Microsoft Ignite 2018 – Day 3 Preview
Good morning and welcome to day three of Microsoft Ignite! Hard to believe today is the halfway mark already. I had a great day yesterday, and I’m looking for more of the same today. I’ll be posting some thoughts on yesterday later, but here’s a snapshot of what I’m up to today.
Some of the sessions I’ve added to my schedule for today are listed below.
I’m a sucker for any sessions on deployment. It seems no matter how any you go to, there’s always something new to learn. With deployment moving on from the traditional wipe and reload style install to a continuous series of updates, we have to look at what we’re doing in new ways. The session extract talks about moving from “a project-based approach to a process-based approach” which is still an adjustment for a lot of us as well as our users.
One of the banes of my existence is app packaging. I’m not sure what it is about the people who create software used in Higher Ed, but few of them seem to make it easy to deploy their programs. I still have to do a lot of customization to get programs to install properly because of the weirdness of their setup processes. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that MSIX can help with that. It’s good to have hope, right?
This session is more aspirational for me, since my institution prefers we use a competing product (even though we already get OneDrive and we have to pay extra for that other program).
I’ve admitted it on Twitter, and I’ll repeat it here: I’m not a great note taker. It’s something I’m trying to work on, and I really want to improve my proficiency at using OneNote effectively. I’m hoping Ståle Hansen has some help for someone like me.
Yesterday’s session by Dona Sarkar in the Diversity & Tech lunch slot was awesome, and I expect Sonia Cuff’s session today will be the same. Sonia is one of the new Cloud Ops Advocates, and this is a topic that many of us, myself included, can relate to. Let’s take a break from our tech and invest some time in ourselves this week.
This is a continuation of part one from yesterday. I wound up not going to part one in favor of a OneDrive session, but this is one I’m definitely going to review the recording later. We’re not in a position to use Windows AutoPilot yet at work (due to licensing), but I’m hoping that gets resolved eventually.
Three words: Jeffrey, Snover, and PowerShell. What more reason do you need to go to the annual update of the state of PowerShell? This year, they’re focusing on the PowerShell community and the tools coming out of the community.
The free Windows Analytics service has been an amazing tool, letting you see the health of your devices, assess the deployment of patches, and help identify how ready your clients are for deploying Windows 10. Desktop Analytics now extends that service to help address application compatibility and bring integration into Configuration Manager and Intune. Looking forward to learning more.
Phoummala Schmitt (a.k.a @ExchangeGoddess on Twitter) is another member of the new Cloud Ops Advocates, and )full disclosure) a friend of mine. Phoummala has been giving this talk at a number of events, and I’m happy to finally have the chance to hear it for myself in person. Fear can definitely hold us back from making changes in our environment, and that can be a hard thing to overcome. Being careful is good, but don’t let fear freeze you in place.
I admit that email is still the core of my interactions during the day (I’m old). I live in Outlook, and I hear there are some good things in the pipeline.
- BRK2037 – Windows Server management reimagined with Windows Admin Center
There’s a lot of excitement around Windows Admin Center going back to when it was called Project Honolulu, and Microsoft and partners keep bringing new features and capabilities to the tool. If you haven’t taken the leap yet, come check it out and see what it can do for you.
I’m also going to be around Community Central at 2pm to help Squeaky Lobster (@SqueakyLobstr celebrate his 21st birthday with the Exchange Team. Stop by and help Squeaky celebrate!
Tonight I’ll be at the Adaptiva party as well as ENow’s Scheduled Maintenance party. Looking forward to decompressing with MMS and MEC friends after what will be a busy day.
If you see me around, stop and say hi. I have more stickers so you can give your device a little bit of tiki love. Aloha!