Pictures of the 2017 Experts Live Summer Night

Yesterday, Raymond Comvalius and I presented a 45-minute session on Shielded VMs at the Experts Live Summer Night, the IT Pro BBQ of the year,

We arrived together at de Landgoederij in Bunnik, because we both parked our electric cars at the same location, a little outside the venue. Therefore, we received our speaker badges simultaneously.

Speaker Badges (click for larger photo)

At 3:40PM we could enter the room, which is the main room at the venue. We set up our presentation and then kicked it off at 4PM.

Title Slide (click for larger photo)Our audience (click for larger photo)Introduction (click for larger photo by Robert Smit)Wasn't BitLocker supposed to be the solution? (click for larger photo by Erik Loef)Interacting with the audience (click for larger photo)Raymond Comvalius presenting (click for larger photo)What's the Issue? (click for larger photo by James vd Berg)Presenting (Click for larger photo by Jaap Brasser)

Right on time, we rounded up our questions and made room for Jaap Brasser who presented on JEA and JIT. 

We had tons of fun! Emoticon met brede lach 
Thank you!

 

You were expecting pictures of IT Pros BBQ’ing or me eating in the sun?
I’m sorry.

Unfortunately I had to leave right after the presentation to make it in time to other appointments.

Posted on June 15, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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I’m co-presenting at the Experts Live Summer Night 2017

Experts Live Summer Night 2017This Wednesday, the Experts Live Netherlands foundation hosts the second edition of its Experts Live Summer Night event.

Branded ‘Security Edition’, it should not come as a surprise that I’m presenting. This time around, I’m co-presenting a 45-minute session with Raymond Comvalius on Shielded VMs.

 

About Experts Live

Experts Live is an independent platform for IT Professionals on Microsoft solutions. A platform for and by the community. Next to its yearly Experts Live knowledge event, the Experts Live Netherlands foundation also incorporates the yearly Summer BBQ, previously hosted yearly by the Dutch System Center User Group. 

Because security is hot, this years Summer Night is about security. The Keynote, starting at 2PM, is delivered by Roel Bierens and Pieter Westein, cybersecurity specialists at DeLoitte. Then, two tracks (Modern Workplace and Modern Datacenter) unfold, each featuring three sessions. At 6:45 PM, food is served from the infamous BBQ at De Landgoederij in Bunnik Dutch.

 

About our session

Raymond and I will be delivering a 45-minute session,

Introducing Shielded VMs

4PM – 4:45PM Room 2, Modern Datacenter Track

The efficiency of virtualization is great. But do you trust the admin of your virtualization host that much? As the owner of the platform your hoster usually owns your VMs as well. Shielded VMs are about to change that. This session will show how Shielded VMs allow you significantly enhance security of virtual machines in a way that you can finally be sure that only you own the contents of your virtual machines and that your hoster can just be the hoster.

 

Join us!

Join Raymond and me for another fun and interactive session.

If you haven’t purchased a ticket yet, then don’t worry. Tickets are still available at EUR 75 on the Experts Live website. Dutch

See you there? Knipogende emoticon

Posted on June 10, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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I’m co-presenting at CSN Academy 2017

Logo CSN GroepWith our partner-friendly model, we work together with partners like Microsoft and Veeam.

We also work with other partners, including the CSN Group, formerly known as CAD Services Nederland.

Building on our strong bond, formed by working together on our bespoke solutions for multiple organizations, next week, Carlo Schaeffer and I are presenting a session on CSN’s Academy event.

 

About CSN Academy 2017

CSN Academy is CSN Group’s yearly event to inspire customers and potential customers to think about new technological advancements, products and challenges.

For CSN Academy 2017, the event offers multiple gems: A Cybercrime session with Frank Smilda, from the Dutch police, a juridical session with Mathieu Paapst, a VDI session, a software asset management (SAM) session, a customer reference and multiple partner sessions for IoT and cloud.

