The things that are better left unspoken : Dave and Sander's excellent TechEd Adventure

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 6 Recap

Sander Berkouwer — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:44:15 GMT

Dave and I are your DirTeam bloggers on Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals in Barcelona (Spain) from November 3rd, 2008 to November 7th, 2008.

Tech∙Ed has ended, so we’re heading home. I’m writing this blogpost while heading towards Schiphol at an altitude of roughly 30000 feet.

Dave and I are looking forward to meeting our wives again and go on with our ‘normal’ lives. While Tech∙Ed is a great event, getting the most out of the experience isn’t easy. Luckily it’s very rewarding and with the right support from our wives we get through to the other end.

And here it is: the other end of our Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) adventure, that for Dave and I started seven days ago on that early Sunday morning and will end on this Saturday night.

I hoped you liked it, already picked up on some of the information spread out over Dave and me. If you haven’t attended a Tech∙Ed event yet, I hope this series has inspired you to ask your boss to attend one.

Now if you’d excuse me I’m going to finish my tomato juice

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 5 Recap

Sander Berkouwer — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:41:25 GMT

Dave and I are your DirTeam bloggers on Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals in Barcelona (Spain) from November 3rd, 2008 to November 7th, 2008.

Welcome to the last day of the conference. The last chance to get ahead with sessions, hands on labs, instructor led labs, and networking.

Let’s talk about the information handed out in the sessions, saying goodbye to old and new friends and a thing called sleep deprivation…

Sessions

There were loads of interesting sessions today, but unfortunately you can only attend one at a time…

The first session I attended was Ilse van Criekinge’s session on Certificates in combination with Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and ISA Server 2006 SP1. Ilse gave a good rundown on how to install them, how to use them and the caveats to avoid when working with certificates.

After this session I attended an interactive session led by Chris Jackson and Aaron Margosis on fixing application compatibility. This was a fun session, where Aaron Parker and I sat on the first rows.

During lunch I sat in at Tony Krijnen’s session on Windows Home Server. Tony explained what the current incarnation of Windows Home Server looks like, what you can do with it and why it’s such a fun product. The backup functionality already proved its worth: The hard disk in Tony’s Apple MacBook had died a couple of days earlier and he was able to continue working after purchasing a new hard disk and restoring the box in as little as 45 minutes.

Another interesting session I saw was Jason Langridge’s session on Windows Mobile devices connecting to Exchange servers, debunking the myth on Blackberry security and scalability, and a nice inside story on how Microsoft’s Exchange admins handled the load on their servers during the snow storm late 2006 when most of Microsoft’s Redmond campus connected from home!

The last session Dave and I attended was Mark Russinovich’s session on Windows Security Boundaries. Just like Mark Russinovich’s session yesterday this session provided excellent information on the internals of Windows and why some problems justify ‘important’ and ‘critical’ security updates, while other identified problems remain unsolved, unknown or get dismissed.

Saying goodbye

Mark Russinovich made a sharp remark at the beginning of the session. He said it was the last session of this Tech∙Ed event and the only thing that stood between us and drinks. The first part of his remark is undeniably true. Everyone left the conference center like the plague had just resurfaced. (unlike a VHD file I might add)

With a little hesitation we also left the conference center. Just outside of the center we luckily ran into a couple of people we know. This extended our event a little further and for our colleagues over at OGD comes with a pretty sight:

Ladies and gentlemen: Meet Koen Wijnstok
(Former OGD colleague, now a MCT)

Sleep deprivation

The latter part of Mark Russinovich’s remark is something I didn’t take at heart. Since his session marked the end of this Tech∙Ed event, I decided it would also mark the end of my binge-drinking and late night clubbin’ days in Barcelona.

No more sleep deprivation for this guy. Time to sleep regularly and often again to recharge the battery again. After all: I’m no 20-year old guy anymore and in 6 months time I’ll need all the reserves possible to get through a similar event, which is not limited to a week abroad. (More on that another time though)

Concluding

Suffice to say Dave and I ransacked the local Subway to get some food and drinks on our way to our beds. I guess I set a new world record felling asleep.

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 4 Recap

Sander Berkouwer — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:15:15 GMT

Dave and I are your DirTeam bloggers on Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals in Barcelona (Spain) from November 3rd, 2008 to November 7th, 2008.

