MMSMOA 2019
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit MMSMOA, (Microsoft Midwest Summit Mall of the Americas) for the first time.
I didn’t have any idea what to expect from it beforehand, other than that most of the Microsoft technologies that I work with every day would be represented in abundance at this summit.
I’ve had a few weeks to think about, and try to summarize the kind of overwhelming experience, including a 2-hour stopover on Iceland, not that I got to see it other than from the air, but nice anyhow.
We arrived early evening to the airport in Minneapolis, and were picked up, together with some nice Danish guys also going to MMSMOA, at the airport, by a hotel shuttle bus from Radisson Blu, where the summit is located.
After a quick check-in at the hotel, I went down to the welcome reception, arriving late, I missed most of it, but at least I had the opportunity to have a quick beer and mingle a bit.
Day 1
After a very nice breakfast at the hotel, my first real experience of MMSMOA began. Trying to find where my first booked session was to be held, it was a bit confusing at first, but info is well placed and not hard to find, so I managed to be there in time :P
MMSMOA has a bunch of sessions going on simultaneously, and you book the sessions about a month before the summit.
All MMSMOA sessions are about and hour, with an extended Q&A of 30-45 minutes at the end of the sessions, and it is highly recommended to ask questions at all times.
My first experience when checking my schedule was the realization that I wouldn’t have much time between the sessions to get lunch, since I wanted to go to as many sessions as possible, but it worked out fine in the end ??
During lunch, there are sessions called Nerds of a feather (OSD, ConfigMgr, Powershell, Cloud and Datacenter, Modern Management) to choose from, where you can ask questions, and some of the MVP:s or other participants from the crowd can answer from their own experience, in my opinion these are extremely valuable, and also gives you the opportunity to give something back to the community.
Session 1: Intune and ConfigMgr – Better Together
The first 20 minutes of the session was spent with us having the video feed from another session (and they probably had our feed :P), but that did not deter the speakers who started of their session without video. This was a very interesting session, about the advantages and challenges of Co-managing your environment with Configuration Manager and Intune. This session was held by 2 of the speakers that I liked best at this MMSMOA, John Marcum (@Marcum_SCCM) and Kenny Buntinx (@kennybuntinx).
Session 2: Managing Modern Apps with Intune
This session was all about Intune and Application Management. It was held by Peter Daalmans (@pdaalmans) and Gerry Hampson (@gerryhampson). They managed to give me a picture of how application management in Intune works, but since I’m not working with Intune at this point in my career, it is kind of difficult to grasp all parts of it at sessions like this, hopefully I will get to play around with Intune at a later point.
Between session 2 and 3, I managed to sneak in a nice lunchbreak with my colleague from Brickstone IT, Magnus Lindahl and his girlfriend who spent MMSMOA enjoying herself while we were working hard ??
Session 3: Microsoft 365, the ultimate overview
Another session by Peter Daalmans (@pdaalmans) and Gerry Hampson (@gerryhampson).
This session was all about getting an overview of all the parts that make up Microsoft 365, essentially Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, EMS.
Basically an extensive overview of all the tools included in Microsoft 365, making your environments more secure, healthy, updated and productive. It was an interesting session, but for me it was way too much information for the allotted time, making it difficult to grasp it all.
Session 4: Go from Zero to Hero with your ConfigMgr Site Recovery!
Another session by John Marcum (@Marcum_SCCM) and Kenny Buntinx (@kennybuntinx).
This time they were talking about why, and how to make up a sound strategy for backing up your ConfigMgr environment, and explaining how to recover it if it indeed does fail, showing what to do, but equally important what NOT to do. The plan for this session was to accidentally mess up the database, and then recover the site. Sadly, the demo gods weren’t with them for this session, so the recovery could not be done. All in all a very nice session, and even if they failed the recovery, they managed to teach me a lot of stuff in the process!
Session 5: ConfigMgr State of the Union
My first opportunity to get to see and hear from the product team that builds and creates ConfigMgr!
Also, the last sessions of each day includes free beer!
