Guys and girls, you’re invited to the Women in Technology evening. You already know that diverse perspectives and problem solving approaches result in increased innovation, better products and…

Four titans of tech cut the rope on Ignite NZ 2015 at the Kick-Off event on Tuesday 1 September. Their massive stage presence was microscopic against the monumental footprint they’ve each left on the…

The long-awaited 'Roslyn' C# compiler brings code analysis and automation tools into the realm of mere mortals. With Roslyn you can capture your project's or business' coding guidelines into…

This session explores a number of key new features released in SQL Server 2016. The first feature explored is Temporal Data. Temporal Data allows for a number of key scenarios, such as querying data…

Do you run both Windows and Linux application stacks in your datacenter? See the new System Center 2016 investments in monitoring Linux and Linux applications, including demos of monitoring Apache web…

Come and see the latest in Windows 10 Devices :)

When your legacy Windows application has more than 4 million lines of code and tens of hundreds of Windows Forms, what's the most cost effective way to migrate it to the Web? This session will focus…

A walk through the various types of add-ins and deployment/distribution methods that you can employ to get your add-ins out to your user base. We will also cover some of the limitations of the models…

This session will give a brief overview of what IoT is from the perspective of an Architect within Consulting Services. We will look at what kinds of projects we are getting involved in, what those…

PBX's, Gateways/SBC's, SIP –PSTN, and interworking with them all on Skype for Business. Learn all of the options available to interoperate SfB with other systems and hardware in order to migrate to…

So your organisation is migrating away from dedicated infrastructure to a containerised approach? In this session we will explore the security considerations involved in such a migration and outline…

This session will demonstrate the process of upgrading client computers to Windows 10 using the Technical Preview of the latest System Centre Configuration Manager version.

In the ideal world, we've got capacity plans for everything, and infrastructure in place based on those:but in real life, it's not always that clear-cut. In this session, we look at three SQL Server…

With Metrotube, Tweetro+ and clients like Trade Me, Mediaworks, Ports of Auckland, Silver Fern Farms and the Middle East's largest courier company Aramex. Atta has designed some of the most…

Lead developer and architect of Information Leadership's iWorkplace suite, Jos Auker-Woor, will take you through the process that Information Leadership's developers have used to convert their full…

Learn how Microsoft's cloud integrated backup solution can help you leverage Azure to eliminate traditional tape backup as well reduce/eliminate branch office backup infrastructure. As you consider…

In the last few years Cloud messaging has truly come of age. In the last year alone more cloud services have come online offering cloud messaging platforms than in the history of the cloud. The…

You have the power to change your life with actionable insights from your own data. As Alan Turing famously said - "Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of that do the…

Medicine was very different in the early 1900s. It was challenging to find human cadavers, so surgeons had to practice on pigs before they graduated to operating on live humans. This is where we are…

If you have an idea that is burning a hole in the side of your head, and you think the world cannot go on without it, come along and learn some hard fought tips on living as a startup in NZ. The…

The way that managing Windows 10 is changing; see what is new with Group Policy in Windows 10. Also see how you can complement the management of your devices using Intune and Group Policy together to…

Join Andy and Felix as they build up a social networking site that will rival the likes of MyBook and FaceSpace. Along the way, discover some of the traps that come with building a secure site for…

Westminster, Islandwood, Astoria, Centennial. Come explore the brand new bridges to the Magickal Faerie land of Windows 10. We'll scope each one out, try walking across a couple, and discuss the ups…

Machine Learning is a subfield of computer science concerned with systems that learn from data. In this session, learn how a Microsoft Azure Machine Learning solution comes to life: From the creation…

Yes we've all been there! Deployed an on-premises SharePoint environment and then watched in slow motion the train wreck that follows. If you want to avoid that train wreck or get an understanding of…

Non expiring admin accounts, over privileged accounts, the same service account credentials used for every service in the organization, disabled firewalls and help desk technicians with domain admin…

Have you replaced all your business applications with SaaS based solutions? Are you a start-up wondering if you really need Active Directory Domain Controllers and on premises desktop management…

The session will begin with an brief overview of the University's environment and how we came to start using SCCM. We will take attendees through a typical patch Tuesday week at Otago. The following…

In this session, we cover what containers are, what makes them such an exciting technology, how they will work in Windows Server, and how Docker will integrate with them.