So you’re still with us? Let’s take a look at Thursday, day 4 of the conference. Highlights: Speaker Idol, Mark Russinovich, great cigars and some great Dutch community ideas.

Sessions

Today's sessions were Anatomy of a Hack (by Jesper Johansen) and Inside Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtualization Improvements and Native VHD Support (by Mark Russinovich). Both sessions were delivered in the Auditorium.

Jesper Johansson showed an deep look into Antivirus XP 2008. You might already be familiar with this specific piece of malware when you’re subscribed to Donna's SecurityFlash. It’s a nasty piece of software, that does a really good job at tricking users into installing it, running it and paying for it. I’ll never look the same at the (Windows) Security Center again.

I attended the session by Mark Russinovich together with Marc van Orsouw. This was a level 400 session on Hyper-V improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2, including live VM migration, hypervisor power management support and new hardware-assisted guest memory management. Windows 7 booting from VHD was a nice feature that was shown, by looking at the way Mark’s currently booted Operating system was actually started from a VHD.

Speaker Idol

Today also featured the finale of Tech∙Ed Speaker Idol. The finale featured four contestants, who all provided an entertaining and compelling five-minute presentation: Rhonda Layfield, Maral Topolian, Alex de Jong and Dimitri Sotnikov.

I found the four sessions were all exceptionally good quality. In the end Alex placed fourth, because of the presence of profanity in his presentation (sh*t happens when you present on something you’re passionate about), Maral and Dimitri placed second (which is the second time Maral ended in second place on Speaker Idol) and Rhonda went home to the USA with the first prize and a ticket to next year’s TechEd EMEA IT Pro. I guess we’ll see Rhonda on stage and between the Speaker Idol judges next year!

International Community Party

Dave and I both attended the International Community Party at the Elephant Club, located on the other side of Barcelona. We used public transportation to reach the location and ended up travelling for a long period of time… again. (Some might think we learned our lesson on Day 0)

The party itself was good fun while it lasted. The organization behind the Springboard Series was busy giving away SWAG (Stuff We All Get), handing out (Cuban) cigars, walking around with plates full of tapas. The place was filled with MCTs, MVPs, Microsoft employees, TechNet Plus subscribers and Springboard Invitees. Dave and I sat with Gerard Verbrugge for a while while we both smoked away a nice Cohiba cigar. We also spoke to some other Dutch people there, like Martijn Bellaard, who has some great ideas on sharing information with the Dutch IT Pro Community. Marco Timmermans is also walking around with some great ideas, so I guess I need to give him a call as well!

Dave left to take the metro back to the hotel, but I decided to stay around and see what’d happen. I couldn’t have imagined what actually happened. At midnight the location invited in it’s normal guests. The locals getting in were actually dressed in tuxedos and fancy dresses. It was a big difference with the party invitees. We were dressed in T-shirts, jeans and clothes like that and we could actually dance. (Well, some of us can) The result was most of the party invitees left the club. I ran into Daniel and Tony again and we decided to go to Shôko again. We were joined by Karen Young and two other MVPs and had good fun. Daniel even participated in a dance-off with some professional break dancers!

Concluding

At 3:00 am I left the club to take a cab to the hotel, where I crashed into the hotel bed.
Five days of conference and every night in between I went clubbin’

Tip!
If you’re planning on attending Tech∙Ed next year: 12 hours of sleep should be enough to keep on going.

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 3 Recap

Sander Berkouwer — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:17:42 GMT

Dave and I are your DirTeam bloggers on Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals in Barcelona (Spain) from November 3rd, 2008 to November 7th, 2008.

Welcome to day 3 of this great event! A special day because tonight features the Country Drinks. But first, let’s start by having a look at the information from within the sessions, some star wars humor and devil sticks!

Sessions

Today started with a session in the Auditorium by Iain McDonald. If you don’t know the guy, I guess describing him as an Australian rock star does most justice. He’s also the guy to go to when you have questions on Microsofts strategy with Windows Server.

I asked Iain one question: Do you have plans to make it possible to inplace upgrade a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 to a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 R2? His answer was a short and positive one: Yes.

After the session I walked on over and chatted a little bit with him. I expressed my disappointment on the naming convention for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows 7. Of course these names are great, but I still feel they missed out on a great possibility: They could’ve named these products Windows XP D2 and Windows Vista D2 respectively. That way you can actually have R2D2 on your networks in combination with Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Alas.

