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US Proactive Services

The table below contains a description of the services available to our MSPA customers. To request assistance or additional information on any of theses services, contact your technical account manager.

Proactive Service Technology Service Type Description
.NET Application Compatibility Briefing Development Consulting and Support

The .NET Application Compatibility briefing is designed to assist in the planning, testing or preparation of making applications compatible with multiple versions of .NET Framework. It is delivered by a team of consultants that have extensive knowledge in guiding ISVs and Enterprises with their respective applications and LOB products. This guidance can be delivered on site or in a Live Meeting session.

.Net Framework using C# Workshop Development Workshops

An introduction to programming with .NET Framework 3.5 using the C# language. The workshop focuses on the functionality and operation of the framework, which is common to all .NET languages. However, all examples and exercises use the C# programming language. The workshop starts with an introduction to the structure and internal operation of the .NET Framework classes and the Common Language Runtime. It then covers most of the features needed to write server side applications (excluding ASP.NET) or UI / WinForms applications using Visual Studio .NET 2008 and C#. The workshop makes extensive use of demo code and hands on exercises.

64-bit Developer Briefing Development Consulting and Support

The 64-bit Developer briefing is designed to provide developers with essentials knowledge required for development on 64-bit Windows platforms. It provides a quick overview of the differences between Windows 64-bit and 32-bit memory architectures, covers techniques for porting 32-bit applications and for running 32-bit applications on 64-bit platforms. It is delivered by a team of consultants that have extensive knowledge in 64-bit software development. This offering can be delivered on site or in a Live Meeting session.

ACE Application Host Evaluation Security Consulting and Support

Routine evaluations and response to identified vulnerabilities are important elements of risk management. This includes: identifying, acknowledging, and responding as appropriate to changes in risk factors, and ensuring that security policies and procedures are appropriate and operating as intended. Microsoft's Application Host Evaluation offering can be utilized as a routine evaluation to help identify security gaps. The intent of offering is to provide a detailed security, compliance and configuration assessment of your Windows operating systems and host environment using Microsoft's SPIDER Technical Compliance Management software.

ACE Application Security Code Review Security Consulting and Support

This service provides expert level manual code reviews complemented with proprietary scanning tools to identify common coding vulnerabilities hidden within application implementations. The service also provides proven guidance to help mitigate any identified vulnerabilities within the application implementation.

ACE Application Security Training Workshop Security Workshops

Application Security Development Training will provide customer's development team with the focused information that it requires in order to understand, appreciate, and appropriately address the most common security problems in a typical IT enterprise application. In turn, customer's development team will produce code that is more secure and reliable.

ACE Application Threat Modeling Security Consulting and Support

A key component of SDL-IT, the Microsoft Application Threat Modeling process and associated Threat Analysis & Modeling tool was developed to help non-security subject-matter experts design application with security in mind. Using this tool, application development teams can create a threat model that helps detect security flaws and evaluate application threats and vulnerabilities in the context of defined business objectives. Microsoft ACE Services provides a range of services related to threat modeling including Training Session, Consulting and Process Integration.

ACE Application Threat Modeling Workshop Security Workshops

A key component of SDL-IT, the Microsoft Application Threat Modeling process and associated Threat Analysis & Modeling tool was developed to help non-security subject-matter experts design application with security in mind. Using this tool, application development teams can create a threat model that helps detect security flaws and evaluate application threats and vulnerabilities in the context of defined business objectives. Microsoft ACE Services provides a range of services related to threat modeling including Training Session, Consulting and Process Integration.

ACE Performance Analysis Optimization IT Operations Consulting and Support

This service will enable customers to evaluate and identify potential and existing performance issues. This helps determine when and how to fix or prevent such issues, in order to reduce the number of servers needed to run a business and, ultimately, to improve the end-user experience.

ACE SDL-IT Security Consulting and Support

Based on the experience of developing and evolving SDL-IT, a application risk management process within Microsoft IT, SDL-IT process engineering provides customers with an easy way to integrate controls to help ensure the security posture of their enterprise application portfolio. This service will enable customers to develop more secure applications by integrating and sustaining an overall security process into their own software development lifecycles.

Active Directory Design and Migration Review Platforms Consulting and Support

The AD Design and Migration Review provides customers Microsoft best practices, recommendations and validations in terms of their existing or planned Active Directory design or migration. Recommendations and areas of potential risk or concern are outlined in a formal report as part of the engagement.

Active Directory Guidance Platforms Consulting and Support

Informal guidance is available to help your team answer specific questions related to the implementation of Active Directory in your environment. This service is applicable in all phases of a product lifecycle and can be delivered in a variety of ways from onsite briefings, question and answer sessions via phone/email or onsite meetings. Microsoft best practices and knowledge transfer regarding Active Directory are provided where applicable dependent on the scope of the engagement.

Advisor Platform Development Consulting and Support

The Microsoft Advisor Platform is an integrated suite of tools developed for financial professionals who build advice-based client relationships. The solutions in this service area span simple planning concepts to in-depth financial plans covering many types of assets and liabilities, and cover a full spectrum of wealth management scenarios including retirement planning, intergeneration wealth transfers, mid-career asset conservation and analytics as well as financial instruments which provide risk mitigation (options, insurance, and hedges).

ALM - ALM Assessment Development Consulting and Support

The Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Assessment provides customers with deep insight into the maturity of their software development capabilities. The program is delivered as a five-day consultant-led engagement and requires a commitment from the customer to making representatives of their development organization available to the consultant team.

ALM - Building MS Legacy Platforms with TFS Development Consulting and Support

Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS) Build provides the functionality of a public build lab that is fully integrated with source control, reporting, and work item tracking. By default it only builds Visual Studio 2005 projects.This service offers aid to customers who wish to migrate their existing source code from a VSS repository to TFS and enable building of those legacy project types (Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Studio 2002/2003) within TFS Build, enabling all the benefits of Team Build for older projects.

ALM - Continuous Integration with VSTS Development Consulting and Support

Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS) Build provides the functionality of a public build lab that is fully integrated with source control, reporting, and work item tracking.This service offers aid to customers who wish to set up and validate their TFS Build to enable continuous integration builds to be started based on various customer criteria..

ALM - Development with VSTS Workshop Development Workshops

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Development Workshop is designed to assist customers to become familiar with the development features and capabilities of the VSTS Development Edition, in order to improve the overall Code Quality. Like most workshops, this is generally delivered formally in a class room type of setting with interactive and instructor led sessions. These training workshops also contain demos, hands on exercises and lab work.

ALM - Managing Software Development with VSTS Development Consulting and Support

VSTS was built having in mind teams that focus on iterative and incremental software development. This 2-day guidance exercise will help project managers in further their understanding on how to apply project management techniques to agile projects using VSTS.

ALM - MSF Project Management Workshop Development Workshops

Consistently delivering high quality technology solutions on time and on budget is challenging. The Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) offers guidance for working with people and processes based on the proven practices of Microsoft to help teams and organizations become more successful in delivering business driven technology solutions. The Microsoft Visual Studio Team System offers two integrated process templates: MSF for Agile Software Development and MSF for Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Process Improvement. By building on MSF and the Visual Studio Team System process templates, Microsoft Services application lifecycle management workshops are designed to increase your knowledge and productivity. We use our experience, tools, and processes to provide you with knowledge on relevant topics and proven best practices that can help you excel at managing complexity.

ALM - NANT Migration to TFS Build Development Consulting and Support

Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS) Build provides the functionality of a public build lab that is fully integrated with source control, reporting, and work item tracking.This service offers aid to customers who wish to migrate their build process from NANT to TFS Build.

ALM - Release Management with VSTS Development Consulting and Support

Release Management is an integral part of shipping products – but an often over-looked area that invariably contributes to shipping delays, product recalls/re-releases, lack of well-enforced release criteria – be it feature completion, security compliance, development practices, bug bars, build and testing practices, and version control management. The 2 day engagement will focus on how to effectively use Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), Team Foundation Server (TFS) in areas such as: • Governance• Strategies• Best practices• Source Control Management to establish and ensure the success of a release management discipline for the customer’s application lifecycle management.

ALM - Reporting with VSTS Workshop Development Workshops

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Reporting Workshop is designed to assist customers to become familiar with the features and capabilities of the Reporting system in Team Foundation Server. Like most workshops, this is generally delivered formally in a class room type of setting with interactive and instructor led sessions. These training workshops also contain demos, hands on exercises and lab work.

