Teched: Microsoft's Premier Technology Conference

By Author: Peter Wendt
Total Articles: 34
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TechEd is Microsoft's premier conference for IT professionals. It is yearly conference that Microsoft schedules in different big cities around the country. Microsoft TechEd has been hosted by cities such as Boston, San Francisco, Atlanta, New Orleans and Orlando. The conference can be broken down into the following sections: Hands-On-Labs, Sponsor & Exhibits, Community Programs and Conference Sessions.

Hands-On-Labs are a very popular for attendees that want to add more to their IT skillset. Hands-On-Labs are separated by Microsoft technologies. If you wanted to gain more knowledge on Active Directory or Virtualization, you would sit down at a desk with dual monitors and run through the computer lab simulation. Labs typically take 45 minutes to and hour to complete.

Sponsors & Exhibits are where you can go to grab all the SWAG such as t-shirts, flash keys and other assorted little goodies. Each sponsor booth you stop by scans your badge, gives you swag, and tells you about their company via presentations or demos. Many of the top vendors provide big giveaways at the end of the conference such as motorcycles ...
... and iPads. Sponsors and partners include: Dell, EMC2, HP, NetApp, Nokia, Intel, Cisco and a host of other great software companies.

If you are a returning attendee, their are many community programs you can visit at Microsoft TechEd. Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP) and Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCT) are some examples of community program booths. You can find a community booth on many different technologies such as Microsoft Security, ZUNE and Virtualization.

TechEd hosts about 2000 sessions about Microsoft technologies. You can view the sessions online and create a detailed outline of what sessions you want to attend. Whether it's a session on private or public cloud or a session on Microsoft SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization, all technical flavors are covered.

According to Mark Russinovich, Technical Fellow, Microsoft "At TechEd you learn about cutting edge technologies and best practices directly from Microsoft product teams that will give you and edge in your job."

If you have never attended TechEd and are considering, this one conference provides you with the most comprehensive technical education you could ever hope to achieve in a single week. If you learn hands-on than you can take advantage of the hands-on-labs. If you learn by listening than you have over 2000 session that may peak your interest. If you learn by chatting with people that share your love for a technology, birds of a feather sessions are for you. Microsoft TechEd is a conference you don't want to miss.

Austin, Texas has been Peter Wendt’s writing headquarters for a number of years now. For readers who wish to learn more about this subject, he recommends to click here .