Live Q&A Series with Microsoft Licensing Experts

Please forward this blog entry to others in your organisation who you feel would benefit from this webcast.

Series Overview

These webcasts are 1 hour online events for Microsoft field and partner licensing roles to engage with Microsoft Volume Licensing subject matter experts as they discuss licensing core topics of the new Office release. Learn more about answering the deep questions from customers, such as the benefits and features, pricing and licensing, migration and software assurance, and a walk-through of customer examples as they migrate to the new Office. These webcasts cater to L100 – L300 licensing knowledge.

Session Name	Date	Time (Singapore Time)	Register
Getting Started: Product and Program Overview (L100)	October 19th	1:00 - 2:00pm SST
Product Pricing, SKUs and SA Overview (L200)	November 5th	2:00 - 3:00pm SST
Getting Started: Product and Program Overview 2 (L100)*	November 12th	2:00 - 3:00pm SST
Product Pricing, SKUs and SA Overview 2 (L200)*	November 15th	2:00 - 3:00pm SST
Customer Scenarios (L300)	December 6th	2:00 - 3:00pm SST

*These courses are a repeat of previous sessions.

NOTE: Register for one or more of the LiveMeeting events above by clicking on the corresponding register icon.

Practice Accelerator provides a detailed framework of resources, spanning from pre-engagement to post-delivery. The complete documentation set includes project guides, templates, architecture guidance, and planning and design guides. You will also receive customisable leave-behind materials for your customers. You will also receive customisable materials that you can leave with your customers.

DELIVERY INFORMATION:

COST – 5 Partner Advisory Hours (Partner Advisory Hours are the payment method for Practice Accelerator).  Cloud Essential and Cloud Accelerate Partners can participate in this Practice Accelerator at no cost.

ATTENDEES – Participants should have basic to intermediate (100-200) technical level knowledge in the solution, but we recommend a 200 level to get the most out of Practice Accelerator.

DELIVERY METHOD – PA is presented online by Microsoft experts via Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

Sign up today!

You are invited to a live Cloud Business Model Transformation Workshop.  This is the much talked about workshop for the business decision maker to help them understand and mitigate the risk of embracing the cloud business model. In the past nine months, more than 3,000 partner executives have gone through this workshop, and the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Here is some is some of that feedback:

The workshop took a holistic approach to business model transformation which enabled us to successfully move to the cloud while keeping the lights on. J. Arnold COO:  Datalan

Offered dedicated time for the executive leadership team to discuss, identify, and validate existing business model processes that are working, and those in need of refinement. It helped remove key concerns to start embracing cloud based solutions. Solution Architect: Rob Husted, Cerium Networks

If you are an Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online or Windows Intune partner and have not attended one of these sessions, you MUST take the opportunity now. Register today. You will not be disappointed!

REGISTER NOW…

SYDNEY	MELBOURNE	CANBERRA	BRISBANE	PERTH	ADELAIDE
Tuesday 18th September 2012	Tuesday 25th September 2012	Friday 5th October 2012	Wednesday 10th October 2012	Tuesday 16th October 2012	Friday 19th October 2012

At this Windows Server 2012 IT Camp, you will get first-hand experience with the new features and functionality enhancements of Windows Server 2012. With Windows Server 2012, you will have access to the most innovative and efficient server and cloud operating system for years to come. During this one day camp, you will experience Windows Server 2012 and dive deep into the following scenarios:

· Management and Automation: in box management tools to manage single server or groups of servers with Server Manager

· Virtualization: explore Hyper-V Scale, Shared Nothing Live Migration, Hyper-V Replica and what it can do for your organisation

· Storage: bringing storage and SAN capabilities to everyone with Storage Spaces, thin provisioning, continuous availability file systems and SMB3

To attend this event you will need to bring your own laptop with you. To connect to the labs you will need the Remote Desktop Connection Client 7.0 Update installed. This client is built into Windows 7 and is a free download for Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1 and SP2.

