TechEd 2012–Exchange MVP J. Peter Bruzzese Talks Sessions and Deloreans

Editor's Note: The following post is by Exchange MVP J. Peter Bruzzese

What I am looking forward to most at Tech Ed?

Every year the event that builds up in me the most anticipation is TechEd. And this year I’m more excited than ever before. There are so many product releases between this year and next that I cannot wait to see the incredible sessions coming up. TechEd is a combination of great sessions, great speakers, a great expo and one big party. Let me tell you what I’m most excited about this year.

The Sessions and Speakers

I always attend the Keynote and it is usually a lot of fun. In 2007 they had Christopher Lloyd come out with the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Other shows have been equally interesting (although that was my favorite so far). So I’m looking forward to seeing what this year’s “theme” will be. This year the keynote speakers are Nadella (President, Server & Tools Business), Zander (Corporate Vice President, Visual Studio) and Leblond (Corporate Vice President, Windows Web Services). An interesting mixture. We’ll see what they come up with.

I plan on hitting every session I can on Windows 8, Server 8 and System Center. With Windows and Server 8 these are new solutions with new features that I absolutely must know to do my job as a consultant, a journalist and a speaker. There are two Windows 8 sessions I’m hoping to attend, one called “Windows 8: Windows To Go Overview” and another entitled “Windows 8: Overview for the Enterprise – Enabling Flexible Workstyles”. System Center has been this mystery to me since it arrived on the scene and although I’ve worked with some aspects of it like System Center Operations Manager and System Center Data Protection Manager I don’t really have my head around the entire suite of tools. So I’m especially going to focus on anything relating to System Center, with Configuration Manager getting much of my time.

Beyond that I’m looking forward to seeing sessions from Microsoft speakers and fellow MVPs like Greg Shields (who has 3 sessions with one entitled “Lessons from the Field: 22 VDI and RDS Mistakes You’ll Want to Avoid), Don Jones (who has 3 sessions with one entitled “Windows PowerShell Crash Course), Mark Minasi (who has 2 sessions with one entitled “Clouds and Your Organization: A (Former) Professional Economist’s View for IT Pros”),Paula Januszkiewicz (who has 3 sessions with one entitled “Crouching Admin, Hidden Hacker: Techniques for Hiding and Detecting Traces”), and Rhonda Layfield with the session “Everything You Need to Know about Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 in the Real World”.

In addition, I’m looking forward to giving my session on Thursday entitled “Getting Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint to Play Together” which is a basic discussion on how to use Exchange to send email to lists and libraries as well as receive alerts back from SharePoint. We’ll look at both paths, that of using Exchange and SharePoint as separate servers and that of using them with Small Business Server 2011.

There are so many sessions and so many great speakers that it’s impossible to list them all here. At the Orange County Convention Center (where TechEd 2012 is going to be held this year) it’s a challenge to get from one session to another if they are on opposite ends of the venue. I’ll be wearing good shoes with lots of cushiony support and I recommend you do the same. I’ll be running to get in as many sessions as possible.

Now as an Exchange MVP you would think that I’m also pretty excited about anything that revolves around Exchange and to a degree I am. There are some great sessions revolving around both Exchange and Lync, like Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2 Tips and Tricks with Scott Schnoll. Bharat Suneja is giving a session called “Archiving in the Cloud with Exchange Online Archiving (EOA)”. There will be plenty of great sessions like “Lync and the Enterprise Network” by Bryan Nyce and “Understanding Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange” with Robert Gillies. I’ll tell you it is exciting just going through the list!!! However, with the Microsoft Exchange Conference (https://www.mecisback.com/) just around the corner in September and the promise of lots of E15 content, I can tell you that I’m going to try and get in as many sessions on other topics this time around and gear up for a smorgasbord of Exchange at MEC.

The Expo, the Parties, the Networking… the Theme Parks?

TechEd is more than educational. It’s one big party for me from beginning to end. I’m running into friends I haven’t seen in a while (possibly since last TechEd) and grabbing a drink, a lunch, a dinner, whatever. The Expo is an incredible opportunity for me to see the latest products from the top companies in the world as well as start-ups that are hitting the expo floor in the hopes that this may be their “big break” with a product nobody has seen yet. I use that cornucopia of products to formulate ideas for my Enterprise Windows column on InfoWorld. And it gives me a great opportunity to network with folks who are doing new and exciting things with Windows.

And Microsoft makes sure they keep the party flowing all the way to the end, which this year is at Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park. They’ve had it there before when they have TechEd in the Orlando area and it is always a lot of fun running around the park after the visitors have left and it is just TechEd-ites.

That’s it in a nutshell folks. The best sessions, speakers, expo and parties once could want all crammed into a week down in sunny Orlando Florida. I’ll exhausted by the end but I’ll have a great deal to focus on and write about in the months ahead.

Maybe I’ll see you there!

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