MVP Global Summit 2008 - Virtualizes everything and PowerShell everywhere
I just came back from a week trip to Seattle for MVP Global Summit 2008. It was a four days event with intense and fun activities. I am exhausted but enlightened. I am very glad that I went!
After initial awkwardness, as this is my first MVP summit and I know a lot people digitally but none physically. Trust me, Wandering among ~2000 people by yourself is not something you will enjoy. Well, that situation changed when I met my fellow myITforumers. I felt I found my home team! These are a group of interesting people by every means - Ron Crumbaker(co-owner of myITforum in case you don't already know), April Cook, Anthony Clendensen(Flew from Arizona with only one T shirt on him, from ~90 F in Arizona to ~40 F in Seattle, He will have a lot adjustment to do. We joked about if he could make it through with that one T shirt. I had my leather jacket on me the entire time, I was still feeling cold!)Sherry Kissinger, Garth Jones (from Canada, a very funny guy!) Greg Ramsey (I thought we are going to go to Space Needle together, LOL), Chris Mosby, Brian Mason; Ed Aldrich and Steve Thompson, fellow New Englanders. Unfortunately Rod Trent and Don Hite didn't make it.
Most my fellow myITforumers are SMS MVP except Steve are SQL MVP. As an admin framework MVP myself, most of my sessions were with PowerShell team. The upside is that I get to meet another group of interesting people; the downside is that I have to depart from my newly found home team. That is not as easy as you would think. As a shy and quiet rooky MVP, that's not easy at all! :)
Well, I have to overcome my born weakness and as always it comes with very rewarding experience. I had the honor to meet PowerShell partner architect Jeffrey Snover, Bruce Payette (Author - PowerShell in Action) and Lee Holmes (Author -PowerShell Cookbook). I have the pictures as a proof! LOL! I have the opportunity to discuss with different Microsoft product team such as AD, WMI, Exchange, IIS, SQL...
I also have the chances to meet my fellow admin framework MVPs and these are some folks with great accomplishments(So are my fellow myITforumers!). They are Book authors, Trainers and business owners, Among them are Charlie Russell(Canada), Thomas Lee(UK), Don Jones, Jeffrey Hicks, Dimitry Sotnikov(Russia) Arnaud Petitjean (French) just to name a few...
We enjoyed the best Sushi place (Tuna House) in Seattle. Thanks Thomas Lee for pointing to the right direction and thanks Jeffrey to pay for it of course. LOL! After pour in a few rounds of sakes, I realized that I am not that shy after all!
Ah, I have to mention Olaf Engelke, a fellow MVP from Germany and he is responsible to take all the pictures. So if you see any pictures from the MVP summit website later on, most likely they were taken by Oilskin. Thanks Olaf for the great memory!
Also I would like to thanks Refaat Issa, a Project Manager from Microsoft PowerShell team to coordinate all the sessions with different product team!
Opps, I almost forgot my MVP lead Mark Clagett, a bright young fellow.
Last but not least, we have the opportunity to listen the keynote speech from Ray Ozzie (Chief Software Architect) and Steve Ballmer (CEO). WOW, Steve is the most funny and contagious CEO I have ever seen.
Thanks Microsoft for the great experience!
Well enough said about the event flow. The key take away from this event for me is that Microsoft will invest aggressively on Virtualization. MS will try to virtualize the world, well IT world at least:
Server Virtualization (Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and the upcoming release Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V)
Desktop Virtualization (Kidaro)
Application Virtualization (Softricity)
Presentation Virtualization
Another key take away for me is, you guess it, - PowerShell everywhere!
Microsoft PowerShell team will work with all the other major product team to extend the PowerShell support in the next release - such as AD, IIS 7, SQL 2008 etc.