Dusseldorf, Germany 4-6 October 2010

This conference has a lot of good sessions on Exchange & OCS.
Speakers include MVPs, Microsoft Product Teams & others.

http://www.theexpertsconference.com/europe/agenda-speakers/exchange-training/session-abstracts/

Exchange On-premises or In the Cloud?
Speaker: Ilse Van Criekinge

In this session you will be provided with an overview of what differences you need to keep in mind when deciding to go on-premise or in-the-cloud with your messaging environment.

Exchange Server 2010 – Architecture
Speaker: Ross Smith IV

This session describes the overall architecture of Exchange Server 2010 and key considerations for the scalability and performance of each server role. This session provides the background and framework for the other Exchange 2010 sessions, serving as a bridge between the overview session and drill-downs in each product area.

Exchange Server 2010 – Backup & Recovery Using VSS
Speaker: Juergen Hasslauer

Microsoft deemphasized the streaming backup API with Exchange Server 2007. With Exchange Server 2010 you have to use Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) because the streaming API is deprecated. In this session we will explain the architecture of VSS and provide an overview how the VSS components interact during a backup / restore of an Exchange database. You will learn what you have to consider during your storage design. Should I use a hardware provider or a software provider solution? What tools are available to troubleshoot VSS? These are the questions we will discuss in the session. This will help you to better plan your backup infrastructure and understand what happens in the background during a backup / restore of an Exchange database.

Exchange Server 2010: Design Validation Using Jetstress & LoadGen
Speaker: Juergen Hasslauer

You finished the design concept of your new Exchange Server environment. Are you confident that it will fulfill the requirements of your users? Are you sure that the latency of the storage subsystem is within the supportability boundaries defined by Microsoft? How can you verify if your Client Access Server is able to handle the predicted number of concurrent connections from your mobile workforce using Outlook Web Access and Outlook Anywhere? We will discuss how you can use Jetstress to test your storage subsystem. You will learn how to use LoadGen to simulate users accessing the Exchange environment with different protocols. This will enable you to validate your design and be confident that you identify issues before you move the Exchange environment to production.

Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) “Database Cache” (real name Buffer Manager)
Speaker: Brett Shirley

This session, led by the Microsoft developer for this component, will dive into a deep technical analysis of the ESE Buffer Manager (aka “The Database Cache”). We will cover all the basics of cache management in general terms: latch acquisition, faulting, eviction, sizing, and destaging (terms that will all make sense by the end of the talk!)  This is a complex subject so the content will be made more approachable via analogies — i.e., the Socratic method, contrasting to the OS Memory Manager (which is essentially the same thing), and low impact aerobics. This is not a talk for the shy. This IS a talk for those who want to know the most in-depth details about ESE ever made externally available outside of Microsoft.  While this will not require programming skills, having done some programming in something more sophisticated than batch is recommended.

Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) Database Corruptions (and what to do about them)
Speaker: Brett Shirley

Hardware sucks, you’re hosed!  Or are you?  Just kidding, you probably are.  In contrast to the useless talk on the ESE Buffer Manager, this talk will have a set of material / proscriptive steps and options for what to do in seemingly hopeless situations.  While this will be a talk in generic ESE terms, we will of course have a lot of specific scenarios for the critical databases in the Windows systems infrastructure: such as Certificate Authority (CA), WINS, DHCP, Active Directory, Exchange, and all the Windows Home/Pro databases (CatDB/CryptSvc, Windows Update, and Desktop Search).

High Availability in Exchange Server 2010
Speaker: Scott Schnoll

Welcome to the future! The future of Exchange high availability, that is. In this session, we reveal the changes and improvements to the built-in high availability platform in Exchange Server 2010. Exchange 2010 includes a unified framework for high availability and disaster recovery that is quick to deploy and easy to manage. Learn about all of the new features in Exchange 2010 that make it the most resilient, highly available version of Exchange ever.

The Microsoft UC Voice Story
Speaker: Lee Mackey

Now that MSFT has entered the voice world, how does a MSFT administrator begin on their UC Journey?  What are the questions that you need to know, and how do you successfully win over the Telephony and Security groups?  What are the questions to ask to have a successful deployment for Voice, and how do you tie MSFT UC into all of the Voice pieces you may or may not have in your company?  This session will get you started on that UC Voice journey and get you armed with the right questions for success.

The OCS R2 UC Device Story
Speaker: Lee Mackey

This session will cover all of the UC devices from Microsoft, Jabra, Polycom, LG Nortel, and others that are used today for OCS and Exchange. The session will go over the different scenarios where they are best deployed, as well as walking through configurations for users. It’s critical to understand how UC devices can help you as an administrator in a UC deployment as well as save money and win over end users.  Why buy a desk phone when you don’t need one.  We’ll also be covering new devices from a number of new vendors as well as showing demos of the hardware in action.  This will help you as a Microsoft OCS Admin to determine how to size and select the devices your different end users will need.

Site Resilience in Exchange Server 2010
Speaker: Scott Schnoll

Are you or your customers interested in multi-datacenter site resilience but aren’t clear about how Exchange 2010 provides it? Are you interested in understanding everything that has to be done and that happens when you activate a standby site and failback? This is your opportunity to get the deep dive on site resilience deployments and activation.

Storage in Exchange Server 2010
Speaker: Ross Smith IV

Exchange Server 2010 carries on the tradition begun in Exchange Server 2007 of dramatically reducing mailbox storage costs. Come and learn how we’ve enabled new levels of storage flexibility in Exchange Server 2010, and find out the technical details that will help you select the right storage for your Exchange Server 2010 environment. This session focuses on how the storage architecture in Exchange Server 2010 has evolved and goes beyond the investments previously made to positively impact our customers.

Service Pack 1: What’s New and Why it Matters
Speaker: David Espinoza

Exchange 2010 was released to the public on Nov 9th 2009 and now the new release of Service Pack 1.  Come find out what is new and why it matters in the newest release of Exchange 2010. Not only will you find out what is new in Service Pack 1, you will also get a valuable perspective on this latest release — one that you will not find anywhere else.  Why?  Because you will hear from the perspective of a Technology Adopter Program (TAP) customer that deploys tens of thousands of mailboxes into production while the service pack is in its beta stage! Don’t miss out on the hard-won lessons of these early adopters that have already deployed Exchange 2010 SP1. Dig in and discover not only what’s new in SP1, but how to put the new reliability, scalability, and security enhancements in Exchange 2010 SP1 to work for you!