Active Directory-related sessions at Tech·Ed Europe 2010

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adlogoTech·Ed Europe 2010 is only a few weeks away and many of us have begun filling their session builder with interesting sessions, corresponding to their interests and knowledge.

Following Hans’ example, I decided to compile a list of the Active Directory and Group Policy related sessions at Tech·Ed Europe 2010.

I’ve compiled the list below, divided per Tech·Ed session type and arranged by date:

 

Breakout Sessions

When your goal at Tech·Ed  is to learn about the different Active Directory technologies and Group Policy topics, breakout sessions offer the most bang for your buck. In one hour time Speakers will show these technologies with presentations and demos. Lunchtime sessions are a special kind of breakout sessions; they are shorter in time. (45 minutes)

SIA321 Explore Secure Collaboration Using Identity Federation in Forefront UAG Tuesday, November 9  |  9:00 AM – 10:00 AM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Michel Biton

Supercharge your federation solution with Forefront UAG SP1! Learn how UAG can simplify migration to a claims-aware environment, enabling secure, seamless access to all your applications. Demonstrating secure collaboration scenarios using AD FS 2.0 and new capabilities built into Forefront UAG SP1.

SIA320 Impact of Cloning and Virtualization on Active Directory Domain Services
Tip!
Tuesday, November 9  |  10:30 AM – 11:30 AM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Dean Wells

Customers are looking to further virtualize their environments: file servers, web servers, DNS servers and even their domain controllers.  It is clear that virtualization provides many benefits in areas such as deployment, disaster-recovery and lowering TCO.  However, while virtualization offers many powerful capabilities and greatly simplifies repetitive tasks, it is a technology that must be handled with care when used in conjunction with Active Directory.  In this session we will review fundamental concepts within Active Directory and the impact of cloning & virtualization upon domain controllers, domain members and Windows in general.  We will also discuss how to best leverage virtualization, and how to both mitigate problems and to avoid occurrences in the first place.  

SIA301 Attack & Defence: Authentication and Passwords!
Tuesday, November 9  |  12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Marcus Murray

During this session Marcus Murray will use live demonstrations to give you an insight into the way hackers attack authentication mechanisms in your company, and how you can defend yourself. In the attack demos, we will look at various weaknesses and how they can be exploited using common hacker tools and techniques. In the defense section, we will look at password strategies, smart cards, network transports, new features in Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 like Authentication Mechanism Assurance, Restrict NTLM, and more. This session is an evolution of the No. 1 Top Session at Tech·Ed North America 2010

SIA301-LNC Common Identity Across On-premises, Private and Public Cloud
Lunch 
Tuesday, November 9  |  1:20 PM – 2:05 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Brjann Brekkan

See how Forefront Identity Manager is used to provide self-service delegated management of on-premises and private cloud datacenter resources. You will learn how Forefront Identity Manager, Active Directory Federation Services and Windows Identity Foundation are being integrated to provision users and provide access to application services in the cloud (Azure and BPOS), and also how to configure FIM to ensure that quality identity data is available to these applications, and how users can perform self-service claims management.

WCL319 MDOP: Advanced Group Policy Management 4.0
Tuesday, November 9  |  2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Track: Windows Client
Speaker(s): Brad McCabe, Ken Rosen

Get more from Group Policy with Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM). AGPM is part of the suite of MDOP products, and delivers change management and advanced reporting to Group Policy management. This high-energy session demonstrates all the cool features you've been missing from Group Policy like auditing, difference reporting, workflow, and role delegation. Plus, you will see all the new features of 4.0: multi forest functionality, Windows 7 support and search.

SIA304 Information Protection for Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1 and Exchange Online using AD RMS
Tuesday, November 9  |  6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Tejas Patel

Learn about new Exchange 2010 SP1 and Exchange Online IRM capabilities that protect content on premises and in the cloud, using AD RMS.

OFS308 Deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 with Claims Authentication
Wednesday, November 10  |  9:00 AM – 10:00 AM, Track: Office & SharePoint
Speaker(s): Wouter van Vugt

This session will walk you step-by-step through the process of configuring a SharePoint web application to use SAML claims and ADFS v2.  It will cover some basic usage scenarios, and describe specifically how they impact sites using SAML claims and how to implement common changes in a SAML claims environment.  The session will also include some basic troubleshooting steps to help you understand why users may not be able to log on to a SAML claims site.

SIA306 A Dozen Years AD – Discuss Previous and Future Design Decisions
Wednesday, November 10  |  10:30 AM – 11:30 AM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Ulf B. Simon-Weidner DS MVP Session!

Active Directory has evolved over the years, along with security recommendations and best practices. But has our corporate design changed that much? Is it required? What should we change, and what should we retain? Ulf B. Simon-Weidner is a long standing, internationally recognized expert in Active Directory, and in this session he will discuss Active Directory Designs of the past, present and future.