Do you want to be a cool secret agent and command your app just with your voice? Meet Cortana, ready to do your bidding (or tell you a bad joke). Your personal assistant Cortana is inhabiting more…

This session will take a developer and architect through the steps to create complex Logic Apps with non-connector API Apps and leveraging the numerous existing connector API Apps

This session will cover the new ASP.NET VNext tools with Visual Studio 2015. We will demo the tooling by creating a small timetable web application developed in angular and typescript.

Great architectures are active, not passive, participants in the business, they reduce risk, and reduce cost and complexity of meeting strategic goals. Great Architects achieve this by leveraging a…

Start with an existing web site, sprinkle in Mobile Services, App Services and IOT to have a solution that combines engaging customer experiences with and business results. This session will…

Are you sitting in the audience wondering why THAT person is on the stage but YOU are in the audience? Are you eager to step up to the microphone, but just haven't figured out the system? Join…

There's many choices for identity management in Office 365. In this session, we explain identity management concepts and describe the three identity model: cloud, synchronised, federated. For cloud…

This session will look at how we have evolved the QA and development practices at Xero, getting our QAs working in Visual Studio, our developers writing scenario tests, and breaking down some of the…

In this session, we'll dive into how Azure Resource Manager simplifies application management in the cloud.

Learn how to quickly build Web Apps on Azure with Node.js Tools for Visual Studio (NTVS). Demos will integrate the rich Spotify Web API with Queue Storage and Web Jobs to build a simple, but highly…

We've all seen demonstrations of SQL Server Database Tools using example databases but how does SSDT handle larger enterprise systems? How can the tooling be used to deploy enterprise databases within…

We've all seen demonstrations of SQL Server Database Tools using example databases but how does SSDT handle larger enterprise systems? How can the tooling be used to deploy enterprise databases within…

Windows 10 continues to add new and improved management technologies, to ensure that Windows continues to be the best and most flexible operating system to manage. In this session, we talk about all…

Microsoft Loves Linux! This session gives an overview of running Linux on Hyper-V and in Azure. What are the Linux Integration Services? What Linux distros are supported? What feature and performance…

Come and see us in this session on how cloud computing could fundamentally change the way we understand and react to emerging infectious diseases. Project Premonition seeks to detect pathogens in…

This session covers Microsoft's best practices, requirements and recommendations for deploying on-premises Exchange servers (2013/2016) in a highly-available and site resilient configuration. It also…

This session describes how SQL Server 2012 or 2014 Master Data Services (MDS) can be employed to implement Master Data Management (MDM). It introduces the discipline of MDM and maps common processes…

Vast amounts of research has gone into processes to deal with large, rapidly scaling teams working on complex problems. So why do we keep failing? In this session, we will compare idealism to reality…

The cloud changes the way we look at availability and recoverability in software solutions. The highly available nature of PaaS solves many challenges and introduces others. This session will identity…

This session will build an end to end ETL process using Azure Data Factory Services, publishing into Azure SQL and then reporting on it using the new Power BI capabilities

SharePoint and Office365 app development brings with it a wide range of changes to how we tackle developing for the platform, and these changes enable us as developers to start making some great…

Windows Server and Microsoft Azure are ushering in the next generation of computing for modern apps and cloud infrastructure. What are Containers? Nano Server? New in Hyper-V? Azure IaaS? Or how does…

Heard about Operations Management Suite, but want to hear from someone who has implemented it? Got hundreds of servers and need to search their logs quickly? Want to know what is really lurking in…

Microsoft introduced a new browser for Windows 10: Microsoft Edge. Join Chris Jackson ("The App Compat Guy") for an under-the-covers look at the security innovations in Microsoft Edge and…

Microsoft Azure Redis Cache is a secure, dedicated cache service from Microsoft, based on the Open Source Redis Cache engine. In this session, we take a lap around Azure Redis Cache, the feature set…

