Microsoft 365 and its chips
Hi, Habr! Today we will look at three sources of problems in many companies. The first is the use by staff of many different devices for work, the second is server administration, and the third is the search for solutions to these problems (yes, it can also cause problems). Also under the cut you will find a small excursion into the new Microsoft 365 platform. Join us!
You have long been dreaming about the standardization of used IT tools. Employees who have the latest laptops of the last season are working together with people using computers from 2008–2010. Smartphones and tablets based on iOS coexist with a variety of hardware with the Android operating system. I really want to just take and give all users the same laptops and phones, but, unfortunately, this is impossible - besides, some employees do not have any jobs and laptops, and your task is to give them access to collaboration and communications in the company ...
')
Maybe it's easier to retrain in the house manager? Is there really no solution that allows you to work on different computers, phones and via web browsers with the same convenience - and administer all these jobs?
Microsoft 365 is a complete set of Microsoft cloud products and services for organizing workplaces, collaboration and unified communications - Windows 10, Office 365 and security tools. Microsoft 365 provides work with mail, general and personal documents, contacts and calendar from virtually any device.
Surely your organization needs to upgrade its IT infrastructure - like any company, at least once every few years. But now you do not need large investments that are difficult to implement against the backdrop of rapid economic change - moreover, your company will be able to reduce not only capital investments, but also operational expenses, since Microsoft 365 greatly simplifies the tasks of administering and maintaining the solution. Microsoft 365 admin center gives you complete control of components, settings, and deployment procedures — and you save time and effort and can focus on key business projects that increase your company's competitiveness.
And that is not all. Even if your employees use various and not the most powerful devices, you can equip them with the latest technologies and make them more productive - and this will significantly increase both the value of your company's investments in IT and your own value as a company IT manager.
After all, it’s you, having offered the company a best-in-class solution, provide it with a modern information environment, security and reliability of the enterprise class. After all, a business cannot be successful without effective communications and productive collaboration, and you can not only equip your company with an appropriate IT solution, but also make it available at any time, day or night - because Microsoft 365's work is based on a global network of data centers protected powerful multi-tier security system, and Microsoft’s SLA (Service Level Agreement) guarantees customers 99.9% uptime.
Scenario number 1: you need to install Microsoft 365 on each workstation. Your list includes both “ancient” computers with CD-ROM drives, and newer ones with DVD and USB support, as well as brand new thin laptops without drives. What to do?
You can run the installation and configuration tool for Microsoft applications, which:
There is an improved version of this scenario, it uses the technology of Azure AD Join, which appeared in the Windows 10 operating system. The technology uses the active directory Azure AD and allows you to apply a verified identity, signed by the user. After verifying the identity, Azure AD Join "vouches" for this user in front of all cloud applications from its catalog — these are Microsoft Office 365 applications, as well as Salesforce, Concur, Workday, and thousands of other popular cloud services. For the user, it looks like all the applications he needs are already installed on any Windows 10 system on which he is authenticated.
Scenario number 2: you need to provide secure access to Microsoft 365 services from any device to mixed groups of users that include not only company employees. Depending on whether the user belongs to the organization or not, at the entrance he will receive one or another set of rights. Thanks to multi-factor authentication that is configured through the Administration Center, working together on Microsoft 365 services with non-members of your organization is completely secure.
Scenario number 3: Some of your users have no computer at all. Totally. Only a smartphone, tablet, and possibly access to public computers. Catastrophe? Not! Mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams are available for most mobile devices, and using a web browser, employees can open Office documents on the company's portals, SharePoint Online or SharePoint Server sites, automatically uploading Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote online components. - all you need to do is assign the appropriate licenses to them in Microsoft Administration Center 365.
With the means of managing mobile devices (including personal ones) and controlling the distribution of corporate data, you give users the ability to securely share files, control and monitor their actions, including Block sharing of files with unauthorized users - up to remote removal of corporate data from the device or complete cleaning in case of loss or dismissal of an employee.
Scenario number 4: you need to protect your business from any cyber threats - i.e. on the one hand, to ensure the integrity of operating systems and application software and their regular testing, and on the other hand, to protect all systems from external threats, including any types of attacks and exploits that have been, is and will be. The task seems intractable, but in reality it has already been solved - the ATP agent in Windows Defender not only knows how to quickly adapt to changing threats and deploy new defenses, but also helps to eliminate the consequences in order to reduce the damage from the attack and prevent re-infection.
