At the very end of November, Microsoft announced the first Service Pack for Exchange Server 2007.

 

So let's see a brief overview of the features:

 

- You can now install Exchange 2007 on a Windows Server 2008 operating system;

- Active Sync enhancements are added;

- Additional OWA features are added such as: a monthly calendar view, public folder access is back, S/MIME support;

- POP3/IMAP4 user interface is added to the Exchange Management Console;

- Improvements to transport functionality;

- Public Folder Management is added to the Exchange Management Console;

- New High Availability features: Standby Continuous Replication (SCR);

- Windows Server 2008 support: multiple subnet failover clusters, IPv6;

- New Unified Communications features (some of them available with integration of Office Communications Server 2007);

- Enhancements to the Exchange API sets.

 

For more detailed information, visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676323.aspx

On Wednesday, 28th of November, Macedonian Exchange User Group members had their third meeting.

 

It took place in Microsoft offices in Skopje gathering Exchange administrators and professionals.

 

After I introduced them with the activities during the previous month, two technical sessions were presented.

 

The first one was summary of Microsoft TechEd IT Forum 2007, where I made a brief overview of the new technologies announced on this conference, focusing on Windows Server 2008, Microsoft System Center Family, and of course, Exchange.

 

The second one was presented by Vladimir Stepic, about his visit of Redmond for the first time, and attending a training event for Exchange 2007.

 

At the end, of course networking/refreshments part of the meeting where a lot of discussions about the new technologies took place as usual.

 

Next meeting is planned in the middle of December, and we are making an exception because of the Christmas and New Year’s Holidays.

 

According to our plans, we will have a technical presentations and demos about Unified Communications.

Today (16th of November) is the last day of the conference. But anyway the convention center was full, a lot of activities were going on.

 

In the morning I attended a session from Steve Riley, "It's 11:00 PM. Do You Know Where Your Data Is?", where a lot of security concepts were covered, including the security features of Vista and Windows Server 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

This day (15th of November) I didn't have any Hands on Labs shifts, so in the first place I was thinking going in town, visiting some of the attractive Barcelona places. But there were so many things I wanted to do on the conference, so I came back to the convention center:)

 

First I was attending a session from Omar Kouatly and Dale Koetke, "Ask us How to Deploy Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007".

 

After that I had an interview for Culminis magazine Voice. Culminis is an international non-for-profit organization devoted to the development of the IT community with more than 910 member organizations representing more than 2,000,000 IT Professionals. The topic of the interview was the activities of our user group - Macedonian Exchange User Group - MEUG.

 

And again a session, this time from Omar Kouatly and Gordon McKenna, "Ask Microsoft IT about Monitoring Microsoft’s Line-Of-Business Applications with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007".

 

On this conference, the partner exhibition area had one special part, called Microsoft System Center Partner Pavilion, where all the exhibitors that have products designed for Microsoft System Center family. It was really a great thing to meet people from a lot of companies and learn about their products and technologies.

 

As this day continued, more and more interested things happened.

 

First the Speaker Idol contest finals, where the winner was again MCT, of course:) Ilse Van Criekinge from Belgium. Congratulations!

 

After that a session from last year's Speaker Idol Andy Malone, "Dive Deeper Inside Windows Server 2008 Security – Keeping the Bad Guys Out". Andy really proved that he is a great speaker with an inspiration and passion for a technology. Great job Andy! I am sure that you are going to be a regular speaker on Microsoft conferences in the future.

 

And finally at the end of the day, the MCT Party, where we went to the "Red Lounge" club, again to have a great time and summarize our conference experience, exchange business cards, because tomorrow is the last day of the conference.

 

     

 

 

Today I assisted Dale Koetke (Lead Program Manager for OpsMgr 2007) with the ILL (Instructor Led Lab) about "Installing OpsMgr 2007 and deploying agents in untrusted domain". The lab went smoothly, and the attendees were very interested in it. At the end, everyone learned how to do this type of deployment.

 

Right after that session, I went to the Hands on Labs, and after that at the Ask the Experts booth for System Center OpsMgr 2007, Capacity Planner, and Remote Center OpsMgr. Remote OpsMgr is intended for Service Providers, who offer management and monitoring solutions to their customers. It is not at the Microsoft web site at this moment, but Microsoft Partners can access to information about it through their partner site.