Dealing with an unexpected outage is one thing; dealing with a complete and utter loss of hardware or even physical assets is another. For the first time in a long time Disaster Recovering, Automation…

The session will begin with a short intro to Release Management followed by an end to end demo of deploying and testing an ASP.NET 5, MVC 6 application in a Docker container to a Linux machine in…

Increasingly we developers are called upon to build applications that span multiple platforms that can often include desktop as well as mobile. In this session you can learn how to architect your apps…

Warning: May contain some nudity! Have you ever... Desired a greater presence in your industry? Wanted to contact your tech idol? Wondered how to use social media to build your profile and…

Since the first BI tools were released in 2010, Microsoft Finance has been early adopters in their use. BI tools and techniques have been integrated into every facet of the finance function, and have…

How it is that only 1/100,000 innovations become commercially successful ? Come and have a look at innovation and the part played by failure and diversity when pushing the boundaries with new…

This session will share our experiences with an NZ customer in the real world as well as insights from ViFX on the DRaaS market and the ingredients for successful cloud migrations (they're not only…

Disruption is overrated when you can make the world better every day, using only your tech super-powers and empathy. We focus on big change, but the small decisions we control every day have a…

This session will also cover new tool (LAPS) from Microsoft to help with local account password management. It will also demo other new techniques for leveraging Group Policy to keep Windows secure in…

A hybrid SharePoint environment is composed of an on-premises deployment of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 and a SharePoint Online tenant in Microsoft Office 365. A hybrid Search approach enables…

The Azure SQL Data Warehouse is the industry's first elastic scale, relational SQL data warehouse. Azure SQL DW offers elastic performance and scale to 1+ PB, market leading price/performance, and…

This session will start at the end of the beginning, at the point where capability maps, benefits dependency networks, and business processes have been analyzed, ranked, and prioritized. Instead of…

Let us take you on a journey, from disengaged teams and team members who wouldn't know a quality review if it sat up and gave them five stars, to teams who gave standing ovations at daily standups;…

So much hype, so many different devices, so many protocols, so much data, so little security, welcome to the Internet of Things. Come and see how you can build an affordable, securable, scalable,…

With Windows 10, we are encouraging everyone, including organizations, to upgrade from their existing OS (Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1). This upgrade process is easy and reliable, but how…

Internet connected devices are all around us, listening to us sleep and watching our movements in our home. Windows 10 will even allow us to build better and smarter IoT applications on small…

Microservices are big business! Moving away from complex monolithic architectures has a range of well documented benefits to both developers and the business at large. In this session we take a look…

Come hear about the Office Developer Patterns & Practices initiative. See how you can get started consuming the work done by the PnP team as well as how you can contribute. Also hear about the…

Microsoft has released, and continues to release, cloud data services that play and operate in the big data space. As a developer, you need to be paying attention. It's either 'get onboard or get left…

This session will run through the different storage types available in Azure, Block Blobs, Page Blobs, Files, Tables and Queues. It will explain the internals of how azure storage is delivered so that…

Increasingly being a Windows Server Administrator requires that you be able to effectively use Windows PowerShell. In this session you'll learn some tips and tricks to get more out of your PowerShell,…

Azure Active Directory is the bedrock of Azure enabling authentication with web applications, mobile applications, web API, Office 365 etc. It simplifies authentication for developers by providing…

In a world of an exploding number of devices, data and apps, how do we effectively work together? And drive better value for our customers? Join Alex Bradley, Director - Office Commercial…

Can you debug? Know how to write a mean algorithm? Good at Agile methodologies? Your skills might be more transportable that you think. It's easy to think that ‘once in IT, always in IT', but there…

You must continuously deliver new features to your customers or your competition will. In this demo-packed foundation session, learn about updates to the Microsoft application lifecycle management…

In this session you will learn the various interoperability options to connect 3rd party VC rooms, gateways, and hardware into your Skype for Business deployment. This will also explore the benefits…

SQL Server Business Intelligence delivers a comprehensive platform empowering organizations to build and deploy secure, scalable and manageable BI solutions. Please join us to learn more about SQL BI.…