ALM - Testing with VSTS Workshop Development Workshops

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Test Workshop is designed to assist customers to become familiar with the test features and capabilities of the VSTS Tester Edition. In VSTS Team Edition, Testing has been made a first class citizen in the development environment and lots of capabilities provided for integrating tests directly with the code being tested. Like most workshops, this is generally delivered formally in a class room type of setting with interactive and instructor led sessions. These training workshops also contain demos, hands on practice exercises and lab work

ALM - TFS Lab Pilot Development Consulting and Support

Team Foundation Server is an integral component of the Application Lifecycle Management Framework from Microsoft Services. The Team Foundation Server Lab Pilot helps reduce your implementation risks by providing an evaluation and training environment you can use to assess capabilities and identify the best way to address the development challenges your organization may face.Your staff can begin to develop and receive training on product and process competencies before full implementation. This pilot can help dramatically increase solution adoption speed and prepare your team for production implementation. With Team Foundation Server, Microsoft Services can help you manage application development by employing the following capabilities: . Version control - Tracks and provides control over changes to your source files. . Work item tracking - Captures contextual information about your projects such as requirements, bugs, issues, and tasks. . Build management - Enables teams t

ALM - Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) guidance is designed to assist in the planning or preparation of VSTS deployment. Depending on customer needs, this guidance can cover any of several VSTS or Team Foundation Services (TFS) features. Like most guidance services, this guidance in generally delivered informally through a series of discussions with subject-matter experts from Microsoft who can give you feedback on your VSTS issues or questions. These informal discussions can take the form e-mail or phone conversations, informal white-boarding sessions, or briefings via Live Meeting or in person.

ALM - VSS to TFS Migration Development Consulting and Support

The completely new Version Control feature that is part of Team Foundation Server (TFS) offers innovative functionality such as shelving, atomic check-ins, XML Web Service-based communication, and deep integration with all of the other aspects of Team Foundation Server. All of this functionality is backed by the robustness and reliability of SQL Server 2005.This service offers aid to customers who wish to migrate their existing source code from a VSS repository to TFS.

ALM - VSTS In-Depth Overview Development Consulting and Support

Visual Studio 2005 Team System (VSTS) is a productive, integrated, and extensible suite of lifecycle tools that expands the Visual Studio product line to enable greater communication and collaboration among software development teams. With Visual Studio 2005 Team System, organizations can ensure greater predictability and quality early and often throughout the development process.

Application Design Guidance Development Consulting and Support

This type of guidance provides the customer resources to review the high level aspects of their software or application design. Coordinating how a customer's networking, database, and web components work together is often part of the discussion. This guidance is delivered informally through a series of whiteboard discussions with subject-matter experts who provide feedback on architectural questions.

Application Design Review Development Consulting and Support

The goal of this review is to identify potential Microsoft support issues with an customer's application’s architectural design. The review will provide a comprehensive look at a customer’s existing application architecture and provide feedback on what areas should be addressed to help ensure optimal performance, maintenance and support according to Microsoft best practices.

Application Development with Windows x64 Edition Workshop Development Workshops

Provides participants detailed information and lab exercises to demonstrate the development tools, techniques, and best practices for developing new 64-bit applications and migrating existing 32-bit applications.

Application Performance Testing Development Labs

Activities to evaluate an application’s performance, identify bottlenecks, and determine recommendations for improvement. Customers can also use Lab facilities to evaluate scalability limits based on their objectives and to create prototypes or workarounds to help validate alternate technology implementations.

Architecture and Planning Advisor Technology Agnostic Consulting and Support

For CIOs who aim to realize the full value of their investment in Microsoft technology, this Offering delivers strategic advice and programmatic advocacy across the breadth of Microsoft. Your Advisor brings years of experience, an extensive and proven toolkit and a set of methods based on best practices from hundreds of successful engagements worldwide, to help equip you and your team to mitigate risk and solve business challenges.

Architecture Transformation (Project Based) Technology Agnostic Consulting and Support

To ensure IT initiatives positively impact your bottom line, you need a clear view of how your business capabilities contribute to your strategic objectives. Microsoft Services Architecture Transformation supplies your organization with critical insight, allowing you to prioritize projects and make strategic decisions that deliver business value.

ASP.NET 2.0 Workshop Development Workshops

Provides participants detailed information and lab exercises to demonstrate the new features in Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0. The workshop topics cover all of the new features and improvements in ASP.NET 2.0.

Assessment and Roadmap for Services Oriented Architecture Development Consulting and Support

The Microsoft® Services Assessment & Roadmap for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides the enterprise a decisive, vendor-agnostic perspective regarding their existing and future SOA capabilities. It delivers a tailored SOA Roadmap with prioritized recommendations, supported by comprehensive enterprise SOA assessment findings documentation, the SOA Maturity Model Workshop, and a Services Inventory with dependencies and adoption levels.

BizTalk Server 2006 Architecture and Administration Workshop Development Workshops

This 3 day workshop for architects and administrators will include an overview of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 along with presentations and hands-on labs covering how to design, build, and operate a robust, scaleable and secure BizTalk Server 2006 environment. No prior Microsoft BizTalk Server experience is required but would be helpful as this will be a fast paced course.BizTalk Server 2006 launched in February 2006 as a follow up to Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004; Microsoft’s newest business process and integration server product. This release of BizTalk combines improved runtime performance with a Visual Studio .NET integrated design time experience. BizTalk now provides a complete web services model for building standards-based integration solutions for any system or service. In addition the new adapter framework and integration model works completely within the common services of BizTalk like orchestration, design time and runtime management, activity monitoring and data transfe

Biztalk Server 2006 Development Workshop Development Workshops

This 4 day developer-focused workshop will include an overview of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 along with many presentations, demonstrations and hands-on labs covering how to develop, build, deploy and debug the many features of a BizTalk Server 2006 solution. No prior Microsoft BizTalk Server experience is required.

Business Expertise for Microsoft Dynamics Platforms Consulting and Support

Coordinated with the other Premier Support services, the Business Expertise for Microsoft Dynamics services focus on understanding the customer organization’s unique business application needs and ensuring those needs are represented in your overall solution. In addition, we will work closely with the Microsoft Dynamics Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and partners to help ensure the Premier solution and the partner solution work in harmony.

C# 3.0 and Introduction to LINQ Briefing Development Consulting and Support

This briefing provides down-to-earth coverage of the new features in C# 3.0 and their use in Language Integrated Query (LINQ).

Code Review Development Consulting and Support

This service will analyze a customer’s application source code to determine any areas that may potentially cause a support issue in the future and make appropriate recommendations based on Microsoft best practices . An additional goal of this engagement is to help uncover any performance hindering code, leaks, crash situations, deadlocks, heap corruption or other issues that might cause support issues post-release. Code reviews delivered are from a supportability standpoint; security may only be touched upon as an overview in this review.

Configuration Management Optimization IT Operations Consulting and Support

Configuration Management Optimization addresses software update, patch management, and many other software management issues through deployment and optimization of System Center Configuration Manager 2007.

Core Services Proactive Monitoring Management (PMM) Management Consulting and Support

PMM combines the implementation of incident and problem management processes with technical tools and reports to tune Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 for your environment. In conjunction with your monitoring and technology teams, Microsoft helps you create Incident Matrices, Major Problem Reviews, and a sustained engineering team. As the operational process implementation progresses, technical resources implement tools that allow you to see the most problematic alerts. In addition, we help you create a scorecard which defines your alert to ticket ratio, alerts per server per day, and number of critical, error, and service unavailable alerts created by MOM.

Core Services Service Level Management (SLM) Platforms Consulting and Support

This engagement focuses on establishing a services-based approach to managing the IT ecosystem. It includes installation of a Scorecard Solution for measuring key metrics needed to manage a service, creation of a services map to illustrate the true complexity and dependencies for an end-to-end service, definition of Service Level Agreements (SLAs), definition of Operating Level Agreements (OLAs), and implementation of service review meetings to drive a culture of iterative improvement.

Crisis Management for Enterprise Environments Workshop IT Operations Workshops

Emphasizes the need for proactive planning and troubleshooting and provides participants with the skills required to help execute the organization’s recovery processes. This workshop contains some high level technical information, but focuses on planning, managing, recovering and avoiding system crisis.