 

And again... party;)

 

While on TechEd US there is one attendee party, on IT Forum every country organizes their own so called Country Drink. This year for the first time, Microsoft organized World Party (or as somene added "The rest of the World Party), where countries whit small number of participants can have a chance for networking. I guess I am the only one from Macedonia, (last year there were three of us). The interesting fact was that people from US and Australia also joined us, because there were only few of them:) It was a nice chance to meet people from everywhere.

 

The food and drinks were good, traditional Spanish.

Early in the morning I followed a session about System Center Operations Manager 2007 Concepts and Architecture, by Vlad Joanovic, OpsMgr Program Manager and a great speaker.

 

On the Hands on Labs, the attendees continue to be very interested in OpsMgr 2007. Additionally we have Data Protection Manager 2007, System Center Essentials and WSUS 3.0, which are very cool, too.

 

     

 

After the end of the day, a new party. This time it is a Microsoft Influencers party (MCTs, MVPs, etc) at "Tapas Bar Del Mar". A lot of interesting people, sharing passion about technology and exchanging experiences and ideas, including Dejan Foro - Exchange MVP and Frank Carius - the oldest Exchange MVP - meaning MVP since a long time ago, not an old MVP:)

 

The food was traditional, Spanish, but there was also a Russian salad, which is something very common in my country:)

 

     

 

 

Today was the official beginning of the TechEd IT Forum 2007.

 

The keynote session began at 2p.m. and the hands-on-labs were open from 8:00a.m. so the attendees went to try the new labs. At some point of time there were queues waiting for the labs, but none of them waited more than several minutes, and the labs worked just fine.

 

Unfortunately I was not able to follow the first day sessions, because they overlapped with my schedule. Always great sessions by Omar Koatley and Gordon McKenna are something which is not to miss. I am looking forward for their next session on Friday.

 

So the Speaker Idol began at 7 p.m. My presentation about System Center OpsMgr 2007 went well, and I am happy about it. I didn't win, but that was really exciting show and we all had great time.

 

During the contest, there was a partner reception, where I met a lot of people, some known and some new faces.

 

After the ending of the Day 1, a group of 10 MCTs went on a dinner at the Diagonal del Mar shopping center. It was really nice talking about everyday's life and of course, about the Trainer work.

Today is Sunday, and in Barcelona the streets are empty. What a difference comparing to yesterday.

 

But for TechEd IT Forum, the preparations are on their way.

 

From early in the morning until the end of the day, the MCTs and other staff are preparing for the tomorrow's waves of more than 5,000 attendees.

 

In the evening - the traditional MCT dinner at the Port Olympic. A lot of familiar faces, some new ones, very nice atmosphere and good food.

 

At midnight, I am in my hotel room, checking slides for tomorrow's Speaker Idol Contest.

 

Looking forward for the beginning of the conference.

On Wednesday, 31st of October, Macedonian Exchange User Group members had their second meeting.

 

It took place in Microsoft offices in Skopje with more than 20 attendees - Exchange administrators and professionals.

 

After I introduced them with the activities during the previous month, a technical session about the new features of Exchange Server 2007 was presented by Vladimir Stepic.

 

The session was full of enthusiasm and powered by 7 virtual machines, running mixed Windows Server 2000/2003, Exchange Server 2000/2007 and perfectly tuned on server with 4GB of RAM. Vladimir Stepic is in Redmond at this moment, attending a training event for Exchange 2007. We are all waiting to hear his impressions on our next meeting.

 

After the session we had a networking/refreshments part of the meeting where a lot of discussions about the new technologies took place.

 

Next meeting is planned for the end of the November, and the topics are Microsoft TechEd European Conferences and Microsoft Exchange events in Redmond.

 

I arrived in Barcelona this afternoon. I left Skopje (my home town) in clouds and cold weather, and in Barcelona it was 17 degrees Celsius at 6p.m.

 

It was very exciting watching a lot of people walking through the most popular sites of the city, especially in the center - Plaza Catalunya, Rambla, Passeig de Gracia - everything was crowded.

 

Unfortunately, I was too tired to go there, despites of the beautiful atmosphere.

 

My colleagues MCTs and MVPs, are already in Barcelona, too, preparing for the conference participation in Hands on Labs and Ask the Experts.