What to do when tired of administering servers? The first and obvious solution is to quit and go where there is no electricity. But all is not so bad. Maybe try a less radical and more modern way - to transfer your business to the cloud? Are you still alive in your memories of why you became a systems engineer and connected your life with IT?
Suppose you already use some hosting cloud server - for example, a mail server. In this case, congratulations - you have already moved to the cloud, but not completely. Probably, you just did not get around to implementing all the other benefits of cloud technologies - collaboration tools, mobile email, audio and video conferencing. But you have already seen that the mail server practically does not require your attention? Now it will be logical to fully switch to cloud solutions, save the IT budget to support strategic business projects and provide employees with the latest work tools.
If we are talking about the implementation of the mail service, then the necessary solution is Microsoft Exchange Online - part of Microsoft 365, a cloud messaging service based on Microsoft Exchange Server. This is a full-featured solution for managing email, calendars, contacts and tasks for workstations, the web and mobile devices. Exchange Online provides organizations with a full range of messaging capabilities without the need for local server support.
Now let's take a sharper situation — your company uses deeply outdated servers, such as Exchange Server 2007 mail server, Windows Small Business Server 2008, or, GroupWise or Lotus Notes. Of course, e-mail is functioning — at least most of the time. Yet, quite often stops occur at work. But this, of course, is your headache, not your leadership, because serious expenses are needed for updating or replacing the server, while the IT service in emergency mode periodically stops up this “hole”, “effective” boss and grief.
It is clear that with such a large tactical load, you are not in the mood for accomplishing strategic tasks - not for planning the implementation of a modern ERP system, for example. Well, this initiative will be taken over by the financial service and an external partner, and you will still hear complaints from disgruntled users and repair the old mail server. And all because, as Boromir said, you cannot just take and implement a new system. To install a new mail server, you will have to purchase a new hardware.
And why, exactly? After all, the "cloud" server Exchange Online does not require hardware updates. You will be able to use the latest enterprise-level solutions, including e-mail with a bottomless volume of 50 GB mailboxes, and you will not have to update your servers for this. You will receive all the programs you need at a known amount of monthly payment. Moreover, getting rid of servers, you get rid of the cost of their maintenance. Microsoft 365, like all Microsoft products, is a custom out-of-the-box solution that is ready to go.
These examples are relevant not only for e-mail. If your main problem was storing files, the cure for it is to switch to OneDrive for Business, which will not only allow you to get rid of support for excess hardware, but will automatically synchronize all the necessary files between folders on users' workstations with their replicas on the cloud server. . A new tool Microsoft Teams will give your teams the opportunity to work effectively with access to private, group or general discussions directly from the Office 365 applications.
If you need not just decompose files into folders, but keep their history and administer the contents of public folders, which project teams should comfortably use, your solution is SharePoint Online. Of course, you are familiar with SharePoint Server, but in order to provide your employees with an enterprise-wide solution that allows you to create websites for publishing documents and collaborate, you do not need to install, implement, and then periodically update the local server - just subscribe to SharePoint Online.
This service provides the ability to share documents of the working group and information on the status of implementation of project milestones, and ensures the continued relevance of documents and easy online access to information, as well as reliable data protection. It works with Microsoft Office applications and allows you to save Office documents directly on SharePoint Online sites and edit them together with other users.
That they have (almost) nothing new. Models of ASP-rent and hosting of software services appeared a long time ago, their advantages and disadvantages are well known. The SaaS business application sales model (Software as a service, “Software as a Service”), according to which access to the software is provided via the web, and the maintenance and upgrade cost of the use of the software is also not new. Its obvious limitation is the need for a permanent connection to the Internet. But the world does not stand still, and we have been using cloud technologies for more than 10 years, which combine the concept of SaaS, technologies of remote data warehouses and the principles of leasing software.
It is important that you no longer need to worry about the smooth operation of the systems - it is guaranteed by the cloud service provider itself. For example, in the case of Microsoft, 99.9% of working time without downtime is a condition that appears in the SLA, the provider of the cloud service is also responsible for the relevance of protection against viruses and spam, and reliable data security is a constant data backup, failure protection, geographically redundant data centers, tight data privacy policies are also the responsibility of the provider.
