Category Archives: Conferences & Events

Heading Home after Ignite 2016

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While traveling back home here are some musings on Microsoft Ignite 2016. I’m not going to regurgitate all the news and announcements here.

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There were many and they were divers. Azure Identity, Security, storage, management, Windows Server 2016, Hyper-V, Storage Spaces, Storage Replica … are all offering a wide variety of new capabilities and options. It’s impressive now and it will be even more impressive in the future. When I connect the dots and look at the opportunities my take on what the future roadmap can and might be visualizes in front of my eyes. That’s the value I can add to an organization that’s committed to its future and realizes it needs to leverage IT to it’s fullest potential. That means you cannot treat IT as a facility because we build it on commodity products. Every success is build on creative and well directed use of the components and the capabilities. This requires a lot more than lip service or merely covering up bad choices and political ambitions with a thin layer of “big principles”. The key to success is speed, agility, insight in a world where mobile and cloud offer tremendous new opportunities. Large, long term, centralized projects have their place but sticking to them by default in the wrong place, the wrong way and manner will lead to failure in a 24/7/365 mobile world where federation, collaboration across boundaries are paramount. The small, cost effective and efficient projects delivering real value with a purpose will make giants, bot in government and the private sectors stumble and even fall.

We have so much opportunity here that many cannot see the trees through the forest anymore. This will lead to many failed projects, ambitions and organizations in combination with a waste of time and money. That’s were we can make the difference.

As an attendee and MVP I was very happy to be able to attend in order to calibrate my compass and correct course. In good tradition I signed the billboard for attending MVPs at Ignite 2016  I’m already looking forward to heading back to Redmond for the MVP Global Summit and continue the discussion at the Microsoft Head Quarters.

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To me, the Ignite 2016 edition was one of intensive networking with Microsoft experts and management. This extended to 3rd party vendors and partners of Microsoft. This, in combination with the discussions with my peers  to discover their views and insights have given me a very up to date view on where we are at and where things are going. That’s the value I’m taking back home to work with and help people reach their full potential. That’s not an easy task as many today are or feel at least a bit out of balance to completely lost. Technologists are the one to step up all the way to the board level and steer their organizations towards a successful future.  Many companies are not ready for this and some management feels threatened by this. There’s basically no need for that fear as we are technologists, not politicians. We solve problems, we don’t create them. We drive companies towards success, if you let us.

E2EVC 2016 Dublin

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So after 4 days in London with the Veeam Vanguards I’m hopping over the Irish sea tonight towards Dublin to attend and present at the Experts 2 Experts Virtualization Conference (E2EVC) 2016  Dublin.

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I’ll be presenting on High Availability with Windows Server 2016 Failover Clustering and Hyper-V. These are supported and enhanced by other new or improved capabilities in Windows Server 2016. So there will be a lot to take in. I’ll be around to talk shop before and after the session so if you want to chat, find me around the conference.

E2EVC a boutique community driven conference. It’s small scale and independence makes it a very direct experience in both realism and hard core real world experience in the virtualization ecosystem and related technologies. We encourage anyone to attend and present. No “prima donnas”  – you can speak when you want to as long as you’re willing to do so and share knowledge and insights.  Give it a shot!  I hope to see you there

Attending the MVP Global Summit 2016

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The Microsoft MVP Global Summit 2016 has been announced last week. For any MVP this is a  happy communication to get and we start planning time away from work and look into flights.

The MVP Global Summit 2016 happens in Bellevue (offices, hotels) and Redmond (campus), the two locations where Microsoft has it’s main presence in the Puget sound area.

It at least 4 –5 days of intensive feedback sessions, brainstorming, education along with a non stop exchange of knowledge and experiences. But even on the weekend before and after the meet ups and discussion start or close the MVP summit. Those are the days you can get together and talk shop with your fellow MVPs and experts from all around the world. How often can you get such people to converge in such numbers in the same location?

There’s always extra opportunities to organize meetings and discuss technology with the people in the know. Both at Microsoft and with Microsoft business partners in and around the greater Seattle area, or the ones that fly in to be able to talk to us. That’s what many of us do while we’re there, stay the entire week and weekend. Many of us take some vacation days to make that happen.

It’s an intense period of long days and lots of activity. You’ll be tired that’s for sure. But that’s not even a thought that enters your mind. For passionate IT people this part of work is so interesting and stimulating you float through it as if you’re walking on air. It’s over before you know it.

My advice is to stay at least an entire week and make sure you get to talk to the people you want to have a chat with. If you’re not from the US you’ve flown long haul just to get here, make the most of it. Start your list of topics you’d like to discuss. Then prepare to find and contact the people you need to talk to about these. Don’t shy away from doing so on weekends. Many are willing to meet up with you in the evening or spend a few hours in the weekends over breakfast, lunch or dinner. In that regards, the MVP Summit is really an investment for all involved, we get our return on investment based on the time and the effort we put in. So yes it’s work, but as passionate IT people this is the kind of thing we love. People are more than willing to talk to you. Bring feed back, experiences, ideas, insights. Invest a bit in this al year round. The PMs at Microsoft really want to reach out and help make their products better and do well in real life.

Read more about the MVP Global Summit 2016 at T-Minus 182 Days to the MVP Global Summit!

Cloud and Datacenter Conference Germany

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On Thursday May 12th 2016 the inaugural edition of the Cloud and Datacenter Conference Germany was held in Dusseldorf. The new conference is the result of a long time wish and dream of the driving force behind the organization of it, Carsten Rachfahl from Rachfahl IT Solutions. When Carsten asked me to come over to speak and attend I was on board and I got the honor of presenting on what’s new and enhanced in Failover Clustering In Windows Server 2016.

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The conference surpassed all expectations. The organization was impeccable. Just like the supporting infrastructure for speakers and sponsors, which was top notch. Catering was probably one of the best I’ve ever seen at a conference. All of this helped make the goal of the conference, presenting valuable information to the attendees and provide for networking opportunities, a success.

The quality of the speakers and the content of the sessions was matched by the interest and enthusiasm of the attendees for the technologies presented. It was a perfect fit. This was made possible by Carsten his vision on what he considers to be a great conference. This vision was brought to live by the hard work of his company co-workers, with the aid of the sponsors, the speakers and the trust of the attendees had in this conference for them to spend their time and money to attend.

As a speaker and attendee it was a great experience. The support was excellent and even the PowerPoint template was easy to use and clear of superfluous clutter. We got everything we needed to present in perfect conditions to a receptive audience. The mood was a happy one. People were having a good time, learning and networking all day long.

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To Carsten and team: well done and thank you! I’m looking forward to attending and speaking again next year as this conference is a new gem to the IT public in the DACH region.

Carsten has built his company Rachfahl IT-Solutions into one of, if not the very best, experts in regards to Hyper-V, Storage Spaces, Windows and Private Cloud  in Germany. They share this expertise through their community efforts. Great people to work with!