09:00 am to 09:15 am	Registration
09:15 am to 10:30 am	Introduction – Windows Server 2012 Overview
10:30 am to 10:45 am	Morning Tea
10:45 am to 12:00 pm	Multi-Server Management 1. Management with Server Manager 2. MinShell
12:00 pm to 12:30 pm	Lunch
12:30 pm to 1:15 pm	Labs: Multi-Server Management 1. Management with Server Manager 2. MinShell
1:15 pm to 2:30 pm	Hyper-V 1. Hyper-V Share Nothing Migration 2. Hyper-V Replica 3. Hyper-V Scalability
2:30 pm to 2:45 pm	Afternoon Tea
2:45 pm to 3:30 pm	Labs: Hyper-V 1. Hyper-V Share Nothing Migration 2. Hyper-V Replica
3:30 pm to 4:15 pm	Storage Management 1. Storage Space and Thin Provisioning 2. Highly Available File Shares
4:15 pm to 5:15 pm	Labs:  Storage Management 1. Storage Spaces and Deduplication 2. HA File Server

SYDNEY – Microsoft North Ryde Ground Level

What is Project Ignite? Project Ignite is technical training offered directly from Microsoft to IT Professionals, Developers and Solution Architects.  This training helps participants to understand the key changes and enhancements in the new Microsoft Project – especially Project Online Preview and Project Pro for Office 365 Preview. Register for your spot today! We are hosting a 3-day Project Ignite Training in Sydney, Australia, 18 – 20 Sept, 2012. Registration is open to partners and customers, no code required - register now!  Please note:  Spaces for in-person attendees are limited.  Already registered? Awesome! Please find the full agenda below and pass this information on to your colleagues!  For convenience, we also offer a virtual session via Lync for the same training sessions. The cost for in-person training is $99 per person, for virtual training it is $29 per person.   All registered in-person attendees will receive a complimentary exam voucher during check-in on site*! For registration questions, please contact ProjectIgnite@microsoft.crgevents.com.   FULL AGENDA: Day 1 Time Module Module Detailed Description Speaker   8:00 AM Room Open, Breakfast, Register     9:00 AM Welcome & Project Ignite Introduction Jan Kalis   9:30 AM What's new in Project Professional 2013 and Sync to SharePoint 2013 Highlights the key investments in Project Professional 2013 and Project Pro for Office 365 and the new exciting capabilities of building schedules in a SharePoint list and seamlessly connecting the two.  This gives Project Managers instant insight and additional tools to successfully manage projects. Jan Kalis   10:45 AM Break       11:00 AM What's new with Microsoft's Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution Provides an overview and demonstrations of both the online and on-premise capabilities of Microsoft’s *latest* Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution. Christophe Fiessinger   12:15 PM Lunch and Discussion       1:00 PM Project Online Overview This module will provide an overview of Office 365, introduce Project Online and Project Pro for Office 365, demonstrate how to get started with Project Online, and discuss Online frequently asked questions. Christophe Fiessinger   2:30 PM Break       2:45 PM Business Intelligence in Microsoft Project During this time we will explain and demo the BI investments of the Project Desktop as well as Project Server and Project Online. We will demonstrate technologies like PowerView and OData that Project is now using. Jan Kalis   4:15 PM Day 1 Wrap-up, Q&A, Discussion and Feedback     4:45 PM Break       5:15 PM Evening Informal Discussion Event     Day 2 Time Module Module Detailed Description Speaker   8:30 AM Room Open, Breakfast       9:00 AM What's new for IT Professionals - Part 1 - Architecture This module discusses Project Server 2013 architectural, administration and security changes. Christophe Fiessinger   10:30 AM Break       10:45 AM Demand Management Demand management is a key process for many customers in the Project Lifecycle.  From initiation and selection to planning and managing, Demand Management, typically follows the customer business process or methodology requirements consisting of Phases, Stages, Project Detail Pages (SharePoint page with Web Parts), Specific Custom Fields and Workflow. This session will discuss creation of a typical Demand Management process and showcase workflow creation in the Microsoft SharePoint Designer and Microsoft Visio! Jan Kalis   12:15 PM Lunch and Discussion       1:00 PM Timesheet and Statusing This module will provide an overview of timesheet and statusing improvements in Project Online and Project Server 2013. Christophe Fiessinger   2:00 PM Office Store Opportunity Apps that are extending the product functionality could be published and acquired by customer directly from the Office Store. Join us to learn how you can benefit from publishing your Apps, Trainings or Solutions. We will also highlight the process and showcase some of the Apps from the Office Store. Jan Kalis   2:30 PM Break       2:45 PM Project Desktop Extensibility Project Desktop is a popular tool for millions of Project Managers. It now incorporates the Web Extensibility Framework and allows you to build Apps for Office that display contextual contents right in Project. The demonstration will show how to build Apps for Office that run in Project. Jan Kalis   4:15 PM Day 2 Wrap-up, Q&A, Discussion and Feedback   Day 3 Time Module Module Detailed Description Speaker 8:30 AM Room Open, Breakfast   9:00 AM Extensibility - Server and Online - Part 1 Project Server and Project Online builds on top of SharePoint and Office 365. This module introduces the conceptual development approaches for the whole platform. Jan Kalis   10:30 AM break     10:45 AM Extensibility - Server and Online - Part 2 This is Part 2 and goes deeper into Project Server's extensibility as well as covering Client Side Object Model (CSOM), JavaScript Object Model (JSOM), Event Receivers and other key extensibility components. Jan Kalis   12:15 PM lunch and discussion     1:00 PM What's New for IT Professionals - part 2 - Deployment & Upgrade Join an overview of the procedure to deploy Project Server 2013, as well as reviewing upgrade methodologies from prior versions. Christophe Fiessinger   2:00 PM Break       2:00 PM What's new for IT Professionals - part 3 - Operations Discuss Project Server 2013 operational improvements including Windows PowerShell, Active Directory Synchronization, Log Level Manager and Queue Stats Manager. Christophe Fiessinger   3:15 PM Day 3 Wrap-up, Q&A, Discussion and Feedback

