The Experts Conference

David Sengupta has been a Microsoft Exchange Server MVP since 1998, and has worked with Exchange since its inception. He is director of unified communications at Quest Software. A leading expert in messaging and unified communications, David has written for many print and online publications, contributes regularly to books on messaging and Exchange, and speaks at major Microsoft events and conferences, including TechEd and IT Forum.

Nicolas Blank is a Microsoft Infrastructure Architect specializing in Exchange, Active Directory, architecture, systems management, migration and scripting. He is a Microsoft MVP for Exchange and spends what spare time he has writing, blogging and talking about Exchange and associated technologies.

Karl Bystrom is a user researcher in the Exchange User Experience team. His current focus is on the usability of the management experience in Exchange Server, including the Exchange Management Console, the Exchange Control Panel, and the Exchange Management Shell. His role is to work with current and potential customers to analyze scenarios, workflows, and usage patterns for both existing products and for prototype interface designs. This data is used to help inform development groups so they can more effectively drive appropriate design decisions into the product. Prior to joining the Exchange team, he conducted interface research and design for other enterprise product groups at Microsoft, including Systems Management Server, Windows, and SQL Server. He holds a BS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MS from the University of Washington.

Andrew Ehrensing has 15 years of experience with corporate messaging systems. He is currently a Solutions Architect at Microsoft in the Public Sector group and has been with Microsoft since 2005. His current area of expertise is in migrations, consolidation, and site resilient solutions for Microsoft Exchange and Office Communications Server.

Dmitri Gavrilov is a development lead in Exchange, responsible for mailbox migration. Previously, he worked as a developer in Active Directory group. He was responsible for various code components of AD, including Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM), currently known as “AD LDS”. He was the lead for AD UI in Windows Server 2008 release. He joined Microsoft in 2000. Some exciting projects that he has participated in are AD on SQL prototype and ADAM. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked as a software developer at Axia Multimedia Corp, Calgary, Canada. He also worked as a Computational Scientist at MACI (Multimedia Advanced Computing Infrastructure), an HPC lab at the University of Calgary, Canada. Gavrilov holds a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Moscow State University, Russia, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Calgary, Canada. In his spare time, he enjoys sailing and spending time with his wife and two sons.

Juergen Hasslauer is a senior consultant with infoWAN Datenkommunikation GmbH in Germany. He supports companies to define the architecture of their IT solutions. His current focus is designing high available Microsoft Exchange environments and infrastructure optimization using virtualization solutions. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences such as Microsoft Exchange Connections and a coauthor of the book, Designing Storage for Exchange 2007 SP1. Prior to joining infoWAN, Juergen worked 9 years as a technology consultant with HP.

Justin Hiedeman, MCTIP Enterprise Messaging Administrator, has been working with Microsoft Exchange for nearly 10 years. The past 2 and half years have been spent as a senior consultant with Ensynch Incorporated designing and implementing Unified Communications solutions for customers across the Southwest. His certifications include: MCSE, MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator and MCTS: Office Communications Server 2007 – UC Voice (Ensynch is also a select Microsoft UC Voice partner). As a Solutions Architect for Ensynch he has designed and led numerous Exchange migration/implementations from Groupwise, Lotus and Exchange, to Exchange/Exchange Online projects.

Martin Isaksen has over 27 years of experience in communication and software systems. He is currently an Architect at Microsoft in the Voice Global Practice group assisting the field and OCS product groups in the early adoption of OCS software powered voice. His current area of expertise is in Voice, Data, Security, Wireless, and more recently Unified Communications. Prior to Microsoft, Martin worked on several mission critical communications systems for the Federal Government and Department of Defense including the NASA Space Shuttle Telemetry Network, US Presidential Air-Force1 Communications, and the first ever DoD certified VoIP solution at Ft. Huachuca, AZ. He holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.

Konstantin is a Sr. Technology Architect in the Microsoft Business Collaboration Services Group a team which provides Exchange based hosted messaging services to Microsoft IT and other enterprise customers. Konstantin joined Microsoft IT 9 years ago and specialized on security aspects of messaging, e-mail routing, messaging hygiene and mobile messaging. He is currently working on architecting and designing messaging solutions for Microsoft IT and Microsoft Online production environments based on Exchange 2007 and Exchange 14 technologies. Konstantin regularly presents at industry conferences on e-mail subjects and is also a trainer for the Microsoft Certified Architect | Messaging program.Prior to joining Microsoft Konstantin was working as consultant and technical trainer. He holds Masters Degree in Computer Science from St. Petersburg State Technical University in Russia and has several industry certifications including MCA|M, MCT, CISSP, CCNA and Security+. Konstantin also coauthored several books on networking and security technologies.

