Friday, June 13, 2003
Tech Ed 2003 - A Look Back, Part 1
Posted by Philip Colmer in "THOUGHT" @ 12:00 PM
Microsoft describes Tech Ed as "the definitive Microsoft conference for building, deploying and managing connected solutions". This article is the first of four parts looking back at the 2003 conference that was held recently in Dallas.
A bit of history
In previous years, in addition to Tech Ed, there was the Microsoft Exchange Conference, designed to promote and focus on Microsoft's collaboration platform. As the server offerings grew to include products like ISA and SharePoint, so did the focus of the Exchange conference, until it just became known as MEC. As MEC grew to encompass more and more IT professional related sessions, so Tech Ed became more and more developer oriented.
Until now.
Microsoft decided that the 2002 MEC would be the last one. This year, Tech Ed appeared to be firmly focused on delivering sessions for both the developer and the IT professional communities. At previous Tech Eds, I've sometimes struggled to find an "IT Pro" session that would be useful to me. This year, I didn't have that problem.
The structure of Tech Ed
Tech Ed ran from Sunday to Friday. Sunday was "pre-conference session" day, providing lecture sessions on Active Directory, security, XML & Web services, databases & SQL server, plus hands-on labs for Exchange deployment, Windows troubleshooting with Sysinternal tools, Visual Studio .NET RAD and building Web services. These sessions lasted the whole day and were an optional add-on to the main part of Tech Ed.
The rest of the conference consisted of nearly 400 sessions, hands-on labs and lunchtime sessions, plus evening entertainment for those who could keep going until the early hours!
Accommodation, travel and food
Microsoft made it easy for delegates to book rooms, get to their hotels and travel between their hotel, the conference centre and other external events. To that end, delegates had a choice of 15 hotels with discounted room rates. You were, of course, free to get a room anywhere else, but the coaches that ferried delegates to and from the conference centre only ran to the nominated hotels. I decided to stay at the Renaissance hotel, primarily because of my Marriott reward card.
What I hadn't realised was just quite how far from the conference centre my hotel was … although Microsoft laid on coaches, it would have been nice to have been able to walk instead - if for no other reason than to try to work off some of the naughty nibbles they were feeding us like doughnuts, cookies, Ben & Jerry ice cream, Twinkies …
To give you some idea of just how far my hotel was from the convention centre, let's take a look out of the bedroom window.
Now, there are two buildings in the right-hand foreground - the Wyndham Anatole hotel. See the tower between them? No? Try the next photo …
See it now? Oh, OK - one more close-up …
Well, that structure is a couple of blocks away from the conference centre. Much as I might have loved walking all that way, I don't think I'd have enjoyed the conference day very much afterwards :(
Speaking of food, Microsoft's planning and execution of the food hall was of the typical high standard. The hall could seat 8000 delegates, and the flow of attendees through the doorway was impressive.
During both breakfast and lunch, a variety of bands played live music. Sometimes it was a bit hard to take if you were struggling to get going first thing in the morning, but most of the time it was welcome.
Deems, pictured above, is a regular at Tech Ed and, indeed, the evening jam sessions.
Coming next ...
Over so soon? Well, there are a lot of images to share with you, so I've deliberately kept the article size down.
Anyhow, in the second part, find out about the keynotes, what the sessions were all about, the hands-on labs ... and what you could find out about Pocket PC 2003 at Tech Ed!
A bit of history
In previous years, in addition to Tech Ed, there was the Microsoft Exchange Conference, designed to promote and focus on Microsoft's collaboration platform. As the server offerings grew to include products like ISA and SharePoint, so did the focus of the Exchange conference, until it just became known as MEC. As MEC grew to encompass more and more IT professional related sessions, so Tech Ed became more and more developer oriented.
Until now.
Microsoft decided that the 2002 MEC would be the last one. This year, Tech Ed appeared to be firmly focused on delivering sessions for both the developer and the IT professional communities. At previous Tech Eds, I've sometimes struggled to find an "IT Pro" session that would be useful to me. This year, I didn't have that problem.
The structure of Tech Ed
Tech Ed ran from Sunday to Friday. Sunday was "pre-conference session" day, providing lecture sessions on Active Directory, security, XML & Web services, databases & SQL server, plus hands-on labs for Exchange deployment, Windows troubleshooting with Sysinternal tools, Visual Studio .NET RAD and building Web services. These sessions lasted the whole day and were an optional add-on to the main part of Tech Ed.
The rest of the conference consisted of nearly 400 sessions, hands-on labs and lunchtime sessions, plus evening entertainment for those who could keep going until the early hours!
Accommodation, travel and food
Microsoft made it easy for delegates to book rooms, get to their hotels and travel between their hotel, the conference centre and other external events. To that end, delegates had a choice of 15 hotels with discounted room rates. You were, of course, free to get a room anywhere else, but the coaches that ferried delegates to and from the conference centre only ran to the nominated hotels. I decided to stay at the Renaissance hotel, primarily because of my Marriott reward card.
What I hadn't realised was just quite how far from the conference centre my hotel was … although Microsoft laid on coaches, it would have been nice to have been able to walk instead - if for no other reason than to try to work off some of the naughty nibbles they were feeding us like doughnuts, cookies, Ben & Jerry ice cream, Twinkies …
To give you some idea of just how far my hotel was from the convention centre, let's take a look out of the bedroom window.
Now, there are two buildings in the right-hand foreground - the Wyndham Anatole hotel. See the tower between them? No? Try the next photo …
See it now? Oh, OK - one more close-up …
Well, that structure is a couple of blocks away from the conference centre. Much as I might have loved walking all that way, I don't think I'd have enjoyed the conference day very much afterwards :(
Speaking of food, Microsoft's planning and execution of the food hall was of the typical high standard. The hall could seat 8000 delegates, and the flow of attendees through the doorway was impressive.
During both breakfast and lunch, a variety of bands played live music. Sometimes it was a bit hard to take if you were struggling to get going first thing in the morning, but most of the time it was welcome.
Deems, pictured above, is a regular at Tech Ed and, indeed, the evening jam sessions.
Coming next ...
Over so soon? Well, there are a lot of images to share with you, so I've deliberately kept the article size down.
Anyhow, in the second part, find out about the keynotes, what the sessions were all about, the hands-on labs ... and what you could find out about Pocket PC 2003 at Tech Ed!