Custom Lab Activities Technology Agnostic Labs

Lab facilities are also available for custom activities to meet customers’ most specific needs. Your Premier TAM/ADC or MCS consultant assists you in defining the scope of, and determining availability for, a custom Lab exercise. We plan, coordinate and treat these activities like the custom reviews with which most Premier and MCS customers are already familiar. Additionally, you can rely on Microsoft Studios to prepare a professional-quality video of your lab visit for use as marketing collateral.

Customer Care Framework 2008 Jumpstart Platforms Consulting and Support

Microsoft Consulting Services utilizes deep expertise and the CCF 2008 Jumpstart service to successfully design, aggregate, and implement customer care software solutions. Microsoft consultants help organizations aggregate information from disparate line of business applications into a unified desktop, automate customer care applications to drive efficient workflows, and increase agent productivity to improve customer satisfaction and retention. In addition, consultants can further accelerate the customer's project efforts by using reference design specifications, deployment plans, and project templates to drive business transformation within customer care center operations quickly and with reduced costs.

Data Access Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Application guidance enables you to create optimal solutions by making the right design decisions upfront. Guidance services should be initiated in the envision or early planning stages of the product development lifecycle before the functional or product specifications are completed. This helps customers understand and plan for how Microsoft technologies should best be utilized in the solution. Data Access Guidance is focused on the design of ADO, ADO.NET, SQL Server, or MSDE components.

Deploying and Managing Microsoft Office 2007 Platforms Workshops

The Deploying and Managing Microsoft Office 2007 4-day workshop will provide participants with the best practices necessary to design, deploy, customize and manage an Office 2007 installation through instructor-led training and hands-on labs.This workshop focuses on initial design and planning, Windows Installer fundamentals, using Office tools to customize and maintain Office 2007, upgrading to Office 2007 (including conversion and migration considerations), various types of deployment methods, multi-language deployments, patch management and installation troubleshooting.

Deployment IT Operations Consulting and Support

Microsoft Services Desktop Optimization using Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office System (DOVO) is built upon proven tools and guidance designed to help you fully capture the benefits of desktop optimization through the effective use of Microsoft Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System. Microsoft Services delivers best practices for desktop optimization based on extensive experience and expertise gained in complex client environments. Through coordination and collaboration with Microsoft product groups and its own IT organization, as well as early adopters, Microsoft Services is able to bring deep knowledge and understanding of products, roadmaps, architectures and methodologies to help you maximize your investment in Microsoft technologies.

Deployment for Media Room Platforms Consulting and Support

Provides delivery methodology for Microsoft Mediaroom operating system and application deployments.

Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) for Messaging Messaging Consulting and Support

DCM helps IT groups apply Microsoft IT and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices, processes, tools and templates to establish baseline settings for servers and applications, standardize these settings among multiple servers and automate ongoing configuration management exception reporting. The offering also includes the installation of the Desired Configuration Monitoring tool to dynamically report on complexity in the environment so remediation can be planned and to automatically audit changes and deviations from baselines. This helps reduce configuration complexities and provides a proactive approach to releasing updates and new products, and managing change.

Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) for SharePoint Platforms Consulting and Support

DCM helps IT groups apply Microsoft IT and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices, processes, tools and templates to establish baseline settings for servers and applications, standardize these settings among multiple servers and automate ongoing configuration management exception reporting. The offering also includes the installation of the Desired Configuration Monitoring tool to dynamically report on complexity in the environment so remediation can be planned and to automatically audit changes and deviations from baselines. This helps reduce configuration complexities and provides a proactive approach to releasing updates and new products, and managing change.

Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) for SQL Server 2000/2005 Database Consulting and Support

DCM helps IT groups apply Microsoft IT and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices, processes, tools and templates to establish baseline settings for servers and applications, standardize these settings among multiple servers and automate ongoing configuration management exception reporting. The offering also includes the installation of the Desired Configuration Monitoring tool to dynamically report on complexity in the environment so remediation can be planned and to automatically audit changes and deviations from baselines. This helps reduce configuration complexities and provides a proactive approach to releasing updates and new products, and managing change.

Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) for Windows Core Services Platforms Consulting and Support

DCM helps IT groups apply Microsoft IT and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices, processes, tools and templates to establish baseline settings for servers and applications, standardize these settings among multiple servers and automate ongoing configuration management exception reporting. The offering also includes the installation of the Desired Configuration Monitoring tool to dynamically report on complexity in the environment so remediation can be planned and to automatically audit changes and deviations from baselines. This helps reduce configuration complexities and provides a proactive approach to releasing updates and new products, and managing change.

Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) for Windows Server 2003 Baseline Security Security Consulting and Support

DCM helps IT groups apply Microsoft IT and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices, processes, tools and templates to establish baseline settings for servers and applications, standardize these settings among multiple servers and automate ongoing configuration management exception reporting. The offering also includes the installation of the Desired Configuration Monitoring tool to dynamically report on complexity in the environment so remediation can be planned and to automatically audit changes and deviations from baselines. This helps reduce configuration complexities and provides a proactive approach to releasing updates and new products, and managing change.

Desktop Optimization IT Operations Consulting and Support

Microsoft Services Desktop Optimization using Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office System (DOVO) is built upon proven tools and guidance designed to help you fully capture the benefits of desktop optimization through the effective use of Microsoft Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System. Microsoft Services delivers best practices for desktop optimization based on extensive experience and expertise gained in complex client environments. Through coordination and collaboration with Microsoft product groups and its own IT organization, as well as early adopters, Microsoft Services is able to bring deep knowledge and understanding of products, roadmaps, architectures and methodologies to help you maximize your investment in Microsoft technologies.

Developing Workflow Solutions with Windows Workflow Foundation Workshop Development Workshops

This is a 4 day technical training event for developers and architects, focusing on the Windows Workflow Foundation component of the .Net 3.5 Framework. Windows Workflow Foundation is an extensible programming model and runtime components for building solutions on the Windows platform.The .Net 3.5 Framework is the specification for the managed/.NET APIs for new Windows platforms, such as Windows Vista. .Net 3.5 Framework is comprised of a superset of the .NET Framework 2.0 APIs, including Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation.

Distributed Computing Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Informal design guidance can be provided with focus on the distributed computing aspects of a customer's application or solution. This engagement is focused on the design of .NET Remoting, COM+, DCOM, Web Services, RPC, or Winsock components.

Enterprise Portal and Collaboration Decision Accelerator Platforms Consulting and Support

Microsoft® Enterprise Portal and Collaboration solutions help transform the way people and organizations work together through familiar and pervasive workspaces, portals, and emerging social computing capabilities. By empowering people with a familiar set of tools, built on an enterprise-ready, scalable, and easily managed integrated infrastructure, portal and collaboration solutions from Microsoft Services can extend the value of current IT investments in the enterprise while enabling business process innovation.

Enterprise Portal and Collaboration Technology Planning Platforms Consulting and Support

Portal and collaboration solutions from Microsoft can help speed market responsiveness and foster innovation by Empowering teams through collaborative workspaces, connecting organizations through portals, enabling communities with social computing tools, reducing cost and complexity by using an integrated infrastructure, existing investments, and an extensible architectural platform.

Enterprise Search Decision Accelerator Platforms Consulting and Support

Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 is the Microsoft enterprise search solution to help you increase productivity and reduce information overload. This provides your employees, partners, and customers with the ability to find relevant content in a wide range of repositories and formats.

Envisioning for Messaging and Collaboration Infrastructure (formerly Migration Analysis for Lotus Notes) Messaging Consulting and Support

Initiates assessment activities for transitioning to Microsoft messaging and collaboration platform solutions.

Exchange Customer IT Fellowship Workshop Messaging Workshops

This Redmond based fellowship offers our Exchange customers the same world-class training and instructors that Microsoft’s internal Exchange teams receive. Customers can take full advantage of this unique opportunity to tap the deep expertise of the teams that plan, deploy, and support Exchange at Microsoft. This program is tailored to provide in-depth experiences through hands-on work, labs, presentations, and direct feedback and involvement with the Microsoft IT organization and the Product Group that develops Exchange.

Exchange Guidance Messaging Consulting and Support

Informal guidance is available to help your team answer specific questions related to the implementation of Exchange Server in your environment. This service is applicable in all phases of a product lifecycle and can be delivered in a variety of ways from onsite briefings, question and answer sessions via phone/email or onsite meetings. Microsoft best practices and knowledge transfer regarding Exchange are provided where applicable dependent on the scope of the engagement.

