Microsoft Inspire, formerly known as the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), attracts thousands of partners each year. Similarly, Microsoft Ready, the conference previously known as TechReady, is a global field-readiness event that the company runs twice a year for employees. At both events, attendees learn about Microsoft’s product roadmap, network within the ecosystem, and learn new skills and techniques. Of course, there are the usual keynote speakers, hundreds of sessions, hands-on labs, and exhibitors.
In 2018, for the first time ever, Microsoft co-located both events at the Mandala Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. Co-locating these events gives partners the opportunity to network directly with Microsoft sellers during them—a big win for everybody, really.
Hands-on lab updates
For these events, we updated several of our existing hands-on labs using the Learn on Demand Systems platform. Not only did these labs promote Windows 10 value propositions, but they also offered training on other Microsoft technologies like Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), Intune, System Center Configuration Manager, Office 365, and Windows Server 2016.
However, the updates weren’t limited to a quick review of the lab guides. A lot had changed since we last refreshed these labs. Therefore, we rebuilt the lab environment (i.e., virtual machines) from scratch. That ensured students were working with the latest bits during their labs. After updating the lab guides to match the new environment and latest versions of the cloud services, we completed a test pass through each lab to make sure it worked perfectly.
Hands-on lab topics
- Azure AD for a remote workforce
- Credential Guard
- Microsoft Device Guard
- Internet Explorer Enterprise Mode
- Microsoft Store for Business
- Provisioning packages
- Windows 10 in-place upgrade
- Windows 10 Start menu and taskbar customization
- Windows as a service
- Windows Information Protection