Another session I attended was Joachim Nässlanders lunch session on building a failover cluster with Windows Server 2008 Core. This session started out with a clear message on using Server Core, delivered through devil sticks. I remember it as:

It looks hard, but after practicing a month you’ll be doing it without thinking.

Joachim had fully automated scripts that configured two Server Core installations of Windows Server 2008 into a file server failover cluster. A couple of graphical tools were shown, but not used: Joachim did everything on the command line, including the “presentation”. Good fun! After the session Joachim and I chatted for a while. It’s good to meet someone who’s into Server Core and passionate about it. If you haven’t done so already go check out his tool Core Configuration Console.

After Joachims session I attended a session by Edwin Yuen on System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM 2008). Edwin is a good presenter and the information on managing VMWare ESX through Virtual Center is really useful.

The last session was on the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE), the database behind a lot of Microsoft products and technologies. It’s used in Exchange Server, Active Directory, DHCP, WINS and Windows Mail. The session was a very technical deepdive into B+ trees and the way changes to the ESE database are made in Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack 1.

Country drinks

Wednesday evening also featured the Country Drinks. This event provides the ability to network with your fellow attendees from your country and order drinks without having to pay for them (at least till midnight) The Dutch Country Drinks event was located in the Lotus Theater and started at 9pm.

Tony Krijnen and Daniel van Soest had a small little intro and the place was packed with Dutch Tech∙Ed attendees. All the usual suspects were there. I had nice chats with Marc van Orsouw and Helmer Zandbergen. I hugged Koen Wijnstok, who I hadn’t seen for what feels like ages and also had a chat with Robert Bakker and Bas Agbeko, both Microsoft Netherlands guys.

After midnight all drinks had to be paid for, so a lot of my fellow countrymen left the scene. A couple of die hard clubbers remained and we had some good fun on the dance floor.

Concluding

Eventually we took a cab ride to the hotel at 4am. A trend starts to emerge…

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 2 Recap

Sander Berkouwer — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:14:17 GMT

Dave and I are your DirTeam bloggers on Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals in Barcelona (Spain) from November 3rd, 2008 to November 7th, 2008.

Tuesday was the first ‘normal’ Conference day. Highlights include keeping an eye on my credit card, asking questions to the Active Directory team and enjoying a night at the Hilton next to Steve Riley, Jesper Johansen, Aaron Margosis and Chris Jackson.

Sessions

On Tuesday we had to get up early. I made a promise to Andy Malone to attend his session on identity theft and it started at 9:00 am. Andy was having good fun with credit cards from the audience (including mine), but he didn’t charge anything on it. (at least, my balance is not showing any weird things …yet)

I decided to attend some sessions, so I listened to John Goodman on advanced troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, watched Gershon Levitz take the wraps of Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG), the successor to ISA Server 2006.

After lunch I went to a whiteboard session by Robert deLuca and Alain Lissoir on Active Directory advancements in Windows Server 2008 R2:

Offline Domain Join
Active Directory Administrative Center
Active Directory Powershell cmdlets
Active Directory Best Practices Analyzer
Recycle Bin for Active Directory
Authentication Assurance
Managed Service Accounts

A night at the Hilton

After these sessions Dave and I met up with Sietse Daudey, who is the owner of Let Me Do IT and a former colleague of ours. We had a nice drink in the lobby of the Barcelona Hilton with Zane Adams, senior director of virtualization at Microsoft, who I accidentally ran into again.

Afterwards we enjoyed a dinner at the first floor and talked about various topics. We basically came to the conclusion events like Tech∙Ed are useful for gaining a better understanding of Microsoft products, plotting long term strategies for customers and social networking.

After dinner we went back to the lobby of the Hilton and joined Steve Riley, Aaron Margosis, Jesper Johanssen, Zane Adams, Gerard Verbrugge, Karen Young and a whole bunch of other Microsoft guys and girls. We were watching CNN on a big screen, following the US election, while slamming down Sambucos and Heinekens.

The guys were really nice, explaining to me what the numbers meant, why the numbers are (not) important and how certain states are more interesting to watch than others. When it became clear Obama would be elected as the president of the USA, I decided to bid farewell and hit my bed at the AC hotel, which luckily is only a two minute walk. (if you’re able to walk a straight line)

Concluding

At 4 am I hit the sack. A trend is emerging?

