This years TechEd was very interesting again. We were able to hear a lot about the new technologies of Microsoft, especially a few sessions about the new components which will ship with Windows Server 2003 R2. But Microsofts VicePresident Bob Muglia was also sharing a few comments on Longhorn R2 and Blackcomb, therefore laying out some of the plans for the remaining decade. Read the eWeek-Article "Microsoft Talks Longhorn Server R2 and Blackcomb" about that.
Apart from the sessions there were the Cabanas, where Customers were able to ask questions about the specific technologies. I was answering questions in the Server Infrastructure Cabana about Active Directory, ADAM, MIIS and ADFS. It was really great to be able to discuss all the scenarios customers are facing there. And there was a great team of MVPs there: Joe Kaplan and Ryan Dunn were answering mainly programming questions, Dean Wells, Deji Akomolafe, Jimmy Anderson, Don Wells, Laura E. Hunter and me were discussing Infrastructure. Customers were facing us with planning questions, current issues, current open calls, questions trying to understand the technologies and in which scenarios they are usefull a.s.o. And the exchange between us MVPs enabled us to learn more from each other than attending any session available.
Directory Services MVPs answering questions at TechEd US 2005
Top left to right: Joe Kaplan, Laura E. Hunter, Ryan Dunn, Ulf B. Simon-Weidner
Bottom middle: Dean Wells
Today the TechEd US in Orlando has started. We already were pretty busy in the last couple days with preperation, events, meeting fellow MCTs and MVPs, and exploring the city (even when the weather is cloudy and partly raining, haven't seen the sun for a couple days). This event will be pretty exciting, because the IT-Industry
finally recovering from the y2k-problem, and this reflects in being the first TechEd ever being sold out within 6 weeks even during the early bird period while 11k IT-Pros and Developers are attending.
Announcements at TechEd:
On the keynote on Monday Steve Balmer was speaking a lot about Active Directory, it's capabilities and integrated Applications, how they improved Active Directory over the last year. He also mentioned ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) which enable cross-organisation authentication via WebServices. I personally have tested ADFS a lot in the last year, and will blog more details about it soon. Briefly it allows you to access a business partners website, log-on automatically with all the options configured for you. So single sign on and single credentials across companies while staying save and not exposing to much information. ADFS will be part of Windows Server 2003 R2.
He further announced Direct Mobile Messaging with Exchange 2003 SP2 and Windows Mobile 2005. It will support Direct Push, Security Management of mobile devices (powered by Active Directory again) and there will be devices from over 40 manufacturers available this year. Even a remote wipe if a lost device is possible. You can also configure the security options like locking options, force password,..
They've also showed a Thinkpad TabletPC (convertible with full keyboard) with biometric fingerprint reader. Very exciting - I'm very happy with Thinkpads and missed the TabletPC form factor.
They've also showed the
MSN Desktop Search and the search capabilities in Longhorn, which will be able to search and Autofilter (like Excel) over all types of documents.
Also this year the .NET Framework 2.0 will be available with Visual Studio 2005, and SQL-Server 2005 and Biztalk-Server 2006 will already make use of the new Framework. The new .NET Framework is supposed to be much faster and provides better integration between applications and users. Then they were demonstrating cross-platform management using Microsoft Operations Management Server (MOM) 2005 by managing a Sun Solaris box. Further Steve Balmer emphases the Security Strategy of Microsoft and announced the Microsoft Update Service. Microsoft Update and the products around it will provide patches for not only the Operating System, but also for additional Microsoft applications like Office, Exchange, SQL,…