In this series:

SharePoint Conference 2011 Day 0 Report
SharePoint Conference 2011 Day 1 Report
SharePoint Conference 2011 Day 1 Report Update – SPC12 and RED Party

 

Welcome back to this SharePoint Conference Report series. So far it has been a good day and I can say that there is a lot to learn at the break-out sessions.

Quite the party last night. Still feeling the effects this morning. Worst part is that I had to wake up early to attend a private Breakfast gathering with one of the vendors from the conference. After a bit of coffee, things started to fall back in place.

Sessions:

This morning I attended the following session:

Session Title: Upgrading SharePoint Solutions and Features – A Closer Look
Session Code: SPC3995
Speaker(s):  Wayne Ewington
Presented By: Microsoft
Level: 300
Abstract: Okay, so you’ve already deployed your customizations into
production and you’ve now got a new set of requirements. What are you going to
do to help ensure a smooth upgrade? If you’re not sure what to do, or if you
want some tips and tricks, then this session is for you. We will look at the
application lifecycle management support within SharePoint 2010 and in
particular how you can version and upgrade your SharePoint Solutions and
Features. Be warned that this is a developer focussed session, so be prepared to
see XML, code, and demos!

Comments: This was a pretty good session and it demonstrated some good practice to upgrading custom WSP solutions – both Sandbox and Farm solutions. The presenter was quite knowledgable and presented the material very consistently. He did however have a few issues with his demos # 1 and 4… typical issues when you try to demo live actions in front of  a crowd. No worries though, the message got across regardless of the failed demos. Good presentation Wayne.

 

Following this session, I went back to my room because there was a presentation being live-blogged online on Engadget. They were live-blogging a product announcement from this fruit company everyone keeps talking about. Considering all the issues I currently have with my phone (their model from a couple years ago).The features in this new model will definitely make my life easier. Maybe the office will pay for the upgrade?? Wishful thinking 😛

I then headed to the Meals room for Lunch and spent a bit of time trying to win more swag from the vendors in the exhibit hall.

Following the lunch break, I attended the following sessions:

Session Title: The Inside Scoop: How Microsoft IT Enables Information Discovery with Managed Metadata
Session Code: SPC398
Speaker(s):  Pamela Green
Presented By: Microsoft
Level: 300
Abstract: In this session, we will show you how Microsoft IT
imports taxonomy from a legacy system into SharePoint 2010 in order to manage
metadata more effectively across the enterprise. We will discuss how we are
improving the information discovery process by demonstrating how our taxonomy is
governed and maintained and how syndicated content types are being used.

Comments: This presentation was interesting but not really at the 300 level I was expecting. Pamela did however make a good presentation of the chalenges Microsoft faces itself with managing taxonomy and tagging – issues that many other organizations might be facing – and it was interesting to hear how they are migrating from legacy systems and attempting to clean up the metadata to make the data sets more relevant. Thanks Pamela. Good presentation.

Session Title: SharePoint Infrastructure for Geographically Distributed Organizations
Session Code: SPC388
Speaker(s):  David McNamee
Presented By: Microsoft
Level: 300
Abstract: SharePoint requires careful planning when it is deployed
into a geographically distributed organization. This session will explore
tactics and strategies to handle issues of low bandwidth, high latency, and
unreliable connectivity. These will include the distribution of SharePoint
services and the impact of client applications and cloud-based services such as
Office 365.

Comments: This session had pretty good attendance and the content was more a discussion with no demos. The presenter introduced the many ways that SharePoint farms can be extended to reach a globally distributed user base – all good methods to increase speed of content delivery to remote or mobile workers. There will be more posts later on that will detail some of these methods to improve this delivery. Stay tuned for more on this topic later. Good presentation David.

 

Evening Event at DisneyLand!

Stay tuned, i will be updating this post later tonight with DisneyLand Pictures and details. Hope to see a lot of you there. Look me up on twitter! @matdesmarais.

Looks like the weather will be on our side for now. There was rain this morning but it is sunny out so it is looking good for an evening with Mickey.

 

Thank you to all those that have been retweeting the posts in this series. Also don’t forget to follow me on twitter @matdesmarais