Tech Ed 2011 Memorabilia

I thought of jotting down my top 5 memories of TechEd 2011 like I did for 2009 and 2010.

1) Co-presenting with Sachin: Sachin is undoubtedly one of the best presenters in Microsoft India. Not many know but he holds 14 patents. His dedication to his work is really admirable, in fact the day before we were walking through the demos till pass midnight. Hope we get an opportunity to co-present again

2) Guts – Live Azure Deployment: I have seen many Azure demos and most of them run on premise with emulators, guaranteeing the same would run in cloud which in fact in never does. Few other demos are already deployed on cloud which takes away the simplicity of Windows Azure. So we thought of creating a WIF enabled application from scratch and deploying it LIVE to Azure. Challenge of course was that this would take 7 – 8 minutes and we had to keep the momentum flowing during that timeframe. And most important – there is no second chance, in case deployment fails it would ruin the show. In the end it was all guts, we did live deployment and it was perfect 10.

3) MCP on Azure: Like 2009 this time around too TechEd offered free certifications and the one on offer was 70-583. I took a chance and was the first to clear this certification at the TechEd. Interestingly I have passed only 2 Microsoft Exams till date, and both happen to be @ TechEd.

4) A photo with Sanjay Vyas: This was definitely the moment. Sanjay is synonymous with TechEd and one of the finest presenters of our country. His humor, passion, wit and knowledge have no match. Let me hope someday I get lucky to co-present with him.

5) TechEd Memento: A Hatrick of mementos. It definitely means a lot to me . Thanks to one and all that made this possible. As usual, it’s GIDS time now.

TechEd 2010 Memorabilia

Phew!!! Another Great Event. Amazing sessions and amazing people all around. Like last year my top 5 picks for this Tech Ed.

1) First cool thing compared to last year – the Architect Track hall was bigger in terms of width (landscape mode). I prefer such an arrangement where everybody is within your eye reach & at the same time there are many seats to occupy.

2) My talk on Integration & Identity was largely scenario driven and hopefully was received well. For first time I was able to record the session entirely in my HD Handycam with help of a gentleman from Lalit. It’s almost a surprise viewing oneself in replay mode and guess there is a lot one can learn / unlearn.

3) I was part of the panel discussion on Cloud Computing with RamKumar, Sandeep, Anandan, et al. Great experience.

4) Parties – First day ended with dinner party hosted by Microsoft and I was lucky to be on the same table with John & David from Patterns & Practices. If there has ever been a team at Microsoft that can save your job it’s got be the P&P team . Second day was a Microsoft influentials reception by Infragistics / Pluralsight. It was fun meeting old friends & Microsoft buddies at dinner. Final day was breakfast with Aaron Skonnard. Nothing less than a dream come true.

5) Last but not the least the second memento to add.

It’s GIDS time now.

It’s Tech Ed Time!!!

Tech Ed 2010 is here. I will presenting @ Architect Track on – “Integration and Identity challenges for Enterprise Grade Cloud Applications”. I also have an session lined up for Community Track with an interesting title – “Imagine a world free of login screens …”. I am really geared up for these sessions and look forward to provide max ROI to audience for their time and money. If you are attending Tech Ed and do drop in to say hello.

I am bit late on this post and missed uploading presentation decks for my last VTD. Hope to put bundle all of them together and upload post TechEd.

Tech Ed On Road Demos & PPTs – Azure Services

Dear All, as promised here is the complete pack of slides & demos. It is really difficult to cover all Azure Services with Demos in just 45 minutes and that too with a machine reboot it’s a mission impossible. But thanks to Jani who kept going despite the issues, allowing me to bring things up again. By the way am I sort of impressed by the theme of demos we came up with – a paper less feedback for an event, guess that’s the way to go. If you have any doubts on demos or presentation (though we took care that they are no more than few lines each), feel free to put it across.

A special thanks to platinum sponsors of the event – Telerik and Infragistics without whom event wouldn’t have been possible.

Last but the not the least – Jai Ho – Tata Indicom . Love you all.

