Just came back from Build 2019 and it was already time to attend another event. This time it was Microsoft Tech Series 2019 here in Warsaw. Let’s see what happened during this event.

Sessions

The conference was divided into multiple tracks:

  • Dynamics 365
  • Modern Desktop
  • Optimize Your Teamwork
  • Azure development

As you can imagine I went for the Azure track ;)

“Zarzadzanie tozsamoscia w chmurze hybrydowej (Managing identity in hybrid cloud)” by Michal Smereczynski

First session of the day and Michal did a great job as always despite the problems he had. What was the problem you ask? Well… I don’t who is to blame here but there was no cable prepared for the speaker to connect his/hers laptop (sic!). I don’t know if it was the fault of the organizers or tech crew but on a tech conference done by Microsoft which they do in Poland all year around this is so obvious… and when they finally got the cable to the speaker the cable didn’t work… Well… Too bad as Michal couldn’t do any demos but as I said - he did a great job anyway! :)

“Nowa odslona Azure Time Series Insights (The new edition of Azure Time Series Insights)” by Dawid Detko

This was a session I was super interested in as I didn’t have much chance to play with this part of Azure. Dawid did a great job of explaining the basics, scenarios where it can be used and showed a good demo for this with many new features on the plate. Fortunately the cable was working here so demos could happen ;)

“Zarzadzanie urzadzeniami IoT oraz IoT Edge z uzyciem uslugi IoT Hub (Managing IoT devices and IoT Edge using the IoT Hub service) by Kamil Mrzyglod, Daniel Krzyczkowski

Kamil and Daniel have some cool experience with this subject especially while working on the famous AzureTruck :) The session was again the type of “zero to hero” session where the guys showed some theory of IoT, how it is layed down in Azure, what is possible and went through a scenario showing some IoT devices and Azure Sphere on stage connecting to Azure and looking at the data that they pump there and how it can be aggregated, viewed. Good job guys!

“Modern computing in Azure” by Marek Grabarz, Lukasz Kaluzny

The last session of the day (must say that i didn’t even noticed how fast all of it went). Marek and Lukasz basically did a recap of new things in terms of computing which where announced at Build so Virtual Nodes in AKS, new things in Azure App Service, Service Fabric and the “Atlas” project and where it’s going into the future and some new API management goodness. Very good ending session for the day!

Logistics

Venue

Let’s start with the place where the conference took place - Mala Warszawa. A very climatic place but I think not the best choice for this kind of conference. A pretty outer location in Warsaw which made a lot of travel in the morning for many people. Of course - many people on that side of Wisla were happy but still not an easy place to get to.

The second thing was the organization and guidance at the venue. The registration was super slow as the different tracks were not labeled so clearly. Second thing was that the rooms were all over the place - which is fine - as there were lines on the floor guiding to them and even more - they were in color! But… We had this badges for the conference

Why did no one thought about corelating the line colors with some color on the badge? It would be so much easier for starters to have a yellow indicator (that was the Azure track line color) on the badge and it would be clear were to go.

Also the rooms had pillars all over them so comfortable viewing was not possible from all seats.

Lunch

Lunch was served in a form of foodtrucks which I’m all in for! Great idea to spread people around, it’s always better tasting then the catering lunch provided by different companies and gives interesting options. The only issue this time was that we are having some heavy rains recently in Warsaw but fortunately after heavy rains in the morning it stopped so we could enjoy the food outside or just take it into the venue as there was space to eat comfortably standing or sitting. Good job organizers!

Also outside we could explore the Azure Truck mentioned already in this blog post :)

Expo

There was also a small expo section where you could visit booths of some Microsoft partners, Microsoft hardware so a nice addition to the whole experience.

Summary

Overall it was a good event to attend. A lot of familiar faces, a lot of possibilities to network and interact which is also a very crucial part of such events besides the sessions which are presented.

I think that the overall conference score would be 7/10 so there is a place for improvement for the organizers next time ;)