Day 4 and 5 of TechReady were action packed, I didn’t even have time to post yesterday. I skipped the first session timeslot on Thurs to prepare for the double session I was presenting with Citrix. The double session format basically allocates two sessions (3 hours) to one topic letting you get into a lot more detail. The session went very well and the feedback surveys so far have been very positive. We spent the first half of the session describing the Microsoft+Citrix VDI solution and its components. The second half was filled with demos of the solution with different types of clients accessing VDI sessions and walkthroughs of the administrator consoles.

After my session and some internal meetings, I attended a session on Microsoft’s Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit. I haven’t had much time to explore this yet but will be focusing on that a lot in the next couple months. For an example of a hosting partner using this solution, check out MaximumASP.com and their MaxV solution.

Finally on Day 4 I attended a session on the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2, particularly the built-in VDI solution. I’ve been so focused on the Microsoft+Citrix solution that I haven’t had time to dig into the Microsoft in-box solution. This is being positioned toward branch and or lower complexity environments while the Microsoft+Citrix solution is targeted toward large or higher complexity implementations. The improvements to RDP and Hyper-V are the real enablers for the VDI scenarios in R2.

Day 5 opened with multiple demos of Office 2010 and Office Web Applications which are really going to open up completely new scenarios for rich collaboration. Next was a keynote from my favorite Microsoft executive, Bob Muglia, head of the Server and Tools Business. Bob covered improvements in Windows, Hyper-V, SharePoint, SQL. The thing TechReady is best for is stepping back and seeing the scope of this release of software we are going to have this year and the solid advancement in capability and features on almost all fronts simultaneously.

After taking care of some logistical items, I attended a session on Hyper-V security. Not much new info in that one, basically there is good security guidance for Hyper-V in the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide as well as the Hyper-V Resource kit. Finally, I attended a session on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 branch office infrastructure. This covered the new Branch Cache feature which can substantially reduce bandwidth utilization in branches by caching content as well as other new features and improvements to SMB, DFS, etc.

All in all, TechReady9 was a great time. I’ve still got a list of sessions that I want to see that is longer than the list of sessions that I actually saw! I’m glad they were all recorded…

Tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be teaching a 2-day VDI class along with some MCS and Citrix colleagues. Should be a good class, the students will learn about and set up the entire Microsoft+Citrix VDI solution over the course of the two days. Then finally on Monday I will head home after almost two and half weeks on the mothership!

Day 3 kicked off with a keynote by Ray Ozzie and several very cool demos on UI futures, what’s coming across some of the Bing features, and some stuff MSR is working on. There was also a good discussion of how concepts move from MSR, to Labs, then into the product groups.

Next up was a very entertaining session with Jeff Woolsey, the Hyper-V program manager and president of the “virtualization nation”. This session dealt point by point with the FUD put out there by the competition. Aside from the entertainment, it was actually quite valuable because we get hit with some of these outlandish claims by customers all the time who’ve drank the cool-aid of the other guys.

Next up was a session on Terminal Services, which is being re-branded as Remote Desktop Services (RDS). Most of the new features in R2 were discussed (RDP 7, multi-monitor support, VDI) with some cool demos. One showed a six monitor setup over RDP with full multi-monitor support (I use three at home…)

After lunch was a session on the next version of OCS. Voice and PBX replacement are the key themes of this release, beyond that I can’t say much about the content.

In the afternoon I attended a session on VDI using the Microsoft and Citrix solution. This was an intro session to the deep dive that I’m doing today with the RDS PM and some Citrix colleagues. Good session, some good demos of the combined functionality that the two companies provide and how the solution is more fully featured and less expensive than the competition.

The day wrapped up in the evening with “Ask the Experts” which is an event where all the presenters and product group folks are stationed at tables in main dining area and the Techready attendees can come in and ask questions, network, etc. It’s a great opportunity to meet folks from the product groups as well as others you may not have seen in a while. Every year I bump into people I haven’t seen in years or who have recently joined Microsoft that I worked with before. This year was no different.

Day 4 should be action packed, I present during the 10:15 timeslot on VDI.

Day 2 at TechReady was packed with technical sessions, no keynotes. In the morning I attended a session on model driven development. Not yet an infrastructure architecture related technology but as I mentioned yesterday regarding System Center, Microsoft is investing in a big way in modeling. The “Oslo” set of technologies is the foundation for developers and architects.