Alan Burchill and Chris Jackson show you what is new for IT Pro's with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge browsers. This session is essential for anyone looking to moving to IE11 before…

With the recent announcement of the Microsoft Operations Management Suite and the release of Azure Automation, customers now have a powerful set of capabilities to manage their Microsoft Azure…

This session provides an overview of networking technologies in Azure with a special focus on newer networking features that have been added to the platform. Topics covered include Azure Virtual…

Machine learning provides a facility for companies and governments and not-for-profits companies to replace guesses with a valuable data driven predictive analysis. Azure Machine Learning is a…

You can't MAKE yourself awesome and you certainly can't fake it. This talk is not going to discuss mental exercises, how to dress, power posing, figuring out your brand, or anything that smacks of…

You've got it all – phones, tablets, desktops, and everything in between. Not all of these have a Microsoft sticker on the box, but you need to manage them anyway. Join Simon May as he takes you…

ASP.NET 5 is a landmark release in many ways. It's full open source from the start, it's cross-platform and supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It includes contributions from the community and is…

This session will demonstrate how it is possible to deploy a full functional IaaS environment to Azure. This will include a data tier, consisting of a SQL Server Cluster, with Availability Groups, a…

There are lots of new features and possibilities with Hyper-V in Windows 10 and the Windows Server Technical Previews. Come to this session to get the nitty gritty details of all the new stuff that is…

Back with part 2 of his outstanding 'What's new' series, this session will take a deeper dive into the ASP.NET and Azure side of things. Visual Studio 2015 is going to be a huge change for both…

In this session you'll learn how the recently released xSharePoint resource pack for SharePoint can be used to automate deployments of SharePoint and manage its configuration beyond the initial…

A common pattern adversaries are using are to exploit weaknesses in an organization, and then leverage credential theft to obtain more privileged access in the organization. Join Cybersecurity…

Organizations all over the world are looking to mobilize their enterprise but most of them don't have a roadmap nor do they know where to start. Join Rob as he shows you how to tick the boxes of the…

In this session we will showcase some of the top features of Azure Active Directory and how they can be used to embrace Windows 10. This session is demo heavy and interactive. The session covers a…

Learn how to deploy Exchange Server 2016 or Exchange Server 2013 on-premises into existing Exchange environments. The session includes both real-world best practices and first-hand feedback.

Auckland University of Technology (AUT) required a single view of the activities (lectures, tutorials and social campus activities) that a student was scheduled to attend during their time on campus.…

As more enterprises start implementing big data/Hadoop solutions, how does the SQL Server DBA support these efforts and do they have the skills and knowledge to integrate big data solutions into their…

If you work in most IT departments you're probably wrestling with a BYOD project or implementation. The idea is to enable people to bring their own devices, so that they can be productive on those…

SQL Server 2016 is the biggest leap forward in Microsoft's data platform history with key innovations and improvements in performance, data insights, security, and hybrid cloud scenarios. This…

Visual Studio 2015 is going to be a huge change for both windows and non-windows developers. Thanks to a new/refreshing/cool/awesome change of attitude, Microsoft is embracing the winning tools in the…

A quick look at how the new AzureML makes it easy for non data-scientists to dive into the world of Machine Learning, using an NZ real-world example. This is for those who have not seen or used…

Do you want to know the story behind the story of Microsoft? The launch of a new CEO, the world's most high-wire demo and the story behind microsoft.com/stories. Steve has spent 10 years telling…

In the old days, infrastructure server deployments were fixed points in your datacenter. You'd deploy an infrastructure server with the assumption that it would be in service for many years before two…

In a time of accidentally emailed documents, and other losses of data, here is a deeper dive into the restrictions that can be put on file access, employing both the on-premises RMS solution, and the…

This session reviews the preferred architecture for deploying Exchange Server. These principles apply to both Exchange Server 2013 and Exchange Server 2016 due later this year. Learn how the building…

In moving to the cloud, it is vital that you can trust your provider. For Microsoft, the foundations of our customers' trust are built on our industry-leading approach to security, privacy, compliance…

Join us for an introduction to Windows 10 for the consumer, from Cortana the most personal digital assistant yet to the Xbox app. We will take you through Windows 10 consumer features and why the time…

If you have ever dreamed of crafting mind-bending visual effects for movies like Inside Out, this is THE SESSION to attend! Chris Ford from Pixar's RenderMan team, responsible for the technology…

Databases + Visual Studio + SQL Server Data Tools = #winning. Ever wondered why your code is source controlled, but your supporting database rarely is (or the ways to do it just plain suck)?…

So what is the difference between on premises and cloud Service Management? Why do I need to change what I am doing now? Or do I?