Impression of the KNVB Campus

The event takes place at the campus of the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) in Zeist, the Netherlands on Thursday afternoon June 15, 2017. No wonder, then, the closing keynote speaker is Jan Smit, (former) chairman of Heracles Almelo, one of the more recently promoted Dutch Football Honor division.

 

About our session

Carlo and I present a 45-minute session:

Identity and Access Management with Microsoft Azure, manageable and secure

1:30 PM – 2:15 PM

Identity is hot! We mindlessly authenticate at the office and in the cloud. How do we transform this to a manageable and secure process? In this session, SCCT’s experts explain the challenges at hand and how to effectively tackle them using Microsoft Azure Active Directory,

 

Join us!

You can join us for free Dutch on June 16 and upgrade your IT knowledge.

See you there? Knipogende emoticon

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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Pictures of Techorama 2017

Yesterday, I drove to Antwerp to present at Techorama, Belgium’s unique conference geared towards developers, IT professionals, data professionals and SharePoint professionals.

I left home at about 6:30 AM and arrived at Kinepolis Antwerp around 7:45 AM. Even this early, the event was already alive with crowds queuing outside for registration.

Outside of the Kinepolis Event Center (click for larger photo)Welcome to Techorama 2017 (click for larger photo with Aleksandar Nikolic)The Techorama Speaker Lounge in subtropic theme, including hammock! :-) (click for larger photo)

From the Speaker Room, Aleksandar Nikolic and I ambushed Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise group in Microsoft, at his all-red shirts booth. The aim, of course, was to get a selfie ahead of the Red Shirt Tour in Amsterdam today and to have discussions on our respective areas of interest.

Red Shirt Selfie with Scott Guthrie (click for larger photo)

Right after the delicious and abundant lunch, it was time to present 60 minutes on ‘Azure AD Connect, Inside Out’.

Moments before starting my presentation, silencing my phone (Click for larger photo by Arnold)
Introduction. My head was never this big! ;-P (click for larger photo by Aleksandar Nikolic)Sharing my agenda (click for larger photo by Aleksandar Nikolic)Show of hands! (click for larger photo by Aleksandar Nikolic)
A brief history of Azure AD Connect (click for larger photo)

After my session, I chatted with John Craddock and Joachim Nässlander, but had to leave the event early to attend to one of my other communities, the Municipal Council of the City of Schiedam.

I had a great time.
Thank you! Glimlach

Further reading

I’m speaking at Techorama Belgium 2017 
Pictures of ITPROceed 2016 
I’ll be speaking at ITPROceed 2016 
Pictures of ITPROceed 2015 
I’ll be speaking at ITPROceed 2015 
Pictures of the Belgian 2013 Community Day

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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I’m speaking at Techorama Belgium 2017

A while back, I heard from the Techorama Belgium organization that they merged their Microsoft developer-focused event with ITPROceed to create one big Belgium Microsoft Community event: Techorama

I was invited to share any presentations I deemed fit for such a conference and the organization actually picked one…

 

About Techorama

TechoRamaLogo

Techorama is a yearly international technology conference that takes place at Kinepolis Metropolis Antwerp. Techorama welcomes about 1500 attendees, a healthy mix between developers, IT Professionals, Data Professionals and SharePoint professionals. Techoramas commitment is to create a unique conference experience with quality content and the best speaker line-up.

The Techorama 2017 keynote is delivered by Scott Guthrie, who will talk about Azure, the intelligent cloud. Other national and International speakers you might have heard of also joined the line-up, including Dominick Baier, Aleksandar Nikolic, Dandy Weyn, Dieter Wijckmans, Tim de Keukelaere, John Craddock, Johan Delimon, Peter de Tender, Peter Daalmans, Rasmus Hald and Joachim Nässlander.

 

About my session

I’m presenting a 60-minute session on Tuesday May 23:

Azure AD Connect, Inside Out

Tuesday May 23, 2017 1:45PM – 2:45PM Room 11

New hybrid cloud scenarios introduce new identity challenges. But how do you overcome these? How do you properly design and implement Hybrid Identity in real world scenarios?

