Microsoft Platform Strategy and Vision for DevOps

 A little while back we did a market research study “Why DevOps Matters” with Saugatuck Technologies. One interesting outcome what the desire of many respondents, large and small, to work off a single platform. A platform that allows for the integration of 3rd party tools and products. While vendor lock in seems to be an important concern, companies are looking for a platform approach to get a reliable infrastructure setup to integrate based on staff experience or business need whatever they desire.

From all recent announcements you see that Microsoft on-premises and even more so in the cloud with Microsoft Azure can be that platform infrastructure of choice.

A great opportunity to hear from senior leaders of Microsoft about our platform vision is this year’s Microsoft Ignite event in Chicago. As of today, 4/21/2015, the event schedulelists 794 sessions to choose from.

The sessions at Ignite target a diverse profile while maintaining a strong focus on the operations audience. They complement the sessions of the //Build event a week earlier that are clearly looking to address the developer audience.

Since platform is such a critical component for DevOps and beyond, Microsoft has setup a number of sessions that, if you follow them in order, will provide not only an overview but also everything down to the detail you need to know about the Microsoft platform vision and strategy.

Monday

It all starts with the keynote on Monday. Then:

  1. Monday, 1:30pm
    Platform Vision and Strategy Overview: Bringing Microsoft Azure to Your Datacenter
    Mark Russinovich, Jeffrey Snover and Jeremy Winter
  2. Monday, 3:15pm
    Evolve Your Network Infrastructure for Microsoft Azure Connectivity
    Ganesh Srinivasan

Tuesday

  1. Tuesday, 9:00am
    Taking a deep dive into Microsoft Azure IaaS capabilities
    Drew McDaniel & Mahesh Thiagarajan
  2. Tuesday, 1:30pm
    Getting Started with Microsoft Azure IaaS
    Corey Sanders
  3. Tuesday, 5:00pm
    Microsoft Azure Migration Roadmap
    Nathan Muggli

Wednesday

  1. Wednesday, 9:00am
    Microsoft Azure and Its Competitors: The Big Picture
    David Chappell
  2. Wednesday, 9:00am
    Understanding Network Virtual Appliances
    Yu-Shun Wang
  3. Wednesday, 1:30pm
    Azure Site Recovery: Microsoft Azure As a Destination for Disaster Recovery
    Manoj Jain

Thursday

  1. Thursday, 10:45am
    Automating Operational and Management Tasks Using Azure Automation
    Beth Cooper & Chris Sanders
  2. Thursday, 9:00am
    Managing Linux and Windows on Microsoft Azure with Chef
    Kundana Palagiri

Looking forward to seeing you in Chicago at Microsoft Ignite.

Have fun

@volkerw