Well, if you yourself are an IT company and are developing applications, then using a cloud-based development platform is the only available way to manage all application life cycles, projects and development teams today. Only cloud-based development platforms make it possible not to buy software for a new project, not to hire administrators to manage projects and teams (and those administrators who are already working, not to compete with each other for resources), and not to integrate with development environments. Migrating to the cloud, you get a complete set of infrastructure tools, similar to the one that you have to build yourself on your own servers, only with significantly more substantial material and time costs.
Your company is growing very fast. You would like to rejoice, but instead you experience a constant headache. You have too much trouble because of all these users, devices, servers and communications.
Whether it's a cloud solution! You do not need to implement local servers for communications, you do not need to manage them - you need to subscribe to the necessary Microsoft 365 communication services, add as many users as you need, and manage services and users from a single Central Administration Center. From the first hour of their work, all employees have single access to corporate e-mail systems, shared calendars and shared documents, instant messaging and web conferencing — and the latest version of Office, which allows editing work documents simultaneously with other users.
And, of course, your employees can work anywhere, using any device. To use e-mail and newsgroup system, they don’t even need a working laptop - any computer with a web browser or smartphone is enough.
Microsoft 365 includes productivity tools, unified communications and collaboration, familiar to users and easily integrated with popular applications. Deploy Microsoft 365 with a single Administration Center, and you will receive an IT system that is always updated, because all updates and patches are installed automatically. Anti-spam and anti-spam tools are also updated themselves, for the security system, recovery tools in case of failures and data inviolability by Microsoft are responsible.
But how quickly and easily can you go to the "cloud"? How much is it? Will employees be able to work where they are comfortable and when they are comfortable? What are the security and data privacy guarantees? Can you control and manage your IT cloud infrastructure?
For the convenience of scaling the solution, a number of service plans are provided for various types of business. With them, you get flexible pricing based on the number of users per month and taking into account only those services that you need. All service plans guarantee 99.9% uptime, security and Microsoft support. Microsoft 365 includes the Windows 10 operating system, classic Microsoft Office tools, collaboration site development tools, instant messaging and web conferencing, as well as the most powerful Exchange mail system and built-in protection against computer viruses and spam.
You do not have to try to make the entire IT landscape of your enterprise completely homogeneous - local and online IT infrastructures can work as a single organization. Presence indication, email prompts, email search capabilities, message tracking and archiving work the same in local applications and in the cloud, as in a single integrated architecture. If necessary, you can move employees' local mailboxes to the cloud and vice versa.
Fast scaling also contributes to the fact that working with Microsoft 365 does not require additional user training. Well-known software tools provide a new quality of collaboration with colleagues, customers and partners. To you, as a system engineer, Microsoft 365 Administration Center gives you full control over the components, settings, and deployment procedures across the organization. You give users rights to use certain functions and services according to their roles in the organization and delegate authority to perform certain administrative tasks.
However, scaling is not the worst thing in the life of a CIO. It’s much worse when different business executives suddenly demand that you implement tools that nobody has ever used before. At one fine moment, which may occur right now, the manager will require you to implement, for example:
The bad news is just the beginning of the list of things that an advanced manager might think of. The good news is that someone has already implemented all of these Wishlist.
A corporate instant messenger that allows you to exchange messages, share documents and immediately, on the spot, work together with them in teams - not only under Windows 10, but also on iOS and Android - already exists, called Microsoft Teams and available to Microsoft users 365.
A board with cards for developing plans, managing tasks, exchanging documents, discussing current affairs and controlling the implementation of tasks is already a reality. Microsoft provides this space for individual and collaboration to all Microsoft 365 users, and this is a Microsoft Planner product. Like Teams, Planner is deeply integrated with other Office programs and allows you to place Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, OneNote notes on a blackboard and synchronize them.
A service that automates the routine processes for transferring jobs from one application to another - Microsoft Flow. For example, it allows you to collect Facebook messages, tweets and emails, and create from them cards of potential customers and tasks for account managers in Dynamics 365.
An intelligent to-do manager also exists, and is called, imagine, Microsoft To-Do. To-Do is universal and suitable for both business and personal business. Of course, it is integrated with Microsoft 365.