In this demo-packed session I’ll turn Microsofts free Hybrid Identity ‘bridge’ product, Azure AD Connect, inside out, showing all the good stuff, but also the gory details! This session is one no Active Directory admin should miss!

 

Join me!

Techorama 2017 has sold out. When you’re among the lucky people to have grabbed a ticket, join me for this session.

We’ll have a lot of fun! Emoticon met brede lach

Posted on May 19, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Azure, Azure Active Directory, Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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Azure AD Connect 1.1.524.0 brings a ton of new functionality to Hybrid Identity

Microsoft released a new version of its Azure AD Connect tool earlier this week (May 15) dubbed the May 2017 release.

This is the big release, a lot of us have been hoping for, because it brings a ton of new functionality. Personally, this release solves one of my ten biggest pains with Azure AD Connect in one fell swoop!

Also, since the last version, the accompanying text for the releases is more human readable. I provided feedback on the brevity of these texts a couple of times and it’s refreshing to see someone describing issues and functionality this clearly!

 

What’s New

Azure AD Connect sync

  • Sync Rule Changes
    The following sync rule changes have been implemented:

    • Updated the default sync rule set to not export attributes userCertificate and userSMIMECertificate if these attributes have more than 15 values.
    • AD attributes employeeID and msExchBypassModerationLink are now included in the default sync rule set.
    • AD attribute photo has been removed from the default sync rule set.
    • Added preferredDataLocation to the Metaverse schema and Azure AD Connector schema. Customers who want to update either attributes in Azure AD can implement custom sync rules to do so.
    • Added userType to the Metaverse schema and AAD Connector schema. Customers who want to update either attributes in Azure AD can implement custom sync rules to do so.
    • Azure AD Connect now automatically enables the use of the ConsistencyGuid attribute as the Source Anchor attribute for on-premises Active Directory objects
      Further, Azure AD Connect populates the ConsistencyGuid attribute with the objectGuid attribute value if it is empty.

Note:
This latter feature is applicable to new deployment only.

  • New PowerShell troubleshooting functionality
    New troubleshooting Windows PowerShell Cmdlet Invoke-ADSyncDiagnostics has been added to help diagnose Password Hash Synchronization related issues.
  • Support for synchronizing Public Folders
    Azure AD Connect now supports synchronizing Mail-Enabled Public Folder objects from on-premises AD to Azure AD. You can enable the feature using the Azure AD Connect wizard under Optional Features.
  • Automatic creation of Service Accounts with Custom Settings
    Azure AD Connect requires AD DS accounts to synchronize from on-premises AD.
    Previously, if you install Azure AD Connect using Express mode, you can provide the credential of an Enterprise Admin account in Azure AD Connect and leave it to Azure AD Connect to create the AD DS account required. However, for custom installations and adding forests to existing deployments, you must provide the AD DS account instead. Now, you also have the option to provide the credentials of an Enterprise Admin account during custom installation and let Azure AD Connect create the AD DS account required.
  • Azure AD Connect now supports SQL Always On Availability (AOA).
    However, you must configure the SQL Server infrastructure before installing Azure AD Connect. During installation, Azure AD Connect detects whether the SQL instance provided is enabled for SQL AOA or not. If SQL AOA is enabled, Azure AD Connect further figures out if SQL AOA is configured to use synchronous replication or asynchronous replication.

Tip!
When setting up the Availability Group Listener, it is recommended that you set the RegisterAllProvidersIP property to 0. This is because Azure AD Connect currently uses SQL Native Client to connect to SQL and SQL Native Client does not support the use of MultiSubNetFailover property.

  • New Database cleanup PowerShell functionality
    If you are using LocalDB as the database for your Azure AD Connect server (as with Express Settings) and it has reached its 10-GB size limit, the Synchronization Service would no longer start. Previously, you needed to perform a ShrinkDatabase operation on the LocalDB to reclaim enough database space for the Synchronization Service to start, after which, you could use the Synchronization Service Manager to delete run history to reclaim more database space.
    Now, you can use the Start-ADSyncPurgeRunHistory PowerShell Cmdlet to purge run history data from LocalDB to reclaim database space. Further, this cmdlet supports an offline mode (by specifying the -offline parameter) that can be used when the Synchronization Service is not running.

