Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC0)

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 enables a cloud-ready information platform that will help organizations unlock breakthrough insights across the organization.  Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 enables a cloud-ready information platform that will help organizations unlock breakthrough insights across the organization as well as quickly build solutions and extend data across on-premises and public cloud backed by capabilities for mission critical confidence.     SQL Server 2012 RC0 enables a cloud-ready information platform that will help organizations unlock breakthrough insights across the organization as well as quickly build solutions and extend data across on-premises and public cloud backed by capabilities for mission critical confidence:     Deliver required uptime and data protection with AlwaysOn     Gain breakthrough & predictable performance with ColumnStore Index     Help enable security and compliance with new User-defined Roles and Default Schema for Groups     Enable rapid data discovery for deeper insights across the organization with ColumnStore Index     Ensure more credible, consistent data with SSIS improvements, a Master Data Services add-in for Excel, and new Data Quality Services     Optimize IT and developer productivity across server and cloud with Data-tier Application Component (DAC) parity with SQL Azure and SQL Server Data Tools for a unified dev experience across database, BI, and cloud functions   Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Documentation:     What's new in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0    Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 Privacy Statement     Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 License Terms     Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 Systems Requirements    Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 Release Notes    Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 Readme     Download Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Release Candidate
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Minimizing restarts after automatic updating in Windows 8

Windows 8 team blog:  Windows Update and handling restarts on Windows 8  â€¦.we made the following improvements to the Windows 8 updating experience.   WU will consolidate all the restarts in a month, synchronizing with the monthly security release. This means that your PC will only restart when security updates are installed and require a restart. With this improvement, it does not matter when updates that require restarts are released in a month, since these restarts will wait till the security release. Since security updates are released in a single batch on the second Tuesday of every month, you are then getting essentially one restart a month. This simplification helps in three ways: it keeps the system secure in a timely manner, reduces restarts, and makes restarts more predictable.   There is one exception to the rule to wait for the monthly security release, and that is in the case of critical security update to fix a worm-like vulnerability (for example, a Blaster worm). In that case, WU will not wait, but will go ahead and download, install, and restart automatically. But this will happen only when the security threat is dire enough.  WU notifies you of any upcoming automatic restart. Let’s assume that WU has already detected, downloaded, and installed security updates, and now requires a restart. Windows Update will notify you of an upcoming automatic restart through a message on the login screen that will persist for 3 days. Because the majority of update activity occurs in the first three days of the release of each update [see Figure1], we wanted to give you 3 days to allow you to restart at your own convenience. You would restart by selecting “Update and shutdownâ€� or “Update and restartâ€� on the login screen, or by going to Windows Update in the Control Panel. You will no longer see any pop-up notifications or dialogs about pending restarts. Instead, the message appears in a more visible and appropriate place (the log-in screen). The use of the login screen has become ubiquitous even in home environments, as more and more machines become portable.  Here is a timeline view of that experience:      1. A message about the upcoming restart is shown in the login screen for three days or until the PC is restarted (whichever is sooner). This means you now have three days to restart the PC at your convenience. All you need to do is see the login screen once in 3 days to see the message about the upcoming restart and by default the lock screen will appear after 15-minute idle timeout.        2. In addition to the restart notification on the login screen, the Power options on the lock screen will change to “Update and restartâ€� immediately after the update occurs, and will include “Update and shutdownâ€� on days two and three, to make the message even more apparent to you. This allows you to restart your PC at your own convenience.           3. If after three days, the restart still has not occurred, then WU will automatically restart your PC for you. In this case, the automatic restart will happen either at the end of the three-day grace period, or, to prevent data loss if WU detects that there are critical applications open at the end of the three-day grace period, it will wait to automatically restart the next time you login. I’ll address this behavior in more depth in the next section.        4. After the restart has occurred, the message on the login screen will go away and the power options will revert to the original choices. We know people would like Windows to automatically log in after the restart, but we strongly advise against doing so, given the potential security issues with this configuration.       Delay the automatic restart if there is potential of losing user data. If the PC has hit the three-day deadline and still needs an automatic restart, WU will only automatically restart the machine if there is no chance of losing the user’s data. That means, if you are not at your PC (i.e. it is locked), if you have applications running in the background, or if there is potentially unsaved work, WU delays the automatic restart until the next time you come back to your machine and log in. At log-in, you will be asked to save your work, and you’ll see a warning that the machine will be restarted within 15 minutes.   Ensure minimal interruption to user activity. Having a restart notification or dialog pop up in the middle of an important presentation, a game or a movie is not a pleasant situation, to say the least. When attempting to automatically restart the PC, if you are in presentation mode, playing a game, or watching a movie full-screen, WU detects this state, and delays the automatic restart until the next available opportune moment or the next time you log back in to the PC.   The experience for business users. For PCs in an enterprise setting, if no policy has been set by the IT administrator, the updating experience is exactly the same as it is for home users. However, an IT administrator can set a policy to prevent auto-restart after automatic installs (just as in Windows 7). If they set this policy, there will be no three-day countdown and no automatic restart. Instead, users will see a message on the login screen indicating that the PC needs to be restarted, and the message persists until the restart occurs. This informs users that a restart is required while keeping them in control of when to restart.    The experience for users in “notify mode.â€� I also want to address the experience for users who have chosen to be notified before downloading or installing updates (5.82% of the WU user base from Figure2). For a user in this “notify mode,â€� a message will be shown on the login screen. If you choose to be notified before downloading updates, you will see the login screen message saying “Important updates are ready to be installedâ€� when updates are ready to be downloaded. If you choose to be notified before install, you will see the same login screen message after updates are downloaded, but before they are installed. In either case, you won’t see the message about a pending restart on the login screen since installation is not automatic.    Cumulatively, these improvements help us achieve the balance we are striving for with Windows Update - keeping the PC (and PC ecosystem) up-to-date, without an intrusive experience.   Full Story: Minimizing restarts after automatic updating in Windows Update - Building Windows 8 - Site H
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HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 3 downloads