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 1 Recap

Sander Berkouwer — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:55:19 GMT

Dave and I are your DirTeam bloggers on Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals in Barcelona (Spain) from November 3rd, 2008 to November 7th, 2008.

Yesterday marked the start of the IT Pro Conference and from my perspective was pretty remarkable. Highlights: Brad Anderson’s keynote ‘announcements’, Steve Riley’s advice on raising children, a track owner getting stood up, getting beaten by a girl and clubbing in downtown Barcelona.

Sessions

Today started late with Brad Anderson’s keynote.

Brad talked about:

System Center Operations Manager 2007, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Performance Resource Optimization (PRO) enabling management through a ‘single pane of glass’.
System Center Operations Manager 2007 interoperability with SUSE Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Red Hat & Solaris through OpenPegasus, OpenWSMan and Windows Remote Management. The demo also featured monitoring of MySQL and Oracle databases.
Virtualization of servers (Hyper-V), desktops (Vista Centralized Enterprise Desktop), applications (App-V) and Terminal Services (to be renamed to Remote Desktop Services)
Mention of Med-V technologies (acquired through Kidaro) , being made available through the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP)
Extensive deep dive into the Infrastructure Optimization model to:
- Do More with Less
- Get from basic / standardized to rationalized / dynamic
- Gain agility
Quick look at SQL Server “Kilimanjaro” and the new Reporting Services, codenamed “Gemini”. Demo featuring an interface for IT Professionals, that should address the needs of those addicted to mushrooms. Quick mention of PerformancePoint Server.
New stuff in Windows Server 2008 R2
Demo on BrachCache, where a video is played and then cached. Note BranchCache is not a proxy. (authentication traffic is still flowing)
Exchange Online Services and the power of choice. Demo featuring the Exchange Online Migration Wizard.

After Brad’s session I went to see a session, presented by Steve Riley. He had a presentation on ten things to do or else get 0wn3d. A good presentation, a good message, and as is usually the case when Steve presents: a nice piece of entertainment!

The story that’ll stick with me was how he explained to Dylan, his son, the importance of protecting your gear. For his sons HP laptop they both installed the box from scratch with Windows Vista and installed all the other useful programs that allow one to surf the Internet (Adobe stuff). After the box was the way his son liked it, Steve said to him:

We have now spent four hours on installing your laptop. If you do anything that might corrupt your laptop you will be spending the same four hours installing it and I won’t be there to help you.

Now that’s what I call a sound way to raise a child. Way better compared to handing over a laptop that’s completely locked down. Layer 8 security!

After this session I intended to attend a session on Hyper-V Security and Best Practices, but unfortunately the speaker was untraceable at the moment the session needed to start. Arlindo Alves (the track owner for the track the session belongs to) instead improvised the session showing the original slides. Respect!

Speaker Idol

After this session I was called by Neil Palmer and asked whether I’d be able to present at the Speaker Idol 7:00 pm heat. Of course it wasn’t a problem! Actually… nothing’s a problem for me. It’s why I wear my Jamaica sweater.

So I found myself being the third presenter at the Speaker Idol heat after Geert Baeke and Alex de Jong. We all had solid presentations, but the fourth speaker actually won the heat: Maral Topalian. Yes, that’s right! We were beaten by a girl!

It was good fun though and that’s what the community area is all about!

Clubbin’

Around 9:30 pm, when Dave and I were at the hotel room Daniel van Soest called. He was meeting up with a couple of guys from the Netherlands and he wondered whether we fancied joining him. No problem!

After doing a tour with Daniel through the old parts of downtown Barcelona we went to drink some cocktails with the guys in a cocktail bar and had some fun conversations. After what felt like an hour we went on to a club. The first club we visited wasn’t a success. It was totally empty. We took a cab to Vila Olympic and ended up in a club called Shôko.

This club is good fun, even on a Monday night. Loads of people and good music! Daniel was showing some off his moves to try and get other guys engaged in a dance off, but it didn’t work. Daniel attracted a guy with a bottle of red label, though, which led to a little situation, that Daniel easily rectified.

Sleeping?

We went back to the hotel and went to bed at around 4 am. Dave snores, but fortunately I’m a sound sleeper. I didn’t have any trouble falling and staying asleep: My intoxicated head touched the pillow and I was out.

Concluding

Join us again tomorrow!