Note:
The offline mode can only be used if the Synchronization Service is not running and the database used is LocalDB.

  • Automatic compression of sync error details
    To reduce the amount of storage space required, Azure AD Connect now compresses sync error details before storing them in LocalDB/SQL databases. When upgrading from an older version of Azure AD Connect to this version, Azure AD Connect performs a one-time compression on existing sync error details.
  • Improved Full import triggering
    Previously, after updating OU filtering configuration, you must manually run Full import to ensure existing objects are properly included/excluded from directory synchronization. Now, Azure AD Connect automatically triggers Full import during the next sync cycle. Further, Full import is only be applied to the AD connectors affected by the update.

Note:
This improvement is applicable to OU filtering updates made using the Azure AD Connect wizard, only. It is not applicable to OU filtering updates made using the Synchronization Service Manager.

  • Group-based filtering support for computer objects
    Previously, Group-based filtering supported Users, Groups, and Contact objects only. Now, Group-based filtering also supports Computer objects.
  • Improved Connector Space data deletion logic
    Previously, you could delete Connector Space data without disabling the Azure AD Connect sync scheduler. Now, the Synchronization Service Manager blocks the deletion of Connector Space data if it detects that the scheduler is enabled. Further, a warning is returned to inform you about potential data loss if the Connector space data is deleted.
  • Partial PowerShell transcription requirement resolved
    Previously, you had to disable PowerShell transcription for the Azure AD Connect wizard to run correctly. This issue is partially resolved. You can enable PowerShell transcription if you are using Azure AD Connect wizard to manage the synchronization configuration. You must disable PowerShell transcription if you are using the Azure AD Connect wizard to manage an AD FS configuration.

