It has been almost a month since I attended Ignite in London ExCel though I constantly keep thinking about it. For those of you who do not know what it is, think Comic Con for IT driven by Microsoft technology 😉
Having never been to one of those events before I have to say that I was blown away on so many levels.
It was really well organised with a lot of people being there to give you directions, answer questions and were genuinely helpful. There is an event App specifically for these events as well – yet another thing I had no idea about. The App is truly awesome and super useful, there was a map of the whole event; printed incorrectly which is why the helpful staff came in to play ;-), and then there is the most important part of it – schedule builder. What it allowed you to do – and you probably should have done it well in advance 😉 – was to read up on the sessions you would want to attend and register for them. This is also the meat and potatoes of Ignite for me. The breakout sessions with Microsoft staff, MVPs or just some really clever and enthusiastic people; though let us not get ahead of ourselves here as I will talk about them later on in more detail. Lastly on the App itself – it is exceptionally well made, I go to a few events that produce their own App like IEM, EGX, Comic Con, and DreamHack… none of those are even remotely as useful and well designed. Barring the issue with the map – others could learn something from Microsoft here.
In the morning we were all directed to the breakfast sections. There were quite a few of those dotted around the Expo – the usual tea, coffee, juice with something healthy and not so healthy to eat – looking at you croissants and muffins 😉 After arduous journey with cancelled train I was really glad I could have a minute to wind down, drink some hot beverage and munch on some fruit 😀 Nice touch Microsoft 🙂
Due to my late train I did not have as much time as I had anticipated to wander around; nonetheless, I did manage to see most of it, just at a rapid pace 😉 From what I have seen there were many Microsoft partners ranging from Silver, Gold to Global (I think I have got that right… ;-)) I got the impression that there was a lot of emphasis on DR, Backup, and migration solutions. I would do this write-up a disservice had I not mentioned that Zerto was obviously there, up front with quite sizeable booth and a few helpful people. Seeing a list of so many partners it kind of made me want to see my company logo up there – definitely an aspiration for future events 🙂
In the middle of the show floor we had the meet-up areas when you could literally hold a meeting with a partner, customer, MSFT employee or anyone else for that matter. Very cool idea and well executed as well. Furthermore, next to those we had some very specific technology demos on display. You could talk to the expert and have a look at some of the cool stuff. It was very personal experience and as you were able to sit down and talk about stuff and see it there first-hand. For instance, Kenny Lowe – Azure Stack MVP – was manning a station there for Azure Stack throughout day one 🙂 Yet another great idea and also an aspiration… It is something for sure that I could do and enjoy every second of it – or so I think 🙂 Maybe next time? 😀
Now finally the the actual best thing at Ignite the breakout sessions. I attended as many of those as I could physically fit into my schedule. Really wish I could clone myself, stop time, or use some other alien technology to be able to see a lot more of them than I was able as they were truly extraordinary. I will list the ones I have attended with a brief comment but I fully intend to have a separate post(s) on at least a couple to give you more in-depth information as to why I think they were so brilliant 🙂
My biggest complaint is that most of the session that apparently should be available here – are not really here or are outdated (Ignite 2018). Who knows, maybe they will still appear there at some point.
In the order that they happened:
Day 1:
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BRK3608 by Sam Cogan – What a great start of the day, really gave me the boost I needed and genuinely surprised me to see a passionate and skilled individual giving a very educational and useful presentation. It was the classic – off to a good start event. Lovely session with a ton of handy tips and tricks about ARM templates and tools we can use to write them and make them better. Really wish I could get a hold of the slides from it…Update: I reached out to Sam and he shared the presentation along side with the demos – they can be found here.
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BRK3676 by Kenny Lowe – Session about making the most of Azure Stack Dev Kit (ASDK) and overcoming its very limited connectivity – in reality it was so much more. What I enjoyed the most here was the overall history and overview of Azure Stack itself. We are still a very small community and not a lot people know even what AZS is. Great introduction with some real life examples. Loved it 🙂 bar the Star Trek bits… Star Wars for life!!! 😉
Side note: Again I wish it was me doing it… maybe one day? 🙂
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BRK3428 by Stefanie Jacobs and Chris Howett – This one was a bit of an odd ball for me personally – not in a bad way though, it was because I am not really a compliance expert. Having said that, it was eye opening how much Microsoft cares about all that stuff. The Compliance Manager itself is a great tool and there were additional integrations on how we can manage approvals for Microsoft employees via Security Groups in Azure AD. Very inspirational and enforces the message that no MSFT employee has got access to your data without you knowing about it.The whole process that works as follows: MSFT Support Engineer need to restore a mailbox (assuming you set up the Security Group with some people who can authorise the request for access beforehand) – he or she will have to give a good reason as to why it is required in the first place, then the manager grants or not the permission to even request the access from you – the customer -> you will then get an email to approve access that is only granted for 1 hour up to maximum of 4 hours (or 6… cannot recall) – also worth noting that if you do not authorise the request it will expire after 24 hours – and is fully audited -> MSFT Support Engineer that performs the restore closes the session and immediately loses access to your data. No standing access by default… true just-in-time administration – learn more here if it peaked your interest.