Scott Schnoll (MCT, MCSE, MCSA) is a Principal Technical Writer on the Exchange User Education team at Microsoft where he authors content on a variety of topics related to Exchange Server, including clustering, high-availability, storage and performance. He is a frequent speaker at major global industry conferences, such as Microsoft TechEd, Microsoft IT Forum, Comdex and MCP TechMentor. Prior to joining Microsoft, Scott authored Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Distilled (Addison-Wesley, 2004) and he was the lead author of Exchange 2000 Server: The Complete Reference (Osborne McGraw-Hill, 2000). Scott is a former long-time Microsoft MVP for Exchange Server, Windows and Rights Management Services.

Brett Shirley in his own words:  I started as a programmer (aka Software Engineer / SDE) in 1999 on Microsoft’s AD Replication team.  During my tenure there I worked on AD Replication, some little known tools (such as repadmin.exe, dcdiag.exe), App Partitions, AD Backup/Restore, and AD/AM.  I moved to the ESE (Extensible Storage Engine) team in summer 2004 where I work mostly on the Buffer Manager and OS Abstraction Layer. I do not have a Ph.D like Dmitri Gavrilov, ergo I’m much less interesting to listen to..

Michael B. Smith is an Exchange MVP who owns and operates a consulting firm that specializes in Exchange Server and Active Directory. Michael has had over 25 years of experience in the IT field and focuses on providing solutions that support customers goals for operational excellence. Michael is also a well-known writer for such publications as WindowsITPro, Exchange Messaging & Outlook, and others. Michael recently completed his second book, Monitoring Exchange Server 2007 with Operations Manager from Wiley and was technical editor for two recently published O’Reilly Media books: Active Directory, Fourth Edition and Active Directory Cookbook, Third Edition. Michael is active in a number of online Exchange communities and you can read his blog at http://TheEssentialExchange.com/blogs/michael.

Within the Exchange Server Product Group, Ross Smith is a member of the Customer Experience team and has the following focus areas:

• Help resolve and preempt critical customer escalations
• Assist in defining improvements to, implementing, and running Exchange’s next-generation Sustained Engineering Experience process
• Collaborate to produce documentation and provide customer, Microsoft Services, and Product Group coordination and education.

He joined Microsoft in 2001 as a Messaging Systems Engineer working for Microsoft IT focusing on Exchange Server 2000 and SharePoint designs. After a stint in Microsoft IT, he moved to Premier as an Alliance Support Consultant supporting and designing a variety of customers’ Exchange and Active Directory implementations. Prior to joining the product group, Smith was a Senior Messaging Technology Architect in the Exchange Center of Excellence (ECoE). The ECoE’s goal was to provide high impact, value, and volume expertise to Microsoft customers, Microsoft field personnel, and the product groups. While within the ECoE, he developed intellectual property (IP) used to develop solutions like the Exchange Risk Assessment, Desired Configuration Monitoring, and Service Level Management offerings. His deep focus on all aspects of Exchange including storage, high availability, security, client access, and transport has led to IP being developed and leveraged as best practices in customer presentations, whitepapers, blog postings, Exchange Masters training, and field readiness areas. Over the last few years, he has published quite a bit of content, including the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Storage Requirements Calculator and the Continuous Replication Deep Dive Whitepaper. Smith regularly presents at industry conferences on Exchange and is also a trainer for the Microsoft Certified Master | Exchange Server program.

Ilse Van Criekinge has recently joined Microsoft as a Technology Advisor – Microsoft Unified Communications. Before that she worked as an ICT Trainer and Consultant for Global Knowledge. Being an MCT, she has offered several companies guidance in their Exchange and MOM deployments, as well as auditing the disaster recovery capabilities in their mail environment. During the last three year she has ignited many IT Professionals with the power of Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010, by delivering training and by co-founding a new user group Pro-Exchange in Belgium, focused on Microsoft Unified Communications, http://www.proexchange.be. Ilse has held the Exchange MVP award for three years since April 2007. Van Criekinge has co-authored an Exchange Exam Prep Guide, written Sapien’s Exchange Management Shell: TFM book, and is looking forward to the new challenges on the Microsoft Unified Communications roadmap. In 2007, Van Criekinge won the Speaker Idol award at Tech•Ed EMEA IT Professionals, appearing as a speaker at Tech•Ed EMEA 2008 and 2009, and presented last year at the first TEC for Exchange in both Las Vegas and Berlin, and will be back in 2010! She is located in Belgium, where she lives together with Serge and their son Robin. You can follow her experiences at http://blogs.technet.com/ilvancri.

Anthony Vitnell is a Senior Solution Architect for Dimension Data based in New York City. He works with customers worldwide to design and implement large and diverse Microsoft solutions. His focus is on Messaging and Unified Communications technologies in the pursuit and delivery of design and implementation services for customers with specific focus on Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 and Exchange Unified Messaging telephony integrations. Anthony is a regular speaker at Microsoft and industry events, delivering technical presentations on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010, OCS 2007 and Unified Communications.