This session will showcase some of the improvements and new features that will be available in Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 and provide you with an overview of what is planned for the next major release of the product

This session will provide an overview of how Service Manager integrates across the System Center suite of products to provide automation of MOF/ITIL based best practices. Topics covered include the out-of-the-box solutions, System Center integrations, and high-level over view of technology components like workflow, forms and the CMDB.

Configuration Manager was released to market a year ago, and since then, a few important updates have been made to the core product. This session will cover a technical overview of Configuration Manager 2007, including updates in Service Pack 1, R2, and the upcoming SP2. Included in this session will be a focus on the core capabilities, but also the new support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 platforms, as well as introduce some new features such as the Intel AMT integration and Asset Intelligence 1.5. With the R2 release of Configuration Manager, additional capabilities such as Application Virtualization Management, SQL Reporting, Forefront integration, Client Status Reporting and Server Provisioning have also been introduced. Finally this session will highlight the Configuration Manager support for Windows 7, and outline the plans for Service Pack 2. This session promises to be technical and full of lots of demonstrations.

This session covers specific features and technologies included in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as the Visa and Windows 7 Client   that benefit branch office scenarios..  Topics include the improvements to the networking stack (the new TCP/IP Stack and SMB 2.0) File system improvements such as Client Side Caching, and DFS-R and a read only DFS-R replica designed for use in Branch Offices. The session introduces a new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as the Windows 7 Client called BranchCache that promises to reduce the bandwidth consumed by remote offices

In this technical preview session Tony and Daniel show you all the new Enterprise features in Windows 7 including Branch Cache, Direct Access, AppLocker, BitLocker To Go, etc.

In this session you will learn about the considerations you have to make when implementing a consolidation strategy using SQL Server and Microsoft Virtualization solutions. You will learn about the different methods of SQL Server 2008 consolidation and see on how you can implement SQL Server 2008 in an Hyper-V environment. The session covers best practices for running SQL Server workloads with Hyper-V, monitoring strategies and actions and data points related to performance of SQL Server running on an Hyper V Platform. You will understand on how Microsoft is “Saving Customers Money”, by bringing you the right consolidation techniques and implementation strategies.

UAC is often spoken of in a negative way even though it’s one of the great security enhancements brought by vista. Looking forward at windows 7 it’s clear that UAC is here to stay. It’s high time to debunk the myths, learn the core of UAC, how you can make it work for you and a best practice with user accounts and rights.
During this session well look what UAC is, how it works in the core, how UAC detects the need for elevation, how we can manipulate UAC by using manifests and manage it through group policies.

The first version of Windows PowerShell radically simplified IT administration through a new interactive shell environment, scripting technology and layering of admin GUIs. Come and see the next release of PowerShell in all its glory: tons of new cmdlets, interactive script debugging, the new graphical environment "ISE", script cmdlets, modules, built-in support for transactions, first-class WMI objects, the Unified Code Execution Model and management for distributed environments using WSMAN and remoting.

Configmgr 2007 is the first Microsoft systems management product released that has Osdeployment built-in. The Configmgr implementation of Osdeployment is built on Task sequences. These task sequences can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. This session will give you the run down, starting from some basic built-in task sequences, over tweaking them with a bunch of conditions and task sequence variable so you can make them do just about everyting you want (except for setting coffee).

This session is for anyone who manages Windows Server. Windows Server 2008 R2 is a major jump forward in the Windows Server platform. From the Branch Office to the Datacenter, there are many obvious, and some not so obvious enhancements that can save you money, save you time, and generally turn you into a hero. This session covers all of those features, plus more. Hear about, and most importantly see, as many of the new features as we can fit into a 75 minute session.

In this session you will be provided with an overview of one the most compelling features in Exchange 2007: Database Portability. After attending this session you will know exactly how you can use this feature to get your databases up and running anywhere you want :-) You will be shown how you can copy databases to another server in the same organization, using Standby Continuous Replication, Move-Mailbox options, and moving a database to a new organization entirely.

Learn how to architect and implement scalable Windows Active Directory-based authentication services. This session goes into the details of how authentication traffic occurs in single- and multi-forest AD environments. It explains fundamental concepts such as secure channels and domain controllers, how authentication leverages these services and how you can fine tune them for optimizing the authentication traffic in large AD setups. The session also explains how you can monitor your domain controllers and application servers for authentication-specific events and authentication-related key performance indicators (KPIs). All this is illustrated using a real-life example of an Exchange 2007 deployment in a multi-forest AD environment.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 introduces a new policy-based framework for database administrators, which can significantly improve administrative productivity and reliability. Database administrators declare their administrative intent through policies that are then applied by the system. This approach reduces the potential for administrative error and enables the framework to monitor or enforce the policies in an automated fashion. Not only can policies be applied to individual databases or tables on a single server, but they can also seamlessly be scaled to include large collections of objects spanning many server instances.