Welcome

With the launch of Windows Server 2012 just around the corner, now’s the time to get trained on and ready to sell, implement, and manage your next Windows Server solutions. Microsoft has developed a large body of training content across all partner roles, so we encourage you to take a course or complete an assessment today. Be prepared, be knowledgeable, and be a key player of one of Microsoft’s most successful products yet!

What’s New

Check it out: New Pricing and Licensing Content

Licensing specialists who are looking to better understand the changes in Windows Server 2012 now have 6 courses that will get them up to speed:

• Getting Started with Windows Server 2012 Licensing, July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• Windows Server 2012 Product and Program Overview July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• Windows Server 2012 Pricing and SKU Overview July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• License Migration and Software Assurance for Windows Server 2012, July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• Basic License Scenarios for Windows Server 2012, July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• Complex License Scenarios for Windows Server 2012, July 2012: Licensing Readiness

Think you know it? Show it! Take the  Windows Server 2012 Licensing Assessment

Private Cloud Training/Assessment for Pre-Sales Techs

Pre-sales technical specialists can now get relevant training on the Private Cloud, including System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2012. The 4 courses and assessment in this learning path will provide a private cloud overview, customer benefits of each product, a competition course, and demo resources.

Sales & Licensing (On Demand)

• Selling Windows Server 2012: Understanding the Opportunity
• Selling Windows Server 2012: Product Overview
• Selling Windows Server 2012: Sales Scenarios & Strategies
• Selling Windows Server 2012: Compete and Objection Handling
• Selling Windows Server 2012: Transforming your Customer Conversations with the Whiteboard
• Growing Your Small Business Practice with Windows Server 2012
• Growing Your Mid-Market Business Practice with Windows Server 2012
• Getting Started with Windows Server 2012 Licensing, July 2012
• Windows Server 2012 Product and Program Overview July 2012
• Windows Server 2012 Pricing and SKU Overview July 2012
• An Overview of Windows Server “8” Beta
• Why Hyper-V? Competitive advantages of Windows Server “8” Hyper-V over VMware
• Windows Server performance improvements and optimizations
• Using Windows Server 8 for building private and public IaaS clouds
• Introducing Windows Server 2012 e-Book
• License Migration and Software Assurance for Windows Server 2012, July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• Basic License Scenarios for Windows Server 2012, July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• Complex License Scenarios for Windows Server 2012, July 2012: Licensing Readiness
• Windows Server 2012 Licensing Assessment

Partner Academy Live Sessions (On Demand)

• Windows Server 2012 for Service Providers
• Windows Server 2012 Disclosure
• Windows Server Licensing Update for Service Providers

Tech 100-200 (On Demand)

• Windows Server 8 Beta Download
• Windows networking with PowerShell: A foundation for data center management
• A deep dive into Hyper-V networking
• RemoteFX 2.0
• Optimal cloud performance with BranchCache
• Enabling the hybrid cloud using remote access appliances
• Network acceleration and other NIC technologies for the data center
• Using Windows Server 8 for building private and public IaaS clouds
• Designing systems for continuous availability and scalability
• Designing systems for continuous availability - multi-node with remote file storage
• Designing systems for continuous availability - multi-node with block storage
• Building continuously available systems with Hyper-V
• Designing the building blocks for a Windows Server 8 cloud
• Microsoft Private Cloud Technical Overview Course
• Focusing on Customer Benefits for Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012
• Understanding Microsoft Private Cloud Competition

Tech 100-200 (Instructor-led)

• Clinic 40005A: First Look Clinic: Windows Server 2012
• Hands-On Lab 40006A: Hands On Lab: Windows Server 2012

