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Dean Wells started out Day 3 of DEC 2008 with a recap of the Dean and Joe show. He finished up the demo of “how exactly the FSMO role works” which was amazingly detailed and deep. He also explained more about AdminSDHolder and showed off several of Joe Richard’s tools. They also showed some info about how to read deep into the DIT itself that I found really interesting. Yes, I’ve now dumped my test network’s AD database and read it with their tools.

Don Jones had the next session, but I had to skip out on it to prepare for my session. I did hear some great feedback, but was disappointed, since his was one of the sessions I was most looking forward to prior to the conference start.

I spoke at 11am about how to integrate Linux/Unix systems with Active Directory. Download the deck here. It was a great experience, and the bit of feedback I’ve heard so far has been really positive.  It sounds like several attendees have moved their integration projects forward with information I presented, so I think it was successful.

After lunch, the Microsoft Windows and Active Directory product teams had a chalk talk about what’s next with AD where they solicited a LOT of suggestions from the attendees.  I was surprised by the number of people who are using “Prune and Graft” techniques for domain migrations.  Microsoft was very clear, however: do not EVER prune and graft domains.

And I’ll leave it at that.  In all, in was a great experience, and I learned so much.  I’m going to go back again!

Tuesday the 4th started with Stuart Kwan’s keynote at 8am – he talked about an eventual plug and play software “identity bus” where you just plug in identity management software, and it just works – the same as PCI or USB hardware does on those busses. It’s a pretty cool concept, and that Microsoft is driving in that direction is great. I just can’t see how quickly they’ll be able to get there. But it’s a well thought out plan they seem to have. I’m excited to watch it grow.
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I spent a large portion of this week at DEC 2008. I mentioned previously that I’d be presenting as well. Now that I’ve had a couple of days back to catch up with work and home, I wanted to recap the amazing experience, and share a few bits of info that I learned as well.

Sunday March 2nd was only registration and the reception for me. I just used the brief time downtown to meet with the Centrify and Likewise teams who worked so hard over the previous month to help me prepare my presentation for Wednesday. I met a bunch of great new contacts as well – not a conversation passed that I didn’t learn something new.

Monday the 3rd included Gil Kirkpatrick’s discussion on AD administrators vs. software developers, Jerry Camel and Brad Turner’s overview of proper architecture for ILM “2″, how Microsoft is using Windows Server 2008 (Brian Puhl), an amazingly indepth look into AD with Dean Wells and Joe Richards, and a discussion about how Centrify DirectControl works (in Centrify’s vendor track). (more…)

Back in Sydney after visiting Port Douglas (dove the Great Barrier Reef and visited Daintree Rainforest National Park), and Uluru and Kata Tjuta National Park.  That makes 3 UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science, and Cultural Organization) World Heritage sites in 3 days. With the Greater Blue Mountains area near Sydney and the Sydney Opera House tomorrow, that’ll be 5 in just this vacation. I’ve only visited 3 in the US so far (Yellowstone, Statue of Liberty, and Redwood National Park).

Back in another week!

Today is my last day on the job before starting a 2 week long vacation to Australia, visiting Sydney, Port Douglas, and Uluru.  I’ve been asked several times if I got a GSM phone to be able to take calls there in case something went horribly wrong at the office, and as a follow up, if Sprint has service out there (when they hear I’m not taking a GSM phone).

I make it a point in my work to make sure someone else can effectively back me up on all aspects of my work.  There are some people I’ve worked with who seem to think that if they are indispensable, then the company can’t fire them.  However, it also means, to me, that they can’t be promoted, can’t go on vacation, and can’t even have an evening at home with family.  So, when I design things, or fix something that broke, or make changes to make something work better, I make sure to include as many team members as I can, so that I can do things like take my wife out, and not be tied to my phone, worried that it may ring, even when I’m not officially on-call.

To that end, I spent a lot of time over the past few weeks giving a lot of history to the newer members of our team, so that they understand the decision making process that led us to the system state we’re at now.  Why do we have to reboot Terminal Servers every weekend?  Because of a memory leak in Windows 2000 that our application and settings trigger fast enough to require it.  Not just “which servers do we have to have up 24/7″, but why those servers, and not others, even if they’re in the same priority group.   This has been tremendously helpful to them in their day-to-day work, evidenced by the lower volume of questions they’re asking to other members of the team.

So, after all this work, how are things set?  Does everyone in the team have the exact same skillset at the same level as me?  No, because we’re different people.  Will it maybe take them a few minutes more to solve <insert particular problem here>?  Maybe, because I may be the most knowledgeable person on that application, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t fix it quickly.  So I spent half of the day today re-iterating those facts to people who are worried that the company will fail if I’m not here (it surely won’t – I’m not that important).

Now, then, off to vacation – I’ll write a blurb about it in 2 weeks, then a few days later about how busy I am catching up!