SPC14 - My Session Picks... If I Get There!

That's right, if I get there.  I was scheduled to leave for the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2014 yesterday, but my flight was cancelled due to freezing rain and I have been on standby since.  I'm hopeful that I'll get there today.  In any case, I’m very excited about this year’s conference!

I've been reviewing the list of sessions I want to attend and I have to admit it’s a hard choice.  The organizers have lined up an excellent set of sessions and speakers for this year's SPC.  The MySPC web site this year makes it really easy to navigate all the great session available and organize your schedule: http://myspc.sharepointconference.com/.  I focus my work on several aspects of SharePoint, including: business topics, development of various integrations like CSOM and SSOM applications as well as Apps, and finally on security and governance topics.  I know several of the speakers, or I’ve at least seen many speak before, so I’ve made my choices based on these topics of interest and on the speakers I know will deliver a great session.

Here are my choices for this year.  You’ll notice some time slots I have multiple sessions selected, and that’s simply because multiple great sessions are at the same time and I haven’t yet been able chose – I may have to choose on the fly and grab the recordings of those I can’t go to watch afterwards.

Monday March 3
SPC14 Keynote: Connect. Reimagine. Transform.
Time: 8:30 - 10:30am
Speakers: Arpan Shah, Jared Spataro, Jeff Teper, Julia White
The keynote will introduce the main themes of the conference and highlight new innovations across SharePoint, Yammer and Office 365.  This session is often where we learn about new major areas in which Microsoft is focussing its efforts in future versions of SharePoint, or how major technologies will or will not work together.  I'm also pretty excited to hear the special guest keynote speaker, Bill Clinton the former President of the United States, participate in the presentation.
...and of course who wouldn't want to see Bill Clinton speak!

Developer audience keynote | What's new for the Office & SharePoint developer
Time: 11:00 - 12:15pm
Speakers: Rob Lefferts, Brian Jones
This session will show what’s new in Office and SharePoint development and unveil new features and capabilities that demonstrate how the development model has evolved. 
HP Sponsored Lunch: Simplify Information governance for SharePoint to balance collaboration and compliance needs
Time: 12:15 - 2:00pm
Event is sponsored by HP.
Since I focus a lot of my work in the security and governance space I'm curious to learn more about their product so I'm planning to attend this session.

SharePoint Power Hour - New developer APIs and features for Apps for SharePoint
Time: 2:00 - 3:15pm
Speakers: Rob Howard
Are you wondering what developer sessions to attend this week? Start here. We'll power through every new SharePoint development feature with bite-sized demos and point you to subsequent sessions for a deeper dive. There will be plenty to cover, including several not-yet-announced capabilities you won't want to miss.
          -OR-
SharePoint 2013 hybrid end-to-end
Time: 2:00 - 3:15pm
Speakers: Sam Hassani
A Hybrid environment combining SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Online can fuse together the very best elements of both systems and offer a seamless experience to end-users when implemented correctly - in addition to providing you with cost savings. Attend this session to understand the solutions SharePoint hybrid environments support. We'll walk through the end-to-end configuration process covering infrastructure, identity management and SharePoint integration points. We'll use Search as a real-world example. Hybrid is a real way to begin to take advantage of cloud economics, achieve user-productive scenario benefits and the deployment approach is entirely supported by Microsoft.

Advanced Performance Analysis for SharePoint
Time: 3:45 - 5:00pm
Speakers: Ryan Campbell
Identifying performance bottlenecks can be cumbersome. From the individual machine, the local LAN, the WAN, Web Front Ends and SQL Server, this session will show you the strategies for identifying weak links and provide hard evidence to affect change. We'll combine IIS, ULS, Performance Monitor, and Network Mapping to develop a complete health picture and empower admins to quickly answer the question "Why is SharePoint slow?". From these strategies, objective measurements can be developed to show impact of code, infrastructure, or configuration changes.

Tuesday March 4

Automating SharePoint operations and governance: site provisioning and group management
Time: 9:00 - 10:15am
Speakers: Dan Holme
Are you tired of click-click-clicking through the user interface every time a user needs a new site? Are you concerned that administrators and users are not complying to your governance policies when they deploy new sites, lists, and libraries? Are you unsure whether security permissions are consistently and correctly applied? Do you want to empower the business with self-service capabilities, but you feel uneasy about them staying in policy compliance? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then this session is for you. In this advanced governance and management session, we will unveil a framework for automating SharePoint administrative tasks to enforce your service and information management policies. You will take away a set of tools that you can apply and extend to create a secure, proxied model for SharePoint administration. The session assumes you have some understanding of Windows PowerShell, which is used to power the scripts we will show. But even if you aren’t a PowerShell expert, you will be able to take the tools we give you and put them to work in your enterprise, including sample solutions for automating the creation of sites and for managing group membership across SharePoint sites and Active Directory. Automate consistency into your processes for improved, repeatable governance.
          -OR-
Office 365 identity federation using Windows Azure and Windows Azure Active Directory
Time: 9:00 - 10:15am
Speakers: Spencer Harbar
Windows Azure provides a compelling solution for deploying infrastructure for directory synchronization and identity federation with Office 365, while avoiding the cost of an on-premises implementation plus required operations. This session will present an end-to-end scenario leveraging Windows Azure and Windows Azure Active Directory, along with the Active Directory Sync tool and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) to provide the richest identity experience with Office 365. We'll also share and show tips and tricks to help automate deployment and accelerate your Office 365 Identity integration.
          -OR-
Real-world SharePoint architecture decisions
Time: 9:00 - 10:15am
Speakers: Wictor Wilén
Being a SharePoint architect can be challenging - you need to deal with everything from hardware, resources, requirements, business continuity management, a budget and of course customers. You, the architect, have to manage all this and in the end deliver a good architecture that satisfies all the needs of your customer. Along the line you have to make decisions based on experience, facts and sometimes the gut feeling. In this session we will cover some of the architectural changes in the SharePoint 2013 architecture, some of the new guidance from Microsoft and provide insight into a number of successful real-world scenarios. You will see what decisions were made while designing and implementing these projects with emphasis on why they were made.


K2: Introducing K2’s new no-code, cloud based workflow apps for the SharePoint platform
Time: 10:45 - 12:00pm
Speakers: this is a partner led session
Hybrid is fast becoming the new normal for SharePoint organizations. The challenge is how to enable citizen developers and technical developers alike to build business apps that span cloud and on-premises and to ensure cloud doesn’t become the next information silo.
In this session K2 will introduce a new no-code, cloud-based platform for creating workflow and forms apps that seamlessly integrate with SharePoint online, on-premises or both. With browser-based design tools, access to LOB data on-premises or in the cloud and zero infrastructure requirements, K2 removes the headache of online or on-premises and lets you focus on solving business challenges.
Building SharePoint Apps with Windows Azure Platform as a Service
Time: 1:45 - 3:00pm
Speakers: Kirk Evans
Come to this session to learn how to take advantage of Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities to build compelling SharePoint apps. In this session, we will provide an overview of Azure PaaS and will demonstrate how to leverage various features when building apps. We will demonstrate building apps while discussing specific scenarios where Azure PaaS provides a scalable solution for apps.
          -OR-
Implementing federated (cross-farm) services in SharePoint 2013
Time: 1:45 - 3:00pm
Speakers: Shannon Bray
SharePoint 2013 has a number of services that support cross-farm or federated architectures. In this session, we will introduce you to these services, discuss when to implement them, and share with you best practices on configuring them in your environment.

Developing future-focused, on-premises solutions
Time: 3:15 - 4:30pm
Speakers: Bob German
This session will focus on how to develop on-premises solutions based on architecture patterns that will support migration to Office 365 in the future. These solutions are based on a shift to client-side development to allow repackaging rather than rewriting to enable the new App model. The result is code that is safer and easier to deploy, whether on-premises or in the cloud.
          -OR-
SharePoint for large scale records management - hundreds of millions of documents and beyond!
Time: 3:15 - 4:30pm
Speakers: Alex O'Donnell, Nishan DeSilva, Roberto Yglesias
Records management capabilities in SharePoint are enterprise grade, causing many customers to remove the additional cost and complexity of third party products. This session reviews the records management capabilities in SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online against real world scenarios of extreme scale. We'll go through the major design decisions behind the solution - in place vs. records center, creating file plans, retention schedules, document and site metadata and eDiscovery, etc.. We'll also share real world experience in delivering such a solution that attempts to keep both business and IT stakeholders happy!
General Motors: managing 130,000 users’ documents and records – making it easy, while maintaining control
Time: 5:00 - 6:15pm
Speakers: Daniel Harris
General Motors is passionate about designing, building and selling the world’s best vehicles. With 130,000 information workers, managing documents and records for all areas of the business requires a holistic approach to governance and solution design. Come and hear how General Motors designed their records management solution to work at scale. They will cover how they balance open collaboration with compliance, making it easy for an end user to manage content and must-have scenarios (declaration, retention and holds, disposal), showing the final solution designed to meet today and tomorrow’s needs. Lots to see, lots to learn and time to ask those burning peer-to-peer questions.
          -OR-
Showcase: How Microsoft Legal does eDiscovery
Time: 5:00 - 6:15pm
Speakers: EJ Bastien, Joe Banks
This session will talk about how the Microsoft Legal team deployed and configured eDiscovery internally. We will share the architecture, tips and tricks as well as best practices based on our experience.

Wednesday March 5

A strategic and pragmatic conversation on governance
Time: 9:00 - 10:15am
Speakers: Eric Riz
SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online change the landscape in many ways, particularly with its application model and cloud capabilities. From a business perspective, this makes the job of the governance teams more difficult and complex as these issues become key priorities (and areas of weakness) for the organization. This session is a strategic conversation around the elements governance teams should be most concerned with, from data ownership to creating the correct policies and social rights to security. Attendees will learn tactical strategies which can be used as soon as they return to the office.
          -OR-
SharePoint data security and compliance
Time: 9:00 - 10:15am
Speakers: Liam Cleary
All versions of SharePoint to date have bought us closer and closer to a better authentication and security model so that we can securely share content inside and outside of the organization. Understanding the Authentication and Authorization process will help you as an organization to visualize how, when, who and why users are accessing content. Once the core security model is defined protecting the content and infrastructure become the important, especially understanding the entry points that could expose data. In this session we will look at the process of Authenticating and Authorizing Users, Protecting the content and securing the infrastructure so that those hackers out there will think twice before attempting to access your environment.

Authentication and authorization infrastructure in Microsoft SharePoint 2013
Time: 10:30 - 12:00pm
Speakers: Paolo Pialorsi

Multi-factor authentication for SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online Time: 1:45 - 3:00pm
Speakers: Liam Cleary
Over the past year we have seen an increase in hack attempts and many security breaches from inside and outside the organization. The standard ways of authentication are now not enough to protect content within an organization. Authentication Federation technology whether on premise or in the cloud can go a long way to removing the intrinsic connection between user validation and the application. However this technology is not enough on its own especially when we are all brining our own devices to work or working anywhere and anytime. To resolve this core issue, multi-factor authentication technology can help in securing access by requiring further user input and validation before accessing content. In this session we will look at securing SharePoint using On-Premise and Windows Azure federation services combined with multi-factor authentication services to create a powerful and secure mechanism for accessing SharePoint.
          -OR-
Tackling the Challenges of Information Management & Governance - insights from AIIM president
Time: 1:45 - 3:00pm
Speakers: John Mancini
AIIM President, John Mancini, will explore three key information management trends facing the user community: 1) why dealing with information chaos is THE most significant challenge facing businesses in the next decade; 2) the causes and effects of this disruption; and 3) how the governance capabilities in Sharepoint can be used to help users and organizations address the challenges of information chaos.

Authentication patterns for SharePoint 2013 and Office 365
Time: 3:15 - 4:30pm
Speakers: Israel Vega Jr, Nathan Miller
Can single sign on be accomplished with SharePoint? How do I integrate my on premise apps with the cloud in a secure manner? I need to authenticate devices, how can SharePoint help me? This session will provide you with the positive options available for answering these and several other authentication questions. You will learn about the different authentications options available for integrating systems apps, devices, and applications for on-prem scenarios, in the cloud and hybrid. Your given scenario dictates what is possible with SharePoint, Office 365 and everything in between. We will help you identify those needs and implement them properly and effectively.

