MK IT Pro User Group meeting – November 2019

Oh yeah, we finally managed to gather the troops together. After running around, like busy bees, watching "million" hours of great and high quality material from Ignite 2019, the short wrap up was prepped and ready for presentation.

The usual suspects involved, Gorana and Vladimir, and me-self :) we got together on a cloudy afternoon, to discuss what's new in Microsoft Cloud. :)

We did a overview of major announcements, referred to great session from Microsoft Ignite, on topics of Azure and Microsoft/Office 365. While Gorana maintained focus on Microsoft Teams, I was concentrating on news around Azure, with focus on the Satya Nadella keynote, most of the infrastructure and security announcements.

Well, did not manage to cover all the topics/news/announcements of course, but still it was a fun journey. :)

Till the next time, December 2019, to wrap up the year.

Event: "The future of business is digital" (December 13th, Tirana, Albania)

In the course of continuous technological developments and the so-called industrial revolution, business faces every day more with the demand to optimize operational costs as well as the immediate need for the use of new technology solutions in business service.

Technology is a disruptive force – enabling new business models, opening new sources of revenue and shaping entire industry landscapes. Ensuring security, privacy, and compliance is key to enabling digital transformation. As people bring in devices, apps, and data into organizations today, protecting company data requires a new approach.

As part of this future vision of Ingram Micro and Microsoft, I will be conducting an cloud session, covering Microsoft Azure and Office 365 portfolio with specific business scenarios.

Agenda:
09:00 – 09:30   Registration

09:30 – 09:40   Welcome and introduction
Sokol Vladi, General Manager, Microsoft Albania

09:40 – 10:15   Culture eats digitization for breakfast
Oskar Goschl, Managing Director CEE HQ Digital Advisory Services, Microsoft

10:15 – 10:45   Break

10:45 – 11:45   Microsoft Cloud 101
Dimitar Grozdanov, Sales Engineer/Trainer, Datacenter and Cloud Services (CEE), Ingram Micro
    
11:45 – 12:45   Cyber security in cloud
Marko Kavcic, SAM and Compliance Lead, Microsoft

12:45 – 13:00   Questions and Answers (Q&A session)

Event: Thrive conference (November 8th - 9th), Rimske Terme, Slovenia

We just wrapped up Day 1 of the event. It was a busy day, packed with activities and sessions. It all started this morning with the keynote, hosted by Branka Slinkar, backed up with Eoin Bailey, Paolo Pialorsi, and Spencer Harbar. 

It is an combined CxO, IT Pro, Dev and End User event, happening in Rimske Terme (Slovenia). The event gathered pretty large group of speakers (33), from different locations around the world, in front of the local attendees. The tracks are divided by interest, and they vary between: SharePoint PRO and DEV, CxO, BI, Exchange, End User, Cloud, and Development. It is a great place to learn about technologies; connect with people and build your network; share the knowledge and ideas; get answers to your questions; and just enjoy being here.

The first day I did a session titled "Migration to Office 365 - Step by Step", and enjoyed the Q&A and discussion during it.

During the second day, we had a full day ahead. Lots of sessions, from old friends (Adis Jugo, Dubravko Marak), but also from new friends (Aleksandar Draskovic, Brett Londsdale, Pennelope Coventry, Todd Klindt and few more).

I did a follow up session on "Exchange 2016 and Office 365 in a Hybrid World" with a Q&A session on specific business scenarios and samples from the audience.

It was a privilege to be a part of this event. Lots of great speakers, topics, meetups and discussion with the attendees.

 
More info can be obtained at:


https://www.facebook.com/ThriveITConf/
http://www.thriveconf.com/en-us/Pages/thrive.aspx

Office 365 webinar

In cooperation with Microsoft Albania, on June 28th (Wednesday), starting from 10 o'clock, I will be conducting an webinar on Office 365 titled: "Office 365 - 365 days of success".

This webinar is about what Office 365 is, how it is structured and how it provides a highly scalable, highly available, cloud platform and how it supports daily business and technology operations. You will also learn about different scenarios of migration and/or coexistence with your customers infrastructure.

It's aimed towards BDM's, TDM's, system integrator's and implementators.

Title: Office 365 - 365 days of success

Date/Time: Wednesday, June 28th, 10:00-11:00

Presentation language: English

Registration URL: https://info.microsoft.com/CE-NoGEP-WBNR-FY17-05May-31-Office365325643_02OnDemandRegistration.html

Build the business of the future event

On May 30th, in cooperation with Microsoft Albania, BNT Electronics, Fujitsu and Ingram Micro, we held and event titled Build the business of the future. During the day, our 70+ attendees had a chance to hear and discuss on ways how to implement cloud technologies in a hybrid scenario thus enabling new ways of conducting business and optimizing business and technology processes. 

I had two sessions on the event, Microsoft Azure – secure, extend and scale your business and Office 365 – new way to do business and collaborate (focused on Microsoft Teams).

Manage Office 365 Videos

The more advanced features of Office 365 admin center is used to send/recieve mail, use calendar and manage contacts, manage documents (intranet portal and/or personal storage), as well as maintain your subscription (billing, services etc). Trough the videos, you will learn how to get to the Office 365 admin center and learn about available features and settings.

1. Get email, calendar, contacts (5 videos)

2. Manage documents (3 videos)

3. Chats and meetings (3 videos)

4. Billing and subscriptions (3 videos)

Office 365 Admin Videos

The Office 365 admin center is used to set up your organization in the cloud, manage users, manage subscriptions, and much more. Trough the videos, you will learn how to get to the Office 365 admin center and learn about available features and settings.

For all you othere, trying to get arrount Office 365 Administrative taks, here is a  set of usefull videos to give you basic heading:

1. Admin Center Overview (5 videos)
2. Setup an Domain (3 videos)
3. Manage people (3 videos)
4. Get Software (3 videos)

Microsoft BUILD 2017

In Seattle, from May 10th - 12th, Microsoft is hostin the annual BUILD conference. The conference is primarily aimed towards developers, covering various aspect of Microsoft cloud platform (Office 365, Azure) and tools for it.

You can wath the live streams and/or recordings on Channel 9 following link: http://soc.fm/RiXn1gik as well as follw what's going on on Twitter via hastag #MSBuild.

The wrap up of Day 1 can be seen on the following link.

Macedonian IT-Pro User Group monthly meeting

On March 29th, the Macedonian IT-Pro user group will meet in Microsoft offices in Skopje. This is a quarterly technology update, covering the latest and brightest of Microsoft Datacenter and Cloud Technologies, such as - Windows Server 2016, Exchange 2016, Office 365, Azure, Intune.

Event start time: 17:30
Speakers: Vladimir Meloski and Dimitar Grozdanov
Event location: Microsoft Macedonia (location)