Back from MMS 2013 in Las Vegas

Back again from the best event on Device management and Microsoft Cloud solutions. MMS 2013 was great on networking and community too. Very nice to meet a lot of people who are known and not known to me. This year the event was hold in Mandalay Bay, which is placed at the very end of the Las Vegas strip. I stayed in the hotel where the event was hold (Mandalay Bay); that's better to walk and meeting people after session time is easier also.

First some information about the event. This year there were 5,200 attendees which is almost full house. There is (most of time) space for 5,500 attendees, which was reached last year in The Venetian. Then System Center 2012 was released, and many announcements were done. This year there was no big announcement to make; the only one known to me was MDOP 2013. Let's have a look.

This release includes Service Pack 1 updates of AGPM 4.0, DaRT 8.0, App-V 5.0, and UE-V 1.0. However, the biggest new addition is the official release of MBAM 2.0 which include a Self Service Portal for end-users with common PC support tasks and automation of BitLocker encryption for Windows 8 based computers. MBAM can be used standalone or integrated in ConfigMgr (which I prefer).

User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) is used for application and Windows settings, which brings a seamless experience when using multiple systems. Both application and Windows settings are saved immediately after changing, so no need to logoff first. Settings will be saved in AD home directory or on storage share. Settings management is done with GPO, PowerShell or Registry. Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM) provides enterprise management capabilities for BitLocker and BitLocker to Go.

Video: MBAM 2.0 Overview
TechNet: MBAM Information

Most of sessions I've done are on SCCM/ConfigMgr, Windows Intune and Windows 8 (VDI). Expect additional blogposts about that topics later this week. There's a lot to tell about these solutions! 

MMS is (besides of doing breakout sessions and labs) the place for having party's also. I visited two Microsoft party's (Dutch party & Closing party at the XS Nightclub at the Wynn Resort) one 1E Pre-conference party and one myITforum party as well. This year I had the luck to visit this party, where 350 attendees can meet and geek. That way it's possible to party every night and meet geeks after sessions also! Much better then a daily walk on the strip :-)

Expect a lot of blogging next week(s) on MMS 2013!