 

Tomorrow evening is the traditional MCT dinner and I'm really looking forward to see all of them.

With more than 4,000 delagates, Microsoft TechEd Developers conference has now closed, and according to the delegates, MCTs and MVPs that attended, it was a really great event.

 

You can still watch the higlights and find a lot of interesting information about the happenings during the conference on its web site: http://www.mseventseurope.com/teched/07/developers/content/Pages/Default.aspx

 

On Monday, IT Forum begins. A lot of technical staff is already in Barcelona, preparing for the new event.

Last year on TechEd European events, a new contest called Speaker Idol is organized. It provides the conference delegates a chance to participate and show their speaker skills and knowledge. I was one of the twelve participants on the IT Forum Speaker Idol, too, and I won the second place in my wave. The overall winner for the Developers event was Bart De Smet from Belgium, and for the IT Forum event Andy Malone, MCT and MVP from Scotland.

 

This year Speaker Idol contest for the Developers conference has concluded, and the overall winner is Jeff Wharton, an MCT from Australia. As I can read from the blogs, the competition was really strong, congratulations.

 

The IT Forum Speaker Idol begins on Monday, and the competition will be strong, too. I will compete again, speaking about OpsMgr 2007, so wish me luck.

 

More information on this link: http://www.mseventseurope.com/teched/07/itforum/news/Pages/SpeakerIdol.aspx

At the beginning of October, itSMF (Information Technology Service Management Forum) Macedonia had its first meeting.

 

itSMF Macedonia is organized as a non-profit organization affiliated to the itSMF International. It is established as a forum for Information Technology (IT) service/product providers, IT service/product users, and related parties to explore all means available to maximize IT business value.

 

More information on http://www.itsmf.org.mk

 

Congratulations!

 

The biggest Microsoft event in Macedonia, conference Microsoft Vizija (Vision) 2007 has now concluded.

 

More than 600 delegates attended, which is the biggest number so far.

 

There were 30 sessions with newest technologies presented, such as Microsoft Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, also a lot of interesting sessions about Unified Messaging, real-world scenarios and solutions.

 

Speakers were recognized professionals, MVPs (Aleksandar Talev), Microsoft employees (from US and the region) and Microsoft Partners.

 

I am glad that attendees were very interested about my session  "Monitoring Exchange Organization using OpsMgr 2007".

 

More information about the conference on this link (on Macedonian language only): http://www.microsoft.com.mk/vizija

 

Yesterday early in the morning, one of the greatest Macedonian pop-singers ever (also famous and very popular in South-Eastern European countries) Toshe Proeski, lost his life in a car accident.

He was only 26 years old, and already had 10 year career with 7 CDs recorded, a lot of hits and concerts. The last concert he had was several days ago in Skopje, in front of more than 30.000 people. His biggest fans were young people and the children.

A lot of his concerts were for charity, helping schools and children’s hospitals. He was also awarded as UNICEF ambassador.

Because of his extraordinary voice (referred by his fans as an angel voice), he was often invited to sing in opera houses, too.

All radio, TV stations and coffee bars in Macedonia are playing his music 24 hours these two days.

Last year in December he was asked what his wishes are for the next year. He just said:” I don’t want to make any plans, I just want to live my life and have a good health”.

Unfortunately his only wish didn’t come true.

So long Toshe, and rest in peace.

 

 

Congratulations,

 

Macedonian Exchange User Group (MEUG) had its official start.

 

The first meeting was held on 27th of September at Microsoft Offices in Skopje. About 20 professionals were present from various companies and organizations.

 

It will be a volunteer group, bringing together IT professionals, administrators and everyone  who is interested in Microsoft Exchange Server technologies. The members will exchange their knowledge, experience, ideas, and what is most important, they will develop the community.

 

Thanks Microsoft for the meeting room, logistical support and refreshments.

 

 

Only one week left before Microsoft Conference - "Vizija (Vision)" in Skopje starts. It will be held on 9th and 10th of October, containing technical and business sessions based on Microsoft technologies. 

I am going to speak on Wednesday, with a session title "Managing your Exchange Organization using Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007". 

It will be my third appearance on this conference as a speaker. My previous sessions were about MOM 2005, OpsMgr 2007, Exchange 2003 and 2007.

The conference is celebrating its 5th anniversary.

Congratulations and have a great success in the future.