Session Abstracts

Virtualization & Cloud Keynote:

Virtualization Strategy for Your IT Infrastructure
The first TEC Europe for Virtualization & Cloud will be kicked off by Brian Madden, a well-known virtualization expert, and Michael Michael, Principal Program Manager for Microsoft.  Join us to explore the future of virtualization strategies across your IT Infrastructure.

Virtualization & Cloud Sessions:

A Look into VMM 2012
Speaker: Michael Michael

VMM 2012 is designed to deliver industry leading virtual machine management, deployment, and configuration for services in private cloud environments. It features deep investments in server application virtualization, service design, and service modeling all of which can be used to build an on-premises private cloud. This session will include an overview of key VMM 2012 capabilities like Image Based Management, Host Role Deployment, Service Design, Image Composability, Application Elasticity, and Fabric Management. This session will also cover VMM 2012 features that can be used to create a unified management experience for public and private clouds, including migrating workloads between these clouds.

Application Virtualization Notes from the field
Speaker: Justin Zarb

Premier Field Engineering globally have worked with a number of Microsoft Enterprise customers in the App-V arena. Application Virtualization has excellent benefits that enable an organization to dynamically manage their application deployment and reduce the amount of time required to regression test their applications. The session details various techniques that PFE help customers to utilise when looking at Microsoft Application Virtualization and how they approach proactive reviews of their App-V estate. Objectives: 1. describe an outside-in perspective on one of our new and popular technologies. 2. provide insight into what customers are dealing with regards to App-V components.

Be Prepared for deploying App-V!
Speaker: Nicke Källén

This session will walk you through what you should expect out of App-V. We will include tips on how to ease the deployment of virtualized applications.

How and When to Use Non-Persistent Virtual Desktops
Speakers: Patrick Rouse

In this session, you will learn how to deploy Virtual Desktops that are assembled at runtime so user’s data, applications and personal settings are available on any virtual machine.  You will also learn how to avoid common pitfalls of this approach, and what users are NOT good candidates for non-persistent desktops. Topics that will be covered include:

  • What is a non-persistent virtual desktop
  • Storage – SAN, NAS or Local
  • Disk Types – Fixed, Dynamic, Differencing (what’s the difference)
  • User Profiles – Local, Mandatory, Roaming or Hybrid
  • Applications – Installed or Virtual and how to choose
  • Application Compatibility – How to deal with apps that are not compatible with Windows 7
  • User types – Task, Knowledge, Power, Mobile, IT, Developer
  • Peripheral devices – How to deal with different peripheral devices and which ones are particularly troublesome
  • SID Uniqueness – When do you need unique Machine SID (Security Identifiers)
  • How to rapidly deploy thousands of new Virtual Desktops when a master image needs updating
  • How to keep your VHD Templates up to date

How to Successfully Implement and Transition into a Hyper-V Virtualization Platform
Speaker: Niklas Akerlund

In this session, we will look at the steps for a successful implementation of a virtualization platform. One crucial thing is preparation and consolidation planning to get the requirements on the solution. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit will help us with the inventory and performance data collection, and from this we can size and design a fully operational datacenter virtualization platform and be prepared for the anticipated workload.  We will also look at how to successfully migrate server workloads. Part of the migration process is virtual machine optimization and how to get a clean converted workload for optimal performance as a virtual machine. When all workloads are running in a virtual environment, it´s important to follow up to make sure performance and response times are as expected.

Hyper-V Networking Best Practices
Speaker: Carsten Rachfahl

When people are asked what they find most important in a virtual environment, they often answer things such as cpu power, high availability and IOPS. Not so many say, “it’s the network.” In this speaker’s opinion, network is one of the most important pieces in any virtual environment. Why? Here are a few phrases: VM connectivity, failover cluster, iSCSI storage, live migration and backup technologies. All of these are impossible without a reliable and well-performing network. So let’s talk about the best practices in Hyper-V and “Hyper-V Cluster” networking. We will cover things such as iSCSI, MPIO, Network Teaming, live migration and heartbeat network, 10GBit and many more. Last but not least, we will look into the future of Hyper-V networking.