Entering Cloud with Tech Ed On Road

I will be doing a session on “Azure Services Platform” at this upcoming – Tech Ed On Road. It’s a joint event organized by BDOTNET & BITPRO user groups. Cloud for me is the most promising upcoming technology & recently I have been investing lot of my time in it. My co-speaker for the session is Janakiram (I would be surpised if you are following Azure and haven’t heard about him), who is about to hit a silver jubilee on Azure sessions. I have started enjoying combo talks after the one I did with Ramnish back at Tech Ed, I am quite hopeful that this too would be worth your time & petrol. Registrations are already closed but if I can still try helping out (after all I need to give some benefits to my readers , though no promises are implied). Do drop a line to me on the same, and I will try my best. I will also post the samples & presentation slides here after the event. Looking forward to meet you all. Keep Rocking.

Tech Ed Slides & Demos

Sorry for being late on this one. I was waiting for Microsoft to upload the PPTX & videos which is still in progress. Nevertheless, You can download my presentation on – “Refactoring SOAP to REST” here; also the initial SOAP code can be downloaded here while the re-factored REST code is available here. I found that PPTX for federated identity architectures at Tech Ed Site is old one, you can find the new one here which Ramnish & I used for presentation. Also if you are looking for the VPCs we used for demo you can download them here.

Let me know if there are any broken links.

Jee Le Baby – Tech Ed India 2009 Memorabilia

An awesome experience!!! There are few events in life which exceed your expectations, Tech Ed India just happened to be one of it. There is a lot to write about but I am going to jot down 5 of my most memorable experiences for this Tech Ed.

1) Steve Ballmer: Being a presenter I was in the same hotel where Steve was staying. In the morning when I went for breakfast with Nauzad, Steve was having his. Just exchanged hello with him but spirits were soaring internally. Only thing I missed was he didn’t show his love for Indian developers like the one here (unfortunately I didn’t get hold of Microphone during Q&A). Steve has been criticized by some for displaying extra energy at conferences, but personally to me he just awesome. I mean, take up any book on self development & you will find there a common saying – “Live with energy & enthusiasm”. We all were born like that as child & my daughter reminds me that every day. Thanks to people like Steve who are able to pursue it so long & keep inspiring people like you and me. Also I got to interact with some great guys like Stephen Walther, Don Smith & Blaine Wastell. Conversation with Don helped me for my Refactoring SOAP To REST session.

2) Agnee: What a music… Mind blowing. I saw some videos out there on internet but the feeling which we got inside closed hall is indescribable. Also the way they jazzed up the Steve’s entry on dice, I am sure Steve B. must have felt doubly charged. We again had some music by them on last day which ran almost till 9:30 p.m., and audiences kept asking for more. Theme song was best we techies have got in long time – “SHIFT + DELETE everybody’s troubles”.

3) My Talks: Unfortunately my first talk on – “Refactoring SOAP to REST” started 45 minutes late due to an extended keynote (in fact it wasn’t over then). I as a speaker prefer packed house, people climbing on top of each other , but with comparatively less audience I think my energy was slightly on lower side. Nevertheless I am happy about the theme (Tech Ed 2010) I choose, building something creative over a topic which was largely spoken about with fresh demos. Second talk – “Federated Identity Architectures – Integrating with Cloud” with Ramnish (Architect track) was awesome. With Ramnish being there, possibility of anything going wrong was ruled out. We had a glitch free demo & hopefully the message was conveyed effectively. Who said combo sessions aren’t succesfull ? I am thankful to audiences of both my sessions who made it such a thrilling memorable experience. I love you all.

4) A MCP: I took an MS certification on WCF 3.5 and cleared it. It was an awesome feeling as this was my first certification ever & I did it in close to an hour’s time. Also that made me won a watch in lucky draw.

5) Memento: There was a small trophy gifted to all speakers at end of event. I can without doubt say that it’s one of my most proud possession till date.

As usual any success of yours is always owed to others. I don’t have enough words to thank the entire DPE team at Microsoft who made it so easy for speakers – Ram, Manish, Ramnish, Vikram, Vinod, Harish, Bijoy, Saranya, Sachin, Nahas, Ravi, etc. Thanks you guys.

I will post demos & pptx in a separate post. I will close this one with Video which Ranganathan showed during managerial track (though not exact). Do link this post with your memorable experiences.

JEE LE BABY 8) !!!