Content Types, Managed Metadata, and You
Time: 5:00 - 6:15pm
Speakers: Lori Gowin
In order to keep your SharePoint environment from becoming used as 'just another file share' there are things you can do to make it more valuable and usable. Understanding how content types work and implementing them in your environment helps you and your users make sense of the content. Add in the benefit of working with Managed Metadata to create and standardize the terminology and your environment will be easily searched, understood, and utilized. This session will focus on understanding content types, implementing them, planning and using metadata term sets, all to help you build richer SharePoint environments.
          -OR-
Subordinate integrity: Certificates for SharePoint 2013
Time: 5:00 - 6:15pm
Speakers: Spencer Harbar
Certificates play an increasingly important role in SharePoint 2013. As well as protecting data, they are one of the fundamental building blocks of service interaction between service applications and across products such as Lync and Exchange. With the introduction of Office Web Apps 2013 and Workflow Manager as well as the Cloud App Model, certificates are now effectively a pre-requisite for a complete SharePoint deployment.
This session will de-mystify which types of certificate are needed, where they are used and how best customers can manage the certificate lifecycle for SharePoint 2013, Office Web Apps and Workflow Manager. Also covered will be client browser considerations and approaches to automating configuration with Windows PowerShell, along with certificate requirements for Office 365.


Thursday March 6

SharePoint 2013 Apps with AngularJS
Time: 9:00 - 10:15am
Speakers: Jeremy Thake
This session will be a deep dive journey into using the Model View View Model (MVVM) pattern for UI development platforms supporting event-driven programming and 3rd party AngularJS library to create a SharePoint 2013 Hosted App.
Jeremy Thake will walk you through the journey he took to build a SharePoint App for the Office store which required a real world separation of view layer to allow a GUI Web developer to control the look and feel whilst he coded up the Model and Business Logic.
The session will include how Bootstrap UI was used to speed up the GUI framework, out of the box People Pickers in an inline editing form and much more! If you’ve been following Jeremy Thake’s blog on this topic, this session will bring it all together and much more!
OBJECTIVES
 1. Learn how to get started with the AngularJS framework in SharePoint Hosted Apps
 2. Learn how to leverage the SharePoint JSOM and REST APIs with AngularJS
 3. Learn how to decouple SharePoint to enable web developers to focus on the View or business logic layers
 4. 5 tips from real world experience in building a SharePoint App for the Office Store using AngularJS

SharePoint in the clouds – select, mix, and deploy what’s right for you
Time: 10:15 - 11:45am
Speakers: Christian Buckley
Many "clouds" support SharePoint 2013. And these many “clouds” can be combined adding unique value based on your unique requirements. This session is designed to help ITI's and ITDM's find the right cloud formula to deploy based on practical business and technical considerations. You'll understand how to differentiate between private and public clouds, IaaS and SaaS, as well as hybrid scenarios with absolute clarity of the business benefits and the IT best practices.

Demystifying Kerberos in SP2013 and SQL 2012 for business intelligence
Time: 12:00 - 1:15pm
Speakers: Scott Stewart, John Cole
Business Intelligence requirements in SharePoint often require use of the Secure Store for security but ultimately may require Kerberos to handle "double-hops." The configuration is often misunderstood and not completed correctly. This session will include an explanation of required elements for Kerberos in SharePoint and SQL. It will also demonstrate a complete configuration of a multi-tiered server farm running Kerberos.

SharePoint Server 2013 and Office 365 Hybrid
Time: 1:00 - 5:00PM
Speakers: Bill Baer, Steve Peschka
Bring the cloud to your business with a solid 1/2 day post-conference training. This is a unique offering you will not find anywhere before the SharePoint Conference 2014. Come prepared to learn how to implement scenario-based hybrid topologies with SharePoint 2013 and Office 365 including the necessary prerequisites. You will be better armed to make crucial decisions on how and when to deploy certain workloads across domains. Our trainers in this session have had a lot of battle testing and fully understand the realities of how customers use SharePoint in mixed environments. They will show you important decision points, best practices and be available the entire session to answer your tough, deep-level questions.
...both these gentlemen are amazing speakers and highly knowledgeable!  If you can make it, this session is not to be missed!


I hope everyone enjoys SPC14, and I hope I make it there to connect with all of you!  :-)
     -Antonio