http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/inetpub/kevinremde/KROmniture.htmDear TechEd Diary,
Well diary, if you ever had any doubts about “the cloud”, they should have been eased a bit if you attended or watched the live stream of Mark Russinovich and Mark Minasi’s “Mark and Mark” cloud discussion this morning. Besides being entertaining, it was very informative. It’s always great to hear the opinions of someone as important as Mark Russinovich is to Microsoft, and to the industry we serve. And it’s a good look under the hood of not only what we’re doing now, but there are hints of what’s coming. And to me, it’s very exciting.
The session, if your interested, is DCIM-B386 – “Mark Russinovich and Mark Minasi on Cloud Computing”. At the time of this writing, the recording isn’t yet available. But it will be soon.
The talk took the form of an informal interview, with Mark asking Mark the questions.
“Huh?”
Mark Minasi asked Mark Russinovich the questions concerning Microsoft and cloud services and often drilling specifically into Microsoft Azure. On Azure, they discussed new capabilities, the amazing scale that Microsoft has (Did you know that last year Microsoft purchased 17% of the world’s servers for their datacenters?) as well as topics of security and data privacy. It’s well worth a (re)view.
“What else did you learn about today?”
I learned more about the fundamentals of some of the new networking capabilities in Microsoft Azure. Session: DCIM-B305, “What’s New in Microsoft Azure Networking”. They did a good job of summarizing the many new capabilities, such as site-to-site VPN, multi-site VPN, reserved static public IP addresses, and more. The demos showed that some of the configuration isn’t quite as straightforward as they’d like it to be; but it’s a great start, and definitely something I’m looking forward to playing with (and blogging about) some more.
The other highlight of the day was another Mark Russinovich presentation: DCIM-B306, “Public Cloud Security: Surviving in a Hostile Multi-Tenant Environment”. Mark does a “Top 10” based on the Cloud Security Alliance “Notorious Nine: Cloud Computing Threats”, and gives his impressions on the realities of the list’s items from Microsoft’s perspective. It’s an eye-opener, for sure.
Those two last sessions’ recordings aren’t available yet. I’ll update this post with links when they’re available.
“What did you do for fun last night?”
Ah.. fun? Who has time for fun?
“You do.”
Yep. 
Last night’s meal was courtesy of the “Ask the Experts” event. Later, Veeam threw a very fun party (I am a sucker for good live music.) And the TechEd Jam Session was also in full-swing at the House of Blues, though I didn’t spend much time there. ($11 for a tall can of Miller Lite?! I don’t think so.)
Tonight I’ll be attending a party thrown at Lucky Strike by Nimble Storage, and then I’m heading over to the Hughes Hangar for the “Windows IT Pro Community Party” (Sponsored by Springboard Series on TechNet).
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Here are some photos from last night and earlier today.
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Now.. off to the parties!
Absolutely Full of I.T. 