Cloud Intelligence Conference: Kansas City 2012

There is no doubt that “cloud computing” is at the forefront of many organization’s IT planning, both near term and strategic. With many companies now bringing different offerings to market, understanding the landscape can be challenging. This presentation will describe Microsoft’s all-up cloud strategy and vision (platform and productivity) and describe the different opportunities for customers and partners of all sizes to realize the benefits of this next evolution of computing.

Cloud computing is emerging as a promising IT service delivery vehicle. For IT professionals and for the businesses they support, it is crucial to recognize these opportunities, and to play a key role in the transformation from existing infrastructure-focused IT into a more service-oriented, user-centric, and IT-as-a-Service environment. Are you ready for the challenge to lead and transform your IT organization, and your business?

A comparison of the current version of the 3 major hypervisors, what features they uniquely possess, and how they impact desktop virtualization. Also includes a discussion on how some of the features are uniquely suited for storage performance.

This will include a presentation and discussion on common strategies for migrating SharePoint on-premises environments to Office 365’s SharePoint Online. In addition to standard resources available from Microsoft and partners, key points and pitfalls will be explored using a variety of examples from live migration experiences.

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s public Cloud Platform as a Service offering, enabling organizations to host and scale out existing or new applications in a variety of models. The flexible and robust Azure platform offers a wide range of services to allow organizations to move existing or new applications into the cloud. This presentation will focus on: Web/Worker Roles, Queue and Service Bus Messaging, Access Control Services, and Azure Management SDK for Continuous Integration from TFS.

Kent Nicholls, Microsoft Partner Account Manager, will moderate a panel discussion with three Kansas City technology executives (including Lockton CIO Dave Robinson, KCPL VP-IT Chuck Tickles and Kauffman Center for Performing Arts CFO Bud Jeffress) about their companies’ journeys to the Cloud. Why are they using it? How are they doing it? What challenges are they facing? What results are they looking for? Every decision maker in the audience will benefit from the first hand experiences of these executives.

When you look at your Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning, is it simple, elegant and functional or just additional layers on top of the existing complicated platforms? This session will discuss Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service, which include ways to mix and match public, private and hybrid clouds with cold, warm and hot recovery options to mold the optimal solution for any RTO/RPO needs your company desires.

Dynamics CRM Online was the first business application hosted by Microsoft. This session will provide you with insight on its capabilities, how it is delivered, how to use as it at development platform, and why it is a good choice for a cloud service.

With the promise of near infinite resources, a common question is how do I enable my Azure applications to react to changes in demand, providing a robust customer experience without a constant watchful eye. Learn how to utilize the Enterprise Library to insure a SLA while at the same time, putting limits on your scale to prevent un-foreseen charges.

Most businesses don’t generate their own electricity or provide their own natural gas. Why? Because utilities can provide these required services less expensively and more reliably than any individual business can on its own. Cloud computing provides the same efficiencies with regard to business computing technology. Join cloud veteran John Leek, CTO of NetStandard Inc., as he explores 10 reasons that have compelled hundreds of companies to incorporate cloud in their strategic business initiatives. Companies in all industries are adopting cloud and getting a leg up on the competition and positioning themselves to be more nimble in this uncertain economy. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear why cloud matters to you from someone who has seen it deployed successfully, time and time again.

In this session we will discuss how System Center 2012 can help transform your IT operations into a highly-automated, proactive service. We will discuss and demonstrate how System Center 2012 can provide a solid foundation for all of your core IT functions from helpdesk to service monitoring and management to automated configuration management to disaster recovery and everything in between.

Office 365 is Microsoft’s full set of collaboration and productivity tools - delivered through the cloud. Everyone in your business can work together easily; with anywhere access to and collaboration through email, multi-person audio and video conferencing, documents, and calendars. It includes business-class security, and is backed by Microsoft. Whether you are an individual professional, a small business, or a multinational enterprise, Office 365 offers plans designed to fit your unique needs. This presentation will introduce you to the suite of products, and how they will impact the world of personal and business productivity.

Join us for an informative introduction to Team Foundation Server on Windows Azure -- the new upcoming hosted ALM service from Microsoft. Learn the benefits of an Integrated Application Lifecycle Management strategy, now made even more powerful with the option to use Microsoft Azure for access anywhere seamlessly. We’ll explore different aspects of Team Foundation Server, including Build, Source Control, and Work Item Management. You’ll also see some great new features that will assist you in helping your team build great software!

The use of the Cloud is an intriguing set of resources for your enterprise. If we look at the cloud and Azure as a great set of solutions looking for some interesting problems, we can quickly see where it can be a great benefit. Come spend some time learning about what other companies have done there, what challenges they found, and the benefits they realized.

Cloud computing is a growing area of concern in the IT security community because cloud architectures are literally popping up all over. This presentation provides a review of building cloud security awareness and minimizing the risks associated with cloud computing.

Join Travis Liles for a demonstration and discussion of Microsoft’s new cloud technology that can transform interactions with colleagues, customers, and partners to a collaborative, engaging, and effective experience all while staying in control of end-user permissions and policies and cutting infrastructure costs. Gain exposure to the key features of Lync, including leveraging presence and instant messaging, interacting from within Microsoft Office, and reducing infrastructure costs.

This session will explore how SharePoint 2010 can leverage both Windows and SQL Azure to provide a robust, highly-scalable platform that can be deployed either on-premises or in the cloud. We will explore connecting on-premises SharePoint environments directly to feeds in SQL Azure using just SharePoint Designer, as well as how Azure can be used in conjunction with SharePoint Online as part of Office 365.