Paul Maher

Learn about the latest cloud trends which have the potential to transform your business, the key technologies and use cases driving those trends, such as artificial intelligence and data analytics, and how Microsoft’s cloud strategy is making all this possible. Recognized by CIO Review as a key cloud Influencer, Paul Maher, Partner GM in the Cloud and AI Division at Microsoft, will discuss how the intelligent cloud will impact major industries, changing the way they do business going forward, the challenges, and actionable output for success.

Randy Franklin Smith

Over the past several years Microsoft has added many new security features to Active Directory but Randy Franklin Smith finds that many organizations aren’t using them. There are many reasons for this. For instance sometimes Microsoft introduces a new capability but doesn’t immediately make it easy-to-implement via the GUI or PowerShell. By the time that happens, we tend to have forgotten about the capability in the day-to-day grind of AD management. In this session Randy introduces you to these capabilities in Active Directory, shows you how they work and helps you determine if you should start using them to deal with security threats in your environment.

Chris McNulty

With over 13 million active users reported, Microsoft Teams has become the most popular collaboration platform in the industry today. Despite this extensive rollout and Teams’ impressive features, many organizations still struggle to successfully deploy and enable end-user adoption. Learn more about how organizations are working in a more integrated and collaborative way and how Teams helps that happen. Learn key features of Teams, Microsoft’s vision for the platform and how other organizations are using Teams to enhance their collaboration and productivity.

Sean Metcalf

Attackers have set their sights squarely on Active Directory when targeting a company, though this typically isn't the primary objective. The motivation and end goals range from stealing data to impacting corporate operations. In this regard, gaining control of Active Directory is a means to an end; compromising Active Directory is an easy way to gain access to corporate resources. Effectively protecting Active Directory has become critical in limiting the impact of a breach.

This talk takes the audience on a journey covering the various security milestones and challenges with Active Directory. Key elements involve issues with current AD administration methods, how enterprise 'AD aware' applications can weaken Active Directory security, and how leveraging cloud services complicate securing infrastructure. The final section discusses the commonly heard excuses for not implementing security controls to protect Active Directory and the ways to counter these arguments.