Fixes

Azure AD Connect sync

  • Improved Automatic Upgrade Logic
    Fixed an issue that causes Automatic Upgrade to occur on the Azure AD Connect server even if customer has disabled the feature using the Set-ADSyncAutoUpgrade cmdlet. With this fix, the Automatic Upgrade process on the server still checks for upgrade periodically, but the downloaded installer honors the Automatic Upgrade configuration.
  • Improved DirSync Upgrade resiliency
    During DirSync in-place upgrade, Azure AD Connect creates an Azure AD service account to be used by the Azure AD connector for synchronizing with Azure AD. After the account is created, Azure AD Connect authenticates with Azure AD using the account. Sometimes, authentication fails because of transient issues, which in turn causes DirSync in-place upgrade to fail with error “An error has occurred executing Configure AAD Sync task: AADSTS50034: To sign into this application, the account must be added to the xxx.onmicrosoft.com directory.” To improve the resiliency of DirSync upgrade, Azure AD Connect now retries the authentication step.
  • Improved DirSync Upgrade logic
    There was an issue with version 1.1.443.0 that causes DirSync in-place upgrade to succeed but run profiles required for directory synchronization are not created. Healing logic is included in this build of Azure AD Connect. When you upgrade to version 1.1.524.0 or beyond, Azure AD Connect detects missing run profiles and creates them.
  • Improved DirSync Upgrade logic
    Fixed an issue that causes DirSync upgrade to fail with error “a deadlock occurred in sql server which trying to acquire an application lock” when the mailNickname attribute is found in the on-premises AD schema, but is not bounded to the AD User object class.
  • Improved Password Synchronization logic
    Fixed an issue that causes Password Synchronization process to fail to start with Event ID 6900 and error “An item with the same key has already been added”. This issue occurs if you update OU filtering configuration to include AD configuration partition. To fix this issue, Password Synchronization process now synchronizes password changes from AD domain partitions only. Non-domain partitions such as configuration partition are skipped.
  • Azure AD Connects on-premises Service account no longer has PASSWD_NOTRQ flag set
    During Express installation, Azure AD Connect creates an on-premises AD DS account to be used by the AD connector to communicate with on-premises AD. Previously, the account is created with the PASSWD_NOTREQD flag set on the user-Account-Control attribute and a random password is set on the account. Now, Azure AD Connect explicitly removes the PASSWD_NOTREQD flag after the password is set on the account.
  • Improved Device Write-Back logic
    Fixed an issue that causes the Device Write-Back feature to automatically be disabled when an administrator is updating the Azure AD Connect synchronization configuration using the Azure AD Connect wizard. This issue is caused by the wizard performing pre-requisites checks for the existing Device Write-Back configuration in the on-premises Active Directory environment and the check fails. The fix is to skip the check if Device Write-Back was already enabled previously.
  • Improved OU Filtering logic
    To configure OU filtering, you can either use the Azure AD Connect wizard or the Synchronization Service Manager. Previously, if you used the Azure AD Connect wizard to configure OU filtering, new OUs created afterwards were included for directory synchronization. If you do not want new OUs to be included, you must configure OU filtering using the Synchronization Service Manager. Now, you can achieve the same behavior using the Azure AD Connect wizard.
  • Improved Stored Procedure logic
    Fixed an issue that causes stored procedures required by Azure AD Connect to be created under the schema of the installing admin, instead of under the dbo schema.
  • Improved TrackingId resiliency
    Fixed an issue that causes the TrackingId attribute returned by Azure AD to be omitted in the Azure AD Connect Server Event Logs. The issue occurs if Azure AD Connect receives a redirection message from Azure AD and Azure AD Connect is unable to connect to the endpoint provided. The TrackingId is used by Support Engineers to correlate with service side logs during troubleshooting.
  • Improved large object logic
    When Azure AD Connect receives LargeObject error from Azure AD, Azure AD Connect generates an event with EventID 6941 and message “The provisioned object is too large. Trim the number of attribute values on this object.” At the same time, Azure AD Connect also generates a misleading event with EventID 6900 and message “Microsoft.Online.Coexistence.ProvisionRetryException: Unable to communicate with the Windows Azure Active Directory service.” To minimize confusion, Azure AD Connect no longer generates the latter event when LargeObject error is received.
  • Improved Synchronization Service Manager responsiveness
    Fixed an issue that causes the Synchronization Service Manager to become unresponsive when trying to update the configuration for the Generic LDAP connector.

 

Important information on this release

There are schema and synchronization rule changes introduced in this build.
Azure AD Connect Synchronization Service will trigger Full Import and Full Sync steps after you upgrade to this version. In some environments these steps may take several hours. During this timeframe other information is not synchronized.

 

Version information

This is version 1.1.524.0 of Azure AD Connect.
It was signed off on on May 15, 2017.

 

Download information

You can download Azure AD Connect here.
The download weighs 78,4 MB.

 

Concluding

To finally be able to use SQL Server Always-On Availability as the back-end database for Azure AD Connect implementations is a god send. Public Folder synchronization, as well as group filtering for device objects is also welcome, but not that important in the environments I manage.

With its many features, this is a good version to test your Azure AD Connect lifecycle management processes on.

Further reading

Ten things you should know about Azure AD Connect and Azure AD Sync
Azure AD Connect versions 1.1.484.0 and 1.1.486.0 offer great enhancements
Azure AD Connect v1.1.443.0 is here
Version 1.1.380.0 of Azure AD Connect fixes a bug in multi-domain scenarios
Azure AD Connect 1.1.371.0 offers PTA and S3O preview capabilities
Azure AD Connect version 1.1.343.0 with support for Windows and SQL Server 2016
Azure AD Connect version 1.1.281.0 has been released

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Active Directory, Azure Active Directory

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Pictures of the April 2017 IT Pro User Group at Microsoft Hrvatska in Zagreb

Last April, I was invited by the Microsoft IT Pro User Group to present a 75 minute session on Azure AD Join at Microsoft Croatia’s Headquarters in Zagreb.

Since I was spending some time in the region between Microsoft Bosnia and Hergovina’s Network event and the Croatian WinDays, I had no trouble finding the place.

