John Policelli's Blog

Covering Identity and Access Solutions, Unified Communications, Collaboration, and Infrastructure

Comparison of how Availability is Calculated in Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps

The Why Microsoft blog has an interesting article that details the difference in how availability is calculated in Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps. The article focuses on seven important criteria in considering cloud service availability, and compares how each is calculated in Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps. The seven criteria include: 

  1. Percentage of users affected by an issue  
  2. Which customers are used in calculating availability  
  3. Services reflected in the availability calculation  
  4. Number of cloud services covered by the Service Level Agreement  
  5. Number of cloud service outages across a range of providers  
  6. Amount of resources the provider invests in delivery  
  7. Amount and timing of customer remedy for any lost productivity  

In my opinion, the calculations used for Google Apps Availability are heavily skewed in Google’s favor, rather than valuing the customer. 
 
 
The article can be read here.

New Features Announced for Office 365

Today Microsoft announced new features for Office 365, in addition to the addition of 22 markets for Office 365 availability. Some of the key new features include: 
 

  • Support for SharePoint Business Connectivity Services - Businesses can now connect critical line-of-business applications, such as CRM or SAP software, in a familiar SharePoint interface.
  • Windows Phone 7.5 Support - End users can access and update documents in SharePoint Online from anywhere using their Windows Phone.
  • Self-Serve Password Reset - IT Admins gain easier security resets with our a Password Reset Tool.
  • Lync for Mac - Mac users continue to gain features including full Lync client for instant messaging chats, and presence information in Office applications.  They can now also host voice and video conferences with just like their PC based counterparts.
  • Office Web App Preview in Outlook Web Access (OWA) – Users can now display Office document attachments in Outlook Web Access for easier on the go edit and review.

The full list of new features can be found here.

Office 365 Release Notes

I stumbled across a post on the Office 365 Technical Blog, which points to the Release Notes for Office 365. As the post author put it:
 

Created when the product is released to the public or updated, release notes capture issues that couldn’t be resolved before the product was released. It’s like late-breaking news: You won’t find this information anywhere else, folks!

 
The Release Notes for Office 365 do contain useful information, and are worth a read for anyone who is moving to, or has moved to, Office 365. 
 

There are two separate Release Notes for Office 365:

 

DIY Troubleshooting Support Tool for Office 365 Released

Microsoft has released a DIY Troubleshooting Support Tool for Office 365. The DIY Troubleshooter offers a refined set of options to guide you to a resolution as quickly and painlessly as possible. The Troubleshooter pinpoints key technical support issues and provides immediate solutions without the need to post questions to the community or submit a support request ticket. The tool’s cool and modern interface conveniently displays hundreds of possible help and support assets (i.e. Help topics, KB articles, videos, wikis, blog posts) from within the Office 365 suite. As you move through a list of troubleshooting options, the tool dynamically displays funneled-down content to lead you towards the answers you need. The DYI Troubleshooter is available for Office 365 for professionals and small businesses and for Office 365 for enterprises and can be found here.

Explanation of Service Availability in Office 365

Kumar Venkateswar, a senior product manager on the Office 365 Technical Product Management team, explains Service Availability in Office 365 in a post on the Office 365 Technical Blog. His post covers the availability features that distinguish Office 365 from on-premises systems that are based on Exchange 2010 Server, SharePoint 2010 Server, and Lync 2010 Server. Office 365 provides these high availability features:

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Office Web App Integration with Outlook Web App in Exchange Online

Microsoft has introduced an update to OWA in Exchange Online that now integrates the Office Web Apps into the attachment previewing experience for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Along with continued PDF support, this means Exchange Online users get high-fidelity previews of Office documents on the web, in exactly the same format they were created.

Click on the “Open as web page” link you see next to Office document attachments to start using this feature in Exchange Online today.

Open beta of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365

RIM has launched an open beta of BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 – a new RIM-hosted cloud-based service for businesses to extend Microsoft Exchange Online to BlackBerry® smartphones and self-manage their BlackBerry deployments in the cloud. You can see RIM’s press release here.

BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 is available at no additional cost to current enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite or standalone Exchange Online. The service works with BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans. The service offers BlackBerry access to Microsoft Exchange Online email, calendar, and contacts. And IT administrators can provision, manage, and secure their organization’s BlackBerry phones from a convenient web-based console.

Microsoft Office 365 customers can sign up for the BlackBerry Business Cloud Services beta at www.blackberry.com/beta/businesscloud.

The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to examine the total economic impact and potential return on investment (ROI) that SMBs may realize by deploying Office 365, consisting of Office Professional Plus (as a subscription), Exchange Online (with Forefront Online Protection for Exchange), SharePoint Online, and Lync Online.

Office 365 delivered an ROI of 321% with a payback period of 2 months for the composite midsize organization. Office 365 improves productivity, provides IT peace of mind, and reduces TCO compared to a similar on premises implementation.

The full TEI study can be found here.

Free Office 365 eBook

Microsoft Press recently released a free eBook on Office 365 for small businesses. The description that I found is as follows:

This new eBook, written by Katherine Murray, is about cloud solutions for small businesses. It focuses on the Office 365 core software services (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Web Apps, and Lync Online. It demonstrates ways that you can create, manage, and lead teams effectively using the Office 365 communications and collaboration tools.

The announcement, and additional information on the eBook, can be found here. The Office 365 eBook be downloaded here.

BPOS to Office 365 Transition Resources

Now that Office 365 has been released, Microsoft has indicated that the transition window from BPOS to Office 365 will be September 2011 to September 2012. In order to prepare those using BPOS, the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog has released a post that contains a list of the key actions customers should take. Microsoft has also released Transition Guide. Both of these are must reads for anyone using BPOS.

Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools Updated for Password Expiration, Mailbox Permissions, and Mail Forwarding

Microsoft is updating the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tools (aka Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools), adding cmdlets to allow administrators to manage password expiration for user accounts, permissions for Exchange Online mailboxes, and server-side forwarding rules for Exchange Online.

The following cmdlets are included as part of this update:

  • Set-MSOnlineUserPasswordNeverExpire. This cmdlet allows administrators to set user account passwords to never expire.
  • Add-MSOnlineMailPermission. This cmdlet allows administrators to establish alternate permissions for an Exchange Online mailbox, such as granting full access to a delegate or granting send-as and send-on-behalf permissions to a delegate.
  • Set-MSOnlineAlternateRecipient. This cmdlet allows administrators to set server-side rules to forward Exchange Online messages to an alternative e-mail address, including forwarding to a distribution list (DL).

The updated Transporter Tool supporting these PowerShell cmdlets are now available on the Microsoft Download Center.

Additional information on the updates can be found on this post on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog.