First day on Ignite is over, and here we go with Ignite Splitter for the first day…
When I was booking the Tickets from Zurich to Orlando, I had to fly over New York. I took the opportunity and stayed some couple of days in the City, which never sleeps to visit Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire Building and of course, the Time Square.
Welcome to Miami… I mean Orlando…
Orlando silhouette
After a short flight from New York to Orlando it feels like “back in summer”. The flight was short and smooth. After arriving I had to decide should I rent a Car for this week or simply use a Taxi. However, nowadays we don’t take Taxis (or how Americans says a “CAB”) that much anymore, today we use UBER. So that was what I did. The driver was a smooth one, just not speaking English at all. I arrived two days before the Ignite starts, so I had the chance to check the area around the OC Convention centre after Check-In in my Hotel.
Standing the first time in front of the OC Convention Centre impressed me. However, it is not my first time in the U.S. so I knew here is everything bigger than in Europe and 
especially in Switzerland, but seeing this Center for the first time was I so impressed. Seeing the size of it and knowing my Ignite Schedule, I started thinking if I should search for a Sport store to buy a scooter for myself, to save time by getting in the Center from Point “A” to Point “B”. However, I was super exited to start this Journey.
The Journey starts
The very first appointment on the Ignite 2018 was the Vision Keynote, damn – there are many people here around… However, the Host of the Keynote was Sataya Nadella, in a charismatic way he was opening the Ignite this year.
In around one-hour Sataya reminded us that it doesn’t matter to which business we are looking, IT and IOT is all around us. He showed us different examples about how Microsoft Azure is working in the field by all the big companies around. He showed us how BMW is using the Blockchain technology by using Microsoft Azure, that Microsoft is providing the platform, but the sensitive data are still in the hand of BMW. However, there where some other examples with Coca Cola, Bühler, etc. to.
In general, the presentation was well planed and it was a charismatic way of opening the Ignite this year.
Later Sataya brought two guests to the stage, it was the CEO of SAP Bill McDermott and the CEO of Adobe Shantanu Narayen. They also where telling about their cases using Microsoft Azure to provide better services to their customers.
Sataya closed the Keynote with an announcing to use AI for Humanitarian Action like to support refugees and to be able to help by different types of catastrophes.
First Gap after the Key Note
After the Keynote with Sataya I supposed to have a free gap for two hours, of course it happened differently, than I have planned…
I got the tip to join the session about Windows Server 2019 in the Microsoft Mechanics studio. They showed us what all we can expect from the new Windows Server generation, and there will be a lot of good things coming to us.
However, one of the main things they where showing us is how to finally elemenate old Windows Servers back to 2003 R2. There was a demo shown how a Fileserver migration can easily be made with Windows server 2019. The point is, by this kind of File server migration everything can be migrated, Files, permissions, IP addresses, Hostnames, etc. it also generates logfiles which proves what all was migrated. However, this is for sure something I personally will have an eye on by the release in October, and I highly recommend you, to do that as well.
By walking around, I took of course the opportunity, to make a short picture with world wide known Microsoft sign. This just as a side note…
My other Session today
After the Windows Server 2019session, I took a walk around the Ignite Expo, lot to do, a lot to see, and a lot to get… However, I didn’t have that much time for that, because my very favourite session was going to start soon.
The last Session for the first day was about Microsoft Exchange 2019 and hosted by Brent Alinger (Principal Program Manager, Microsoft) and Greg Taylor (Director of Product Marketing – Exchange, Microsoft).
They where presenting the changes which will be coming in Exchange 2019. Some of them are already known for some time and some of them where, at least for me, new. The most important news we got told is that Exchange Server 2019 will be ONLY supported to run on Windows Server 2019. However, even here Greg and Brent told us that they highly recommend to run Exchange Server 2019 on a Core edition server. This all simply for security reasons, smaller attack surface and smaller disk footprints.
Another change in Exchange 2019 will be that, there is no more Unified Messaging role installed anymore. This will be replaced by Cloud Voice Mail and Audio Attendant.
So, what that means for us? Well:
– Exchange Server 2019 does not offer:
o Voice mail or auto attendant processing
o Unified Messaging settings/actions in Outlook, OWA or ECP
– Cloud Voice Mail or 3rd party PBX can deposit voice mails into Exchange via EWS or SMTP where they will be stored as attachments.
– UM enabled mailboxes from previous Exchange releases will be UM disabled when migrated to Exchange 2019.
I will grab this theme after Ignite for a deeper view on it…
Also “new” was the commit that Exchange 2019 will be use TLS 1.2 only, and that the support for RPC/HTTP will be removed.
Also new on the 2019 version of Exchange server will be, that the Email addresses will be internationalized. That means that EAI types of Email addresses will be supported.
Another cool feature will be that an Exchange Administrator can – finally – remove Calendar events by using for example PowerShell.
Brent and Greg also made clear on this session that Exchange Server 2019 and Exchange online are not the same. They have different feature releases and Bug fixes.
For me that was a really cool session and I was happy to be a part of it. However, after the session was finished, I had the great honour to meet Tony Redmond. I guess no one needs to be told who Tony is and what he was and is doing for our community. (Sorry Tony, I know it is not the best pic, but that’s the only I have)
😊
Last stop today – Welcome Reception
The Welcome Reception part was a great final for the first day, it was perfect for networking with new people and I met some of the Engineers from the Microsoft Exchange Product team. It was niche to talk to them a bit and to meet some MVP’s around.
Rolf (which you can see on the photo below) and I were looking for the place to diner around the Area. However, with so many people we have decided to go to the Sushi Bar in the Hotel just next to the Convention Centre and to start planning next days…
I hope you enjoyed my overview about my first day of the Ignite 2018, if yes, stay turned for tomorrow…
😊