E2EVC XX in Rome - my session and why I like E2E

E2EVC XX, this has been the twentieth E2E (aka PubForum) is finished. This has been my third time at E2E (after Vienna in 2012 and Copenhagen this May/June) and also the third time I was having my own session there.

Due to some strong migraine on Friday I wasn’t able to attend any session, that’s why I decided not to do any “Live-blogging” from the event and instead do this wrap-up. So this is my wrap-up at 36.000ft, on a delayed and rather bumpy Germanwings flight back home.

Speakers

As usual there have been some great speakers with really good content. Unfortunately, at least I think so, there have been so many speakers and sessions that a lot of good content had to get squeezed into only 30 or 45 minutes slots. I shouldn’t complain, because I got 45minutes in the end.

For me it’s really cool to have my own session on that same Agenda as Aidan Finn, Shawn Bass, Helge Klein and so many other well-known IT experts have. In total there have been 21 MVPs, 15 CTPs and 6 vExperts.

Content

As a Microsoft System Center focused person I really like seeing that with every E2E there is more Windows Server and System Center content on the Agenda and more and more attendees are also from that area.

I also liked to see that a lot of speakers did mostly demos and a lot (myself included) relied on demo environments in the Cloud. My demo environment was completely on Windows Azure, others accessed their Labs at home via ICA/HDX or RDP and practically everything worked. The demo gods must have been very kind this weekend.

If I had to chose my Top 3 sessions of this event, then this would be

1. Aidan Finn talking about Windows Server Storage Spaces and SMB 3.0 in Windows Server 2012 R2. In this limited time he had he presented us some really impressive performance figures for SMB3.0(.2) and even put in a short demo (before his network connection died).
2. Splunk and uberAgent session (Workshop?) by Jason and Brandon (Splunk) and Helge Klein. These are two products (or better, a product and an add-on)  you should definitely have a look at. Really cool what Splunk can do with just raw data you throw at it.
3. Number 3 is shared by Ingmar Verheij and Wilco van Bragt’s session about PVS design decisions (although I don’t really do that anymore) and Andrew Morgan’s Thinkiosk sessions. The praise Andrew earns for that little baby of his is pretty well deserved. Go have a look at it.

I would have liked to go to some more sessions, especially some of the ones on Friday, but there’s only that much time you can use and sooo many interesting people to (re-)connect with. After all, E2EVC is all about networking.

If I could wish something, then I’d like to see more “Client Side management” content in the future. ConfigMgr, Intune, App-V and stuff like that (other vendors would be also cool).

My own session

My session was on Saturday evening, the last one on Saturday and I had to compete against Didier van Hoye’s session, which I bet stole some of my audience. I got some nice feedback for my ConfigMgr documentation script (also some new ideas) and the session itself, which is always nice.

I already uploaded the slides and as soon as Alex has released the videos I’ll put that one up here as well.

E2E experience

This 20th E2E was just plain awesome. It’s been great seeing so many other IT guys for a whole weekend and just do easy networking. No sales, no marketing, just tech!

The next E2EVC has already been announced for Los Angeles next May,Brussels also next May and Barcelona in November.

Alex, Clare and Anne-Marie did a great job keeping us all comfortable and getting us all safely from and to the airport. (which other conference does that???) THANK YOU!