Presenting at and attending Experts Live Europe 2023

Posted on July 11, 2023 by workinghardinit

Presenting at and attending Experts Live Europe 2023

I am happy to share that I am both presenting at and attending Experts Live Europe 2023. It runs September 18-20 2023 in Prague.

Isidora Katanic (@IsidoraKatanic) is the lead organizer and driving force behind Experts Live Europe. She’s dedicated to making this one of the best Microsoft technology-focused conferences in Europe. When you look at the pre-conference and session calendar you can already see this. She and her team lined up everything to make the 2023 edition a great professional and community experience. Experts Live Europe is a two-day conference (three days with the preconference workshops) and is scheduled in Prague, September 18-20, 2023. It is the first edition since 2019 due to the Corona/Covid pandemic. I can share that I personally, and many others, are happy that this is possible again. Next to that, I am thrilled to share my research and expertise at this conference once more.

In my session “Azure Storage – The SMB over QUIC protocol is here!” I will be diving deeper into the why and how of SMB over QUIC.

This is a very powerful and promising, relatively recent addition to the SMB 3 stack. Once again it shows that file sharing is far from an obsolete protocol in the era of anything “cloud”.

Meet the experts and ask me anything galore

This conference is about you and me, about us, sharing insights, experiences, knowledge, and expertise. Both the concept and the setup of the conference facilitate this by design.

While I’m there, come say hi, and talk shop about networking, storage, clustering, Hyper-V, DevOps, Bicep, and Veeam data protection in on-premises, hybrid, and Azure scenarios. I’ll be around during the breaks for the “Ask The Expert” and at the dedicated speaker’s booth in the expo area. Now, next to a Microsoft MVP I am also a Veeam Vanguard. Veeam is a gold sponsor and I’ll be around their boot as well. So come find me if you want to talk about Veeam Backup & Replication, Hardened (immutable) repositories, and other related subjects.

I am there to learn as well

Finally, I also look forward to the sessions other speakers are giving. One of those sessions, “Azure Firewall: The Legacy Firewall Killer”, is presented by Aidan Finn (@joe_elway). That subject is both very interesting and a bit controversial. Many people know and master 3^rd party firewall interfaces with their specific tooling and capabilities. While there is nothing wrong with that, many people scoff at Azure Firewall. But you should not write off Azure firewall with different products. This is especially true when you start delivering Azure Firewall via Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Call to action

Do not delay! Register to attend Experts Live Europe and do not miss out on a ton of great sessions by expert speakers, networking with knowledgeable attendees, and talking shop with your fellow IT professionals, who are as passionate about technology as you. I look forward to seeing you there.

Veeam Live 2020

Posted on October 6, 2020 by workinghardinit

Attend Veeam Live 2020

I am attending Veeam Live 2020 from the comfort of my home this year. I can stay safe and still learn, connect, and investigate new technologies and options.

Allow me to invite you Veeam Live 2020. This year the content focus area is on “Cloud Data Best Practices”. The online event takes place on October the 20th 2020 for a full day.
Veeam is gathering its global talent pool to present at this event. That talent is both internal to Veeam as well as external. Some of my fellow Veeam Vanguards are presenting and sharing their expertise.

With names like Anton Gostev, Danny Allen, Rick Vanover, Michael Cade, Anthony Spiteri, Dave Kawula, Andrew Zhelezko, Dmitry Kniazez, David Hill, Karinne Bessette, Kirsten Stoner, Dave Russel Melissa Palmer, Sander Berkouwer, Drew J. Como and so many others, the experience and expertise to share are second to none. Many industry and customer experts are also joining in to share their insights.

As Veeam states

At Veeam Live, you’ll gain data management guidance you can activate today. You’ll learn how to up your data protection game across your enterprise, connect with like-minded professionals, set the strategy right for your organization, and be part of the future of Cloud Data Management™.”

Veeam Live 2020 October 2020 – Join for free

So no matter what level you are at or what part you play in managing and safeguarding the data of your organization there are things to explore and learn.

Topics

Topics to be discussed are Multi-Cloud Data Management, AWS- and Azure-Native Backup, Office 365 Backup, Ransomware Best Practices, Kubernetes Backup and App Mobility. Check out the full agenda to find the topics and sessions that are of most interest to you.

On all those subjects Veeam is actively developing and releasing new capabilities. Just think about their recent acquisition of Kasten. They are also sharing information about Veeam Backup & Replication V11 which is currently in Beta.

Get your questions answerd

Do you want to find out how you can make your solutions more efficient? Need to figure out the biggest threats and opportunities there are in today’s technical, business, and security landscape? Want to learn what new technologies you need to keep an eye on and learn about? Is the evergrowing ransomware threat keeping you awake at night?

Free for all

The event is free for all. You can register here.