The product team talked a whole lot about the changes that has been added to ConfigMgr since last MMSMOA, and also what is next, for me, very interesting stuff indeed, and it’s very fun to see the faces of the men and women creating the product that we work with every day.
This is only one of the parts that made this experience great.
If I don’t remember it incorrectly, the evening was spent drinking a lot of beer and eating really good food together with new and old friends from among others, Advania, really nice bunch of people and the perfect ending of my first night of MMSMOA ??
Day 2:
Session 1: Windows 10 Customizations and Modifications
The first session of day 2 was held by Gary Blok (@gwblok), Mark Godfrey (@geodesicz) and J?rgen Nilsson (@ccmexec) and was all about how to, why, and why not to Customize your Windows 10 rollouts. One of the mantras to bring from this session: Only change defaults when you have a compelling business need!
Many neat tips and tricks in this session, fixes and workarounds for known bugs, and remediations of shortcomings in Windows 10. I would recommend this type of sessions to anyone working with Windows 10 rollouts, catching all these little tidbits adds on nicely to the overall experience for me, and solves many issues. Great speakers as well!
Session 2: ConfigMgr product team: The evolution of App Management
Another session with the ConfigMgr product team, focusing on the development of the Application part of ConfigMgr, and news that are coming shortly and in the future of ConfigMgr. As far as information goes, this was my favorite session, I think, so many new and exciting things coming, and so many questions got answered by the team.
Session 3: Windows Autopilot our way
This session was held by 2 of my favorite speakers from previous Swedish events, Mikael Nystr?m (@mikael_nystrom) and Johan Arwidmark (@jarwidmark). So many great blogposts have been published by these guys throughout the years, and they work very good together as speakers, fun sessions. The session was all about the latest things in Autopilot/Intune, and how it all works. I have never tested autopilot, so some of the stuff was hard to really get my grips on, but all in all a good session.
Session 4: Cloud connect your configuration manager environment
This session was held by Kent Agerlund (@agerlund), Tim De Keukelaere (@Tim_DK), and Heidi Cheng (MS Intune Product Team).
Why cloud connect? To bring added Value to your ConfigMgr investment. Manage your clients even when they are not in the office, our attached to your network. This session was all about why and how to cloud connect your existing ConfigMgr environment. One of the main things that were informed about here was that Intune is not meant to replace ConfigMgr, rather it is meant to supplement it and bring added value.
Session 5: MMS Quiz Night
Another beer session! ??
This time having fun with many of the MVP’s, and using the Kahoot! App to answer the MMS Quiz questions, with some very nice prices for the winners, including a Microsoft Surface 2, and tickets to MMS Jazz edition.
Day 3:
Session 1: HA for SCCM and SQL Server
This session was held by Benjamin Reynolds (@SQLBenjamin) and Steve Thompson (@Steve_TSQL), focusing on everything around making your SCCM environment Highly Available.
What is it, and how do you implement it? What roles can be made h-a? Considerations around strategy and cost. Since we are planning to implement High-availability for the ConfigMgr environment where I’m currently consulting, this was a highly anticipated session for me, and it did not let me down, came away from it with more knowledge and ideas, which was my hope.
Session 2: WAAS in the Enterprise 1809 Edition
This session was held by Gary Blok (@gwblok) and Mike Terrill (@miketerrill) focusing on how to handle WAAS in Windows 10 1809. This was a great session, seeing how Gary and Mike had created their task sequences with so many checkpoints, much logging, ability to rollback on failure, and much, much more. This awoke many thoughts for me, and I’m going to investigate implementing at least part of them into my future Windows Upgrade Task Sequences. These guys brought so much OSD knowledge, that this session alone would have made it worth the trip.
Session 3: Something Really Cool
Another session with the ConfigMgr Product team about all the changes coming soon in the product, but also about some of the changes that they implemented during MMSMOA after feedback from users in the Cabana sessions!
I would dare say that these sessions really are the backbone of MMS, can’t recommend them highly enough.