This service pack updates the HPC Pack 2008 R2 products listed in the 'System Requirements' section. It provides improved reliability as well as an enhanced feature set.  KB Articles: KB2565784 <- not online yet      For more information on what's new in this release please refer to the documentation at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh184314(WS.10).aspx <- still pointing to SP2 info     In the 'Downloads' section you will three files:     HPC2008R2SP3-Update-x64 : Download this .zip file to obtain the updater for use on your head nodes, compute nodes, broker nodes, and x64-based clients and workstation nodes. It also contains the Web Components (REST and Web Portal), Azure VM, and KSP ('soft card') installers necessary to use those features. Download    HPC2008R2SP3-Update-x86 : This .zip file contains the updated for use on 32-bit clients and workstation nodes. It also contains the KSP ('soft card') installer for 32-bit clients. Download    SP3 Media Integration Package : For customers who will be doing multiple new cluster installations (setting up brand new head nodes, not just updating existing clusters) you can use this package to update your original ('RTM') installation media to have SP3 integrated from the beginning. (Instead of installing from your RTM DVD, then applying SP1, then applying SP2, then applying SP3.) Please refer to the instructions on the HPC team blog for more information. <- also no new info there yet   Other HPC sp3 downloads:  Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Suite with Service Pack 3 Evaluation  Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Suite with SP3 provides enterprise-class tools, performance, & scalability for a highly productive HPC environment  HPC Pack 2008 R2 Express with Service Pack 3  HPC Pack 2008 R2 Express provides enterprise-class tools, performance, & scalability for a highly productive HPC environment  HPC Pack 2008 R2 MS-MPI Redistributable Package with Service Pack 3  A stand-alone, and redistributable, installer for the Microsoft MPI implementation  HPC Pack 2008 R2 Client Utilities Redistributable Package with Service Pack 3  A stand-alone, and redistributable, installer for the Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Client Utilities  Windows Azure HPC Scheduler SDK  Windows Azure HPC Scheduler SDK  HPC Pack 2008 R2 SDK with Service Pack 3  The Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 SDK was designed to provide the tools and content necessary to write parallel applications for the Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 platform. The zip files are subject to the license terms for the SDK
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IBM Brings Windows to the Mainframe