Any more ideas? Just tell us about them - and we will answer you the name of the corresponding Microsoft application.
As we already know, they are distinguished by high scalability - and for you, as a customer, this allows you to pay only for the necessary computing power as they are developed. Now this is a trend in dozens of areas of the economy, not only in IT - pay while you use. AirBnB rents unwanted rooms to the envy of booking.com. Almost all the dresses at the inauguration ceremony of the President of the United States were from Rent The Runway, a service for the rental of designer dresses. Uber and car sharing compete for the market with large auto companies.
In addition, cloud services are profitable to provide due to economies of scale, and since the demand for them grows, so does the benefit of cloud providers - and this reduces your costs as a customer.
Finally, they are safe because they are supported by a geographically redundant structure of data processing centers (data centers), which allows cloud service providers to store and reserve information in a distributed manner. Microsoft data centers are the largest in the world, they are equipped with the latest equipment, provided with uninterrupted power supply and are protected from unauthorized access, you cannot keep up with them, even if you are a bank from the Top-50 list.
Microsoft 365 provides organizations with not only the flexibility and predictability of the costs of unified communications, collaboration, and means of increasing business productivity, but it also significantly reduces the cost of implementing local servers. In addition, Microsoft 365 can work together with local servers already deployed, allowing you to choose the best hybrid configuration of local software and online services for the needs of your organization and users.
You, as an IT expert who has long outgrown the administration routine, will be able to leave everyday operations to automated management tools and start introducing new technologies - and maybe offer your business new ideas related to high technologies. Remember - Brian Cesky and Joe Gobbia would not have established Airbnb if Nathan Blecharzik, an IT specialist, was not with them.
If all of the above you are interested, then you will certainly be interested in the “ Meet Microsoft 365: Configure and Administration of Cloud Services Administration ” webinar, which will be held on June 6, 2018 at 11:00 Moscow time. The seminar will end with Microsoft 365 Contest, and the winner will receive a free voucher for the Office 365 certification exam.
A variety of employee devices as a source of problems
You have long been dreaming about the standardization of used IT tools. Employees who have the latest laptops of the last season are working together with people using computers from 2008–2010. Smartphones and tablets based on iOS coexist with a variety of hardware with the Android operating system. I really want to just take and give all users the same laptops and phones, but, unfortunately, this is impossible - besides, some employees do not have any jobs and laptops, and your task is to give them access to collaboration and communications in the company ...
')
Maybe it's easier to retrain in the house manager? Is there really no solution that allows you to work on different computers, phones and via web browsers with the same convenience - and administer all these jobs?
Think Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a complete set of Microsoft cloud products and services for organizing workplaces, collaboration and unified communications - Windows 10, Office 365 and security tools. Microsoft 365 provides work with mail, general and personal documents, contacts and calendar from virtually any device.
Surely your organization needs to upgrade its IT infrastructure - like any company, at least once every few years. But now you do not need large investments that are difficult to implement against the backdrop of rapid economic change - moreover, your company will be able to reduce not only capital investments, but also operational expenses, since Microsoft 365 greatly simplifies the tasks of administering and maintaining the solution. Microsoft 365 admin center gives you complete control of components, settings, and deployment procedures — and you save time and effort and can focus on key business projects that increase your company's competitiveness.
And that is not all. Even if your employees use various and not the most powerful devices, you can equip them with the latest technologies and make them more productive - and this will significantly increase both the value of your company's investments in IT and your own value as a company IT manager.
After all, it’s you, having offered the company a best-in-class solution, provide it with a modern information environment, security and reliability of the enterprise class. After all, a business cannot be successful without effective communications and productive collaboration, and you can not only equip your company with an appropriate IT solution, but also make it available at any time, day or night - because Microsoft 365's work is based on a global network of data centers protected powerful multi-tier security system, and Microsoft’s SLA (Service Level Agreement) guarantees customers 99.9% uptime.
How it works
Scenario number 1: you need to install Microsoft 365 on each workstation. Your list includes both “ancient” computers with CD-ROM drives, and newer ones with DVD and USB support, as well as brand new thin laptops without drives. What to do?
You can run the installation and configuration tool for Microsoft applications, which:
- automatically determine the need for software updates;
- install applications with required updates;
- set up email and instant messenger.
