When Software Attacks!

Get informed with TechDays Online 2015

Block out your diary from February 3rd until February 5th. The great guys at Microsoft DX are running another TechDays Online event and it’s absolutely worth your time. I had the absolute pleasure to be involved last year and will again this year, both in front of and behind the camera.

For those who don’t know about the event, TechDays Online is three days (and one evening, this year) of technical content delivered by MVPs and Microsoft evangelists across a broad range of topics. Whilst you watch the sessions, streaming live through the power of the internet, you can ask questions in the chat channel. Some of those questions may find their way to the speaker during the session, but all will be picked up by a team of experts backstage, fuelled by caffeine and sugar.


Speaking at SQLBits 2015

We’re only half way through January and this year is already busy. I am really excited to be speaking at SQLBits this year!

SQLBits is a conference that various members of the Black Marble team attend regularly and rave about. It’s the event if you want to gain knowledge and insight into all aspects of databases and data management, reporting, BI and more. Microsoft are a platinum sponsor of the event this year and a whole heap of big names are flying in to present.


Want to know what’s going on? Come to the Black Marble Tech Update

It’s January, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for the annual Black Marble Tech Update. If you’re an IT or development manager, come along to hear the stuff you need to know about Microsoft’s releases and updates last year and what we know so far about what is coming this year.

Tech Updates are hard work to prepare for, but they’re quite exhilarating to present. In the morning, myself, Andy and Andrew will run through the key moves and changes in the Microsoft ecosystem to help IT managers with their strategic planning: What’s coming out of support, what’s got a new release due; in short, what do you need to pay attention to for your organisation’s IT.


Why you should attend a Microsoft IT Camp

I’ve posted before about helping out at the IT Camps run by the Microsoft DX team. I’m a fervent supporter of them – they are hands-on days of technical content run by great people who know their stuff and, importantly, they are run around the country.

Next week will see me in Manchester with Ed Baker for the latest instalment. The current series of campus are two days with the first being around Mobile Device Management and the second around extending your datacentre into Azure. I’ll be there for day two to be Ed’s wingman as we take attendees through hands-on labs around virtual machines and talk about virtual networks, Azure Active directory and pretty much anything else Azure-related we get asked about.


Speaking on DevOps at Future Decoded

I am now going to speaking on the DevOps track at Future Decoded. I’ll be channelling Richard to talk about how our dev-release pipeline is constructed at Black Marble and how the various Microsoft tools that we use could be swapped out for alternatives in a heterogeneous environment.

Whilst this isn’t an area that I usually speak around, it’s something that I am very involved in as Richard and I constantly look to improve our internal practices around development, test and deployment. Big thanks to Susan Smith for inviting me to participate.