Session 4: ConfigMgr Application Management-In-depth
This session was held by Kent Agerlund (@agerlund) and Jason Sandys (@jasonsandys), focusing on everything around Applications, how-to, what not to do, how to trace issues and much more. Very interesting session, well informed and fun speakers, really enjoyed it, even though I feel I know much about Applications, I still managed to pick up some new tricks ??
Session 5: Tips and Tricks Showcase
This session was all about the people coming to MMSMOA.
An opportunity to show some neat trick or 2 that takes a maximum of 2 minutes to the gathered audience.
Many users, including myself took the opportunity to teach others a trick or 2, many interesting quick tips and tricks were showed during this 2 hour beer session, and some lucky attendees got to go home with a Microsoft Surface 2! Sadly, I didn’t win one.
Day 4:
Session 1: Manage ConfigMgr Internet based Clients with The Cloud Management Gateway
Another session held by Peter Daalmans (@pdaalmans) and Gerry Hampson (@gerryhamson), focusing on why you should use the CMG, and how to configure it.
Interesting session, filled with most there is to know about the CMG, including cost calculations and considerations about using it only for WSUS patching, or also adding a Cloud DP. This is a product I look forward to testing at some point.
Session 2: Shift to a Modern Desktop with Desktop Analytics
This session was held by Albert Cabello Serrano (@iceorbital), Matthew Hudson (couldn’t find his twitter tag) and Deepam Dubey (@deepamdubey), talking in-depth from a use-case real life scenario, showing examples on how to use the product together with ConfigMgr, this product should give you all the data you need to control your upgrade scenarios between windows versions, giving insight in applications that are known to fail, suggesting solutions etc. Really interesting session, especially since you could ask questions both to MS and to Matthew Hudson, using the product at Schlumberger.
Session 3: Debugging with Style – ConfigMgr OSD Under the Hood
This session was held by Johan Arwidmark (@jarwidmark) and Adam Gross (@AdamGrossTX), focusing on how to debug your OSD, including numerous tips, tricks and how-to’s.
Also one of the best sessions at this years MMSMOA, I have worked with OSD/SCCM more than 8 years, and still managed to pick up new trick or get reminded of stuff I have forgotten about.
Really well informed speakers, and well prepared.
Session 4: Inside the Powershell Deployment Toolkit
Another session by Johan Arwidmark (@jarwidmark) and Mikael Nystr?m (@mikael_nystrom).
This was easily one of the more surprising session, talking about the PSD.
Powershell Deployment Toolkit, PSD, is their initiative for adding on and/or remaking MDT to pure powershell, which at least in my eyes is a truly worthy thing, as VB Scripts gives me a rash every time I am forced to deal with reading code from them :P. I had heard rumors that they were working on it but had no idea that the product was ready to be tested by the community! If you feel that you want to contribute to this inspiring project, or test it out, you can find it at Github.com/FriendsOfMDT/PSD
Session 5: ConfigMgr Q&A – Drinking and Thinking
Last session of this years MMSMOA, beer session and Q&A with the ConfigMgr product team.
First a run-through of all the developments that were made into testing during MMSMOA, if I don’t misremember, it was 13 or 14 changes that was implemented during the Cabana sessions, small “cabanas” outside the main session rooms, where you could book time with the various product teams and suggest fixes that could be easily implemented, and they would start coding them on the fly!
After that it was an open Q&A where all questions regarding ConfigMgr got asked and mostly answered, many ideas were suggested to be placed as uservoice items, and can likely be upvoted right now ??
So, how do I sum up this experience? It was truly amazing for me, but it only gets to be as good as the energy you put in. If you go there with an open mind, trying to learn new stuff, and meet new people from the community, this is THE place to be. The summit is basically by the community, for the community. I tried to take the opportunity to speak to new people whenever I had the chance, and if I had knowledge to share, I tried my best to do so. One of the things to make sure of in the future, spend more time deciding which sessions to attend, and take time in the weeks before the summit to write down any questions I want answered during MMS, for sure, someone at MMS holds the answers ??
I hope to be back next year, and hopefully every year!