I generally determine TechEd’s agenda layout on the basis of the title of the session, the level and the description. However, a particular session is sometimes determined on the basis of a speaker where you have good experiences with. I chose to visit Ulrich Homann’s session on Tuesday. I met Ulrich in Redmond and there I heard an inspiring story of him. So the session ‘Azure Architectural Patterns: Revolutionizing Cloud Datacenter Infrastructure, Security and Software Development’ was put in the agenda on that specific timeslot.
At the end of the break out session, Ulrich said that this was his last presentation on TechEd. TechEd 2014 is of course the last TechEd. This triggered me to think back at TechEd 2003, which was also held in the Fira of Barcelona. In the years between the CCIB Forum was the venue for TechEd Europe. There has changed a lot in 11 years. And the changes keep going on. And faster than before. But first back in time; TechEd 2003.
The past: TechEd 2003
There are a couple of similarities between TechEd Europe 2003 and 2014 and this is not just the venue where it is held. For example, the wireless connection was limited. In 2003 there was a special ‘WiFi Area ’and here were about 50 people with a laptop with PCMICIA card working wireless. Onboard WiFi wasn’t a commodity yet. And now in 2014 the WiFi connection wasn’t great either. However, that’s mostly because every attendee has approximately three devices brought with them and wants to connect with it, like a smartphone, tablet and laptop. If you wanted to browse the internet in 2003 you went to CommNET to stand at a PC and go on the internet. In 2003 you made notes on the handouts that you had to pick up printed at the ‘Printing Center’. At TechEd 2014 you make photos via the Lumia Office Lens App which you immediately synchronize to your OneNote on which you – cross device – make notes. You type a blog realtime and put it online. Twitter comments come in directly and you get background information pretty quick. So it is safe to say you work a lot more productive nowadays.
At TechEd 2003 there were also a lot of announcements of new products. TechEd 2003 was the place for the launch of Windows Server 2003. On July 14th 2015 Windows 2003 will be end of life.
The present: TechEd 2014
During the keynote on Tuesday morning it is apparent that I won’t be hearing much new announcements. Now I know that inovativ – because of her intensive relationship with Microsoft – is well aware of the developments and roadmaps. But I still expected more new announcements. On the other side it is explicable that in the Mobile First, Cloud First world there are no big announcements on events such as TechEd. Still, the changes and innovations go so fast that the Product Life Cycles get shorter and shorter. Methods such as DevOps certainly contribute to this. The time that Microsoft releases a new release of a certain product every three to five years is behind us. The release cycle with for example Azure is more likely weeks than years.
In the breakout session of Tuesday 29th October ‘Microsoft Azure and its competitors: The Big Picture’ David Chappell indicates what have been the three big events last year that are on the basis of the current Mobile First, Cloud First era, namely : the IPO of SalesForce.com in 2004, the launch of Amazon web Services in 2006 and the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007. Because of these events mega trends such as cloud and consumerization such as ‘Bring Your Own Device’ are a fact. Touch enables devices are not imaginable to be gone and because of cloud IT will become more commodity. At TechEd 2014 the Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS) will be announced. This ‘stack’ is developed together with Dell and offers a Cloud-in-a-Box solution. Again a signal that IT infrastructure is becoming more commodity.
Concerning Cloud, it’s been clear for years that Microsoft is ‘all-in’ with for example Azure and Office 365. Gartner has positioned Microsoft as ‘Leader’ in 2014 in the Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud solution: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Cloud Integrated Storage.
When the on-premise Private Cloud (x86 Virtualization) will be relevant then Microsoft scores as only technology vendor a score of four-out of-four concerning ‘Leader’ in the Gartner Magic Quadrants.
Cloud First also becomes clearly for the comparison between Office 365 and Exchange. At TechEd Europe 2014 there are merely two breakout sessions about Exchange. The most sessions are about cloud. Private, Public or Hybrid. On-premises products will keep existing the coming years. Products such as Hyper-V and System Center don’t just disappear. They will keep playing an important role. After all the management of a Public Cloud has to be performed too. Or, such as with a hybrid cloud scenario, more integration between Public Cloud and Private Cloud services. Windows Azure Pack is a hot topic at TechEd 2014. But also SaaS solutions such as Office 365 have to be managed. Differentially as with an on-premise Exchange, SharePoint or Lync surrounding. The role of IT Pro changes.
