Don’t Miss These 3 Sessions at Tech Summit Cape Town


As we start 2018 with a renewed sense of energy after the festive break, we still find ourselves absorbing the whirlwind of Microsoft announcements and technologies enhancements released in 2017. It was a power packed year and we saw the fastest moving year to date for technology, predominantly around cloud.
The South African leg of the Microsoft Tech Summit is a little less than a month away and the excitement of this annual event is starting to build. This year’s event promises to be the biggest one yet, following Microsoft’s announcement of the landing of the South African Azure Datacenter in the latter half of this year.
There is much anticipation around the announcements and learnings that the event will bring as well as global experts that attract attendees in volumes from across the country.
Microsoft Tech Summit 2018 will be held at the Cape Town International Conference Center this year, which is a refreshing change from Johannesburg at the beginning of 2017. We all know that Cape Town is by far one of the most beautiful cities in the world and the easy access to wine country is certainly the cherry on top of the cake.
There is an action-packed session list this year with all major technologies covered. I personally find it difficult to put together my preferred session schedule. After extensive review, I have selected my top three sessions which I would recommend:
Accelerating Blockchain application development on Microsoft Azure – With the rise in popularity of cryptocurrencies over the last six months, there is no doubt that Blockchain is the biggest fundamental technology shift since the dot com boom all those years ago. I personally believe that all companies will be making use of this technology over the coming years, and I strongly recommend that you understand how to take advantage of this while utilizing the Microsoft Azure platforms.
An overview of Microsoft Teams architecture, including security and compliance features Microsoft Teams has made headlines throughout 2017. This new application allows user access to multiple cloud workloads through a single easy-to-use interface has changed the way in which users access data across platforms.
With the Microsoft announcement that Teams will replace Skype For Business in the near future, it amplifies the need for businesses to plan how to complete the transition to Microsoft Teams and understand the value that can be gained by doing so.
Drive enterprise transformation with behavioral analytics from Microsoft 365 – The key to any successful technology deployment is user adoption. With the plethora of components and features becoming available through the Microsoft Cloud, users are often over powered with the technology selection, which can overlap, making life even more difficult for the poor end user.
Microsoft now offers analytics to create visibility around user productivity, allowing organizations to enable their end users effectively by evaluating which technologies they use day to day. This is a must-see session for all organizations.
The landing of the Microsoft Data Centers later this year is by far the greatest technology change that the African continent has seen to date.
This technology is undoubtedly expected to significantly shift the African continent’s information technology landscape. The challenges around reliance on international bandwidth, which is currently faced when Microsoft Cloud services are utilized, has often been a potential deterrent for organizations when exploring the possibility of moving the bulk of workloads into the cloud.
With that deterrent removed, I am expecting the adoption of the Microsoft Cloud platforms to skyrocket on the African Continent.
This is an incredibly exciting prospect, as organizations will soon have the ability to leverage Microsoft Cloud Technologies within the continent, the ability to streamline the digital transformation process across organizations of all sizes now becomes a mouthwatering reality.
The potential challenges created by this change is ensuring that business across the continent has visibility and understanding of the potential that the Microsoft technology offering brings and how to best take advantage.
The Microsoft Tech Summit is an incredible launching platform that will create good visibility to both business and IT users alike on how to best plan and take advantage of this ground-breaking change.
In line with this, I will be delivering a short session on “Why O365 Backup is Vital.” Data backup is an integral part of any organization’s disaster recovery plans, and when utilizing cloud for the delivery of IT platforms to end users, this should be no different.
What happens when users accidentally delete data and need to recover it months later? What SLA does Microsoft offer within Office 365, and does this mean that you no longer need to backup your cloud data? Join me while I bring clarity on the dos and don’ts around this topic.
If you haven’t yet registered what are you waiting for? Seats are limited to this free event, so register today by following the link below. If you have already registered and attending I look forward to meeting you all at the AvePoint booth!
https://www.microsoft.com/en-za/techsummit/cape-town