Exchange Proactive Monitoring Management (PMM) Messaging Consulting and Support

PMM combines the implementation of incident and problem management processes with technical tools and reports to tune Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 for your environment. In conjunction with your monitoring and technology teams, Microsoft helps you create Incident Matrices, Major Problem Reviews, and a sustained engineering team. As the operational process implementation progresses, technical resources implement tools that allow you to see the most problematic alerts. In addition, we help you create a scorecard which defines your alert to ticket ratio, alerts per server per day, and number of critical, error, and service unavailable alerts created by MOM.

Exchange Server 2007 Migration Workshop Messaging Workshops

The goal of this workshop is to learn all the steps that need to be considered when an Exchange 200x environment is about to be migrated to Exchange 2007.Also the most important steps will be done in 5 hands-on labs so that in the end of the last lab, all Exchange 200x servers will have been decommissioned and the environment will be pure Exchange 2007.

Exchange Server Design and Migration Review Messaging Consulting and Support

This review offers Microsoft best practices and technical guidance for migrations to Microsoft® Exchange Server 2000 or 2003. The focus of this engagement is typically on a migration from an existing messaging system to Exchange 2000 or 2003 and has a goal of providing customers with information to help avoid known issues and to help ensure their migration design is thorough and complete according to Microsoft best practices. Recommendations are outlined in a formal report upon engagement closure.

Exchange Server Disaster Recovery Review Messaging Consulting and Support

The goal of this service is to assist the customer in achieving an improved restoration of Exchange Server 2003 or 2007 related services through systematic planning and preparation for disaster recovery. The customer will receive a report detailing Microsoft best practices and recommendations applicable to the customer’s environment for effective Exchange Disaster Recovery.

Exchange Server Performance and Tuning Review Messaging Consulting and Support

The goal of this service is to provide a thorough review of the overall performance of an existing architecture and implementation of Exchange Server. A formal report identifying key areas of potential risk and Microsoft best practices to help mitigate those risks are provided upon engagement closure. This review is primarily focused on customers who currently have Exchange Server 2003 or 2007 fully deployed or deployed in a testing environment, however it may also assist customers who are looking for further assistance and Microsoft best practices to baseline Exchange Server performance before deploying in production.

Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) Security Consulting and Support

Uses Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003 and best practices to simplify digital identity management and maintain data integrity.

IIS Health Check Development Consulting and Support

This Health Check provides insight into the health of your IIS environment. This multi-day engagement uses a variety of tools to collect data and statistics of the most important and critical aspects of your IIS environment. The goal of this Health Check is to proactively diagnose and analyze the data collected, make recommendations based on Microsoft best practices and help avoid any problems from surfacing in the future.

Infrastructure Monitoring for BizTalk Server Platforms Consulting and Support

Provides the methods and guidelines to introduce operational best practices for tracking, disaster recovery, failover, and clustering of the BizTalk environment.

Interactive Media Manager Platforms Consulting and Support

This initial release of Microsoft Services Interactive Media Manager provides the foundational sales and delivery readiness methodology to support the first 10-20 IMM engagements. IMM provides a set of Web parts, workflow templates, a metadata model, and Web services for building collaborative media production solutions as an extension to Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. IMM makes it easier to extend Office SharePoint Server 2007 into scenarios where digital media, rather than documents, are the primary targets of workflow and collaboration. It also provides the building blocks for an end-to-end collaborative media production workflow by using Microsoft and partner technologies. This Offering content is an early release that has not been used extensively in the field; as such it should be considered a starting point and not a definitive methodology.

Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation Workshop Development Workshops

This is a 4 day technical training event for developers and architects, focusing on the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) component of .Net Framework 3.5. Windows Communication Foundation is a set of .NET technologies for building and running connected systems. It is a new breed of communications infrastructure built around the Web services architecture. Advanced Web services support in Windows Communication Foundation provides secure, reliable, and transacted messaging along with interoperability. Messaging is not restricted to HTTP transport, but uses TCP, Net Named Pipes, MSMQ, Peer Channel, or custom transports like UDP.

ISA Health Check Security Consulting and Support

The ISA Server Health Check (ISAHC) is an opportunity to review and determine any risks of computer threats associated with the configuration of ISA servers in the enterprise. The engagement leverages a variety of tools to collect data and statistics that is used to identify performance enhancements, security risks, and client configuration concerns. The tools used are passive and only collect information about your ISA configuration; they do not make any changes to the configuration of ISA.

IT Exchange 2007 Deployment and Operations IT Operations Workshops

This workshop provides a unique opportunity to connect with Microsoft Information Technology group and gain insight on how Microsoft IT achieves 99.9% messaging availability on the Exchange platform. The "How Microsoft Does IT" workshop gives IT professionals an insider view into Microsoft's process of developing, deploying, and managing enterprise solutions internally.

Lending Platform Development Consulting and Support

The Microsoft Services Lending Platform provides the tools necessary to build a complete lending system for both consumer and commercial customers, from loan origination, through underwriting, generating legal documents, and progressing through closing and boarding a loan.

Manage Windows and MORE with Powershell Workshop Management Workshops

PowerShell is a powerful new command-line shell and task-based scripting language. At the end of this class you will know how to use PowerShell to collect detailed information about diverse systems and applications as well as to perform automated administrative tasks. This is a 2 day workshop.

Messaging High Availability Review Messaging Consulting and Support

The purpose of the Microsoft Messaging High Availability Review is to help the customer optimize their Exchange Server 2003 cluster design to meet current and future business continuity requirements. This engagement will validate current designs as well as provide recommendations to improve and optimize availability. In addition, capacity management will be an additional part of this review. Analysis of the Exchange and Windows cluster configuration will be done to identify areas of risk or concern in relation to meeting high availability requirements.

Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) Review Platforms Consulting and Support

This review covers the following: HCL compliancy, operating system configuration (all nodes), Cluster general configuration, Cluster resource configuration and Cluster network configuration. An executive summary of analysis and recommendations is provided.

Microsoft Cluster Server Risk Assessment Program (CSRAP) Platforms Consulting and Support

Microsoft Cluster Server Risk Assessment Program (CSRAP) proactively performs an in-depth analysis of your server cluster configuration and operational procedures. CSRAP identifies potentially disruptive risks to service that can be mitigated through recommended best practices, and ensures our customer’s environment complies with the best possible configuration. A CSRAP engagement is delivered on site by a Microsoft engineer who is accredited to deliver the service; it offers robust tools, detailed collateral, and Microsoft operational Best Practice guidance with an emphasis on knowledge transfer to augment the customer’s operational maturity. CSRAP can automatically run against a large-scale environment to collect and analyze volumes of customer data. The program also auto-generates a key findings report for the customer that highlights critical risks to service availability and provides detailed risk remediation guidance.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007 (MOSS) Upgrade Workshop Platforms Workshops

The SharePoint Services (SPS) 2003 to Microsoft Office SharePoint System (MOSS) 2007 Workshop contains approximately 16 hours (2 days) of instruction. The material covers upgrade from SPS 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 2.0 to MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0.

Microsoft Office SharePoint System (MOSS) 2007 IT Operations Workshops

Microsoft Office SharePoint System (MOSS) 2007 Workshop contains approximately 32 hours (4 days) of instruction. The material covers search service, crawl, index, best bets, property mappings, query, user search experiences, and alerts.

Microsoft Project Server 2007 Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Platforms Workshops

The Microsoft Project Server 2007 Enterprise Project Management (EPM) workshop provides attendees with the key skills required to use and manage Project Server 2007. The workshop is a 3 day hands-on workshop intended for IT Professionals as well as Project Managers.Some of the key features associated with this workshop include: - Leveraging the appropriate Enterprise tools in Project Server to provide relevant business intelligence and analysis to Executives, Stakeholders and associated Project members. - Gain a practical understanding of managing the Enterprise Global as an integral part of the EPM solution. - Standardization of Task, Resource and Project information across the Enterprise for easier management of Projects and Resources. - Understand the workflow associated with a successful implementation of the Timesheets and Task Update cycle

Microsoft Project Server 2007 Installation and Migration Management Workshops

The Microsoft Project Server 2007 Enterprise Project Management Installation and Migration workshop is a 2 day hands-on workshop intended for IT Professionals as well as Project Managers.The workshop details Installation and Migration best practices. This workshop, provided by experienced instructors, will help equip attendees with practical knowledge of common pitfalls during the deployment and migration process. Some of the key features associated with this workshop include: - Learn key concepts and best practices on Migrating, Deploying and Scaling a Project Server 2007 implementation. - Gain hands on experience in the installation and configuration of Project Server 2007. - Gain a clear understanding of the migration process and the required preparation steps before performing a migration.