Join us from the comfort of your own (home) office or couch. It all works. Just bring an open mind, a willingness to listen and learn. The interesting thing about Veeam is that they sell solutions that cater to real, existing, and emerging needs of their (potential) customers. They keep it real and have a tradition of explaining why they develop and bring their solutions and offerings to the market. It makes for educational and insightful sessions and events.

So now you know the secret of how I stay on top of things in the data protection and management world. I listen. Not the sound of crickets (that’s for vacations) but to people that are smart, experienced, and have a proven track record of delivering value in a very competitive and ever-changing landscape. So, now you also know how to stay up to speed, all that is left to do is register today. You are very welcome.

Presenting at Experts Live 2019 Europe in Prague

Posted on July 30, 2019 by workinghardinit

Presenting at Experts Live 2019 Europe in Prague

I am happy to announce that I will be presenting at Experts Live 2019 Europe in Prague. The conference is held between 20-22 November 2019. This is my first time speaking there and I am really looking forward to it.

I am speaking at Experts Live Europe 2019 — My session is: Hyper-V backups – The good, the bad and the ugly

I will be talking about Hyper-V backups, the good, the bad and the ugly. Many people are still on older Windows Server versions and the improvements in backup alone should make for a strong use case to upgrade. I’ll show you why. I’ll share details improvements in speed, reliability, and scalability no matter what storage technology you use. Local, HCI, SAN, … they all benefit. We’ll share tips on how to leverage the improvements for the best results and make you backups shine. Finally, we’ll provide some feedback on what is still needs improvement. Remember as long as you run workloads on virtual machines you have to maintain it, keep it up to date and protected! If you know all this already, no worries, come for the over 40 other experts presenting. Take a look at the session catalog and see for your self.

Join us!

The conference focusses on Microsoft technologies at large and deals with Cloud, Datacenter, Security, Identity Management and the Modern Workplace. As such it realizes there is a lot of variety out there in building blocks used to make a company run. This means it offers content that reflects that reality and helps people succeed in their digital efforts to help their businesses run smoothly and securely on-premises as well as in the hybrid and public cloud.

I encourage you to attend if you have the opportunity. The content of other Experts Live Conferences I have done in the past was always excellent and the speakers were very knowledgeable. The same goes for Experts Live Europe I hear from my fellow MVP and colleagues who have attended before. Note that It is right after Microsoft Ignite 2019 and there are quite a lot of Microsoft attending as well. This means you’ll be getting some new information and insights hot of the press.

Life long learning is fun and doesn’t only happen at your desk or in a course. Get out of the office and into the world. It helps to get rid of the blinders and widen your view and vision on what is possible. It helps to learn from others, from your peers. So don’t delay and register here

Network, socialize, share and learn

With so many colleagues, experts, Microsoft Cloud Advocates, Program Managers and technologists at the event it offers excellent networking opportunities.

I will be around at the VIP Cloud Party, which provides plenty of networking opportunities and the chance to chat to the presenters and your peers. On top of that, I will be available between sessions and the “Ask The Experts” (ATE) speaker booth.

If you have questions about Hyper-V, Backup, Storage, Networking and best practices do come and find me. I don’t know it all, far from, but I have been able to help out many people before at conferences. Whether you work in small, medium or enterprise-sized organizations it’s free to ask and the worst that can happen is that I don’t know. I have a sweet spot for RDMA and PMEM, so if you ‘d like to chat, come find me!

Join us in Prague at Ask The Experts Europe

I hope to see you in wonderful Prague at a great conference! I am looking forward to meeting you there and presenting at Experts Live 2019 Europe in Prague. You can make new friends and catch up with others while you educate yourself. That’s a great deal.

Back from the Cloud and Datacenter Conference Germany 2017

Posted on May 6, 2017 by workinghardinit

I just got back from a very successful Cloud & Datacenter Conference Germany, 2017 edition. I took some vacation days to go educate myself with the help of my peers and the excellent speakers. The people have a wealth of expertise and experience in real world solutions that address the challenges we face today. All this without marketing or too ego. Just pure knowledge sharing about the facts and realties. Take a look here at the wealth of industry experts that were attending and presenting.

The attendees were amongst the better educated customers & partners you encounter in the field. This is great as this gives everybody good feedback and insight in the challenges we all face. I’d say there are definitely very pragmatic patterns in how businesses deal with the evolving cloud & datacenter ecosystem successfully. Cyber security is also part of that. I’m happy to see the insights shared with us by an expert lite Tudor Damian reminding us to always keep security in mind and showing us and that Microsoft is indeed making serious efforts to protect us in an IT environment they approach with the assumption that Ii t is compromised.

I did my part for the conference with a session on Failover Clustering Evolved (in Windows Server 2016) as well as with a presentation called SMB Direct – The Secret Decoder Ring for the Hyper-V Community day event the day before the conference. That was also awesome and I had a great response to the session and interest in our experiences with RDMA. Oh yes, I also got some hands on training in filming to the delight of my fellow MVPs Winking smile .

If it’s up to me, I’ll be back in 2018!