That the product change is going quicker, is apparent from the fact that Microsoft for example has less input on System Center Orchestrator and more on Service Management Automation (SMA). SMA is the next generation IT Automation tool. This is not to say that System Center Orchestrator will disappear all of the sudden. SMA gives the same functionality but with another target. SMA goes hand in hand with Microsoft Azure Pack, SMA is fully Powershell (workflow) and SMA does not have a graphical interface. SMA fits perfectly in a Private Cloud environment.
When IT infrastructure becomes more commodity because of cloud technology, the role of IT Pro will change. The IT Pro requires more and more Development skills. Other knowledge is necessary and other methods also get used (such as DevOps). A concrete product example of this is Docker. Docker is an open-source engine that automates application deployment for Linux. Docker uses ‘containers’ so that multiple applications can be active at the same time and the same server. Docker is a platform for IT Pro as for a Developer that wants to configure and install distributed applications easier. It’s now available for Azure.
At TechEd Europe 2014 there was a Tuesday session that was specifically about the changing role of the IT Pro: ‘Career Development: next roles, next skills, and staying relevant in an evolving IT World’; a real recommendation for all colleagues in the field.
The future: Ignite 2015
In the Harvard Business Review article ‘How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition’ of November 2014 Michael E. Porter writes how, as for him, the ‘third wave of IT’ will look. With this wave it’s about new intelligent products that consist out of both soft- and hardware. These smart products have a connection to a ‘Product Cloud’ where services are delivered with added value on the base of the data that generates the products. Porter predicts that mainly the Manufacturing industry will change because of this. The change is also crucial to the suppliers of IT platforms. A lot of technology vendors call the change Internet of Things or like Cisco described The Internet of Everything. According to Porter the name Internet of Things is way too simple. It more than that.
Microsoft started at TechEd Europe 2014 the keynote with a slide about devices and announces that in 2008 there were more connected devices than the world population was big. It is expected that there will be more than 50 billion connected devices in 2020. These aren’t only PC’s and laptops but mostly sensors, wearables (such as the new Microsoft Band) and smart products. Microsoft mentions the trends Internet of Things and Big Data. With among other things services in Azure, Microsoft creates a ‘Product Cloud’ from which she adds intelligence to these devices (Porter: New Technology Stack). With Windows 10 Microsoft creates a Platform for Internet of Things: there is a shared platform – operating system – for devices such as sensors, PC’s, tablets, smartphones, game consoles, etc. Because of this it is possible to make an application with the same code base active spread over multiple devices. But with possibly another functionality. This depends on the context and the available functions of the device.
David Chappell states at TechEd 2014 that nearing the future identity is becoming more important. Microsoft has a perfect position in this. In a business environment Microsoft has a market share of 95% with Active Directory. Azure Active Directory is a grown-up product and evolves. With identity important components of security gets simplified over multiple cloud solutions. Besides is single-sign-on almost directly in-place. No other technology vendor has such a footprint to cloud services and an (on-premise and public cloud) identity solution.
Microsoft combines TechEd with another conference such as the Microsoft SharePoint Conference and Microsoft Management Summit. This event is Microsoft Ignite and it will be held 4 to 8 May 2015 in Chicago. An aggregation of these events could be a sign that Microsoft sees a change in the role of the IT Pro. Next to combining these conferences Microsoft recently discontinued the TechNet subscriptions and the Master MCSE certifications. All of these are signs that a new wave of IT is a fact.
Ready for the future?
Another interesting question is: Which role will the community get in the future? The next years there will be a change with this also. After all, with DevOps the process of early releases will be different. Processes and roadmaps almost become real time and on-premise will, with the Cloud First in mind, always be behind on the developments in the cloud.
Conclusion
Microsoft seem with a new CEO with the Mobile First, Cloud First vision completely relevant in the market. Microsoft deployed a couple of years ago the big change of a ‘perpetual license’ model to a ‘subscription based’ model. TechEd in now the past. Ignite is the future.
It is time to rethink!
All changes ensure that there should be inspiration to think about the future. The future association of people with technology, the way upon which customers see their future business, and the way upon which Microsoft keeps changing, stays inovativ relevant and how will my own career look like. On this moment I know that inovativ is ready for the future. A reassuring thought.
Microsoft Ignite here we come!