Tech 300 (On Demand)

• What's New in Hyper-V with Windows Server 2012, Part 1
• What's New in Hyper-V with Windows Server 2012, Part 2
• Hyper-V Network Virtualization for Scalable Multi-Tenant Datacenters with Windows Server 2012
• Enabling Disaster Recovery for Hyper-V Workloads Using Hyper-V Replica with Windows Server 2012
• Changing the Landscape with Hyper-V Live Migration with Windows Server 2012
• IP Address Management with Windows Server 2012
• Hyper-V Switch Extensibility with Windows Server 2012
• Cost-Effective Business Critical Storage: Storage Spaces with Windows Server 2012
• The New File Server for Information Workers with Windows Server 2012
• Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2012
• Hyper-V Over SMB: Remote File Storage Support in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V
• Cluster Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2012
• Unified Remote Access in Windows Server 2012
• Introduction to Dynamic Access Control in Windows Server 2012, Part 1
• Introduction to Dynamic Access Control in Windows Server 2012, Part 2
• What's New in Active Directory with Windows Server 2012
• Overview of Server Management and Powershell in Windows Server 2012
• Designing a Unified Access Strategy with Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 Cloud Optimization with Branch Cache
• What’s New in Internet Information Services (IIS) 8 with Windows Server 2012
• Internet Information Services (IIS) 8 Application Initialization with Windows Server 2012
• Server Storage on Windows Server 2012
• Data Deduplication in Windows Server 2012
• Architecting Cloud Optimized Infrastructure with Windows Server 2012
• Deploying Windows Server 2012
• Remote Desktop Services for Windows Server 2012
• What's New with Internet Information Services (IIS) for Windows Server 2012: Open Web Platform for the Cloud

Learning Paths

Windows Server 2012 Partner Readiness

o Executive-Business Decision Maker-Practice Manager

o Licensing Specialists

o Sales-Account Managers-Account Executives

o Tech Pre-Sales - Sales Engineers

o Implementer

o Architect

Saved Searches

o Implementers: Virtualization in Windows Server 2012

o Implementers: Networking in Windows Server 2012

o Implementers: Storage in Windows Server 2012

o Implementers: Identity and Security in Windows Server 2012

o Implementers: Management and Deployment in Windows Server 2012

o Implementers: Remote Access in Windows Server 2012

o Implementers: Web/App Platform in Windows Server 2012

o Windows Server 2012 Sales Specialist Learning Path

o Licensing in Windows Server 2012

1. Role-based Learning Paths by Partner Types:

• Windows 8 – for distributors
• Windows 8 – for ISVs
• Windows 8 – for LARs
• Windows 8 – for SIs
• Windows 8 – for VARs
• Windows 8 Release Preview technical training

2. Explore the training and campaign resources at the Partner Marketing Center and Partner Learning Center.  Check out the latest content below:

• Partner Readiness Kit
• MSL Exams for the IT Pro and Developer (HTML 5 and C#)
• Windows 8 Demo Showcase
• Modern Tools for Business and Flexible Workstyle Campaign Assets
• Gear Up

3. The best of our LAR Licensing Series Live Meeting series is now posted to the PLC:

• Windows 8 Customer Scenarios: Licensing Readiness
• Getting Started with Windows 8, a Product and Program Overview: Licensing Readiness
• Windows 8 Pricing, SKUs and Software Assurance (SA) Overview: Licensing Readiness

4. Learn how to position Windows 8 - four new Windows 8 Courses on the Partner Learning Center. 

Course	Length	Level	Audience
Windows 8 Value for Small and Midsized Businesses	45 min	100	Partner Sales, Partner Marketing
Windows 8 Value for Enterprise Scenarios Part 1	45 min	100	Partner Sales, Partner Marketing
Windows 8 Value for Enterprise Scenarios Part 2	45 min	100	Partner Sales, Partner Marketing
Windows 8 and Windows RT Devices	45 min	100	Partner Sales, Partner Marketing

5.     Explain the value proposition of Windows 8 to your Customers.  Download the Flexible Workstyle presentations and Modern Tools for Business presentations and introduce Windows 8 to your organisation and your customer base.  The presentations include the following content:

· Windows 8 Enterprise Flexible Workstyle CxO story RP (Customer facing)

· Windows 8 Enterprise Flexible Workstyle Full Deck RP (Customer facing)

· Windows 8 Flexible Workstyle Business Opportunity for SI and LAR RP (Partner facing)

· Modern Tools for Business:  SMB Value Story