Planning for Windows Server 2012

If you are planning to deploy Windows Server 2012, remember:

•  Datacenter edition for highly-virtualized private clouds.
•  Standard edition for lightly or non-virtualized environments.
•  Essentials edition for small businesses with up to 25 users, running on servers with up to two processors.
•  Foundation edition for small businesses with up to 15 users buying single processor servers from OEMs.
• Renewing Software Assurance is the best way to protect investments while gaining access to new versions, technical assistance and Deployment Planning Services.
• The Microsoft Enrollment for Core Infrastructure (ECI) will continue to offer the best value for private cloud and datacenter management pricing.
• Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suites will continue to be the most cost effective way to purchase Windows Server CALs to access Windows Server 2012 Standard and Datacenter editions.
• Find out how flexible payments can help you get the IT you need and stay on budget.

Edition comparison by feature

Here is a summary of key server features.

• Full
• Partial/Limited

Top Ten Reasons to Buy VS Team Foundation Server.

• Streamline The Flow of Data Across Your Entire Team
Project artifacts are stored in a central repository that facilitates in-context collaboration reducing waste in hand-over time between tasks and streamlines the development process allowing team members to focus on delivering value over transitioning information between roles.

• Reduce Risk with Real-time Visibility
Powerful reporting and dashboards provide historical trending and real-time visibility into overall project health. Real-time metrics give you early warnings of potential problems that enable you to be proactive and to make data-driven decisions and course corrections.

• End-to-end Traceability
Define, query and report on custom relationships between requirements, work items and test cases. Full traceability lets you track progress and quality back to business goals and customer requirements.

• Lightweight Agile Planning Tools
The new Excel Agile Planning Workbook makes it easy for teams to adopt Agile software development methodologies like SCRUM. Use it to create and manage user stories and product backlog, estimate the team’s velocity, and break the project down into iterations. The Iteration Backlog enables you to plan iterations and track progress.

• Project and Portfolio Management
Integration with Microsoft Project and Office Project Server enables business stake holders and project managers to gain insight into the health of inflight projects, understand how they support the business needs and help identify ways to improve existing processes.

• Simplified Installation for Smaller Teams
Smaller teams and individual developers can choose the new Basic Install option to leverage the power of Team Foundation Server 2010 without the footprint of the full installation.

• Understand Parallel Development
Reduce the complexity in branching and merging with powerful new visualization tools. Understand the scope, organization and maintenance of your source code and easily identify, track and manage changes across branches.

• Prevent Broken Builds
The new gated check-in feature helps teams working in the same branch to prevent costly and time consuming build breaks by testing code in isolation before it goes into the full repository.

• Flexible Build Automation
Windows Workflow-based builds with powerful features like build queuing and build agent pooling enable teams to easily customize, manage and scale out their build environments.

• Enterprise Scalability
Network Load Balancing, 64-bit server support and new project

Top 10 reasons to try Visio 2010

Microsoft Visio 2010 advanced diagramming tools help you simplify complexity with dynamic, data-driven visuals and new ways to share on the Web in real time. Whether you’re creating an organizational chart, a network diagram, or a business process, the new tools and more intuitive interface in Visio 2010 make it easier to bring your diagrams to life.

1) Jump-start diagramming with templates.

With modern, pre-drawn shapes, intelligent templates, and sample drawings, Visio 2010 offers a wide variety of options to meet your diagramming needs for IT, business, process management, and more.

2) Find and access the tools you need quickly.

Every step in creating a diagram is more intuitive, with the logical groupings of features in Ribbon tabs, an enhanced Shapes window for easy access to shapes and stencils, and a new status bar that helps you move more efficiently within and between your diagrams.

3) Draw diagrams faster with improved automatic features.

Whether you are creating a diagram from scratch or modifying an existing one, Visio 2010 helps you add and align shapes easily and accurately, with features such as the Quick Shapes Mini Toolbar, enhanced dynamic grid, page Auto Size, and automatic alignment and layout adjustment.

4) Simplify large and complex diagrams.

Add clarity to diagrams using Subprocesses and Containers to group related shapes visually and logically. As a diagram grows larger or becomes more complex, Subprocesses and Containers help you to keep information more organized and understandable.

5) Make your diagrams professional-looking and appealing in seconds.

Visio 2010 helps you make diagrams look attractive with a wide range of formatting tools and design options, including modern shapes and visuals, a rich gallery of themes, and Live Preview.

6) Bring your diagrams to life with real-time data.

See the entire picture with dynamic, data-driven diagrams. Simply connect your diagram to one or more data sources such as Excel or SQL Server. Then, display real-time data right within your diagrams, based on conditions you define, using vibrant colors, icons, symbols, and data bars.

7) Share diagrams with others on the Web.

Easily share dynamic, data-linked Visio diagrams in Microsoft SharePoint Server. Online users can see your real-time information in their browsers at a high level, right on the diagram, or delve into the details—even if they don’t own Visio. They can pan and zoom in the diagram, follow hyperlinks in shapes, and refresh the data.

8) Ensure consistency and accuracy with diagram validation.

Check for common errors and support diagramming standards across your organization using diagram validation. With one click, you can validate a diagram against a set of rules to make sure it’s logical and properly constructed.

9) Model and monitor SharePoint workflows.

Create and monitor SharePoint workflows more easily than ever with a new, advanced template that contains SharePoint workflow rules and logic, and supports the ability to export and import workflows between Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visio 2010.

10) Create visual mashups using Visio Services.

Publish and share visually compelling dashboards that contain interactive Visio diagrams and other application services. Visio Services and SharePoint Server integration supports visual mashups of actionable data and diagrams for an information-rich viewing experience.