This Week in BPOS News 2/11

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we take a look at the Microsoft Online and Office 365 roadmap, and learn about a holistic approach to being more efficient. 1. Microsoft Online and Office 365: Overview and Roadmap Office 365 is the next generation of BPOS . There are thousands of users that will soon be making the transition in the near future to the new standard of collaboration and productivity. But before making the transition, it might be important to fully understand the Microsoft Online and Office 365 Roadmap. This article from Directions on Microsoft entitled Microsoft Online and Office 365: Overview and Roadmap , will help any user understand what is coming from Microsoft Online Services and Office 365. The piece outlines the many layers of Microsoft Online and Office 365 which include the following: Levels of Service Dedicated Standard Deskless Worker Online Versus On- Premises What’s Ahead I would recommend to anyone who is interested in Microsoft Online and Office 365 to read this article . What are your thoughts of the Microsoft Online and Office 365 Roadmap? 2. Holistic Approach to Energy Efficient Datacenters Microsoft has stated that we are “all in” when it comes to the cloud. The cloud is run by many massive data centers throughout the world that provide the necessary hardware to power Microsoft’s cloud. Microsoft has built numerous data centers and has learned valuable lessons in regards to energy management and power usage effectiveness. Some of these lessons are outlined in a new whitepaper entitled, “A Holistic Approach to Energy Efficiency in Datacenters,” written by Microsoft engineer Dileep Bhandarkar. The whitepaper describes one tip to improving the Data Center Power Usage Effectiveness by 25 percent over two years was “cleaning the roof and painting it white, and repositioning concrete walls around the externally-mounted air conditioning units to improve air flow.” I think datacenter efficiency is essential as Microsoft looks forward to deploying more data centers and continue to be “all in” with the cloud. What do you think of the “Holistic Approach” to datacenter efficiency? What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

BPOS-S: Troubleshooting Outlook Integration with Office Communicator Online

Our latest BPOS Support 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. We hope this video was helpful. Watch and learn more about Microsoft Online Services with our other support and how to blog posts . What other videos would you like to see? We want to hear from you in the comments section below or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

How Microsoft Reduces Operational Risk through Business Continuity Management

Business Continuity Management equips Microsoft IT with operational intelligence to enhance their decision making processes, manage risk and gain a competitive advantage in preparation for adverse situations. Microsoft IT implements BCM frameworks within the company to ensure maximum employee safety, continued critical business processes/system availability with the goal of minimizing adverse impacts to Microsoft employees, customers, partners and stakeholders.

Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 for a Better End User Experience for Managing Distribution, Data and Remote Scenarios

Learn how both end users and Microsoft IT realized new efficiency gains through the combination of Windows 7, User State Migration Tool (USMT), SCCM and Windows Server 2008 R2 capabilities like BranchCache, Direct Access, Windows Deployment Services and Hyper-V. Efficiency gains included faster install experience, data migration, simplified remote access, improved bandwidth utilization and security compliance.