TechNet Unleashed NYC event report

I was at one of those Microsoft TechNet NYC events
It wasn’t too fancy (like the launch they plan in Oct) or too crowded. I see it as a big plus because it indicates only people who come to listen are there. Yes, they had few giveaways but unlike those fancy events it was not about or around it.
Primarily focusing on live demo and real life scenarios Dan Stolts used a laptop to show Win7 migration from XP, both for home users and enterprise level, demonstrate the very impressive DirectAccess on Windows 2008 R2 and close with Remote Desktop Services.
Dan is a funny guy, a fast talker but loud and clear. Though he had few technical problems and it was his first round on this event (which always serve as case study where instructors find the right balance in their timing) you see the guy knows his job, use it in real life and understand what we, System managers out there want to hear about.
I was mostly impressed with 2 unexpected things:
First and foremost, how powerful his laptop is. Using a Lenove he loaded an 4 machines virtual environment (and stated to work with up to 8 in reasonable performance). How strong it is! (8GB RAM does part of the job here). I do not virtualize anything in my current environment (and didn’t since my days in school when I just started and had to build a study test environment) but I know to say WOW when I see it.
Second WOW was the DirectAccess. This is a great tool for any environment with traveling users, small or large. Getting VPN clients in\out of my network over the years didn’t change too much. This is a huge leap forward and can make working from home a delight.
Don’t get me wrong, I came in for the Win7 part which was okay but I already knew most of Dan’s curriculum. The RDS part was interesting but hey, we’re not going there any time soon (ever). But DirectAccess, though we’re not going there any time soon is a big heat which more people should know about. Thanks Dan. This is why I try to attend these events!

Dan prommised to have all the videos and data on his blog before the Oct 22nd launch