Microsoft Security Baseline Evaluation (MSBE) Security Consulting and Support

This Microsoft developed evaluation provides executives, IT Management, and IT staff with the opportunity to understand their security profile by: evaluating a customer's IT environment in the areas of technology, governance, and process, rating your security procedures against relevant industries and recommending areas for change to help build a more secure environment, both now and for the future. MSBE examines documented policies and procedures, observes ad hoc practices, and performs measurements for technology, governance and process.

Microsoft Security Risk Assessment (MSRA) Security Consulting and Support

Microsoft Risk Security Assessment Program provides a formal methodology for reviewing a critical segment of a customer’s IT environment. It is an in-depth analysis of the Infrastructure, Operations, People, and Applications resulting in a clear remediation roadmap to mitigate core vulnerabilities.

Microsoft Services Baseline Security Compliance (MBSC) Security Consulting and Support

Helps assess and improve organization’s baseline security compliance program.

Microsoft Services Risk Assessment Program for Active Directory (ADRAP) Platforms Consulting and Support

Used to evaluate and remediate customers’ production Active Directory implementations to ensure productive use. Includes a review, hands-on knowledge transfer and a report that details health along with findings and recommendations.

Microsoft Services Risk Assessment Program for Exchange (EXRAP) Messaging Consulting and Support

Used to evaluate customers’ production Exchange environments to ensure productive use. Includes an operational interview, hands-on knowledge transfer, reports that detail health along with findings and recommendations, and a remediation plan.

Migration/Deployment Plan Validation Lab Technology Agnostic Labs

Having an untested plan can be worse than not having a plan at all. An untested plan may give a false sense of security. Customers may use the lab facilities to perform a walk through of their plan to identify potential problem areas before deploying on production systems. Wide Area Network (WAN) simulators can be used to validate complex replication/network configuration scenarios and determine performance characteristics in a controlled environment.

MIIS Health Check Development Consulting and Support

The MIIS Health Check reviews existing deployments to ensure that best practice guidelines are being leveraged to provide a flexible, secure, and dependable solution to identity management. The evaluation consists of reviewing the current MIIS configuration as well as business processes around managing MIIS custom components.

Mission Critical Program IT Operations Consulting and Support

The Microsoft® Services Mission Critical Program helps to ensure that your Microsoft software-based mission-critical applications are architected, implemented, and operated to increase quality and maintainability for the life of the solution. This offering is designed to deliver the confidence that your data center-class systems achieve target levels of availability and performance, based on Microsoft and industry best practices. The Mission Critical Program is our commitment and contribution to your success for mission-critical IT systems.

MOF and General IT Ops and Process Guidance IT Operations Consulting and Support

General IT operations and process guidance is suited for customers who believe they may need assistance with process improvement but are not sure where to begin. This may also be appropriate for customers who are working on internal process improvement projects and would like to discuss Microsoft operations best practices with an Operations subject matter expert.

MOF Essentials Workshop IT Operations Workshops

The Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Essentials 2-day Workshop introduces MOF and its three major components: Process Model, Team Model, and Risk Management Discipline. The workshop also provides an overview of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and explains its foundational relationship to MOF. The workshop includes the McKinley simulation where students run a fictional airport applying the key concepts in the lecture to improve critical IT systems availability.

MOF Operations Assessment IT Operations Consulting and Support

The MOF Operations Assessment evaluates the current state of IT management processes in the customer’s environment. Microsoft Professionals compare the customer's scoped operational processes (e.g., change management, incident management, etc.) with best practice guidance provided by the ITIL based Microsoft Operations Framework. A report and presentation are provided which outline the customer's current state of processes, a gap analysis based on an ISO15504 scale, and actionable recommendations to improve the organization's operational maturity.

MOF Service Improvement Project IT Operations Consulting and Support

A Service Improvement Project (SIP) engagement may be appropriate for customers who have gone through an MOF Operations Assessment (OA) or a MOF Service Management Assessment (SMA) to identify opportunities for process improvement. The SIP addresses the specific processes targeted for improvement in an OA or SMA. This formal project follows an approach based on the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) and typically includes process design, development, testing, and implementation.

MOF Service Management Assessment (SMA) IT Operations Consulting and Support

The Service Management Assessment (SMA) is designed for customers that want a structured approach to service management improvement projects, which address the people, process, and technology issues found within the IT environment. Using the ITIL and MOF methodologies, a team of Microsoft Professionals will develop a limited number of Problem/Opportunity Statements (P/O) which refine and focus the engagement vision. The P/O statements can then be implemented as phases in the Service Improvement Project (SIP) and to build a roadmap for continuous service improvement. The SMA is different from the MOF Operations Assessment in that it does not measure process maturity based on ISO 15504 and does not strictly focus on MOF/ITIL processes.

MOM Health Check IT Operations Consulting and Support

The Microsoft Operations Manager Health Check (MOMHC) is an insight into the health of your MOM 2005 environment. This multi-day engagement uses a variety of tools to collect data and statistics of the most important and critical aspects of your MOM 2005 environment. The goal of this health check is to proactively diagnose and analyze the data collected, make recommendations based on best practices and potentially avoid any problems from surfacing in the future.

MSCS Guidance Platforms Consulting and Support

Informal guidance is available to help your team answer specific questions related to the implementation of MSCS in your environment. This service is applicable in all phases of a product lifecycle and can be delivered in a variety of ways from onsite briefings, question and answer sessions via phone/email or onsite meetings. Microsoft best practices and knowledge transfer regarding MSCS are provided where applicable dependent on the scope of the engagement.

MSMQ Health Check Development Consulting and Support

The MSMQ Health Check inspects and analyzes the configuration of your organization’s MSMQ enterprise. It includes a review of the following areas: MSMQ clients/servers, domain controllers, enterprise-wide configuration settings, clustering, queue configuration, and MSMQ related code.

Network 3.1 Tools, Protocol & Analysis Techniques Workshop IT Operations Workshops

The Microsoft Network Monitor 3.1 Tools, Protocol Analysis and Techniques online Workshop is designed for the IT organization that wants to understand, optimize, and put better processes and tools in place to maximize network reliability and performance. The information provided in this workshop is a combination of: tools training, protocol analysis and best practices that have been compiled from both the Microsoft Windows Product Group and Microsoft Services Premier Support.

Operations Strategic Review (OSR) for Service Management Technology Agnostic Consulting and Support

The OSR develops a high-level two-year roadmap for operations improvement which is validated with the customer IT team and aligned with business vision, strategy and project plans. The OSR combines the best practices of the Infrastructure Optimization Model (IOM), the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to help define actions to address immediate and long term needs. This roadmap is developed by uncovering significant weak points and identifying corresponding solutions that deliver specific levels of IT service to your business.

Optimization Service for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Desired Configuration Monitoring Platforms Consulting and Support

Microsoft Services Optimization Service for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 with Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM) is designed to help a business focus on optimizing and controlling SharePoint Server configurations and offers the same best practices, processes, tools, and expertise that Microsoft uses to achieve high levels of availability in our own enterprise.

Performance Tuning for BizTalk Server Platforms Consulting and Support

Provides the tools, methods and practices to enhance the application’s performance and stability.

Platform Rationalization (Project Based) Technology Agnostic Consulting and Support

Platform Rationalization can help your organization extract more value from IT budgets and improve the efficiency of the IT environment by offering a proven approach to rationalizing applications and infrastructures.

Proactive Monitoring with Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager (PMOM) Management Consulting and Support

PMM combines the implementation of incident and problem management processes with technical tools and reports to tune Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) for a customer’s environment. PMOM does the same for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM).

