Get immersed in everything Azure with a training event for Azure Architects, Developers and Administrators.

Enjoy demo-dependant sessions on Azure Infrastructure, Admin and Architecting Solutions with Tiago Costa, Microsoft Ambassador and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT).

Plus an in-depth Q&A session on the new role-based certifications from Microsoft Learning and special talks from experts on Disaster Recovery and Metadata.

Win a Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate Course

On arrival, you’ll be entered into a raffle with the chance to win a 4 day accelerated Azure Administrator Associate course, including the exam. T's & C's apply.

The day will start with hot drinks and pastries, followed by a stand-up lunch and finish with time for networking with drinks and canapes.

Agenda

9:00 - Start - Coffee and Pastry

9:45 - 'Learning with Microsoft and the new Azure Role-based Certifications' - Katia de Ruyter & Jo Sweales

• Hear from Microsoft Learning how role-based certification is shaping future skills in industry. Earn a technical certification that shows you are keeping pace with today’s technical roles and requirements. Skill up, prove your expertise to employers and peers, and get the recognition and opportunities you’ve earned.

10:45 - Break

11:00 - "I find your lack of Azure disturbing!" - Tiago Costa

• When designing and developing Azure solutions it's common to need to run some background tasks. In Microsoft Azure we have several services and features capable of creating and managing background tasks. Usually these services are based on IaaS or PaaS cloud models, but in a serverless world with have Azure Functions. Azure Functions is the cornerstone of the new serverless paradigm.

12:15 - Stand-up Lunch Provided

13:15 - 'ARM your Azure Infrastructure' - Tiago Costa

• Microsoft Azure is an amazing platform and in a few minutes we can create an infrastructure to support a workload, but if this is not done in a structured way, we end-up with a disorganized Azure Subscription. In 60 minutes, this session shows you how to generate ARM Templates for consistent and repeatable deployments and how you can automate the deployment of your Infrastructure. During a demo-dependent session we are going to check how Azure DevOps can help us, using Azure Repos to control the versioning of ARM Templates and Azure Pipelines to deploy then. In just 60 minutes we are going to create a full ALM experience for your Azure Infrastructure.

14:15 - 'Down with DR - DR Business Continuity' - Mike Brown

• Ask your finance department about backup and disaster recovery (DR) and they will say it’s a good idea. Everyone can get on board with keeping backups off site and protecting key assets. Now ask for the budget to build a DR site a couple of hundreds of miles away just in case things go wrong and watch people squirm.

• Azure Site Recovery puts offsite backup and restore and Site recovery into the budgets of every organisation. In this session, we will discuss Azure Site Recovery and demonstrate how it can be used as a safe and secure option for our offsite backups and how we can use it to protect key servers against site failure. We will also discuss how we can use Azure Site Recovery to when migrating workload into the cloud.

15:15 - Break

15:30 - 'Best practices on Architecting solutions for Microsoft Azure' – Tiago Costa

• Designing solutions for the Cloud is definitely different than designing for On-Prem, changing the way architects think applications. Solutions today should be decomposed into small service units and, Architects need to consider serverless, containers and micro-services designs. In Microsoft Azure we have hundreds of services that combined can design amazing solutions.

• In this session we will understand how we can use the massive global scale of Azure to design solutions that can lift features like: high-availability, security, performance and scalability. In 60 minutes we will design a state of the art design for a fictitious company that is based on a real life scenario.

16:30 - ‘You, BCS and Murder by Metadata’ - Adam Thilthorpe

• BCS’s Adam Thilthorpe presents a session on how IT Professionals are charged with the transformation of organisations, systems and processes in a world of ubiquitous technology. With this power to reach people and change lives comes massive responsibility.

17:15 - Networking with drinks and canapes

19:00 - Close

About the Speakers

Tiago Costa - Cloud Architect and MVP

Tiago Costa is a Cloud Architect and Advisor for the Microsoft Cloud. He’s been a Microsoft Azure MVP since 2016 for his community efforts in promoting and sharing knowledge with the community. For the past years he has been architecting and developing solutions using Microsoft technologies like: Microsoft Azure, Office 365, SharePoint, .Net and SQL Server.

He has a strong real-world experience and regularly teaches Microsoft Azure around the world. Tiago has several Microsoft Certifications and is an MCT – Microsoft Certified Trainer. In 2013 was nominated MCT Regional Lead by Microsoft Corp (HQ) which has been renewed every year including in Jan 2018 for 2 years (2018 – 2019).

He loves diving into new technologies and sharing his experience at conferences and training classes, but what excites him about his work is helping others explore new frontiers in technology and become better professionals. His limited free-time is spent with his family in a city near the sunny Lisbon, Portugal and building cool and geek projects.

Mike Brown - Firebrand Instructor and Cloud SME

Mike Brown is Firebrand Training’s Subject Matter Expert (SME) on Microsoft and a Firebrand senior cloud instructor. Mike started his IT career in 1995 working for a national IT training organization.

Having taught Windows Server, CISCO and AWS courses Mike now spends his time delivering Azure courses for customers across Europe. Mike is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and holds a host of Microsoft and other industry certifications.

Passionate about cloud computing and how cloud computing can help innovate business, Mike spends time out of the classroom writing and evangelising the benefits of cloud computing.

Adam Thrilthorpe - Director of Professionalism for BCS

Adam Thilthorpe has worked at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT since 2005. He joined the Executive Team in 2011 and is now the Director for Professionalism. He is passionate about understanding and explaining the impact of IT on both the workplace and individuals. One of his foremost aims is to help companies and organisations, large and small, become less fearful of the changes brought about by digital transformation. He leads the drive by BCS for a professional and ethical framework that unlocks the potential of tech to transform people's lives for the better.

He came to the world of IT after a career in financial services, so he has had first-hand knowledge of working within industry and understands its hopes and fears when it comes to digital disruption. He is a strong advocate of advising senior managers to look at the talents and assets that an organisation already possess and building on that to meet future needs.