Tech Talk Tuesdays

Tech_Talk_Tuesdays

Microsoft's U.S. Education team is hosting a series of technical discussions scheduled through the remainder of the calendar year. The structure of each webcast is to have an introduction followed by a 100-200 level overview. The final half hour or so will be used for an in-depth case study, customer examples, and time for Q&A. The discussions are appropriate for your staff members who already have a basic understanding of the product, and are looking to increase their knowledge, get updates on new features, or listen to the product experts at Microsoft share recent applications they have encountered in their work with Educational Institutions. If your school or university is thinking of a designing a pilot or evaluation of any of the products, these sessions are designed to help!

The webcasts will take place each Tuesday at 11:00 am Pacific Time, and will run 1.5 hours in duration.

September 2: Microsoft System Center

September 9: Microsoft Unified Communications

September 16: Premier Services

September 30: Microsoft Identity Lifecyle Manager

October 7: Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Virtualization

October 14:  Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS)   

October 21: Microsoft Forefront Security

November 4: SQL Server 2008

November 11: Enterprise Client Access License (ECAL)

December 2: Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance & Microsoft IT Academy

December 9: 2007 Microsoft Office System

 

Here are the registration links and more detail about the individual sessions.

 

Register for Microsoft System Center – What is it and why should I consider using it?

Presented by Kevin Sullivan, Technical Specialist

System Center solutions are tuned to simplify management of the systems and applications your institution already has implemented, including Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, the Microsoft Office system, and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Join in for an overview of the new and compelling management solutions for your Microsoft environment. How much time and money would you save if applications and updates could be automatically deployed, without having to include them in the image? How much easier would managing your infrastructure be if you only had one OS image, that didn’t care about different hardware, or which desktops had which applications? Imagine the ability to automate your desktop deployments and future updates from a single console, without having to physically be at the desktop. This session will show you how System Center can make those possibilities a reality. Manage your deployments, configurations, software and hardware assets, and much more.

 

Register for Microsoft Unified Communications Overview

Presented by Mark Garcia, Technical Solutions Professional

Come discover the world of Microsoft Unified Communications where you will learn about our UC vision plus an overview our UC products including Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007. Microsoft Unified Communications technologies use the power of software to deliver complete communications—messaging, voice, and video—across the applications and devices that people use every day.  This session will also cover instant messaging, presence, on premise Live Meeting (web conferencing), demo of Microsoft's RoundTable (360 panoramic video), demo of software powered VOIP, and a demo of Exchange Server 2007 features such as Outlook Web Access, Unified Messaging (voicemail), etc.

 

Register for Microsoft Premier Services (formal support program)

Presented by Anthony Suarez, Technical Account Manager

Add value to the management of your IT infrastructure with Microsoft Services Premier Support. Get just what you want, whether it is designated technical professionals that supervise all your support needs, problem resolution support that covers your systems around-the-clock or training and workshops to keep your IT staff up-to-date on the latest technologies. As a Microsoft Premier customer, you have a wide range of Premier agreement features and components that you can use to support your people, improve your processes, and improve the productive use of your Microsoft technology.

 

Register for Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager

Presented by John Shafer

Identity Lifecycle Manager (ILM) 2007 Feature Pack 1 enables IT organizations to reduce the cost of managing the identity and access life cycle by providing a single view of a user's identity across the heterogeneous enterprise and through the automation of common tasks. ILM 2007 Feature Pack 1 simplifies the process of matching and managing identity records from disparate data repositories, and prevents anomalies, such as active records for employees who have left the organization. ILM 2007 Feature Pack 1 provides IT with a policy framework to control and track the identity and access data that helps manage compliance.

 

Register for Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft Virtualization Tools

Presented by Michael Greene, Technology Solutions Professional

This session will be focused on how the following new features: Network Access, Password Policies, Network Security Policies, Server Core, and Terminal Services. In addition we will cover in depth the built-in Web and Hyper-V Virtualization technologies, which enable you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. The context of each of these areas will be put into perspective on how these can benefit education accounts looking to do more with less. We will use the final half hour to highlight current adoption of these technologies by Educational Institutions, as well as have time for Q&A.

 

Register for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Presented by Mark Dunkel, Technical Solutions Professional

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a new server program that is part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Your organization can use Office SharePoint Server 2007 to facilitate collaboration, provide content management features, implement business processes, and supply access to information that is essential to organizational goals and processes. You can quickly create SharePoint sites that support specific content publishing, content management, records management, or business intelligence needs. You can also conduct effective searches for people, documents, and data, participate in forms-driven business processes, and access and analyze large amounts of business data.

 

Register for Forefront Security Overview

Presented by Steve Scholz

The Microsoft Forefront family of business security products helps provide greater protection and control over the security of your network infrastructure. Microsoft Forefront’s products easily integrate with each other, with your organization’s IT infrastructure, and can be supplemented through interoperable third-party solutions, enabling end-to-end, defense-in-depth security solutions. Simplified management, reporting, analysis, and deployment enable you to more efficiently protect your organization’s information resources and secure access to applications and servers. With highly responsive protection supported by Microsoft technical guidance, Microsoft Forefront helps you confidently meet ever-changing threats and increased business demands.

 

Register for Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Presented by Keith Ward

SQL Server 2008, the next release of Microsoft SQL Server, will provide a comprehensive data platform that is more secure, reliable, manageable and scalable for your mission critical applications, while enabling developers to create new applications that can store and consume any type of data on any device, and enabling all your users to make informed decisions with relevant insights.

 

Register for Enterprise Client Access License (ECAL) Overview

Presented by Mark Bleakley, Account Manager, West Region/ John Shafer Technical Specialist

The Microsoft Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) Suite brings together 11 of the latest Microsoft products to provide your people with the newest innovations in compliance, real-time collaboration, security, communication, desktop management, and more. The Microsoft Enterprise CAL Suite provides an outstanding opportunity for customers to use their existing investments in the Microsoft core platform.

 

Register for MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDN AA) Program/IT Academy Overview

Presented by Sam Stokes

Microsoft presents the MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDN AA) and the Microsoft IT Academy programs. MSDN AA is the easiest and most inexpensive way for students and faculty in the technology and design fields to get the latest Microsoft software they need. MSDN AA now refers to a family of memberships available to meet the different needs of the academic audience.

 

Register for Introduction to the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Presented by Scott Kennedy

The 2007 Microsoft Office System is a complete set of desktop and server software that can help your stakeholders become more productive and efficient in completing their work.  The new Microsoft Office System provides an easy-to-use set of tools to help educators and students create, access, manage, collaborate and act on information.  Attend this session for an overview of the 2007 Microsoft Office System and learn how it can help increase individual impact, simplify working together, better support existing work processes, enable content management for the entire organization and improve information insight.  Highlights of the new release of Office 2008 for the Mac platform will also be discussed.