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Microsoft’s vision for the future. It looks cloudy.

The following Windows PowerShell cmdlets provided in the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool can be used for user account bulk activation, bulk password reset, and other user management scenarios.

Windows PowerShell cmdlet
Descriptions

Enable-MSOnlineUser
Activates a specific user and assigns a service license the user

Get-MSOnlineSubscription
Returns of list of available subscriptions to assign licenses to users.

Set-MSOnlineUserPassword
Sets a specific user account’s password to a specific value.

Add-MSOnlineUser
Creates a disable user account in Microsoft Online Services.

Set-MSOnlineUser
Sets a specific user account’s properties.

Remove-MSOnlineUser
Remove a specific user account form Microsoft Online Services.

Get-MSOnlineUser
Returns a specific user account’s properties.

These PowerShell cmdlets mainly support the following functions:

• Bulk activation: For user accounts synchronized from your local Active Directory to Microsoft Online Services, you can activate those user accounts and assign them a specified password and subscription(s) by using the Enable-MSOnlineUser Windows PowerShell cmdlet. A comma separated values (CSV) file can be created and imported to bulk activate multiple user accounts with this cmdlet.
  You can get a list of available subscriptions by using the Get-MSOnlineSubscription Windows PowerShell cmdlet.
• Bulk password reset: You can use the Set-MSOnlineUserPassword Windows PowerShell cmdlet to set a user account’s password to a specific value. A CSV file can be created and imported to bulk reset passwords for multiple user accounts. Microsoft Online Services Deskless Worker service administrators can use this function to manage passwords on behalf of deskless workers.
• Bulk add disabled user accounts: You can add disabled user accounts to Microsoft Online Services by using the Add-MSOnlineUser Windows PowerShell cmdlet. A CSV file can be created and imported to bulk add disabled user accounts. The added user accounts are disabled and not assigned with any service, allowing for the creation of a unified global address list (GAL) in Exchange Online without using up licenses. These accounts can be activated at a later time with the Enable-MSOnlineUser Windows PowerShell cmdlet.

In addition, you can view or edit user properties with the Get-MSOnlineUser or Set-MSOnlineUser Windows PowerShell cmdlet, or remove user accounts from Microsoft Online Services with the Remove-MSOnlineUser Windows PowerShell cmdlet.

This is an interesting post from Frank Daske on “How to move corporate LOB data into the SharePoint cloud with Office365?” (click here).

This video teaches users and administrators how to troubleshoot integration between Outlook and Communicator Online. Office Communicator 2007 is an instant messenger client designed to work with Outlook and provide additional collaboration and communication features. The video below easily troubleshoots issues that may occur from integration.

As enterprises become more distributed, as end users run multiple applications simultaneously and as applications become chattier, many IT managers face the challenge of slow application response times, end user dissatisfaction and degrading business productivity.  Although companies can deploy application acceleration-specific appliances at the premises, these solutions are expensive and require upfront capital, are complex and require more specialized IT skillsets to deploy, maintain and manage.  As a result, some companies have to settle and live with the slower response times or decide to only deploy appliance solutions for locations that have in-house resources and can justify the expense.

Virtela makes applications run up to 25X faster, starting at only $5/day and comes with a 250% money-back guarantee.

Virtela has developed application acceleration solutions to address these challenges.  Our cloud-based service makes applications run up to 25X faster, starting at only $5/day and comes with a 250% money-back guarantee.  Virtela’s cloud-based application acceleration service is enabled by Virtela ESC (Enterprise Services Cloud), a unique cloud architecture that’s optimized for enterprise networking, security and mobility.

On the other hand, our software-based on premises application acceleration service offers cloud-like benefits over any current underlying transport carrier or ISP.  Application acceleration virtualization software is deployed on servers at the premises and the service does not require any network migration from the enterprise’s current network carrier or ISP.

By Mary Jo Foley | August 3, 2010, 8:32am PDT See Mary Jo’s blog at http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft?tag=mantle_skin;content

Microsoft’s “KittyHawk” — a rapid-application-development tool targeted at fledgling coders who are interested in building business applications — now has an official name: Visual Studio LightSwitch. It also has a public-beta download date: August 23.

I blogged about KittyHawk a couple of weeks ago. At that time, I noted that the tool would be designed to bring the Fox/Access style of programming to .Net. Indeed, that’s the goal of LightSwitch, which Microsoft is unveiling on August 3, said Dave Mendlen, Microsoft Senior Director of Developer Tools and Platform Marketing.

Microsoft is positioning LightSwitch as a way to build business applications for the desktop, the Web and the cloud. It’s a tool that relies on pre-built templates to make building applications easier for non-professional programmers. It’s so easy, it’s like flipping a switch, quipped Mendlen, in explaining the choice of final name for the product.

(Click on the screen shot at right to see what the LightSwitch interface looks like.)

“LightSwitch users can use as much or as little code as they want,” Mendlen said. They can use Visual Basic or C#; they can connect their application to Excel, SharePoint or Azure services, he said. And they can target these apps to run anywhere Silverlight can — in a variety of browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox), on Windows PCs or on Windows Azure, Mendlen added. (Microsoft is planning to add support for Microsoft Access to LightSwitch soon, possibly by the time Beta 2 rolls around, he said. Support for mobile phones won’t be available in version 1 of the product, Mendlen said.)

With LightSwitch, Microsoft is looking to blur the lines between development mode and run mode, Mendlen said.

“This hearkens back to Visual FoxPro,” he said, “where you could develop and test at the same time.”

When I wrote about KittyHawk, a number of my readers weighed in against the idea of enabling non-professional programmers to run business apps.

Microsoft needs to “(m)ake clear it’s not a tool for Enterprise development. An awful high number of companies have Excel/Access atrocities powering real-world business transactions,” said reader mnegrini.

Mendlen said Microsoft’s idea is that LightSwitch users will be able to “hand offf their apps to professional Visual Studio developers to carry them forward,” when and if needed. “Because LightSwitch uses the .Net Framework and Visual Studio core, the hand-off will be relatively simple,” Mendlen said.

“We’re saying if you are going to go rogue, use LightSwitch,” Mendlen said.

Microsoft is expecting to release the final version of LightSwitch in 2011. It will be a standalone dev tool, but also could be part of one of the larger versions of Visual Studio, Mendlen said.

Update: Reader Paul Fallon asked how and if xRM, Microsoft’s relationship-management platform — which also is being used by some to create line-of-business applications — fits with LightSwitch. According to a Microsoft spokesperson: “At this time there is no specific data connector for xRM, however it is possible to build a WCF RIA Service wrapper for xRM to make its data available to LightSwitch. This demonstrates the flexibility of LightSwitch. We are working to ensure we have the most commonly used data support for LOB apps, and through WCF RIA Services, other data may be made available.”

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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