There is an improved version of this scenario, it uses the technology of Azure AD Join, which appeared in the Windows 10 operating system. The technology uses the active directory Azure AD and allows you to apply a verified identity, signed by the user. After verifying the identity, Azure AD Join "vouches" for this user in front of all cloud applications from its catalog — these are Microsoft Office 365 applications, as well as Salesforce, Concur, Workday, and thousands of other popular cloud services. For the user, it looks like all the applications he needs are already installed on any Windows 10 system on which he is authenticated.
Scenario number 2: you need to provide secure access to Microsoft 365 services from any device to mixed groups of users that include not only company employees. Depending on whether the user belongs to the organization or not, at the entrance he will receive one or another set of rights. Thanks to multi-factor authentication that is configured through the Administration Center, working together on Microsoft 365 services with non-members of your organization is completely secure.
Scenario number 3: Some of your users have no computer at all. Totally. Only a smartphone, tablet, and possibly access to public computers. Catastrophe? Not! Mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams are available for most mobile devices, and using a web browser, employees can open Office documents on the company's portals, SharePoint Online or SharePoint Server sites, automatically uploading Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote online components. - all you need to do is assign the appropriate licenses to them in Microsoft Administration Center 365.
With the means of managing mobile devices (including personal ones) and controlling the distribution of corporate data, you give users the ability to securely share files, control and monitor their actions, including Block sharing of files with unauthorized users - up to remote removal of corporate data from the device or complete cleaning in case of loss or dismissal of an employee.
Scenario number 4: you need to protect your business from any cyber threats - i.e. on the one hand, to ensure the integrity of operating systems and application software and their regular testing, and on the other hand, to protect all systems from external threats, including any types of attacks and exploits that have been, is and will be. The task seems intractable, but in reality it has already been solved - the ATP agent in Windows Defender not only knows how to quickly adapt to changing threats and deploy new defenses, but also helps to eliminate the consequences in order to reduce the damage from the attack and prevent re-infection.
Server Administration as a source of problems
What to do when tired of administering servers? The first and obvious solution is to quit and go where there is no electricity. But all is not so bad. Maybe try a less radical and more modern way - to transfer your business to the cloud? Are you still alive in your memories of why you became a systems engineer and connected your life with IT?
What is your headache and how to cure it
Suppose you already use some hosting cloud server - for example, a mail server. In this case, congratulations - you have already moved to the cloud, but not completely. Probably, you just did not get around to implementing all the other benefits of cloud technologies - collaboration tools, mobile email, audio and video conferencing. But you have already seen that the mail server practically does not require your attention? Now it will be logical to fully switch to cloud solutions, save the IT budget to support strategic business projects and provide employees with the latest work tools.
If we are talking about the implementation of the mail service, then the necessary solution is Microsoft Exchange Online - part of Microsoft 365, a cloud messaging service based on Microsoft Exchange Server. This is a full-featured solution for managing email, calendars, contacts and tasks for workstations, the web and mobile devices. Exchange Online provides organizations with a full range of messaging capabilities without the need for local server support.
Now let's take a sharper situation — your company uses deeply outdated servers, such as Exchange Server 2007 mail server, Windows Small Business Server 2008, or, GroupWise or Lotus Notes. Of course, e-mail is functioning — at least most of the time. Yet, quite often stops occur at work. But this, of course, is your headache, not your leadership, because serious expenses are needed for updating or replacing the server, while the IT service in emergency mode periodically stops up this “hole”, “effective” boss and grief.
It is clear that with such a large tactical load, you are not in the mood for accomplishing strategic tasks - not for planning the implementation of a modern ERP system, for example. Well, this initiative will be taken over by the financial service and an external partner, and you will still hear complaints from disgruntled users and repair the old mail server. And all because, as Boromir said, you cannot just take and implement a new system. To install a new mail server, you will have to purchase a new hardware.
And why, exactly? After all, the "cloud" server Exchange Online does not require hardware updates. You will be able to use the latest enterprise-level solutions, including e-mail with a bottomless volume of 50 GB mailboxes, and you will not have to update your servers for this. You will receive all the programs you need at a known amount of monthly payment. Moreover, getting rid of servers, you get rid of the cost of their maintenance. Microsoft 365, like all Microsoft products, is a custom out-of-the-box solution that is ready to go.