Problem Isolation Lab Technology Agnostic Labs

Complex problems that occur infrequently or under stressful conditions can be among your greatest challenges. The Labs' problem isolation service helps you to identify and devise successful solutions. The lab facilities work in conjunction with other resources from Product Support Services to assist you in resolving these difficult issues.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Design and Implementation Security Consulting and Support

The PKI Design and Implementation offering assists with creating a PKI design that will support the current certificate needs for Encrypting File System (EFS), as well as have the flexibility for future growth. Senior Security Professionals work to identify the requirements for certificate-based applications and create a design which will meet those requirements. After the conceptual design is approved, Microsoft assists in developing and implementing a Proof of Concept and Pilot implementation.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Workshop Security Workshops

The PKI 3-day Workshop combines an overview and shares real world experience in PKI Infrastructure and Certificate Authority and Enrollment. Students will learn about and discuss secure PKI operations and infrastructure, PKI management, managing certificate authorities, configuring key archival, PKI uses and best practices.

Rapid Security Configuration Assessment (RSCA) Security Consulting and Support

RSCA is designed to provide a detailed, accurate assessment of the security status of Windows based operating systems. The RSCA service utilizes Configuresoft’s Enterprise Configuration Manager (ECM) to collect detailed configuration information from selected servers and workstations. The operations consulting team analyzes and compares an organization’s key security, operating system and applications settings against Microsoft recommended best practices, IT standards and government mandates through a number of pre-built ECM compliance templates. The RSCA engagement provides executives and IT professionals with insight regarding the state of security and compliance within the enterprise and provides a detailed roadmap for securing and hardening these systems.

Remote Testing Lab Technology Agnostic Labs

This offering allows customers to complete testing without the requirement of physically traveling to any of the facilities, and without the requirement to install expensive temporary hi-speed WAN links. Testing includes various scenarios: pre-engagement readiness (assistance with load generation scripts), partial remote (combination of customers in the labs and remote locations), allowing the customer the option to send only the essential resources to the lab, and full remote (ghost labs).

Risk Assessment Program for SQL (SQLRAP) Database Consulting and Support

Used to evaluate customers’ production SQL Server implementations to ensure productive use. Includes a review, a hands-on knowledge transfer and a report that details health along with findings and recommendations.

Script Development Lab Development Labs

These services are available to assist customers with the design, development, and parameterization of test scripts to be used with performance testing tools such as Segue SilkPerformer and Microsoft Application Center Test. This service can be delivered at the customer site, remotely, or as part of a Performance and Scalability Test in the Microsoft Services Labs.

Security Health Check Security Consulting and Support

Security Health Check (SECHC) is a proactive security engagement created by the Microsoft Services group to help Microsoft customers identify security gaps in their Microsoft platform environment. This goal is accomplished by evaluating customer’s environment against a continuously updated checklist for hosts configurations, security processes and network environment. All recommendations are based on Microsoft official security guidance.

Server and Domain Isolation for Security (SDI) Security Consulting and Support

Enables a scalable and manageable solution that provides the security of isolation without the cost or inflexibility of physical boundaries.

Server Consolidation using Virtualization IT Operations Consulting and Support

Server Consolidation using Virtualization utilizes both System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 and includes discovery and assessment of current server workloads, architecture and planning, and physical-to-virtual migration.

Service Level Management (SLM) for Messaging Messaging Consulting and Support

This engagement focuses on establishing a services-based approach to managing the IT ecosystem. It includes installation of a Scorecard Solution for measuring key metrics needed to manage a service, creation of a services map to illustrate the true complexity and dependencies for an end-to-end service, definition of Service Level Agreements (SLAs), definition of Operating Level Agreements (OLAs), and implementation of service review meetings to drive a culture of iterative improvement.

Service Level Management (SLM) for MOM and Operations Manager 2007 IT Operations Consulting and Support

Service Level Management (SLM) for MOM and Operations Manager 2007 is designed to help IT groups evaluate the availability of their enterprise-wide IT infrastructure services, and manage by a set of agreed upon metrics to keep their Microsoft server infrastructures running at peak efficiency and availability for all users.

Service Level Management (SLM) for SQL Database Consulting and Support

This engagement focuses on establishing a services-based approach to managing the IT ecosystem. It includes installation of a Scorecard Solution for measuring key metrics needed to manage a service, creation of a services map to illustrate the true complexity and dependencies for an end-to-end service, definition of Service Level Agreements (SLAs), definition of Operating Level Agreements (OLAs), and implementation of service review meetings to drive a culture of iterative improvement.

Service Management Optimization Management Consulting and Support

Microsoft Services Service Management Optimization (SMO) is a fixed-scope consulting engagement for large organizations. It provides a management solution for proactive monitoring and capacity management of systems, applications, and services that can help you to meet and exceed service-level goals, improve IT productivity, and implement best practices.

Sharepoint Health Check Platforms Consulting and Support

The Sharepoint Server Health Check reviews a number of aspects of the customer's Sharepoint implementation, including configuration options, hotfix/service pack installation, and Sharepoint-related code, to ensure that the customer's system is in line with Microsoft-recommended best practices. The review can consist of a Windows Sharepoint Services only implementation, Sharepoint Portal Server implementation, or both.The Health Check does not cover previous version of Sharepoint (Sharepoint Portal Server 2001 or Sharepoint Team Services).

Smart Client Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Smart Client Guidance is designed to assist in the planning or preparation of migrations from web or Windows-based applications to Smart Client architecture. The guidance provided will focus on one or more of the following Smart Client capabilities: local resources (leveraging the desktop and local software resources – i.e. Microsoft Office), connectivity, off-line capability, intelligent deployment/updates, and/or device flexibility.

SMS 2003 Concepts and Administration Workshop Management Workshops

Provides attendees with the skills necessary to properly administer and troubleshoot SMS installation and maintenance problems. Upon successful completion of this workshop, participants will understand the SMS 2003 concepts and administer SMS 2003 in their current environment.

SMS Guidance Management Consulting and Support

Informal guidance is available to help your team answer specific questions related to the implementation of Systems Management Server in your environment. This service is applicable in all phases of a product lifecycle and can be delivered in a variety of ways from onsite briefings, question and answer sessions via phone/email or onsite meetings. Microsoft best practices and knowledge transfer regarding SMS are provided where applicable dependent on the scope of the engagement.

SMS Health Check Management Consulting and Support

This engagement is designed to analyze an organization’s SMS environment. This multi-day engagement uses a variety of tools to collect data and statistics of the most important aspects of the SMS environment including: SMS Infrastructure, SMS Site Configurations, disaster recovery and the overall health of an organization's SMS site servers and clients.

SMS Patch Management Lab Guidance Management Labs

This engagement helps assist customers with the process of installing SMS 2003 into a non-production environment as part of a proof of concept. By leveraging a customer or Microsoft Services lab environment, subject matter experts are available to model SMS 2003 to help meet their individual needs and business requirements.

Software Update Management (SUM) Management Consulting and Support

Microsoft Professionals compare the customer's software update management (patch management) process with best practice guidance provided by the ITIL based Microsoft Operations Framework and Microsoft Solutions for Management. In partnership with the customer, a Microsoft Subject Matter Expert works to create processes that are consistent with the referenced guidance. A report and presentation are provided which outline the customer's current state, a gap analysis with actionable recommendations to improve the organization's software update management processes, and an executive overview. While the greatest benefit will be to those customers currently utilizing Microsoft deployment technologies, this service is also applicable to customers using other deployment methods.

Software Update Using SMS 2003 (SUSMS) Management Consulting and Support

Implements a consistent and healthy System Management Server (SMS) 2003 environment using proven guidance from Microsoft Services to produce an implementation plan, architecture recommendations, and delivery tools.

Solution Support Services Technology Agnostic Consulting and Support

Solution Support Services is a suite of high-value services tailored to support solutions built on Microsoft® technology and custom code for Premier customers. Solution Support includes proactive and reactive services spanning across your solution lifecycle (from the planning and design phases, through the deployment stages, to production support and maintenance).

Solutions for Connected Government Development Consulting and Support

Provides the architecture, tools, and best practices to build and deploy cost efficient, secure, and connected systems for a government to enable quality e-Government services.

Solutions for Connected Health Development Consulting and Support

Provides the architecture, tools, and best practices to build and deploy cost efficient, secure, and connected e-Health systems.

