Tony beat me to it; while I was presenting during the latter portion of the day (and, I admit, catching up on e-mail) he was busy writing an excellent summary of our first day of the Exchange Maestro workshop here in Boston. As he pointed out, timing was one of the key issues that we had to struggle with. For events like this, there is always a tension between the amount of time you would like to have and the amount of time you do have. Exchange 2010 is complicated enough that we could easily, and very productively, spend a full week covering the topics we’ve selected for this three-day event. I feel that we have done a good job sticking to the schedule and managing our time well, but there’s so much material to cover that staying on the schedule can sometimes be challenging
Tony pointed out a couple of minor issues with the venue: for one thing, we got thrown out about 90 min. sooner than I thought we should have. Furthermore, during the morning, we were serenaded by the sounds of an ongoing bathroom renovation, complete with the dulcet tones of a reciprocating saw, some kind of rotary hammer, and other percussive power tools. Now, don’t get me wrong: I am a huge power tool fan and use them every chance I get. However, it’s fair to say that they were not the ideal accompaniment for our technical material. Fortunately, the hotel paused construction, and we will be moving to a different room for tomorrow and Friday– hopefully one with less ambient noise.
The attendees were engaged in asking questions, and they stayed busy with the labs. Tomorrow morning first thing I will be presenting on RBAC, a difficult topic to begin the day with. Hopefully the attendees will come with bright eyes and at peak alertness; they will need it. After RBAC, Tony will present on the mailbox replication service, followed by my presentation on the Exchange transport core. Rounding out the day, Tony will cover the retention and compliance aspects of Exchange 2010. That will be unknown territory for most of our attendees, so I expect that we all will be enlightened by the resulting discussions.
I would be remiss if I failed to point out the important contributions that Brian made during the day. In addition to making sure that the labs went smoothly, he made a number of very helpful suggestions about how we can better streamline the material to fit the allotted time, as well as catching a number of minor mistakes in our slide decks and accompanying presentations. It’s been great to have him here!
One thing that Tony failed to mention about today’s sessions is that he continually gave me a hard time about my progress (or lack thereof) in finishing the technical edits for his book. Don’t tell him, but I’m going to go work on it now so that I can finish it and avoid further harassment.
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