Day 3 and still going strong. Great conference so far!

The day started with another good session from Samuel Devasahayam. This time it was SIA312: What’s New in Active Directory in Windows Server 2012. A lot of new cool features in AD for Server 2012, first among which must be Dynamic Access Control.

After that Mark Russinovich gave a very interesting session about Windows Azure internals (AZR302). Azure is really a great service and it was very cool to hear a little about how it is built and run. Mark even had a new Dave Cutler story.

John Craddock was also at TechEd and before lunch I attended his “Windows Server 2012: A Techie’s Insight into the Hot New Features”. This was an OK session where John went through what he felt were the hottest new features in Windows Server 2012. His selection was Direct Access, Compound Tokens and Dynamic Access Control. You have to see John at least once every time you’re at TechEd.

During lunch we participated in Andy Malone’s interactive session about BYOD; SIA04-LNC Adventures in BYOD Land. This would have worked much better in a smaller room and with fewer people as the atmosphere in the big theater room at the RAI didn’t encourage the audience to speak up. Especially since Andy is known to speak his mind afterwards. But it was still interesting.

The last session of the day for me was Mark Russinovich’s “Malware Hunting with the Sysinternals Tools”. This was the best one so far in the conference. Mark gave us an update on the tools, and went on to dissect some of the latest malware, e.g. Stuxnet and Flame. We even managed to get a picture with the man! (I’m to his right in the picture, with the white shirt and glasses!)