My next session was a special, invite only, session with a very senior Microsoft executive. It was an NDA session so I can’t discuss the content but in general the session was a very frank Q&A where the senior folks invited to the session were able to ask any question on any topic. I think people would be surprised how down to earth and still very technical some of the Microsoft senior execs are. Additionally, I don’t think most people realize the scope, scale, and challenge of managing the huge engineering teams for the big products.

Next up was a session with my Server Virtualization with Advanced Management (SVAM) colleagues. SVAM is a service offering from Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) and partners focusing on several virtualization scenarios such as server consolidation, dynamic management, VDI, etc. This session provided an overview of the next version of the offering which adds several new content modules including the VDI module I worked on earlier this year around the Microsoft+Citrix VDI solution.

The final two sessions I attended were with the Microsoft Online group (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, etc). The first was with the operations team of MS Online and the second was with the engineering team. Lots of info about their current offerings and even more about where they were going. The general theme is leveraging the new versions of the underlying products and bringing to the cloud a greater percentage of the features of the on-premise versions.

That’s it for Day 2. Day 3 will bring a keynote from Ray Ozzie, more technical sessions through the day, then Ask the Experts tonight.

TechReady is always motivating and day one of TechReady 9 was no different as thousands of folks from Microsoft’s field organization (Consulting, Support, Sales, etc) take over the Washington State Conference & Trade Center in Seattle. The day one keynote was headlined by Microsoft’s COO Kevin Turner who reviewed last year’s challenging environment and our successes then pumped up the crowd for FY10. Despite the tough economy its a pretty exciting time at Microsoft with the huge wave of products coming to market over the next 12 months.

After the keynote I attended the general session for System Center. This was very interesting, but  unfortunately most of it hasn’t been announced yet so I can’t detail it. The general themes of user centricity, virtualization, and modeling that were discussed at MMS are core to where System Center is going. The new System Center Service Manager product coming to market next year is also going to be very important. I look forward to the more detailed sessions on these topics this week. 

Next I attended the Microsoft Services general session. This was more internally focused on our Services organization and business topics so wouldn’t be of much interest to readers.

In the afternoon I attended a double session, 3 hours total on Hyper-V and advanced storage scenarios. This was an excellent session with several presenters from the product group and some of my colleagues in Microsoft Consulting Services. They covered storage improvements in R2 across iSCSI, FibreChannel, Cluster Shared Volumes, etc. A good bit of time was spent on MPIO which provides multipathing and highly available storage connectivity. Some new whitepapers on that will be published in the next couple weeks which I’ll link to as they become available.

Finally, in the afternoon I attended another System Center session which I can’t really give any details about.

As with every TechReady, particularly for an infrastructure architect like myself and most readers of this blog interested in a range of technologies, at each timeslot there are at least 3 – 5 sessions I want to attend. Fortunately all of these are being recorded so I can view the other ones over time. Looking forward to Day 2!

Last week I came out to Redmond for 5 days of training on the Forefront Protection Suite, formerly Forefront codenamed “Stirling”. The final name was announced at the Worldwide Partner Conference:

Forefront codename “Stirling” - the next generation of the Forefront Security Suite for integrated,  comprehensive protection across endpoints, servers and the edge – will be officially known as Forefront Protection Suite (FPS).

FPS will include the products in the current suite, plus the Forefront Protection Manager (formerly known as the “Stirling” management console) and the Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Security Service.

The training was pretty interesting. We covered most of the components of the suite, the console, and the integration between all the components. That integration is going to be the real differentiator. Client, Server, and Edge security can all be tightly integrated as well as Network Access Protection (NAP). The solution is built on top of PowerShell so there are significant automation capabilities even beyond the in box solutions.

With very capable component pieces and many integration points, there are a huge number of implementation scenarios and options. This can be very powerful but also a bit daunting until you gain experience with the products. The suite leverages the System Center infrastructure, particularly Operations Manager.

I came away from the 5 days pretty impressed with the suite and the scenarios it enables but also with a healthy respect for the effort required to implement the solution. If the appropriate time and resources are allocated, the end result can be a very robust security infrastructure and most importantly a single console providing situational awareness and reporting across the entire security infrastructure.

If you want to take a look at the suite yourself, the Beta2 release is available here both in installable form and in a pre-configured virtual machine.