Sessions

Track 1: Systems Management
Speaker: Darren Mar-Elia

Monitoring Heterogeneous Environments
Heterogeneous monitoring is not new, but some of the tools and trends for monitoring across Windows and *Nix systems are. In this session, we’ll look at strategies for cross-platform monitoring, including both system and application monitoring. We’ll also look at some of the technologies available to monitor your *Nix systems from the Windows platform and look at where monitoring technology is headed in the future with improved “state”-based monitoring.

Policy-based Configuration Management
Windows comes with Group Policy, a robust, scaleable technology for managing configurations across servers and desktops. But, how about non-Windows systems? Now you can manage these Unix, Linux and even Mac systems’ configuration using Group Policy. We’ll look at this trend at the trend towards cross-platform configuration management including the use of Group Policy and other technologies for creating a unified view of configuration across your enterprise. And we’ll look at how CMDB trends are changing the notion of configuration management.

Cross-Platform Management Standards
With the advent of XML and Web Services, the proprietary barriers of communication between Windows and *Nix systems are breaking down. This trend has previously been focused on cross-platform application integration, but is now making its way into the realm of Systems Management. In this session, we'll drill into the details around two key technologies in this area -- WS-Management (WS-MAN) and the emerging Service Modeling Language (SML) specification. We'll look where these technologies are today and look at how you should be planning to leverage them in the future. We'll also look at some existing WS-MAN implementations that are available today and what they can provide now and in the future.

Track 2: Directory Services and Security Integration
Speaker: Brian Komar

Achieving Nirvana (aka Single-Sign On) through Federation
Many of us have two, three, or more accounts that we use to access our corporate resources. With multiple directories, multiple networking systems, and multiple companies within our organization, we are all looking to log on to the resources with a single account and name or token and PIN. This session looks at how federation may be the answer to reaching single sign-on.

Managing Multiple Directories
When your organization adds a new employee, the IT wheels start churning. An account for the new employee must be added to the SAP HR system once the hiring process is completed. Don't forget about the benefits system running under NDS, the corporate directory running under iPlanet, and the Active Directory system used for the corporate network. If the employee moves, the account must be updated, but in which system? This session looks at the solutions that exist today for synching directories, the challenges faces when syncing directories, and how to provision and de-provision accounts into your integrated directory services system. The session will include a demonstration of the new Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 product.

Extending Certificate Trust beyond your Organization's Boundaries
Many organizations have deployed a PKI for internal certificate usage. With more companies requiring certificates that must be recognized by external customers for secure email, code signing, and Web SSL servers, the costs associated with purchasing individual certificates is getting to be cost prohibitive. This session looks at the options that are available to extend your certificate trust beyond your organization. The session will look at how your organization can become a trusted root authority, participating in a bridge CA such as Certipath, and deploying an issuing CA that is subordinate to a commercial root CA.

Track 3: Virtualization
Speaker: Michael Otey

Introduction to Virtualization
This session provides the basic understanding of today's virtualization technologies. It begins by introducing the different types of virtualization including hardware virtualization, virtual machine virtualization and application virtualization. Then it provides a high level look at the major products in each of these areas. The session concludes by looking at future directions of virtualization with hardware virtualization and the role of the Windows Longhorn Server Hypervisor.

Virtualization Strategies
The session covers the business benefits and uses of virtualization technology. It presents some of the major IT challenges today such as server sprawl, deployment, and testing and shows how virtualization can be used to address these problems. It also covers the business scenarios for using application virtualization and concludes by discussing the planning issues for future virtualization directions.

Using Virtualization
This session will focus on providing practical tips and techniques for using virtualization. The first part of this session will focus primarily on tips for using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2. The second part of this session will present the Microsoft virtualization management stack. This will discuss the virtualization improvement from in Virtual Server 2005 R2, and the cover virtual machine management using the System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Finally, Microsoft's roadmap for virtualization technologies will be presented.