This is my first Microsoft Ignite and I am just loving it. It was an amazing first day with 30000+ attendees present in Orange County Convention center in Orlando, Fl. Here is a summary of my experience so far –
It all started Saturday when I landed here in Orlando. I’ve picked up my badge at the airport to save some time. Yesterday, I went for a tour of OCCC and collected my swag as well. What made my day special yesterday was that I was able to clear AZ-300 and AZ-301 certification exams. I also cleared AZ-900 which was way easy for someone working on Azure since some time now.
Today morning, I was hoping I would reach early enough to get entry into the Hub, but, somehow, I got late and I was not part of the lucky 3000 who can witness Satya in-person. I ended up in South Hall A to watch the live stream of Satya’s keynote.
After I seated, I came to know that there was an MS-Learn Gameshow scheduled before the keynote starts streaming. Till that time I had no idea what it is all about. To my amazement, when it was announced that Scott Hanselman is going to host the game show, I was super excited to see someone I admire a lot. Corey Sanders, Aditi, and Donavan Brown were the participants. It was a fun show where participants were supposed to read an answer and guess what the question is. The winner was – audience by answering most questions correctly.
Moving on, Satya’s keynote started sharp at 9. I loved the way Satya started his keynote by thanking the community. He then showcased the new experience at Universal. For on-demand viewing, check out – this link
Here are some of the new announcements I am excited about –
- Azure Arc
- Azure Synapse
- Azure Quantum
- Visual Studio Online
- Teams’ private channels
- Fluid Framework
- New Chromium-based Edge (with new logo) & new Bing Search
Other announcements included Project Silica, AIRSIM, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Project Cortex.
After the vision keynote, I attended the tech keynote by Julia White and Jason Zander covering different aspects of Azure and some good demos including a demo by Donavan Brown. I headed straight for my lunch after the keynotes. I really appreciate the inclusiveness Microsoft has showcased in this event.
After lunch, I headed to the certification booth to appear for the AZ-103 exam which I cleared after two hours. I was out from the Certification booth at around 3PM. I headed straight to a session on Azure Cognitive Services. Then I went to the Unconference Assemble room to attend a session by Scott Hoag on using Azure DevOps and Kubernetes.
I then spent some time visiting some of the exhibits from MS-partners and MS product teams. Gathered some useful information along with some cool stickers and other swag. There are so many exhibits in the Hub, it was not possible to cover in one day. I will be visiting it again in the next few days.
To wrap up my day, I ended up in the MS Mechanics Live section, where I attended a session by CTO of Azure – Mark Russinovich and Corey Sanders. Mark talked about the Open Application Model and Dapr whereas Corey talked about Azure Migrate.
The best part – At around 5PM, I got a tweet from the MSIgnite team that I have been offered a front-row seat at tomorrow’s keynote by Scott Hanselman which I readily accepted. I am looking forward to the keynote and other sessions tomorrow.
Have a Good Night!