These examples are relevant not only for e-mail. If your main problem was storing files, the cure for it is to switch to OneDrive for Business, which will not only allow you to get rid of support for excess hardware, but will automatically synchronize all the necessary files between folders on users' workstations with their replicas on the cloud server. . A new tool Microsoft Teams will give your teams the opportunity to work effectively with access to private, group or general discussions directly from the Office 365 applications.
If you need not just decompose files into folders, but keep their history and administer the contents of public folders, which project teams should comfortably use, your solution is SharePoint Online. Of course, you are familiar with SharePoint Server, but in order to provide your employees with an enterprise-wide solution that allows you to create websites for publishing documents and collaborate, you do not need to install, implement, and then periodically update the local server - just subscribe to SharePoint Online.
This service provides the ability to share documents of the working group and information on the status of implementation of project milestones, and ensures the continued relevance of documents and easy online access to information, as well as reliable data protection. It works with Microsoft Office applications and allows you to save Office documents directly on SharePoint Online sites and edit them together with other users.
What you need to know about the clouds to believe in them?
That they have (almost) nothing new. Models of ASP-rent and hosting of software services appeared a long time ago, their advantages and disadvantages are well known. The SaaS business application sales model (Software as a service, “Software as a Service”), according to which access to the software is provided via the web, and the maintenance and upgrade cost of the use of the software is also not new. Its obvious limitation is the need for a permanent connection to the Internet. But the world does not stand still, and we have been using cloud technologies for more than 10 years, which combine the concept of SaaS, technologies of remote data warehouses and the principles of leasing software.
It is important that you no longer need to worry about the smooth operation of the systems - it is guaranteed by the cloud service provider itself. For example, in the case of Microsoft, 99.9% of working time without downtime is a condition that appears in the SLA, the provider of the cloud service is also responsible for the relevance of protection against viruses and spam, and reliable data security is a constant data backup, failure protection, geographically redundant data centers, tight data privacy policies are also the responsibility of the provider.
Well, if you yourself are an IT company and are developing applications, then using a cloud-based development platform is the only available way to manage all application life cycles, projects and development teams today. Only cloud-based development platforms make it possible not to buy software for a new project, not to hire administrators to manage projects and teams (and those administrators who are already working, not to compete with each other for resources), and not to integrate with development environments. Migrating to the cloud, you get a complete set of infrastructure tools, similar to the one that you have to build yourself on your own servers, only with significantly more substantial material and time costs.
Growing business - the pain and joy of an IT person
Your company is growing very fast. You would like to rejoice, but instead you experience a constant headache. You have too much trouble because of all these users, devices, servers and communications.
Whether it's a cloud solution! You do not need to implement local servers for communications, you do not need to manage them - you need to subscribe to the necessary Microsoft 365 communication services, add as many users as you need, and manage services and users from a single Central Administration Center. From the first hour of their work, all employees have single access to corporate e-mail systems, shared calendars and shared documents, instant messaging and web conferencing — and the latest version of Office, which allows editing work documents simultaneously with other users.
And, of course, your employees can work anywhere, using any device. To use e-mail and newsgroup system, they don’t even need a working laptop - any computer with a web browser or smartphone is enough.
Microsoft 365 and scaling
Microsoft 365 includes productivity tools, unified communications and collaboration, familiar to users and easily integrated with popular applications. Deploy Microsoft 365 with a single Administration Center, and you will receive an IT system that is always updated, because all updates and patches are installed automatically. Anti-spam and anti-spam tools are also updated themselves, for the security system, recovery tools in case of failures and data inviolability by Microsoft are responsible.
But how quickly and easily can you go to the "cloud"? How much is it? Will employees be able to work where they are comfortable and when they are comfortable? What are the security and data privacy guarantees? Can you control and manage your IT cloud infrastructure?
For the convenience of scaling the solution, a number of service plans are provided for various types of business. With them, you get flexible pricing based on the number of users per month and taking into account only those services that you need. All service plans guarantee 99.9% uptime, security and Microsoft support. Microsoft 365 includes the Windows 10 operating system, classic Microsoft Office tools, collaboration site development tools, instant messaging and web conferencing, as well as the most powerful Exchange mail system and built-in protection against computer viruses and spam.