SIA305 Windows Identity Foundation and Windows Azure for Developers
Wednesday, November 10  |  2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Vittorio Bertocci

Claims-based identity provides an open and interoperable approach to identity and access control that can be applied consistently, both on-premises and in the cloud. Come to this session to learn about how Windows Identity Foundation can be used to secure your Web Roles hosted in Windows Azure, how you can take advantage of existing on-premises identities, and how to make the best of features in our cloud offering, such as certificate management and staged environments. This is an ideal session for developers.

WCL313 Troubleshooting Group Policy
Wednesday, November 10  |  2:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Track: Windows Client
Speaker(s): Jeremy Moskowitz

The changes in Windows 7 mean you need to update your troubleshooting skills. Jeremy Moskowitz, Group Policy MVP of GPanswers.com and author of ‘Group Policy Fundamentals, Security and the Managed Desktop’ is just the guy to bring you the know-how. In this session you’ll learn why you can no longer just run gpresult.exe to get the results you want. You’ll discover what happens if you reconnect to network after a long absence. You’ll learn how to crack open the Windows 7 event log and trace Group Policy flow to figure out what might be going on. You’ll learn how to troubleshoot the new Group Policy Preference Extensions. You’ll learn how other areas, such as Offline Files and Group Policy Software Installation, can be tweaked to give you just the information you need to fix what ails you. If you’re looking for Group Policy answers to your troubleshooting questions, this is the session for you.

SIA312 All You Need to Know about Extending AD RMS Protected Content to External Parties
Wednesday, November 10  |  5:30 PM – 6:30 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Tejas Patel

Learn best practices and the pros and cons of deploying different kinds of Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) trusts with external partners, using Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), MFG (a new Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 feature), TUD and WLID.

SIA402 Active Directory Federation Services – How do they really work
Thursday, November 11  |  10:30 AM – 11:30 AM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): John Craddock

Secure applications must be able to “trust” the identity of users who are accessing the resources. It is simple to establish that trust when Active Directory Windows authentication is used. And if the application needs further identity information about the user in order to qualify its response, the additional properties can be read from the Active Directory.
When the application resides outside your realm, maybe in the Cloud or within a partner organization, how do we establish trust? This is where Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) provides a method of linking trust between disparate parties. One organization authenticates the user and creates an industry standard token that contains the Identity of the user in the form of claims. The receiving organization accepts the user’s identity and responds with the appropriate resources because of the established trust. Come to this deep dive, demo rich session and learn how to setup and leverage the true power of ADFS v2.

SIA313 Cloud Security: The Practical Meaning of Security, Identity and Access Revealed!
Thursday, November 11  |  12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Brjann Brekkan, Paula Januszkiewicz, Tomasz Onyszko
Featuring a DirTeam blogger as speaker!

The CLOUD is coming. But let’s face it, you must have asked yourself if it possible to hack the claims? How can we prevent this? One thing is sure: moving from on-premises applications to the cloud is like moving from a home generator to the electricity grid. We put our trust in the external identity providers, but are we really sure that all of the security issues have been addressed? We focus on the application in the cloud, but is this really the application that we need to protect? New solutions bring new possible attack vectors, and not only from the outside! Come and see what can happen when the users, or even the administrators, become the bad guys. During this intensive and extremely practical session, presenters will guide you through the threats and challenges related to the industry standard- based services delivered by ADFS v2. Only real-life scenarios! Many practical demos!

SIA318 Windows Identity Framework in the Real World
Thursday, November 11  |  6:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Jesus Rodriguez

Are you wondering how customers are adopting Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) in the real world? What challenges do they face? What solutions are they implementing? This session presents a series of best practices collected, and lessons learned, during the implementation of large WIF solutions in the real world.
We have included a series of practical demonstrations that illustrate how to address important aspects of WIF-based solutions, such as monitoring, scalability, testing, and claim and record management, among many others. Additionally, we will present three case studies that demonstrate how customers are leveraging these solutions to facilitate the implementation of WIF in the enterprise.

SIA401 All You Need to Know about Certificates from Templates to Revocation
Friday, November 12  |  10:30 AM – 11:30 AM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): John Craddock

As the requirement for certificates proliferates with the introduction of smartcards, HTTPS, IPSec, NAP and DirectAccess, customers are suffering through a lack of understanding of PKI, certificate templates, deployment and revocation.
This highly pragmatic session, based on field experience, will alleviate the pain!  If you don’t currently have a Public Key Infrastructure, or have one in place and are not completely comfortable with how certificates really work, then this demo rich session is for you. You will learn how to build a PKI, create and issue appropriate templates, publish certificates, and build the infrastructure to support revocation checking.

SIA403 How to (un)Destroy your Active Directory
Friday, November 12  |  1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Ralf Wigand DS MVP Session!

As a consultant with 10 years of experience in troubleshooting ADDS and as MVP for Directory Services, I prepared an ADDS with the top 10 errors – all at the same time. During this session we will fix it step-by-step, while explaining the reason why this happened and how it can be avoided next time.