Introduction to the many ways of integrating Yammer into SharePoint leveraging embed code, API and APPS. We will cover the approaches you can take to implementing social using Yammer in your existing…

This session explores feature investments in Microsoft SQL Server in-memory OLTP technologies across on-premises and in the cloud, including T-SQL surface area, natively compiled stored procedures, as…

Are you surprised that your code is working in UAT but not in production? Do you wonder why your deployments started failing suddenly? What has changed since the last deployment? Why are your…

As with all Microsoft Azure features, Azure IAAS is releasing features at a rapid rate. If you want to get up to speed on what Azure IAAS offers and how it's changed over the last year or so, this is…

Sick of developing a user interface for mobile, then doing it again for desktop, then again for tablet? How about including features that make sense on a smaller device, but not on a larger screen?…

With the release of Windows 10, there are new and updated ways to deploy Windows. In this session, we review new recommendations for upgrading existing devices using a simple in-place upgrade process,…

With SQL Server 2005 end of life, it's time to consider the benefits of upgrading to a modern platform. Come and hear from one of Microsoft's SQL Premier Field Engineers on the benefits and processes…

This session provides an review of Microsoft System Center and Operations Management Suite automation product and services and how they fit together to deliver a cohesive set of solutions to modernize…

The tech field is filled with introverts, quiet people who get things done by thinking and listening. The business world is set up for extroverts, loud voices that get heard through standing up and…

The benefits of Azure Active Directory may not be immediately apparent to users of Office 365, so in this session, discover the benefits made available by enabling Active Directory Premium for your…

This session will explore the evolutionary benefits of TypeScript's structure and strong-typing on code clarity, correctness and maintain ability. It will analyse the use of TypeLite model generation…

Many of the problems we face in IT and Enterprise Architecture, like when to compromise and accept you have to use the 'f-word' ('fine'), when to stop with the site analysis, as you might already know…

This talk will cover a variety of design patterns and ideas that you may not be familiar with, taken from languages such as Ruby, Objective-C, Swift and Go. Examples will be in C# but any developer…

In the beginning, there was Azure SQL and Azure Storage. Skip forward six years and Azure provides a vast array of data choices, including HDInsight, DocumentDB, Search, Data Lake, & Stream…

Enterprises want a joined-up experience – one that delivers a converged ecosystem. Join Katharine Holdsworth and Simon May as they take you through the new Windows infrastructure, capabilities and…

Skype for Business is more than a just a name change from Lync! This session will cover off what's new in Skype for Business 2015 across Clients, Server, and Service, along with live demos of some of…

Want to find out how to create applications that can target from the smallest devices to the largest windows device? This session will cover the new Universal Windows Platform, the developer tools…

Imagine using design to drive innovation and improve commercial performance, namely in a Mobile-First, Cloud-First era.  Successful businesses aren't just imagining it; They are doing it. And they…

Everything you want to know about next-generation SQL Server, mission critical performance and scale for transactional, data warehouse and mixed workloads, structured and unstructured data, security…

The Mind lab by Unitec are front-footing the changing face of education. This session describes the challenges faced in NZ schools and how The Mind Lab by Unitec overcome these by exploring different…

Come and get a tour of Microsoft Azure, the leading features and capabilities and learn how other New Zealand customers are using Azure today. We will also cover Microsoft's cloud strategy, demo a few…

Streaming telemetry from sensors to Azure IoT services is one of the most promising ways an organization can derive valuable insights about their assets. That said, those insights won't actually help…