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 0 Recap

Sander Berkouwer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:54:49 GMT

Dave and I are your DirTeam bloggers on Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals in Barcelona (Spain) from November 3rd, 2008 to November 7th, 2008.

Yesterday was the first day of our trip and I would like to take this opportunity to share a couple of things.

Early

Yesterday started early, since we met up at Schiphol airport at 10:00 am. An unchristian time, I agree, on a Sunday morning to make arrangements to take a plane to a foreign place. Taking an early flight however would mean we’d be able to check into our hotel without problems or hassle.

Traveling

Far worse airlines exist, compared to Air France – KLM and the rest of the Skyteam, so our flight was uneventful. We encountered some turbulence though. Not the kind where passengers continue an argument with their fists, but rather the plane shaking, trembling and losing altitude regularly. Some people get travel sickness from these kinds of events, (more on them shortly) but fortunately Dave and I are not that kind of people.

I saw some familiar faces on the plane already!

I received a couple of tips before we went to Barcelona, so I tried to follow these guidelines. Whoever tells you it’s economically sound to use public transportation to get to your hotel, should really take your hourly rate into consideration. After landing at Barcelona Airport, collecting your bags and heading for the exit leading to the trains, you’ll find ourselves in a train station, made up entirely of plastic and steel beams. Not a pretty sight. Trading in a train for a metro, provides an extra surprise: Long damp underground corridors and badly indicated directions.

A cab ride only costs € 24 and will take you to the other side of town in a matter of minutes, where public transportation takes up hours of your time…

AC Hotel Barcelona

After an adventure that lasted 2 hours we arrived at our hotel on the other side of Barcelona: the AC Hotel Barcelona. The tip to book this hotel was way more useful. The hotel is situated next to the location where TechEd EMEA is held and the hotel is of premium quality.

I booked a twin bed room months ago with Grupo Pacifico. Kudos to those guys and girls, because they actually put us up in one of the suites of the hotel. Room to spare!

Live at Tech∙Ed!

After settling in our room we went to register for TechEd, which is a pleasant walk. Dave and I met some MVPs (Marc van Orsouw, Maarten Goet), our Dutch IT Pro Evangelists, Tech∙Ed EMEA TV team and Tech∙Ed Virtual Hosts (Daniel van Soest en Tony Krijnen), a couple of folks from the Tech∙Ed organization (notably Neil Palmer), the Keynote speaker (Brad Anderson), Gerard Verbrugge, (bummed out and still shaking on his feet since he’s the kind of guy that gets travel sickness and he was on the same flight as us) Martijn Bellaard and Arlindo Alves. (Tech∙Ed track owner)

Speaker Idol

Daniel phoned my when Dave and I were in the train. Daniel basically registered me for Tech∙Ed Speaker Idol. Declining wasn’t an option. I told him I didn’t have time to plough through my first meter of books and my boss would gladly pay for a ticket to Tech∙Ed EMEA 2009. So now I find myself registered for Tech∙Ed Speaker Idol…

Concluding

Time for me to prepare my Speaker Idol presentation, look into the last minute changes in the Tech∙Ed timetable and get some sleep. I really need to get some early sleep, because my roommate apparently is an enormous snorer. His wife provided earplugs as a precaution…

Going, going, going … gone!

Sander Berkouwer — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:32:45 GMT

Schiphol airport, Sunday morning. What am I doing here…

Starbucks, Double espresso. Things starting to appear normal.

Dave, my travelling buddy, making a photo of me in the waiting lounge, waiting for our KLM flight to Barcelona for Microsoft’s Tech∙Ed Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) conference for IT Professionals.

Blogging till the last minute.

The things that are better left unspoken : Dave and Sander's excellent TechEd Adventure

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 6 Recap

Further reading

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 5 Recap

Sessions

Saying goodbye

Sleep deprivation

Concluding

Further reading

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 4 Recap

Sessions

Speaker Idol

International Community Party

Concluding

Further reading

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 3 Recap

Sessions

Country drinks

Concluding

Further reading

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 2 Recap

Sessions

A night at the Hilton

Concluding

Further reading

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 1 Recap

Sessions

Speaker Idol

Clubbin’

Sleeping?

Concluding

Further reading

Tech∙Ed EMEA 2008 IT Pro Day 0 Recap

Early

Traveling

AC Hotel Barcelona

Live at Tech∙Ed!

Speaker Idol

Concluding

Further reading

Going, going, going … gone!

Further reading