SQL Guidance Database Consulting and Support

Informal guidance is available to help your team answer specific questions related to the implementation of SQL Server in your environment. This service is applicable in all phases of a product lifecycle and can be delivered in a variety of ways from onsite briefings, question and answer sessions via phone/email or onsite meetings. Microsoft best practices and knowledge transfer regarding SQL Server are provided where applicable dependent on the scope of the engagement.

SQL Server 2005 for Administrators Workshop Database Workshops

This training provides database administrators and other new comers to SQL 2005 the knowledge and skill on how to install, configure, secure, and maintain Microsoft SQL Server 2005 databases and servers. Along with updates and changes from the last version of the SQL Server and new technologies added to the Application. This training will also provide in-depth understanding of the most commonly encountered issues by Microsoft Support on various topics that are being discussed along with their current status, solutions or workarounds.

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Database Workshops

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services is a comprehensive reporting platform that can be used to author, manage and deliver paper-oriented and interactive web-based reports. This intense 4 day workshop id designed to take participants from level 0 to 300 using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services to design, implement and deploy reporting solutions. The workshop is comprised of instructor led presentations and hands-on lab sessions with a greater focus on labs. The lecture-to-lab ratio is approximately 30%:70%. Each core topic encompasses instructor-led presentations and multiple interwoven lab exercises that will re-enforce the concepts covered and help develop skills required for the real world.

SQL Server Design and Migration Review Database Consulting and Support

This review offers the customer Microsoft best practices and technical guidance for designing a SQL Server system and covers various SQL Server design topics such as schemas, modeling, indexes and table design that are outlined and delivered to the customer in a formal report. SQL Server design reviews typically focus on a pre-production application and system.

SQL Server Disaster Recovery Review Database Consulting and Support

The purpose of this review is to help customers to develop a solutions and processes to recover a SQL Server system based on Microsoft best practices. This service provides a comprehensive review of all aspects of a critical SQL Server from various technologies to systematic planning and preparation as they relate to disaster recovery. Recommendations are outlined in a formal report upon engagement closure.

SQL Server Ops Analysis and Improvement (OAI) for Availability Database Consulting and Support

This two to six week engagement begins with a review of the customer's current business goals pertaining to SQL Server followed by an assessment of current pain points to determine the focus areas for improvement. A SQL Server Microsoft Professional then collaborates with the customer's team to help identify opportunity for improvement in terms of their processes, procedures, operational practices, people and tools as they relate to SQL Server availability. The goal of this service is to provide recommendations and activities for process-based improvement in your environment through a series of in depth interviews and analysis of existing operational data and documentation.

SQL Server Performance and Scalability Review Database Consulting and Support

The goal of this review is to help a customer ensure that their SQL Server environment is performing optimally. This includes a customized analysis of system bottlenecks, database design, and identifies potential SQL Server performance issues. Guidance on key settings including memory and database configuration to help prevent performance and scalability problems is also provided. All recommendations are outlined in a formal report upon engagement closure.

Supportability Review for Microsoft Dynamics Platforms Consulting and Support

The Supportability Review for Microsoft Dynamics is designed to understand the customer’s business, systems, processes, and future implementation plans. We will conduct a review of key setup configurations in the Dynamics product, review the help desk model for end user support and make recommendations that would improve end user experience. We will also review customer pain points with the Dynamics application and provide recommendations on how to proceed.

Sure Step Implementation for Microsoft Dynamics AX Platforms Consulting and Support

This offering provides an end-to-end implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX using Microsoft Services for overall program management for implementing and integrating large complex, multi-site, or global implementations that are primed by Microsoft Services.

Sure Step Implementation for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platforms Consulting and Support

This offering provides an end-to-end implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM using Microsoft Services for overall program management for implementing and integrating large complex, multi-site, or global implementations that are primed by Microsoft Services.

System Center Operations Manager 2007 Workshop Management Workshops

The System Center Operations Manager 2007 workshop is designed to prepare a customer to design, deploy and operate Operations Manager 2007 efficiently within their environment. This workshop incorporates best practices learned from numerous System Center Operations Manager 2007 implementations and imparts knowledge about lessons learned from those engagements.

Systems Management Server (SMS) Design and Migration Review Management Consulting and Support

Using a customer's environment, this review provides customers Microsoft best practice recommendations for SMS hierarchy design, operations and management. Knowledge is transferred throughout the engagement and proactive recommendations on how to address known issues are provided to help guide the customer's project team to a Microsoft supported design.

Test Consulting/Performance Analysis Lab Technology Agnostic Labs

These services are available to assist customers with the process and methodology of executing performance tests using tools such as Segue SilkPerformer and Microsoft Application Center Test. This may include assistance with utilization of the tools for performance testing, assistance with collection of data during test execution and analysis and interpretation of collected data. Some of the data collection tools used include Performance Monitor, SQL Profiler, Network Monitor as well as those facilities provided by the load testing tools. This service can be delivered at the customer site, at a third-party testing facility or in the Microsoft Services Labs.

Troubleshooting and Supporting Microsoft Office 2007 Management Workshops

The Troubleshooting and Supporting Microsoft Office 2007 in the Enterprise 4-day workshop is focused on introducing the new features of Microsoft Office 2007 as well as offering troubleshooting techniques that Microsoft Support Engineers use on a daily basis when working with Office.This workshop focuses on Microsoft® Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, and Microsoft Office OneNote 2007. The workshop covers New Features in Office 2007, File Format changes, Security features, Customizing Office 2007, Migrating between Office versions, and core Troubleshooting techniques. This workshop is intended for Help Desk Professionals responsible for assisting end-users in supporting and troubleshooting the 2007 Office release.

Virtual Server Health Check Platforms Consulting and Support

The Virtualization Health Check (VHC) is an insight into your virtualization infrastructure planning as well as the configuration of your Virtual Server environment. This single or multiday engagement leverages an experienced Premier Field Engineer (PFE) and variety of tools to collect data and statistics crucial to your Virtualization initiative.

Vista Application Compatibility Briefing Development Consulting and Support

The Windows Vista Application Compatibility briefing is designed to assist in the planning or preparation of making applications compatible with Windows Vista. It is delivered by a team of consultants that has extensive knowledge in guiding ISVs and Enterprises with their respective applications and LOB products. This guidance can be delivered on site or in a Live Meeting session.

Vulnerability Testing with File Fuzzer Security Consulting and Support

Fuzzing is a testing method that generates large amounts of invalid input to help uncover buffer overruns, integer overflows and other security and reliability issues in computer software. By applying advanced fuzzing techniques to files consumed by various software systems and their components the FileFuzzer tool and corresponding best practices help find security vulnerabilities software, including buffer overruns, elevation of privilege issues and other critical security problems.

Web Application Design Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Informal design guidance is available to provide knowledge transfer and Microsoft best practices focused on the design of ASP, ASP.NET, ATL Server, ISAPI, or Commerce Server components.

Win32 and .NET Code Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Guidance is available for a customer’s implementation of an application that uses Microsoft technologies. Subject matter experts will analyze an application's design, architecture, and code implementation to determine if Microsoft best practices are being followed and provide recommendations. This service can have various deliverables depending on the scope and customer need including focus on a single module or the entire application code.

WinDNA Troubleshooting Workshop Development Workshops

Provides participants with the tools and techniques to help troubleshoot, isolate, and solve complex issues faced when working with Microsoft Windows n-tier distributed applications. The workshop is composed of hands-on labs that explore the most common problems that developers face, including: access violations, low CPU hangs, high CPU hangs, and memory leaks. The tools covered in depth are: AutoDump+, Windows Debugger (WinDBG), and USERDUMP.

Windows Compute Cluster Server / HPC Developer Briefing Development Consulting and Support

The Windows Compute Cluster Server/HPC Developer briefing is designed to assist developers to get started with porting HPC (High Performance Computing) applications to the Microsoft platform, running them, and diagnosing issues such as configuration and performance problems. It is delivered by a team of consultants that have extensive knowledge in guiding HPC ISVs and Enterprises with their respective applications. This offering can be delivered on site or in a Live Meeting session.

Windows Critical Problem Management Workshop Platforms Workshops

Provides participants with skills that will enable them to interpret blue screens and identify common causes in addition to understanding the debugging process and the skills needed to work effectively with Microsoft Premier Support to resolve issues most efficiently.

