Managed World

Well, my trip to Amsterdam is almost over. I was here in Amsterdam to do some training of trainers for an upcoming Longhorn Server event that we (DPE @ Microsoft) will be launching world-wide in the coming months.

I knew there were going to be some "big" types of names here, but I don't think I fully understood what that meant :P. There were several MS Regional Directors at the events, countless MS MVPs, and other highly-respected trainers from all over the globe (about 32 people in total). I'm also proud to say that I finally get to meet Christian Weyer in person (and have a beer (or two (or three (or four))) with him). What a fun gun. And he's just as smart as he seems online. It was a blast chatting about TxF with him on several occasions.

Considering it was the first "major event" I talked at, I thought it went decently well. I tag-teamed with Keith Brown from Pluralsight (another pleasure, that's for sure). I gave four talks in total: High Performance Computing and Compute Cluster Server 2003, Windows Virtualization Roadmap (including Windows Server Virtualization), Transactional NTFS (my favorite, but I'm a little biased), and Terminal Services in Longhorn Server.

I definitely don't know enough about HPC. While I was able to answer some questions, I have a very high-level knowledge of HPC so I wasn't able to answer most of the in-depth questions. Windows Virtualization Roadmap went well. I just love this stuff. I love talking about Ring Compression and the new Virtualization hardware assists that are coming (and the like). I'm hoping to work up some demos before I present this again in Singapore next week. Perhaps some two demos using PowerShell: one using CmdLets to add new virtual machines into Virtual Server, and the other one about building a PS provider that allows you to browse Virtual Server -> Virtual Machine -> Virtual Properties by "dir" and "cd" and the like :).

The Transactional NTFS talk went well, but that was the talk I was least concerned about. Since I have been living in TxF land for a bit now, I'm comfortable talking about all the issues for it. In the future, I want to make some demos that are more sexy for TxF. I'm also thinking about possibly coming up with a demo scenario I can use to help tell the TxF Story. The funny part is that I realized I'm missing some slides. I realize this because there were several questions that came up from the audience that would have been addressed directly by some of the slides I had removed. Oops :).

Last was the Terminal Services in Longhorn Server talk. Ouch! This talk is nowhere near technical enough, nor developer-oriented enough. It's my own fault though since I "put together" the deck for the Touchdown program. I'm hoping to get a team member back in Redmond to mail the latest LHS build to me in Singapore so I can setup a Virtual Machine in order to write up some demos and show off features like TS-Remote Programs. We'll see how that situation works out.

That's about it. I managed to take some pictures while I was here, so I will try to put them up when I get back to Seattle (or if I can find time while I'm in Singapore).