Getting ready (click for larger photo)

I set up my demo environment (left) and opened my slides (right) to prepare for the session. As soon as I looked up, the room had filled up and it was time for Romeo Mlinar to provide a short introduction. There were many familiar faces in this room. It felt like having the home advantage. 

Then, I had 75 minutes to present the entire story on Active Directory and Azure Active Directory, in the light of coupling and managing devices for Single Sign-On (SSO) and Enterprise Mobility and Security.

Introduction (click for larger photo, by Romeo Mlinar)Making the case for lightweight device management (click for larger photo by Romeo Mlinar)Explaining the concept of Azure AD Join (click for larger photo by Goran Žarinac)

Afterwards, Romeo conducted their usual after-event raffle, where I was invited to hand out the presents to selected attendees: a Microsoft-branded USB stick, two Microsoft-branded water bottles and a Microsoft-branded key ring. Good stuff!

Afterwards, we had a drink at Eter Café, across the street from Microsoft Hrvatska, where I enjoyed a nice local beer.

Enjoying a local beer (click for larger photo by Romeo Mlinar)

I had a great time!

Hvala ma! Glimlach

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, Community, Microsoft MVP, Microsoft Windows 10, Personal

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Pictures of WinDays 17

Two weeks ago, I presented two sessions at WinDays at the Valamar Isabella Island Resort in Poreč, Croatia.

We drove from Zagreb to Poreč on Wednesday April 26th, to arrive around lunchtime at the event. We parked the car at the Valamar Diamant Hotel, that was reserved for speakers and hopped onto the boat that brought us to the Island affectionately known as ‘WinDays Island’.

The Valamar Island, not the best of weather (click for larger photo)

We shared lunch with attendees from both the WinDays Business and WinDays Technology conferences and then attended the Technology Keynote.

The WinDays Keynote Room (click for larger photo)During the WinDays Technology Keynote (click for larger photo)

After that we enjoyed dinner and the first of two WinDays parties. I didn’t stay long at the party, since my first presentation, on Azure AD Connect was up at 9:30 AM the next day.

I was present at my first session an hour and a half early to check the audio and video and the contrast, Since I was scheduled to deliver my session in Castle 4 (a tent), I wanted to experience the acoustics first hand.

Castle 4, a tent (click for larger photo)
Explaining the differences between Azure AD Connect and the Windows Azure Active Directory Connector for Forefront Identity Manager (picture from WinDays organization)Presenting on why we need Azure Active Directory (picture by WinDays organization)

Before my session, WinDays scheduled a Red Hat hands-on lab in Castle 4. I had the most pleasant chat with the guy from Red Hat, before and after his session, while I prepared for my demos.

I delivered my session while it was raining outside. It didn’t bother me, because the forecast mentioned we would see some sun after early showers. However, when thunder and lightning provided additional effects to my slides and presentations, I was getting more worried about making it back to the hotel without getting soaked. The person responsible for my audio cranked the volume up a bit and we were all fine.

After the session, it stopped raining.

Right before lunch, I delivered my second presentation. This session was scheduled in the other tent across the Valamar Castle; Castle 6.

Presenting at Castle 6 (picture by WinDays organization)

With my presentations done, I could start enjoying myself and start socializing a bit. 
During the remainder of the event I had great conversations over food and attended presentations from friends.

Aleksandar Nikolic presenting on Azure Automation (click for larger photo)'Hyper-V doctor' Romeo Mlinar sharing his Hyper-V Best Practices (click for larger photo)Luka Manojlovic sharing his throughts on Storage Spaces Direct (click for larger photo)

 

Thank you! Glimlach
(Hvala ma!)

Posted on May 12, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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Pictures of Microsoft Network 7

Back in April, I presented at Network 7, Microsoft Bosnia & Herzegovina’s yearly IT Pro event at the Grand Hotel in Neum at the Herzegovinian Adriatic coast.