Windows Live Platform Developer Briefing Development Consulting and Support

The Windows Live Platform (WLP) provides a set of web services that enable developers, to quickly and easily create compelling Web applications with open and easily accessible APIs. Learn how you can leverage the services in the Windows Live Platform to deliver rich, interactive experiences on the Web. During this technical briefing you will get a broad look at the Windows Live APIs and development platform. You will learn:- What is the Windows Live Platform - Why would a web site integrate Windows Live services into their platform - How the Windows Live Platform is used by Microsoft partners today

Windows Presentation Foundation Briefing Development Consulting and Support

This half-day technical briefing is oriented at providing programmers and architects with an understanding of the capabilities of the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). This is not a marketing briefing. It provides an overview of the WPF architecture, particularly how it extends the Common Language Runtime (CLR) property and eventing model to better handle UI requirements. It also reviews the major feature sub-systems of WPF, giving code examples and resulting UI effects. Finally, the presentation reviews the current state of WPF in terms of development tools, 3rd party eco-system and appropriate deployment scenarios.

Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 Developer Workshop Development Workshops

This is a 4-day workshop intended to provide a Developer tour of the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services version 3 (WSS 3.0). WSS 3.0 is available as a Microsoft Update for Windows Server 2003 and later versions. WSS 3.0 is the underlying layer for a separately licensed product: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that provides other value-add components. All development done for WSS 3.0 will work without any additional effort on SharePoint Server 2007 websites.

Windows Vista Application Compatibility Lab Development Labs

The Windows Vista Application Compatibility lab is designed to assist in the identification of compatibility issues of 3rd party software on Windows Vista. It is delivered by a team of consultants that have extensive knowledge in guiding ISVs and Enterprises with their respective applications and LOB products. The lab is held at one of the Microsoft Premier lab facilities in WA, TX or NC. The typical duration is four days.

Windows Vista Application Compatibility Workshop for Developers Development Workshops

The Windows Vista Application Compatibility workshop is designed to assist in the planning or preparation of making applications compatible with Windows Vista. It is delivered by a team of consultants that has extensive knowledge in guiding ISVs and Enterprises with their respective applications and LOB products. This workshop is delivered at a customer site. The typical duration is between a day and a half and two days.

Windows Workflow Foundation Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) represents a paradigm shift for developers who are accustomed to writing .Net applications. WF represents a new way of software development in which you model your software in a design environment that represents what you would normally create in a code only solution. As a result of this paradigm shift, architects and developers are often challenged to try to understand where workflow fits into their applications and how to apply this new software modeling approach.Windows Workflow Foundation Guidance is generally delivered informally through a series of whiteboard discussions with subject-matter experts from Microsoft who can give you feedback on your design questions.

Works With Windows Server 2008 Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Works With Windows Server 2008 guidance assists in the preparation for submitting applications for the Works With Windows Server 2008 certification. It is delivered by a team of consultants that has extensive knowledge in guiding ISVs and Enterprises with their respective applications and LOB products. This guidance will be delivered on site. The typical duration is two days but depends on the complexity of the application.

Works With Windows Vista Guidance Development Consulting and Support

Works With Windows Vista guidance assists in the preparation for submitting applications for the Works With Windows Vista certification. It is delivered by a team of consultants that has extensive knowledge in guiding ISVs and Enterprises with their respective applications and LOB products. This guidance will be delivered on site. The typical duration is two days but depends on the complexity of the application.

WorkshopPLUS - Active Directory: Troubleshooting (Windows 2003) Platforms Workshops

This 4-day workshop provides the skills required to understand and successfully troubleshoot Active Directory Installation, Group Policies, and Logon Failures within Active Directory, File Replication Service, and Active Directory Replication.

WorkshopPLUS - Advanced .NET Debugging Development Workshops

4-day WorkshopPLUS course develops the skills required to troubleshoot and resolve common scenarios such as hangs, crashes, and memory leaks in both WinForms and ASP.NET applications using various tools and techniques. Coverage includes both Microsoft® .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0 and focuses on debugging both during testing and after the application has been released into production. Attendees must be experienced application developers who understand foundational concepts such as processes, threads, call stacks, memory management, and some experience with debugging tools.

WorkshopPLUS - Advanced Win32 User Mode Debugging Development Workshops

4-day WorkshopPLUS course provides a background on Win32 User Mode processes and explains different debug scenarios and troubleshooting strategies. It also discusses debug symbols, verifying symbols, mapping from source code to Assembly Language, use of Watson,debugging of USER.DMP files, and advanced debugging techniques.

WorkshopPLUS - Defense in Depth Security Workshops

The Defense in Depth 3-day WorkshopPLUS course provides students with the skills required to ensure that host servers are secure and protected from unwanted access or intrusion. This workshop covers security threats, countermeasures, and Windows Server 2003 strategies, tools, and best practices for helping to comprehensively secure the server from file system, applications, and server communications across the network. The workshop also focuses on the use of the security rich features of Windows Server 2003 to help detect and defend against security threats that target your most valuable organizational assets. The workshop contains Level 300 content. Please review the target-audience information and contact your Microsoft Services representative to ensure that this workshop is appropriate to the student’s experience and technical expertise.

WorkshopPLUS - Exchange Server 2003: Database Recovery 2 Messaging Workshops

This 3-day delivery provides students with the skills required to successfully back-up, restore, repair, and recover Exchange Server 2003 databases.

WorkshopPLUS - Exchange Server 2003: Troubleshooting Messaging Workshops

This 3-day workshop provides students with the knowledge and practice to troubleshoot Exchange Servers.

WorkshopPLUS - IIS 6.0 Critical Problem Management Development Workshops

The IIS 6.0 Critical Problem Management 3-day WorkshopPLUS course provides participants with skills and techniques that will enable them to implement processes and utilize tools to achieve the following objectives in a production environment:- Reduce mean time to restoration of service by ensuring that all critical systems are properly configured for debugging before a critical problem occurs, thus avoiding reboots to enable debug support - Reduce mean time to resolution by teaching the skills to diagnose the cause of many critical problems and the skills to make quick and effective decisions about next steps.

WorkshopPLUS - SQL Server 2000: Performance Tuning and Optimization Database Workshops

4-day WorkshopPLUS course provides information on SQLServer 2000® general architecture, index and page structures, performance troubleshooting tools, memory architecture, programming efficiency, and optimization techniques.

WorkshopPLUS - SQL Server 2005: Performance Tuning and Optimization Database Workshops

This 4-day workshop provides information on SQL 2000 index and page structures, performance troubleshooting tools, memory architecture, programming efficiency, and optimization techniques.

WorkshopPLUS - Strategic Enterprise Operations IT Operations Workshops

The Strategic Enterprise Operations 3-day Workshop presents an overview of the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) with a strong focus on the critical processes of change, configuration, and release management. Students will also learn about and discuss IT operations challenges; available process frameworks and standards such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and ISO20000; and end-to-end service definition. The workshop includes the Talkeetna simulation where students manage multiple, disruptive changes to critical IT services supporting a fictitious airport; key concepts of change, configuration, and release management are reinforced within the simulation. The workshop concludes with an action-planning session where students define and document actionable steps to apply workshop learning in their current environment.

WorkshopPLUS - Windows Server 2003: Automation & Administration Using Scripting Development Workshops

This 5-day workshop provides hands-on experience to automate Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP environments by leveraging the power of Scripting, WMI, and ADSI.

WorkshopPLUS - Windows Server 2003: Clustering Essentials Platforms Workshops

This 3-day course covers the configuration, architecture, and troubleshooting of key problem areas. Students will also be provided with the best practices for installing and administering a clustered environment.

WorkshopPLUS- SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering Workshop Database Workshops

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering workshop is a 3 day workshop. This workshop provides database administrators the knowledge and skill on how to install, configure, maintain and troubleshoot Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering. This workshop also points out differences in the failover clustering implementation of SQL Server 2005 compared to that of SQL Server 2000.

Writing Managed Code with VC++ 2005 Workshop Development Workshops

Focuses on using Visual C++ 2005 to develop and integrate with the .NET Framework version 2.0 with a goal to familiarize developers and architects up with the internals of the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and an overview of the base class libraries within the .NET Framework. Attendees will also receive a thorough understanding of C++/CLI (which is the language binding for writing managed code in VC++ 2005) followed up with a deep dive into native/managed code interoperability.

XP Embedded Workshop Development Workshops

Provides students with the technical skills required to develop embedded solutions with Windows XP Embedded.

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