Print | posted on Monday, January 20, 2014 12:32 PM
[Updated 19/02 with session timeslots and an additional session]
Vegas, March, 10,000 SharePoint people. What could possibly go wrong?!
The big daddy is back, SharePoint Conference 2014 promises to be another great event, and I am once again happy to be speaking at the biggest SharePoint conference on the planet. I get asked a lot about which conferences are worth the money and so on, and of course being the official show, and with the associated travel and accommodation expenses SPC is often in the “requires justification” bucket. Seriously there is no debate, it’s worth it. If you are in the SharePoint business you absolutely have to be there. If you are a customer there is an incredible wealth of material and networking which will benefit your deployments. Seriously consider attending. Yes, I know it’s Vegas – with it’s pros (I’ve been told there are some!) and it’s not inconsiderable cons. However forget all that and concentrate on the conference itself and you will be very happy with the return, and have some fun to boot.
I’ll be again delivering three sessions this year, the abstracts of which I’ve copied below and added a little side commentary. In addition to these sessions, I will generally be loitering around the Infrastructure related tracks and available at the expo hall and Ask the Experts events.
406: Comprehensive User Profile Synchronization
Thursday, March 6, 2014, 12:00 PM-1:15 PM - Lido 3001-3103
Discover the changes and new capabilities in the foundational service for user discovery deployments of SharePoint Server 2013 and get the real deal on configuring User Profile Synchronization in this demo and best practices heavy session. This session will cover the architecture of the User Profile Service Application, the new AD Direct Mode and provide a walkthrough of the configuration requirements and setup. We, too, will focus on coinciding architectural considerations for high availability, scalability and geographic deployments. Also covered will be general UPA related best practices in terms of synchronization, policy and privacy and leveraging social features inside the enterprise.
This is the return of the highly popular UPS session. Hmm, not to sure how I feel about this topic after so long, but as it’s the content you requested I will try my best to retain the original flavour but also include some new and or updated content. Remember thou, no matter the technology I will be imparting the reality of identity management!
411: Office 365 identity federation using Windows Azure and Windows Azure Active Directory
Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 9:00 AM-10:15 AM - Bellini 2001-2106
Windows Azure provides a compelling solution for deploying infrastructure for directory synchronization and identity federation with Office 365, while avoiding the cost of an on-premises implementation plus required operations. This session will present an end-to-end scenario leveraging Windows Azure and Windows Azure Active Directory, along with the Active Directory Sync tool and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) to provide the richest identity experience with Office 365. We'll also share and show tips and tricks to help automate deployment and accelerate your Office 365 Identity integration.
Brand new content exclusively for the SharePoint Conference. I’ve been told it’s a bad idea to debut content at SPC. That’s never stopped me before! This promises to be a fun session, I just hope the “live” aspects of the demonstration don’t fail me. The end to end scenario should provide a very interesting approach to dealing with the identity federation pieces of O365 for small to mid sized customers.
418: Subordinate integrity: Certificates for SharePoint 2013
Wednesday, March 5, 2014, 5:00 PM-6:15 PM - Lido 3001-3103
Certificates play an increasingly important role in SharePoint 2013. As well as protecting data, they are one of the fundamental building blocks of service interaction between service applications and across products such as Lync and Exchange. With the introduction of Office Web Apps 2013 and Workflow Manager as well as the Cloud App Model, certificates are now effectively a pre-requisite for a complete SharePoint deployment. This session will de-mystify which types of certificate are needed, where they are used and how best customers can manage the certificate lifecycle for SharePoint 2013, Office Web Apps and Workflow Manager. Also covered will be client browser considerations and approaches to automating configuration with Windows PowerShell, along with certificate requirements for Office 365.
Brand new for SharePoint Conference. Another debut session, this time on the somewhat murky and clearly confusing topic of Certificates. I get asked about this topic all the time by customers and SharePoint practitioners, and also outwith the SharePoint domain completely. It’s great to see this type of content make it to the show, which brings me onto…
356: Designing, deploying, and managing Workflow Manager farms
Wednesday, March 5, 2014, 10:45 AM-12:00 PM - Lido 3001-3103
Workflow Manager is a new product that provides support for SharePoint 2013 workflows. This session will look at the architecture and design considerations that are required for deploying a Workflow Manager farm. We will also examine the business continuity management options to provide high availability and disaster recovery scenarios. If you want a deep dive on how Workflow Manager works, then this is the session for you.
This one is a co-present with my good friend, and fellow MCA and MCSM Wictor Wilén, which will dive into the IT Pro focused considerations for deployment of Workflow Manager after some architecture and design coverage. This should be a fun session and is commonly requested material in the marketplace both from customers and SharePoint practitioners.
There’s been a bunch of hoopla on the tubez about “is on premises dead” and all that hogwash. SPC shows the commitment Microsoft and SharePoint has to the customers with which it won the data centre, both on premises and on the journey to the cloud. Take a look at the other sessions over on the official web site. Something for everyone, and tons of practical real world sessions as well. It promises to be a great event.
Viva Las Vegas.
s.