Modern Endpoint Management Summit - Highlights

Last month, 微软 hosted a two-day event, the 'Modern Endpoint Management Summit,' at their campus in Paris. This event drew more than 300 attendees from 29 different countries, offering 50 informative sessions. We spoke to Tyron Raubenheimer , Head of Cloud Technology at Sharp UK UK, who shared his thoughts and key takeaways from the summit.

Here's what he had to say:

About the Event: Modern Endpoint Management (Official Group Page) (MEM) is a community dedicated to discussing endpoint technologies and experiences. With over 31,000 global members, it started with one person and grew significantly. What set this conference apart was that Microsoft Value Partners hosted it, as industry consultants and like-minded individuals who shared their experiences and expertise. It was a unique event because it wasn't just Microsoft's channel partners speaking; it was professionals in the same industry or consultants sharing their technology insights and how they became Microsoft Value Partners (MVPs).

Session Experience: The summit's sessions were highly engaging, running from early in the morning until late in the day. These sessions were packed with valuable information. Tyron found it fascinating to see how young some of the MVPs were, with some speakers being just 25 years old. The only drawback of Tyron’s was not being able to attend all the sessions due to time constraints.

‘You were essentially jumping from session to session trying to process the extensive amount of information that was pouring out. I had to sit back to take it in like wow, this is really interesting. I know that I’m well-versed in their particular technologies, but it was so interesting to see how young some of these MVPs are coming out to be.’ Tyron said.

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Standout Session: One session that stood out was presented by Jannik Reinhard , a 25-year-old Senior Solution Architect and MVP working for the world's largest chemical company. He demonstrated "How to use OpenAI to analyse Intune devices." Jannik had transitioned from Modern Workplace Development into Artificial Intelligence and showcased a module that could extract information from the modern workplace using OpenAI's Cognitive services without the need for coding.

Tyron said it was impressive to see someone so young presenting such groundbreaking work. ‘He launched it that Sunday, and essentially said it’s free to the world, let me know how you want to mold this. It was just so impressive to see this from someone as young as him.’

Key Takeaways:

1. MSP Security: The summit highlighted the increasing security risks for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) which are at the same level as multi-national banks and financial institutions. Threat actors are targeting MSPs as they have access to multiple businesses. This emphasises the importance of cyber security measures and frameworks to protect against such threats. ‘It's something myself and Simon Jefferies (Director of Technology at Sharp UK) have been echoing for quite a while, so it was quite interesting to hear this from third-party people and subject matter experts around the security fabrics,’ Tyron said.
2. Disaster Recovery and Response Plans: The discussions highlighted the importance of disaster recovery and response plans. These plans, including command posts like gold, silver, and bronze, help organisations respond effectively to issues, ensuring both IT and communication aspects are covered in times of crisis.Tyron elaborated on the command posts, ‘Gold would be your IT team dealing with the particular tech and mitigating the issues. They have no communication outside of one particular key area in silver. Silver would be your internal comms to clients, your inward and outward communication areas, disaster mitigations, public relations etc. And then bronze would be any other particular elements needed. This would be figuring out how to go about designating technicians or consultants to mitigate this issue across the board.’
3. Individual Specialisations in IT Teams: There's a trend towards individual specialisation in IT teams. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, having experts in areas like cloud services, identity management, and SharePoint is becoming more vital.
4. DevOps Innovations: While DevOps isn't new, the focus has shifted towards automation using tools like Terraform. This speeds up processes significantly, offering efficiency and scalability benefits.
5. AI Integration: AI integration is an exciting development. One MVP demonstrated an AI agent that could enhance our own Helpdesk support by consolidating rule sets and device configurations. This innovation could greatly improve support consistency and efficiency.

Tyron attended various informative sessions, including those on cyber security, Windows 11, and IT authentication:

• The art of Cyber Security - according to Microsoft 365 with Simon Binder, Workplace & Security Architect at Telia Cygate
• Unleashing the potential of Windows 11 in your enterprise with Gabe Frost, Group Product Manager at Microsoft and Ken Goossens, Senior Product Manager - CAT Windows Servicing and Delivery at Microsoft
• Entra ID Authentication - Skills for the IT Pro with Michael Mardahl (MVP), Cloud Architect at APENTO

He left the summit with valuable insights and a better understanding of industry relationships and operations, making it a worthwhile experience.

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