Kicking off new blog and announcing Exchange Connections speaking engagement

First off, I still plan on blogging the troubleshooting related issues I come across at exchangemaster.wordpress.com while this blog will be for other Exchange/Office 365-related topics (guides/technical deep-dives/etc). My good friend, fellow MCM/MCSM, & co-worker Jedidiah Hammond started that blog several years ago with the intent of helping the Exchange community’s troubleshooting efforts & I wouldn’t want to deviate from that goal with some of my own occasional projects.

Now on to some exciting news. I’m going to be presenting two sessions at Exchange Connections in Las Vegas this September 15th-19th. For a great overview of the conference, see Tony Redmond’s post detailing the full speaker line-up.

Below you’ll find my session overviews:

 
Exploring options for moving a small Exchange or Small Business Server environment to Office 365 or remaining on-premises

With the retirement of Small Business Server (SBS) & customers no longer able to
purchase SBS 2011, small businesses will be exploring their options going forward.
This session will describe options & provide high level guidance for:
-Supported migration options for moving Exchange to O365 for SBS 03/07/10 (PST
vs Cutover vs Staged vs Hybrid vs IMAP vs 3rd party) with pros/cons of each.
-Which services to take to cloud vs leaving on-prem (Exchange/SharePoint/AD/File
Storage)
-What benefits does Server 2012 Essentials bring & how to scale up from a single server
deployment; Including virtualizing Essentials/Exchange/SharePoint as
separate VMs on same host. Risks/benefits of each.
-The dangers of trying to recreate your own “2013-SBS” by placing
Exchange/SharePoint/RD Gateway/AD/WSUS on same box.
-How to handle authentication (DirSync with Password Sync vs Separate
Credentials vs ADFS)
Session will be high-level & aimed at both small business owners as well as
consultants who work with many small businesses. Session will also include
lessons learned via support with customers already exploring the various options.

 
Advanced troubleshooting procedures & tools for Exchange 2013

Using lessons learned from support, as well as insights from Microsoft, this session
will focus on the following:
-Proper troubleshooting methodology
-Common support issues since the release of 2013 & what can be learned from
them
-(bulk of session)Under-the-hood look at various core & supporting components of
Exchange functionality (Client Access/Transport/Mailbox/High Availability/Unified
Messaging/Active Directory/Operating System resources/Hybrid) & the logs/tools
required for troubleshooting them.
-Resources to follow to be updated on emerging issues (blogs/social media/etc)
-Time permitting, practical examples of beginning to end troubleshooting of
Exchange components.