TechNet Flash, Volume 14, Issue 25 - November 14, 2012
TechNet Flash Editor's Note from Nina Ruchirat

Download the new Exchange and SharePoint RTM bits

The editor’s note for this edition is penned by Nina Ruchirat, senior content project manager in the Office Content Publishing group, to fill you in on new resources for the new collaboration tools, Exchange 2013 and SharePoint 2013.

The public preview release of the new Exchange was announced July 2012, and the release to manufacturing (RTM) build milestone was announced October 11. As of November 1, the full 64-bit Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Evaluation is now available as a trial download.

The Exchange Server 2013 for IT Pros TechCenter is a great portal to find detailed library documentation on prerequisites, system requirements, hybrid on-premises deployment, and many other topics, as well as training and community resources.

For deep technical training of the new Exchange, the Ignite Exchange Labs series, hosted on Windows Azure, are a set of interactive guided labs covering the Exchange Administration Center, deploying site mailboxes, creating a database availability group, and more.

Microsoft has also invested in ways to deepen the connection with the Exchange technical community. A dedicated Microsoft Exchange Community site was created as a hub for community buzz, news articles, event content, training, demos, and more. The Twitter hashtag #iammec has been very popular and active and the @MSFTExchange profile is regularly monitored and engaged.

The TechNet Exchange forums have been reorganized and consolidated in a way that offers options to ask questions about many workloads and scenarios for both the new Exchange and previous versions of Exchange.

And for Exchange Online, forums are available for questions about administration, development, migration and hybrid deployments, and more. Wiki topics are also available for Exchange Online.

B.K. Winstead, a senior associate editor and writer of Exchange Server and related topics on Windows IT Pro magazine’s Exchange and Outlook blog, posted a couple of fairly positive overviews of MEC, Microsoft, and the vibrant Exchange community: " What I Learned at MEC: The C is for Community" and " Microsoft Exchange Conference: MEC 2012 Wrap-Up in Pictures."  

To stay in touch with all things Exchange, the EHLO Exchange Team Blog is the foremost resource for news directly from the Exchange product team and expert partners. Since March 2011, EHLO remains one of the top-ranking technical product blogs on both TechNet and MSDN combined.

On the SharePoint front, thousands of SharePoint experts and enthusiasts converged on Las Vegas November 12 - 15 for SharePoint Conference 2012. Also available now is the trial download for SharePoint Server 2013 RTM, plus many updated technical resources, including the SharePoint 2013 for IT Pros TechCenter and the SharePoint Developer Center on MSDN.

For apps and the new cloud app model, use the Build Apps for Office and SharePoint dev center on MSDN.

Here are some IT pro highlights:

• The Windows PowerShell Command Builder is a tool that enables IT pros and power users of SharePoint and Office 365 products to visually assemble commands in the browser and then take those commands to their respective products. More related resources on the Windows PowerShell for SharePoint 2013 IT Pros Resource Center.
• IT Professional Reviewer's Guide for SharePoint Server is a white paper that discusses how new capabilities in SharePoint Server 2013 can help IT pros better manage cost, risk, and time.
• One of the first coordinated scenario resource center prototypes has been published on TechNet: eDiscovery in SharePoint Server 2013 and Exchange Server 2013. The content publishing teams would like feedback on this prototype to see if other scenarios should be presented in the same way. Send feedback about this prototype to ITSPDocs@microsoft.com.
• SharePoint 2013 training for IT pros features how-to training and walkthrough videos, including changes and new features for search, social, plus deployment and performance/scalability. Note: Although these videos currently are based on an earlier preview version of SharePoint 2013 and Project Server 2013, they will be updated by the general availability (GA) milestone. In the meantime, you may notice a few discrepancies with the RTM version.

Thanks for reading,

Nina Ruchirat
Senior Content Project Manager, Office Content Publishing group

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