SMS/Win2k User Conference 2001

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Last year, I put together notes on the SMS User Conference held by Computing Edge and many expressed interest. So when attending this year's event I took lots of notes to share with you once again. Much changed this year, the 2000 event was sold out at approximately 700 attendees, this year over 1,100 people made the trip to Las Vegas to take part in the event. One significant change this year was the host of the conference was Altiris, who merged with the previous hosting company Computing Edge. Altiris took every opportunity to assure attendees that they have every intention of continuing this event and are already working with Microsoft on details regarding next year's conference.

A week long event, much was covered including SMS Topaz, Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), and Whistler (Windows XP). Sessions regularly overlapped with two speakers and two labs presented simultaneously. Visitors picked their interests and attended the sessions accordingly. Therefore what you are getting here is but a summary of some of the sessions that I personally attended. If you did not attend, I highly recommend it as a worthwhile event. If you did attend and are using this to make up for the information you missed while off gambling- I'm glad I could help.

If you attended the conference and are looking to get in contact with someone you met there, a new message forum has been posted to help you out, look for someone (or see if someone is looking for you) here. 

Sessions covered:

• Microsoft Management Roadmap

• Microsoft Management Roadmap: Microsoft Topaz

• Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM)

• SMS Installer and the Installer Step-up Utility (ISU)

• SQL Maintenance and Tuning for SMS

• PC Management and Best Practices- The TCO Killer

Bob Kelly
AppDeploy.com