I think it was great to see how Microsoft constantly is trying to improve security and make us feel safe in the cloud.
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BRK3637 by Marco De Sanctis – What a session to close the day off. Literally everyone was at the edge of their seats throughout the session. Marco really blew it out of the park with this one. I have never seen so much excellent content being squeezed into 60 minutes. Forefront of today’s IT – Kubernetes containers combined with the power of Azure DevOps and we got full Dev and Prod environments with Integration, Unit, and even End User testing done for a workload utilising Redis Cache and MongoDB with a Web Front End. Moved then into Azure PaaS services when run in the cloud to Redis PaaS and Cosmos DB. It was actually part 2 of the session that will happen the next day – will elaborate on that one too. Cannot recommend this session enough – I wish it was recorded… but we have some of it here
Day 2
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HYB10 by Thomas Maurer – Yet another fabulous kick off session. It was a true joy and privilege to witness what Thomas had prepared for us. A lot of content and definitely not enough time to go as much in-depth as we all would have liked but still very useful and witty. Overview of how we should tackle network architecture for hybrid solutions. Sadly Azure Stack was not considered nor was it mentioned but it is a side note. Then we went on discussing Azure File Sync which enhances the hybrid solution message of how cool can it be to use on-prem with cloud. Finished with an extraordinary Windows Server 2019 new feature of creating a VPN connection to Azure with like 3 clicks (more on that in a separate Windows 2019 post – promise ;-)) Some – sadly outdated – slides can be found here.
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BRK3610 by Marco De Sanctis – Part 1 really of the session from day 1 – weird I know but bear with me. This was for sure one of the highlights of Ignite 2019. Marco took us on an epic journey of today’s DevOps. Telling us how Kubernetes came about, how they work, and showed us some real life examples and demoed the whole Web Front, Redis Cache, and MongoDB solution. All in the span of 60 minutes. Marco included the PowerPoint presentation in GitHub so check it out. If I ever get time I hope to make a post combining part 1 and 2 and giving you a bit more details.
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BRK2484 by Kyle Marsh – Something very close to my heart lately given the Microsoft “directive” of going full MFA for CSP Partner Center Portal and potentially enforcing MFA in Azure AD. I have learnt how JWT tokens are constructed, why I should not rely on data in Access Tokens. What is MSAL (Microsoft Authentication Libraries) vs ADAL (Azure Active Directory Authentication Libraries) – good post with in-depth explanation here – and why Microsoft is making it more secure and better for us all. Also finally it has been confirmed that Enterprise Applications in Azure portal are actually SPNs (Service Principal Names).The exciting part for me is that with MSAL we will be able to authenticate with Azure Stack using PowerShell on Linux – very soon 🙂 Already there are plenty of modules that work on .NET Core and AZS will be there eventually 🙂
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BRK3653 by Jeff Woolsey – This one session definitely will get its own post so I will try to keep it brief here. Windows 2019 could bring the revolution we have not seen in many years from Server line of MSFT products. It appears that some of the features were specifically designed to help enhance Azure Stack with its new Software-defined networking (SDN) features. Nice write-up of those can be found here. There was a ton of content and I want to go much deeper into those in a separate post so I will leave it with this photo:
Definitely first time that Azure Stack got mentioned in any session ever bar its own sessions. Win I would say but a bit shallow as it was immediately omitted when we discussed Windows 2008 and SQL 2008 End of Support… shame and a missed opportunity – AGAIN!!!
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BRK3677 by Kenny Lowe , Darren Small – Last but certainly not least session for me. The closest to my heart for sure. Both Kenny and Darren talked about how Azure Stack is built. What was the most refreshing for me was the honestly of Darren when talking about Azure Stack VPN connectivity limitations. The god awful 200 Mbps connectivity limit of the Virtual network gateway was clearly mentioned.
The inability to connect between tenants using it as the Stack giving out single public IP (the same one the whole Stack).
The alternative methods of using a third party VPN or Microsoft’s RRAS (Routing and Remote Access Service) was a great addition.
It was truly great to see that Microsoft employee would openly discuss the clear issues with the product and also take feedback. Keep it up guys and listen to us and we will make it better together!!!
All in all, Ignite was brilliant! Never have I ever felt more like I belong. Meeting and seeing all those passionate and knowledgeable people is truly inspirational. Despite the event not being the all so famous Inspire this event inspired me to be a better person, better IT professional, and to aspire to achieve more. My dream would be to present a session on Azure Stack, to maybe even be on the show floor for a day and discuss why Azure Stack will change and revolutionise IT and our world. How Hybrid cloud is not only the future but the present… Though I could say that my passion was re-ignited, rekindled, and reforged. I think that if it was not for this event my blog would never have existed. It gave me that extra kick in the butt – so to speak 😉 – to do more…