 

Interactive Sessions

If going head-to-head with Microsoft Program Managers instead of listening to a speaker unfolding his or her presentations, Interactive sessions might be more your thing. (Perhaps becoming an MVP is also a valid option for you)

SIA305-IS – Enable Secure Access using Forefront UAG Service Pack 1
Wednesday, November 10  |  4:00 PM – 5:00 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Ben Bernstein , Michel Biton
Access using Federation and DirectAccess has never been so easy! Learn what service pack 1 of Forefront UAG has to offer, enabling secure access to corporate resources with AD FS and DirectAccess. This session will focus on scenario-enablers we have built onto SP1 of the Unified Access Gateway.

SIA203-IS Interactive Discussion on Identity Futures with Microsoft Program Managers
Wednesday, November 10  |  5:30 PM – 6:30 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Dean Wells, Robert DeLuca

What does Identity mean to you? Do you want to influence the future of Microsoft's Identity offerings? This highly interactive, discussion-based session provides a unique opportunity to share real-world requirements and understand how your priorities align with those of other Tech·Ed attendees. Members of Microsoft's Identity and Access product team will be on hand to absorb your feedback first-hand, and to guide participants through a fast-paced discussion covering a wide range of topics.

SIA301-IS Under the hood:  What Really Happens During Critical AD Operations
Thursday, November 11  |  4:30 PM – 5:30 PM, Track: Security, Identity & Access
Speaker(s): Ulf B. Simon-Weidner DS MVP Session!

Come and discuss critical Active Directory-Operations.
Are you fully aware what “critical” operations in AD really do? In this interactive session we will talk about those operations, understanding what they are doing and how to distinguish whether operations are critical to your environment or not. Ulf has been working in the field for more than 13 years, and has a lot of notes and examples to share. We will talk about how to approach challenges, and study scenarios that show how other companies managed the associated risks and prepared for rollbacks. We have some common scenarios for everyone but please bring your own questions as well, as we want this talk to be as interactive as possible.

WCL302-IS Your Group Policy Troubleshooting Clinic
Thursday, November 11  |  4:30 PM – 5:30 PM, Track: Windows Client
Speaker(s): Jeremy Moskowitz

In this informal chalk talk session, Group Policy MVP and bestselling author Jeremy Moskowitz of GPanswers.com will be helping YOU troubleshoot your Group Policy issues. This is Jeremy's last session at TechEd, and it is your opportunity to ask questions about anything you saw in his three "formal" talks – or about anything else for that matter. If something in your company network's Group Policy is weird, mysterious, acting funny, confusing or just "not working”, come to this informal "friends helping friends" chalk-talk session. Available seating is limited, so maybe come a little early to beat the crowds and claim your seat.

 

Hands-on Labs

Exploring Active Directory and Group Policy topics through the use of a keyboard and mouse might be most rewarding for you. If you have an empty slot in your session builder, why not squeeze in one of these:

SIA02-HOL Cross Organization Collaboration using MOSS 2010 and AD FS
Track: Security, Identity & Access

Learn how to simplify access to collaboration solutions like SharePoint 2010 using Active Directory Federation Services 2.0.

WCL08-HOL Advanced Group Policy Management
Track: Windows Client

This lab gives you hands-on access to the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and Change node control, helping you regain control of how Group Policy objects (GPO) are created, using the workflow capabilities of Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM), and rolling back a wrongly deployed GPO. The goal of this lab is to allow you to evaluate the tool and/or prepare you to roll out AGPM in your own environment.

WSV06-HOL What’s New in Active Directory (v3.0)
Track: Windows Server

A lab for IT Professionals who administer large or complex Active Directory implementations.  Learn how to use the new tools and features that are included in Windows Server 2008 R2 to manage Active Directory.  Explore the new Active Directory Administrative Center and the Active Directory PowerShell provider; enable and test the Active Directory Recycle Bin; and provision a computer account for offline domain join.

 

Related posts

Early information on Tech·Ed Europe 2010
I’m attending Tech·Ed Europe 2010, are you?

Further reading

Cluster Team Events at TechEd 2010 Berlin
Cluster related sessions at TechEd Berlin 2010
TechED Europe 2010 (8th-12th November, Berlin)
Running virtual Domain Controller’s? A must see session at TechEd Europe 2010.

2 Responses to Active Directory-related sessions at Tech·Ed Europe 2010

  1.  

    I really wish I was going. Dean Wells always puts on great presentations.

    I always like hearing John Craddock and Ulf too; always informative and good content.

    I hope they put all of these online in a few monhts.

    Have fun at TechEd Sander!

  2.  

    It'll be fun, Mike!

    All of the TechEd Europe 2009 sessions are now online (through http://www.msteched.com/europe). I'm hopeful we'll see all the (relevant) sessions of this year online in the coming year as well.