Exchange Connections Spring 2007 in Orlando

Exchange Connections Spring 2007 is coming. And very soon. April 1 - 5 in Orlando. I'm finally getting around to posting this (as I'm sitting here waiting on an E2K7 server to install in to a customer's network.) There are some great speakers lined up including Paul Robichaux, Tony Redmond, Kieran McCorry, Wendy Ferguson, Peter O'Dowd, Jurgen Hasslauer, Josh Maher, Devin Ganger, Kevin Miller, William Lefkovics, Lee Mackey, and more. I'll be there and am doing the following sessions:

EXC25: Exchange 2007: The First 100 Days
Follow the real-life implementation of an early adopter of Exchange 2007. This session will start with an overview of the organization’s Exchange 2000 architecture and some of their goals for an early implementation of Exchange 2007. The session will then cover the planning process, server consolidation factors, hardware requirements, existing software that integrates with Exchange, and meeting prerequisites. This session will also include many of the hurdles that this organization faced in completing their migration. [This will follow the progress, trials, and tribulations of two early adopters that deployed Exchange earlier this year.]

EXC27: Exchange 2003: Best Practices Day-to-Day
What should you be doing on a daily basis to keep your Exchange servers stable and running optimally? Topics in this session include the basic tasks that should be performed on every Exchange 2003 server and events to watch for in the event logs. What can you do to improve your Exchange operations, customize your operations, and tweak Exchange to meet the requirements of your organization? Also covered are some “worst” practices in Exchange management such as “over administering” the Exchange server and common configuration mistakes. [This is going to be a pretty busy session as it is combining my "day to day" session and my "tips and tricks" session.]

EXC26: Are You a Low-Hanging Fruit?
Hackers frequently target the simplest and easiest systems that they can exploit. If common exploits don’t work they usually move on. Is your Exchange system vulnerable to “low-hanging fruit” compromise? This session will start by covering simple things you can do with Exchange 2000/2003/2007 to ensure that you are not one of the low-hanging apples on the tree. After covering the basics, we will then cover additional security mechanisms that tools such as Microsoft ISA Server, Edge Transport services, and other tools can provide when implementing additional layers of security and message hygiene. [This session is a compressed version of a previous all-day session I used to do.]


Post Conference (April 5) workshop: Exchange 2007 for Exchange 2003 Administrators (9:00am - 4:00pm)
There has been a lot of hype and media attention surrounding Exchange 2007. The Exchange community has gotten their first look at Exchange 2007 in the summer of 2006. But what does the imminent release of Exchange 2007 mean to you as an Exchange 2003 administrator and your users? 64-bit hardware support, a revamped user interface through a new graphical user interface or Monad scripts, continuous replication, resource mailboxsupport, Edge services, improved mobile support, and unified messaging will all affect the way we manage our Exchange organizations and the services we provide to our user community. Topics in this workshop include:
• Determining a migration / upgrade path to Exchange 2007 from your current Exchange environment
• Implementing e-mail lifecycle management
• Implementing Outlook 2007 using the auto-discovery service
• Reviewing the new Exchange server roles
• Using new features for virus protection, spam reduction, and content filtering
• Using the new Exchange Management Console and Monad scriptlets
• Using local continuous replication to improve availability
• Implementing Exchange Edge services
• Reviewing new unified messaging features
• Taking advantage of resource mailboxes and the scheduling assistant