimination, the women assert that the effects of systemic practices are continuing.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

DNV GL on ‘Pilot Purgatory’ and Successful Industrial IoT

Ahead of speaking on a free-to-attend keynote panel session at IoT World Europe in London tomorrow, DNV GL’s digital solutions CEO talks “pilot purgatory” and digitizing industries.
by Jeremy Coward via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

IBM, Nvidia Build “World’s Fastest Supercomputer” for US Government

The DOE’s new Summit system features a unique architecture that combines HPC and AI computing capabilities.
by Yevgeniy Sverdlik via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

How to maintain a Hyper-Available Enterprise with Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery

Date: Thursday, June 28, 2018Time: 02:00 PM Eastern Daylight TimeDuration: 1 hour 94% of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss do not survive – 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years, according to the University of Texas. Also, G
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Protect your small business against top 3 disasters

Date: Thursday, June 21, 2018Time: 02:00 PM Eastern Daylight TimeDuration: 1 hour Businesses of all sizes are at risk for disaster, but having a disaster recovery (DR) plan is especially critical for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Larger bu
by via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Q&A: When Will Autonomous Ships Rule the Seas?

Autonomous ships could be commonplace in as soon as a decade.
by Brian Buntz via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Key GOP Lawmaker Doubts Pentagon Can Handle Cloud Contract

The Pentagon has delayed indefinitely its final request for proposals, which will outline requirements for the contract on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, spokeswoman Dana White said last week.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Google Said to Face Antitrust Fines on Android Within Weeks

The Android investigation targets Google’s strategy on mobile devices that sees Google Search pre-installed or set as the default on most Android phones and tablets sold in Europe.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

ITPro SnapShot: What Else Happened This Week? (June 1 - 8, 2018)

ITPro SnapShot offers a short and snappy round-up on the week's industry-related announcements and news around the globe. Here's what happened in the last week.
by Richard Hay via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

How Did GitLab Scale Up for the Slashdot Effect? Point and Click

Microsoft's acquisition of its competitor GitHub pushed more than 100,000 repositories to migrate to GitLab within 24 hours. Here's how GitLab's infrastructure team coped.
by Christine Hall via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

SAP Combines Acquisitions to Launch New Cloud Application Suite

The company is bringing together capabilities it has acquired to launch SAP C/4HANA; plus, more news.
by Nicole Henderson via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

451 Sorts IoT Cloud Platform Pricing with Machine Learning

Using machine learning, 451 Research aims to make it easier to compare IoT cloud platform pricing.
by Courtney Bjorlin via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Microsoft Has Sunk Another Data Center: Here’s What You Need to Know

DCK explains the latest milestone in Project Natick, Microsoft’s crazy effort to test underwater data centers.
by Yevgeniy Sverdlik via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

Hack of DNA Website Exposes Data From 92 Million Accounts

According to MyHeritage, the breach took place on Oct. 26, 2017, and affects users who signed up for an account through that date.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

WhatsApp, Snapchat Banned on Company Devices at Continental

The services access a user’s personal and possibly confidential data, such as contacts, and thus the information of third parties that are not involved, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools

California Enlists Data Scientists in Election Monitoring Bid

The aim of the California project is to help local officials pinpoint any “anomalies” in their data, providing “metric-based evaluations” on the integrity of elections.
by Bloomberg via IT Pro - Microsoft Windows Information, Solutions, Tools