IBM announced that its much-anticipated capability to support Windows integration on the System zEnterprise mainframe will be available on Dec. 16.  IBM has made good on its promise to deliver Windows integration with the IBM mainframe via the zEnterprise System.  When IBM introduced the zEnterprise in July 2010, the company also announced plans to deliver additional general purpose blades for the IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension including IBM System x-based blades running Linux in 2011. IBM also suggested it would support Windows and in April 2011 confirmed its plans to deliver Windows support on z/Enterprise.   IBM says this capability is a first of its kind and is a strategic, demand driven move by Big Blue. As of Dec. 16, this new technology enabling IBM zEnterprise System users to integrate Windows applications into the mainframe environment will become available.  The new capability allows enterprises with multi-tier applications -- for example, Windows applications connected to mainframe data -- to be integrated and consolidated on the same system. In an interview with eWEEK, Greg Lotko, vice president of marketing for System z, said this bringing together of the mainframe and distributed computing worlds is designed to ease the cost and complexity of large corporate data centers and improve management of workloads spanning mainframe and distributed environments.  â€œWe GA’d [made the system generally available] in the third quarter of 2010,â€� Lotko said. “In Q4 of last year we put out the zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension with support for IBM Power7 blades running AIX and the IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer. In Q1 of 2011 we made the DataPower blades available. In Q2 clients asked for Windows so we listened to our clients and modified our plans and said we would deliver it by the end of the year. In Q3 we delivered Linux integration, and in Q4 we’re delivering Windows.â€�  By bringing Windows and the mainframe together, IBM is helping clients to innovate more freely in multiple environments across z/OS, Linux and Unix and now Windows.   IBM’s System z support for Windows means that mainframe users can gain more choice in choosing the best platform for a particular application -- from ERP to business analytics to transaction processing. Users also can have their front-end Windows applications integrate with applications or data on the mainframe. And they can consolidate more workloads onto the mainframe as part of their efforts to maximize technology investments. The financial impact of consolidation onto System z can be substantial, with savings of up to 70 percent in total cost of ownership compared to distributed platforms, IBM officials said.  IBM Brings Windows to the Mainframe - IT Infrastructure - News & Reviews - eWeek.com
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Untrusted Certificate Store to be updated with Malaysian Sub CA

From the MS security response blog:  This post is to notify customers that Microsoft will revoke trust in an Intermediate Certificate Authority, DigiCert Sdn. Bhd. (Digicert Malaysia) in an update to be released through Windows Update.   DigiCert Sdn. Bhd is a Malaysian subordinate CA under Entrust and Verizon (GTE CyberTrust). There is no relationship between DigiCert Malaysia and DigiCert Inc., which is a member of the Windows Root Certificate Program.  Microsoft was notified by Entrust, Inc, a certificate authority in the Microsoft Root program, that a Malaysian subordinate CA, DigiCert Sdn. Bhd issued 22 certificates with weak 512 bit keys. Additionally, this subordinate CA has issued certificates without the appropriate usage extensions or revocation information. This is a violation of the Microsoft Root Program requirements (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc751157.aspx).  There is no indication that any certificates were issued fraudulently, however, these weak keys have allowed some of the certificates to be compromised. These compromised certificates could allow an attacker to impersonate the legitimate owner and make a user believe they are trusting a website or signed software that was created for malicious use.  The subordinate CA has clearly demonstrated poor CA security practices and Microsoft intends to revoke trust in the intermediate certificates.     Untrusted Certificate Store to be updated - MSRC - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
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Microsoft releases Security Advisory 2639658

Today Microsoft released Security Advisory 2639568 to provide customer guidance for the Windows kernel issue related to the Duqu malware.   The security advisory provides a workaround that can be applied to any Windows system. To make it easy for customers to install, Microsoft has released a Fix it that will allow one-click installation of the workaround and an easy way for enterprises to deploy.  To further protect customers, Microsoft provided its partners in the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) detailed information on how to build detection for their security products. This means that within hours, anti-malware firms will roll out new signatures that detect and block attempts to exploit this vulnerability. Therefore Microsoft encourages customers to ensure their antivirus software is up-to-date.  Additionally, the engineering teams determined the root cause of this vulnerability, and they are working to produce a high-quality security update to address it. At this time, Microsoft plans to release the security update through our security bulletin process, although it will not be ready for this month’s bulletin release.  Microsoft releases Security Advisory 2639658 - MSRC - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
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Microsoft Visio 2010 Demo Content Pack