Hyper-V Storage Deep Dive
Speaker: Hans Vredevoort

This session will reflect on how Hyper-V has dealt with local and shared storage. Many of us have struggled with the one-VM-per-LUN limitation in R1, have learned to love and hate Cluster Shared Volumes in R2 or struggled with iSCSI, FC and SAS based storage and clusters. Not only will we look at best practices and lessons learned in the Hyper-V storage arena, but we also will look ahead to what the future holds for Hyper-V and storage

Managing Enterprise Scale Hyper-V Clusters
Speaker: Guido Grillenmeier

This is a session that does NOT compare the features of Hyper-V to those of ESX. It also does NOT compare the performance of Hyper-V to that of other hypervisors. We know they all have their differences, but Hyper-V is certainly an attractive option. This session concentrates on the challenges of actually operating a Hyper-V implementation at enterprise scale in production for more than two years already and how we solved them. What is it like to handle more than 100 Hyper-V servers forming more than 15 clusters across the globe, hosting more than 1000 server VMs? Details that this session covers include best practices for deploying Hyper-V in a cluster, incl. various little traps that you can avoid falling into. Similarly System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) brings along its own challenges when planning to leverage it in a global Hyper-V deployment. This includes handling of networks in a cluster and deployment of multiple disks per VM. The session is a result from production use of Hyper-V and not from running it in Test-Labs.

Managing Hyper-V with Windows PowerShell
Speaker: Kirk Munro

Unlike most Microsoft server platforms, managing Hyper-V with Windows PowerShell is not as straightforward as it should be.  Hyper-V management tools do not include a module or snapin with well-designed cmdlets to facilitate PowerShell-based management and automation.  Without cmdlets available, what are your options?  There are actually quite a few options available, most of which are free, but some of these come with a significant learning curve.  In this session Kirk Munro, the world’s first self-proclaimed Poshoholic, will show you how to sort through the various options that are available and get the most out of your Hyper-V management experience with PowerShell.  He will demonstrate how to perform essential management tasks such as provisioning VMs, modifying VM configuration, and changing settings on the hypervisor itself.  Topics covered will include Hyper-V management with PowerShell using WMI, freeware modules and solutions, and commercial cmdlets in Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.

Minimizing the OS, Maximizing the Functionality – Why Hyper-V on Server Core is Making a Difference
Speaker: Joachim Nasslander

Maximizing uptime, minimizing maintenance. Sounds like a dream doesn’t it? This session will show you how to achieve that in your virtualization environment. The Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 R2 has a bad reputation for being hard to manage. We are confident you’ll leave this session with a totally different state of mind, and your next virtualization platform could be a Core installation!

The Case of…..Featuring “The App-V Sequencer”
Speaker: Justin Zarb
This is a deep dive of troubleshooting techniques used when Microsoft PFE and the GTSC have investigated customer issues with Applications. See the step by step techniques used to see real world customer problems and the investigations and resolutions that were used to get the application functioning correctly. Learn some of the techniques used, and the importance of understanding the sequencer, windows and your applications. Objectives: 1. Attendees are able to identify common troubleshooting techniques for the most application issues with the App-V sequencer. 2. Attendees take away steps and methods to resolve specific application issues from the field, the root cause and resolution.

Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC) Part 1: A Deep Dive into TS & VDI Performance Best Practices
Speaker: Jeroen van de Kamp

In this energetic session, Jeroen van de Kamp will present the important results and best practices for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and Remote Desktop Session Host (formerly Terminal Server) workloads as found in Project “THE Virtual Reality Check.” This R&D project started in early 2009 and has involved more than 850 tests. The goal of Project VRC is to analyze the developments in the application and desktop virtualization market and present the results in an unbiased and independent way. In the haze of massive amounts of innovation and marketing promises, this information is highly appreciated. Because there is simply too much data that Project VRC has accumulated over the years, the speaker will present all project findings in two sessions to allow him to do a true deep-dive into all published and brand new (unpublished) content.

Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC) Part 2: Latest and Unpublished Results!
Speaker: Jeroen van de Kamp

The Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC) chat continues! In Part 2, we will focus on the latest published and unpublished project results.

Virtualizing Exchange 2010, the Do’s and Dont’s
Speaker: Jaap Wesselius

This presentation will explain more on the Hyper-V architecture and how Exchange can benefit from it, but at the same time explain how a virtualized Exchange Server can suffer due to configuration errors. Hyper-V CSV clusters, Live Migration, Database Availability Group (DAG) and Network Load Balancing (NLB) can be used to increase the availability, but what’s the best solution in which situation? In this presentation you’ll learn the do’s and don’ts about running Exchange Server 2010 on a Hyper-V platform.

Cloud Sessions:

Best Practices for Migrating to a Cloud-Based Collaboration Platform
Speaker: Jarrod Roark

This session covers the real world examples and challenges associated with moving to a cloud based collaboration platform as well as exploring the business justification of adopting such a platforms and the unique obsitcles that come in the planning and execution of a migration, as well as touching on the ongoing management issues associated with entry into the system.

Business in the Cloud, Identity Strategies and Technologies to Get Your Business Off the Ground
Speaker: Brian Puhl

Microsoft is more than just a cloud service provider, we’re a customer too! Come join the discussion as we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of Microsoft’s adoption of cloud services. We’ll look at the roles that AD, ADFSv2, and FIM – as well as others, like PKI and RMS, are providing the technical foundation for adoption of BPOS and 3rd party SaaS services, and how MSIT is using these technologies to move mission critical applications securely to cloud services like Windows Azure.

Culture Clashes in the Cloud
Speaker: Tim Cole

As cloud computing catches on, realization is setting in that many things enterprises routinely do there are in fact illegal. For instance, European law strictly prohibits transferring personal data to locations outside the physical boundries of the European Union. To circumvent this, the United States and the EU have negotiated a “Safe Harbor” agreement – but is it really? In this presentation, Tim Cole will discuss the potential clash of cultures and legal systems and how it effects corporate IT strategy, plus suggest some ways enterprises can defend themselves against both logical and legal threats to security and liability.

Microsoft Office 365 vs Google Apps: Cloud Collaboration Smackdown
Speaker: Jarrod Roark

Are you confused with the cloud email and collaboration offerings and the marketing material from the vendors? Come to this session to learn the good, the bad and the ugly about the main cloud collaboration solutions from Jarrod Roark. Jarrod works as Director, Advanced Infrastructure at Bennett Adelson and has hands on experience with both solutions.

Provisioning and Syndicating Office365
Speaker: Danny Kim

Learn the options available integrating Office365 into your web portal or products.  This sessions will cover technical architecture and APIs necessary to integrate components of Office365 into existing SaaS applications and the architecture around how to syndicate Office365 for provisioning and managing new and existing accounts.  This is a 300-400 level session with architecture and light code understanding.

Security and Authentication for Mobile Apps
Speaker: Pat Patterson

With applications running on new devices and accessing new APIs via new protocols, how do we make sense of identity and security in this social, open, mobile world? Join us as we focus on the issues of authenticating mobile users and authorizing their access to cloud resources. We’ll show you exactly how to provide an integrated, secure environment to a mobile user base.

Taking Identity from the Enterprise to the Cloud
Speaker: Pat Patterson

Integrated Windows Authentication leverages Active Directory’s Kerberos functionality to provide single sign-on within an enterprise’s Microsoft web infrastructure, but how can we extend that out of the enterprise and into the new world of software-as-a-service and RESTful APIs? This session will explain how SAML and OAuth can be used to bridge the gap, allowing desktop applications to access web services such as the Force.com REST API.