mardi 24 décembre 2013

[Windows Azure AD] Windows Azure Active Directory Premium Demo

Here is a great video of Windows Azure Active Directory Premium.

Top Solutions from Microsoft Support

Last month, an excellent Microsoft  blog has appeared.

This blog is maintained by Microsoft Support for IT Pro and Developer products. These are the top content solutions we're providing to our customers to get important issues resolved. Solutions include KB articles, FixIT and hotfix articles, Technet and MSDN articles and blogs, Microsoft forums, and the Technet Wiki.

Here are direct links :

lundi 23 décembre 2013

[Rights Management Service] Microsoft Rights Management Service (RMS) whitepapers

Microsoft has updated its whitepapers on Rights Management Service.

Due to increased regulation, the Consumerization of IT (CoIT) and the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD), the explosion of information with dispersed enterprise data, the Social Enterprise and its applications enabling new collaboration, analytics scenarios, etc. enterprises of all sizes are facing growing needs to protect sensitive information. At the same time, enterprises have a need to securely share that same information amongst appropriate employees and other individuals within and outside the corporate network.

The NEW Microsoft Rights Management service (RMs) offering (microsoft.com/rms) provides the capability to create and consume protected content such as e-mail and documents of any type. Such a capability is available as a standalone subscription (for your on-premises infrastructure with the Microsoft Rights Management connector) or is part of the Office 365 Enterprise subscription, natively integrated with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Office to apply persistent protection to the content to meet the business requirements of your organization.

The Microsoft Rights Management suite is implemented as a Windows Azure service. Beyond the available RMS enlightened applications on the market, it comprises a set of Microsoft Rights Management sharing applications that work on all your common devices, a set of software development kits, and related tooling. By leveraging Windows Azure Active Directory, the cloud-hosted Microsoft Rights Management service acts as a trusted hub for secure collaboration where an organization can easily share information securely with other organizations without additional setup or configuration. The other organization(s) may be existing Microsoft Rights Management service’s customers but if not, they can use a free Microsoft Rights Management for individuals capability.

The whitepapers available as part of this download covers the various aspects of the offerings and provide in-depth information to evaluate or use the Microsoft Rights Management service and its components.

The whitepapers are available here : Microsoft Rights Management Service (RMS) whitepapers

[Windows Azure] Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness Assessment

Microsoft just released this assessment tool.

This assessment will automatically inspect your on-premises environment, whether it be bare metal or already virtualized. After that, we will provide you with tailored guidance and recommendations for migrating your environment to Windows Azure. If you’re running Active Directory, SQL, or SharePoint this tool will make it easy for you to get started. 

The tool is available here : Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness Assessment 
 

dimanche 22 décembre 2013

[Active Directory] Active Directory from on-premises to the cloud – Windows Azure AD whitepapers

Microsoft just released 4 whitepapers on Windows Azure AD.

Identity management, provisioning, role management, and authentication are key services both on-premises and through the (hybrid) cloud. With:
  • The Bring Your Own Apps (BYOA) for the cloud and the Software as a Service (SaaS) applications,
  • The desire to better collaborate a la Facebook with the “social” enterprise,
  • The need to support and integrate with social networks, which lead to a Bring Your Own Identity (BYOI) trend,
Identity becomes a service where identity “bridges” in the cloud talk to on-premises directories or the directories themselves move and/or are located in the cloud. Active Directory (AD) is a Microsoft brand for identity related capabilities. Within on-premises world, Windows Server AD provides a set of identity capabilities and services and is hugely popular (88% of Fortune 1000 and 95% of enterprises use AD). Windows Azure AD is AD reimagined for the cloud, designed to help you solving the new identity and access challenges that come with the shift to a cloud-centric, multi-tenant world.

Windows Azure AD is the identity foundation for many Microsoft services like Office 365, Windows Intune, and others. Windows Azure AD is a comprehensive identity and access management cloud solution, utilizing the enterprise-grade quality and proven capabilities of Windows Server AD on-premises. It combines core directory services, advanced identity governance, security and application access management.

This series of whitepapers on Windows Azure AD offerings comprises:
  • Active Directory from the on-premises to the cloud whitepaper.
  • An overview of Windows Azure AD
  • Leverage Multi-Factor Authentication with Windows Azure AD whitepaper.
  • Leverage Windows Azure AD for modern Business Applications whitepaper.
An overview of Windows Azure AD whitepaper introduces the trends that sustains a new identity model, the role of Identity Management as a Service (IdMaaS) and presents in this context the Microsoft’s identity offerings in the hybrid era.
An introduction on Windows Azure AD whitepaper further presents the capabilities that can be leveraged to centralize the identity management needs of your modern business applications, and your SaaS subscriptions, whether they are cloud-based, hybrid, or even on-premises. Windows Azure AD is a complete offering that can help you take advantage of your on-premises existing investment, fully outsource to the cloud your users (and devices) management and anything in between.

For enterprises with more demanding needs an advanced offering, Windows Azure Active Directory Premium, currently in preview, helps complete the set of capabilities that this identity and access management solution delivers.

Leverage Multi-Factor Authentication with Windows Azure AD whitepaper covers the Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication paid offering and how to leverage it with Windows Azure AD (Premium).

Leverage Windows Azure AD for modern Business Applications whitepaper further presents the aspects that relates to the development of solutions. Windows Azure AD offers to developers and cloud ISVs an identity management platform to deliver access control to their modern business applications, based on centralized policy and rules.

The whitepapers are available here : Active Directory from on-premises to the cloud – WAAD whitepapers

lundi 16 décembre 2013

[Security] PowerShell Security Best Practices

Lee Holmes just post an article on Windows Powershell Blog.

This article is about a presentation which was made at the BlueHat conference on Powershell Security Best Practices.

The presentation were recorded but won't be released publicly.
He give a link to the presentation deck, with very detailed speaker notes.

The blog post : PowerShell Security Best Practices
The Presentation : PowerShell Security Best Practices.pptx