The aim of this session is to de-mystify and simplify the popular and often misunderstood subject of SharePoint Server patching. This session will discuss the various types of updates that are available and the release cycle for each type of update. It will then cover the recommended and tried and tested process for installing updates using an example customer to put the session into context, this will  include pre-requisites that should be factored into any update plan, best practices and knowledge gained from working in the field that can be used to minimise risk and down time when updates are applied. It will also discuss some common mistakes that are made and how to put these right. The roadmap of updates released since service pack 1 will also be covered including approaches that can be used to streamline the update process when working with deployments that haven’t been kept up to date with the latest patches. The innards of an Office SharePoint server patch will be dissected and the typical components that are contained within a patch will be covered, this information is crucial when trying to gain an in-depth understanding of how the update mechanism works and how this has changed since the infrastructure update was released. This will then take the session onto its final topic which will discuss what to do when it all goes wrong using real-world issues experienced by Microsoft engineers working in the field.

For those familiar with the imaging and deployment changes made in the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 timeframe, this session will provide technical updates and demonstrations of the tools to create, manage and install desktop images. We will explain and demonstrate the foundational tools found in the Windows AIK and how toolkits and products like Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and System Center Configuration Manager 2007 leverage the updates to make deployment faster and more flexible than ever.

With Windows 7 in Beta, many people are asking about how they can test and validate their hardware and applications. While we don’t have a list of applications or devices with support statements ready or tools quite yet to validate compatibility with Windows 7, there are several things we can do in order to prepare hardware and applications for the operating system architecture introduced with Windows Vista. This session will expose tactics you can do today to prepare for Windows 7 and discuss tools to migrate from legacy operating systems into the current generation.

Hyper-V, the new 64-bit hypervisor from Microsoft is available in two forms: Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. Come learn what this means for your Exchange deployment. Find out what server roles are supported, and hear the Exchange team’s recommendations for running Exchange 2007 SP1 in a Hyper-V environment.

In this session I go deep into topics such as divergence, lost log resilience, log truncation, transport dumpster, and circular logging.  I also compare continuous replication with synchronous replication, discuss several common troubleshooting scenarios, and provide the latest/great known issues pertaining to clustered Exchange servers and continuous replication. 
This session covers:

• Mailbox Server HA options: LCR, CCR, SCC, SCR
• CCR and SCR: Better Together
• Why CCR; Why Not SCC?
• Continuous Replication Deep Dive
• Troubleshooting Exchange Clusters
• Troubleshooting Continuous Replication
• Current Known Issues

Learn about the Group Policy features in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, such as the format and functionality of Administrative Template (ADMX) files and interoperability with legacy ADM files, the ADMX central store, improved awareness of changing network conditions, using multiple local Group Policy Objects (MLGPOs), Group Policy templates, Group Policy Filtering and the new Group Policy Preferences (GPP). Group Policy Preferences Extensions significantly extend the scope of Group Policy to include areas such as drive mapping, folder creation, shortcuts, scheduled tasks and many more. Additionally, new features such as setting-level targeting and the elimination of “tattooing” provide greater control over where and how policy settings are applied. Learn about some of the new Group Policy features that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will introduce such as AppLocker, Powershell support, GPP extensions, Granular Auditing, etc...

Ever had application compatibility blues, application that you just couldn’t run on your OS, either because there was a conflict with another installed application or because the application itself was totally incompatible with your (maybe) new OS? Come to this session and learn how to make those problems a thing of the past. You will learn which solution is right for you on a case by case compatibility issue.

When IT-budgets are under increased pressure, smart IT-Pro’s should look at software licensing and their cost: ‘How are we acquiring Microsoft licenses? Is that the most effective way?’. Next to that, understanding some licensing basics, allows for smarter buying: should we pay for CALs per user or per device? Do I need to pay for my testing-environment? Is there a way to obtain multilingual versions of some products for free? Will the server-virtualisation savings be offset by increased licensing costs?
In this session we will cover 4 main topics:

• Server licensing: per CPU, in a server + CAL model, user vs. device CALs, external connector, Terminal Server, multiplexing
• Multingual licensing of desktop OS and applications
• Licensing of test environments, labs, ….
• Server virtualisation and the implications on licensing cost

With the release of Configuration Manager R2, the traditional Software Distribution feature has been extended to seamlessly integrate virtual application support. As part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, customers who have access to the Application Virtualization (App-V) capability, can now also use Configuration Manager to centrally manage their virtual application services. This session will demonstrate how the latest version of Microsoft Application Virtualization integrates tightly with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 to provide a powerful solution to deploy and manage virtual applications across an organization's many distributed desktops. This session promises to be technical and full of lots of demonstrations.