Travelling to this location is not as easy as it sounds, so I decided to fly to Zagreb on Tuesday May 18, 2017 and join a road trip with several local Microsoft MVPs, both on the way in and on the way out. As we drove from Zagreb, passing Sveti Rok, we went from snow at 2° to sun at 14° Celsius. What a difference 30 minutes make…

Travelling to Neum. Almost there! (click for larger photo) View from the Balcony. Gotta love the Adriatic! ;-) (click for larger photo)
Enjoying The Sun (click for larger photo by Aleksandar Nikolic)
View from the Terrace (click for large photo)Beautiful weather, but still a little too cold for sunbathing, apparently (click for large photo)

Thursday April 20 had my session ‘Azure AD Connect, Inside Out’ scheduled in Room 3. I spend the larger part of the day to tweak the demos for this session, based on the latest version of Azure AD Connect. 

 

Presenting at Network 7 (click for larger photo by Romeo Mlinar)

After my session a couple of people approached me with questions. Then, it was basically time for dinner, followed by the ‘Head in the Cloud’ Party, sponsored by Sarajevo Brewery.

On Friday, Aleksandar and I kicked off with a visit to the (salt water) pool of the Hotel. We had some great conversations on conferences, our carreers, our contries and other topics during our swim laps. Then, I visited his session and Romeo’s.

The Pool at the Grand Hotel Neum (click for larger photo)Aleksander Nikolic presenting at Network 7 (click for larger photo)Romeo Mlinar presenting at Network 7 (click for larger photo)

To conclude Network, Luka Manojlovic, Aleksander Nikolic, Romeo Mlinar, Slavko Kukrika and me visited Krka National Park on Saturday on our ways to Zagreb, Slovenia and Serbia.

Aleksandarat the Car with all our stuff... (click for larger photo)Visiting the Fortress of Necven in Krka National Park (click for larger photo)
Krka National Park (click for larger photo)The MVP Lizards (click for larger photo)
Cheers! (click for larger photo)

Cheers! Martiniglas

Posted on May 10, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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Delivering the honest truth on Azure, this Wednesday with colleague Marc Westerink

SCCT, That's us!It’s no secret that we talk to a lot of organizations about Microsoft Azure. Most of the time, our focus is on Azure Active Directory, Hybrid Identity. We enjoy interacting with organizations on Microsofts holistic approach to Enterprise Mobility + Security (EM+S) and the Secure Productive Enterprise (SPE), but also on Digital Transformation and Modern Datacenter topics.

I’m confident we know our stuff.

There’s a difference though, between knowing and doing. We don’t just write proposals, we also deploy, upgrade, migrate and (unfortunately) phase out. With this quarters 100% success rate on our proposals, we owned the game.

We live, breath and even dream this stuff.

Yet, many organizations that we talk to have misconceptions, crazy ideas and even full-fledged conspiracy theories on Microsoft and its cloud. It’s amazing. Often, it allows us to surprise people in charge at these organizations with (almost) free functionality, and/or with functionality that allows them to get loads more done with their budgets, time, and talents.

We get a boost from these situations.

And that’s why we’ve decided to share our stories. Glimlach

 

Wednesday May 10, 2017

This Wednesday, for the Dutch Networking User Group (Ngi-NGN), my colleague Marc Westerink and I, present an evening filled with the honest truth on Microsoft Azure.

Agenda

We’ll try to stick with the following agenda

18:00 – 18:00 Reception (with sandwiches)
18:30 – 18:40 Introduction
18:40 – 19:25 The functionality you always wanted, but never had… (Sander)
19:25 – 19:40 Break
19:40 – 20:25 Opportunities to further optimize your cloud spending (Marc)
20:25 – 20:40 Open discussion
20:45 – 21:30 Drinks

Location

Yacht Netherlands has offered us to use their presentation space in Rotterdam again. Conveniently located next to Rotterdam city center, the location can be easily reached by car and public transportation. Parking is free.

 

Join us!

You can join us for free Dutch, when you already have an active Ngi-NGN membership.

I’m looking forward to this! Emoticon met brede lach

Posted on May 8, 2017 by Sander Berkouwer in Azure, Azure Active Directory, Community, Microsoft MVP, Personal

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