Microsoft Visio demo content pack can be downloaded by partners, customers and enthusiasts to get a good understanding of various compelling capabilities that Visio 2010 has to offer.  Whether you’re creating an org chart, network diagram, business process, or a more technical drawing, Visio 2010’s new tools and intuitive interface make it easy to visually bring your dynamic information to life and share with others. Microsoft Visio demo content pack is intended to help partners, customers and enthusiasts gain deeper insight into key Visio use cases.     Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Visio 2010 Demo Content Pack
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ChevronWP7: unlock your Windows Phone

It’s out!     â€œWe believe Windows Phone development should be accessible to anyone. We are providing a Windows Phone developer unlocking service to developers across all skill levels and regions for just $9 USD per phone. “   ChevronWP7 Labs
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System Center Orchestrator 2012 Release Candidate

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Release Candidate provides orchestration, integration, and automation of IT processes through the creation of runbooks that can help you to define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency. Additional functionality is available in the Orchestrator Integration Toolkit and Integration Packs.  Download
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Top 5 SQL Server 2012 Features

AlwaysOn  Quite simply, SQL Server 2012 is going to revolutionize the way we think about availability and recovery. Today, when we think about these concepts, we consider an individual database (log shipping, replication, mirroring) or an entire SQL Server instance (failover clustering). In SQL Server 2012, in addition to Failover Clustering enhancements, we’ll be able to treat a group of databases as an entity – a much more common requirement with today’s complex, multi-database applications. This entity is called an Availability Group.  Availability Groups will allow us to fail over that group of databases as a single unit. Since a single instance of SQL Server will be able to host multiple availability groups, in the event of a failure, we’ll have the flexibility to fail over one availability group to instance B, another availability group to instance C, and so on. This means that we don’t have to have a standby server that is capable of handling the full load of our primary server – we can distribute those workloads across multiple, lower-powered servers, with the same application transparency we enjoy with traditional mirroring today.  We will also be able to have more than a single replica for each Availability Group, so we can have one or more local copies (protecting us from localized failures) as well as one or more remote copies (protecting us from entire site failures). Finally, read-only secondaries will allow us to run certain backup operations and all reporting activity against the mirrored copy, taking significant load off the primary server (without the maintenance and overhead of snapshots). These are called Active Secondaries in the official literature; however, I have a gripe with this term – I think it is slightly misleading, since it can imply both read and write activity.   And for the first time, we will be able to perform a cluster or mirror failover across subnets in a supported manner, meaning there will be an easy way to set up resiliency between, say, our data centers in Virginia and North Carolina. In addition, a new flexible failover policy allows us to dictate exactly what causes a failover, giving us more control over the tolerance of an instance or availability group to unfavorable conditions within certain server components.  These new AlwaysOn features allow us much more power and flexibility in our efforts toward both high availability and disaster recovery, whether we are using Availability Groups or standard Failover Clustering. Please note that AlwaysOn is not a technology in and of itself – it is merely the branding for the high availability and disaster recovery features in SQL Server.  Continue at source for the next:  Top 5 SQL Server 2012 Features
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Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2010 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2010 customers.     For a list of changes that are included in this update rollup, see KB2608646.
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System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Pack for VMware vSphere and Tivoli Beta

  System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Pack for VMware vSphere Beta  The Integration Pack for VMware vSphere is an add-on for System Center 2012 Orchestrator that enables you to connect System Center Orchestrator to your VMware vSphere server to automate actions in VMware vSphere to enable full management of the virtualized computing infrastructure.    System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Pack for IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus RC  The Integration Pack for IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus is an add-on for System Center 2012 Orchestrator that enables you to automate actions in response to alerts that are raised within IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus.
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System Center Service Manager 2012 and App Contoller Beta

  System Center Service Manager 2012 Beta  System Center Service Manager 2012 beta provides flexible self-service experiences and standardized datacenter processes that can help you integrate people, workflows, and knowledge across enterprise infrastructure and applications.    System Center App Controller 2012 Beta  System Center App Controller 2012 beta provides a common self-service experience across private and public clouds that can help you empower application owners to easily build, configure, deploy, and manage new services.
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System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection Release Candidates

System Center 2012 Configuration Manager provides a unified management infrastructure across physical, virtual, and mobile client environments. System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection builds on this infrastructure to provide industry-leading antimalware protection for client and server operating systems.  Download
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