Do you need to find out what changed in a database? SQL Server 2008 contains two new features that enable you to detect changes to tables in an efficient and easy to consume way. Change Data Capture (CDC) is intended for scenarios like data warehouse load, where you need to be able to detect every single change, while Change Tracking is intended for synchronization where you only need to know which rows have changed. In this session, we compare these two features and explain when to use what. Then we go into details on configuration, performance and best practices of change data capture that we learned while creating the whitepaper “Tuning the Performance of Change Data Capture in SQL Server 2008”

So you like SQL Server 2008 and now you want to upgrade your existing SQL Server 2000 and 2005 instances to SQL Server 2008 and you want to migrate your databases to a new hardware? Then this session is for you. Learn what you need to do so your upgrade or migration goes smoothly. We explain the tools and resources that are available to prevent “interesting” experiences during upgrade, tell you how the upgrade process works and give an overview on how to upgrade individual components to SQL Server 2008

In this session, we will look at some common best practices for running Hyper-V in all kinds of scenarios, including test, development and training. Topics include: Copying virtual machines (VMs) to other computers, best practices for using snapshots, automating Hyper-V operations by using scripting, configure networking, converting VMs to Hyper-V, and setting up Hyper-V permissions for delegation of control and remote connections to Hyper-V.

A few years ago, corporate firewalls were considered adequate protection for client computers against the threats from the Internet. Nowadays, especially with mobile computers, that is no longer the case. In this session, we discuss how new technologies such as Network Access Protection (NAP) and Server and Domain Isolation (SDI) can help protect network assets by segmenting your network logically, instead of physically by using firewalls. Several upcoming Microsoft products integrate with NAP, so it is important to understand that technology well.

This session will provide an overview of SC VMM 2008 and highlight some of the improvements and new features that will be available in Systems Center VMM 2008 R2

Virtualization is the Next Big Thing™, and certainly you’ve at least examined it, and probably are using several virtualized servers already. How are you handling the security of your images? How are you securing the guest and host operating systems, and the applications you’re running? Virtualization raises certain unique security requirements, and provides some interesting security capabilities, too. Join Steve Riley as he explores the interesting aspects of virtualization and security.

Which data breach did you read about this week? Seems like you can’t scan the news without reading about yet another lost laptop, compromised database, or stolen identity. Privacy is suddenly becoming a necessary element of conducting business. It’s mostly viewed as a cost, and indeed that’s true: new government regulations around the world have begun to impose strict and complicated privacy requirements on businesses. But might there also be ways privacy could become a business enabler, perhaps providing competitive differentiation? What kinds of privacy policies, procedures, tools, and techniques are useful? How should people implement these? What’s the link between security and privacy, anyway—are they complimentary or in opposition? Steve Riley will begin providing some answers to these and other thorny issues related to privacy.

Do you ever wonder what’s on your wire? With the latest version of Network Monitor 3.2 it’s easier than ever…but how do you use Netmon? If troubleshooting at the packet level makes you think “it’s too hard” or “I don’t know where to begin” this session is for you. BUT WAIT – network sniffing experts there is something here for you too. From novice to pro Rhonda’s tips and tricks will help you get results quickly and easily. Networks can get really busy fast so finding the packet/packets you’re looking for can be a little like finding a needle in a haystack. Rhonda will show you how to find the packets you’re looking for in a snap. After this session you’ll be ready to use Netmon 3.2 the day you get back to work!

You spent all that time plugging your security settings into group policies (GPs) and then…the GP fails to replicate to all DCs. Some workstations get the GPs and some don’t. Join Rhonda Layfield a 27 year veteran in the IT industry to understand the underlying replication engine responsible for ensuring all DCs have consistent GPs. That engine is called the File Replication Service (FRS) and in the past we had no choice – GPs were replicated via the File Replication Service (FRS). But Server 2008 introduces a new replication engine – the first ever to make SYSVOL replication more reliable, scalable and manageable – it’s called the Distributed File System Replication (DFS-R). In this session you get a complete understanding of FRS, DFS-R and how to migrate your environment from FRS to DFS-R for SYSVOL replication and why you would want to. Don’t miss this session if Group Policy replication is important to you.

Since the beginning, when Active Directory was first released with Windows 2000 Server, the methods and means for object recovery in AD have evolved and improved each time a new version of Windows was released. In time, the technology made it more easy to recover objects and prevent the loss of data after recovery. We will start this session with an introduction to object recovery related topics, followed by an explanation of all object recovery methods in all versions of AD after an accidental (mass) deletion, including what’s new in Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows 7). The session will finish with some recommendations around object recovery. This session will include at least one demo!