You do not have to try to make the entire IT landscape of your enterprise completely homogeneous - local and online IT infrastructures can work as a single organization. Presence indication, email prompts, email search capabilities, message tracking and archiving work the same in local applications and in the cloud, as in a single integrated architecture. If necessary, you can move employees' local mailboxes to the cloud and vice versa.
Fast scaling also contributes to the fact that working with Microsoft 365 does not require additional user training. Well-known software tools provide a new quality of collaboration with colleagues, customers and partners. To you, as a system engineer, Microsoft 365 Administration Center gives you full control over the components, settings, and deployment procedures across the organization. You give users rights to use certain functions and services according to their roles in the organization and delegate authority to perform certain administrative tasks.
Microsoft 365 and “I don’t know what”
However, scaling is not the worst thing in the life of a CIO. It’s much worse when different business executives suddenly demand that you implement tools that nobody has ever used before. At one fine moment, which may occur right now, the manager will require you to implement, for example:
- universal tool for organizing the work of the modern team;
- a virtual kanban board for practicing goals, tasks, stages of work on tasks, urgent tasks, etc .;
- a tool that allows you to combine various services and databases into a single workflow;
- an individual planner who will decide for the user which of his tasks are more important and more urgent;
- etc.
The bad news is just the beginning of the list of things that an advanced manager might think of. The good news is that someone has already implemented all of these Wishlist.
A corporate instant messenger that allows you to exchange messages, share documents and immediately, on the spot, work together with them in teams - not only under Windows 10, but also on iOS and Android - already exists, called Microsoft Teams and available to Microsoft users 365.
A board with cards for developing plans, managing tasks, exchanging documents, discussing current affairs and controlling the implementation of tasks is already a reality. Microsoft provides this space for individual and collaboration to all Microsoft 365 users, and this is a Microsoft Planner product. Like Teams, Planner is deeply integrated with other Office programs and allows you to place Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, OneNote notes on a blackboard and synchronize them.
A service that automates the routine processes for transferring jobs from one application to another - Microsoft Flow. For example, it allows you to collect Facebook messages, tweets and emails, and create from them cards of potential customers and tasks for account managers in Dynamics 365.
An intelligent to-do manager also exists, and is called, imagine, Microsoft To-Do. To-Do is universal and suitable for both business and personal business. Of course, it is integrated with Microsoft 365.
Any more ideas? Just tell us about them - and we will answer you the name of the corresponding Microsoft application.
What else are good clouds?
As we already know, they are distinguished by high scalability - and for you, as a customer, this allows you to pay only for the necessary computing power as they are developed. Now this is a trend in dozens of areas of the economy, not only in IT - pay while you use. AirBnB rents unwanted rooms to the envy of booking.com. Almost all the dresses at the inauguration ceremony of the President of the United States were from Rent The Runway, a service for the rental of designer dresses. Uber and car sharing compete for the market with large auto companies.
In addition, cloud services are profitable to provide due to economies of scale, and since the demand for them grows, so does the benefit of cloud providers - and this reduces your costs as a customer.
Finally, they are safe because they are supported by a geographically redundant structure of data processing centers (data centers), which allows cloud service providers to store and reserve information in a distributed manner. Microsoft data centers are the largest in the world, they are equipped with the latest equipment, provided with uninterrupted power supply and are protected from unauthorized access, you cannot keep up with them, even if you are a bank from the Top-50 list.
Summarize
Microsoft 365 provides organizations with not only the flexibility and predictability of the costs of unified communications, collaboration, and means of increasing business productivity, but it also significantly reduces the cost of implementing local servers. In addition, Microsoft 365 can work together with local servers already deployed, allowing you to choose the best hybrid configuration of local software and online services for the needs of your organization and users.
You, as an IT expert who has long outgrown the administration routine, will be able to leave everyday operations to automated management tools and start introducing new technologies - and maybe offer your business new ideas related to high technologies. Remember - Brian Cesky and Joe Gobbia would not have established Airbnb if Nathan Blecharzik, an IT specialist, was not with them.
What to do?
If all of the above you are interested, then you will certainly be interested in the “ Meet Microsoft 365: Configure and Administration of Cloud Services Administration ” webinar, which will be held on June 6, 2018 at 11:00 Moscow time. The seminar will end with Microsoft 365 Contest, and the winner will receive a free voucher for the Office 365 certification exam.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/359362/
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