Part of what's cool about my role as technical director at Windows IT Pro Magazine is the breadth of topics I get to learn and write about. In my previous jobs, the goal was always to be the master of one or two narrow subjects - which of course came at the cost my knowledge of other subjects. In this job I'm responsible for being conversant in a number of different topics, so learning and studying take up a lot of my time. Fortunately, I have a great education opportunity coming up in April - and so do you.
If you've read any of the content I've written since I've joined the magazine, it's taken my base skills in identity management and broadened them to other areas. One particularly interesting area for me is that of cloud identity, which I define as issues and technology dealing with managing users' identity data between the traditional enterprise, and business and consumer cloud services.
I've been fortunate enough to be involved in our new Mobile / Cloud / Virtualization Connections 3-in-1 conference since its inception, and it's been exciting to see it grow from a gleam in our editorial director's eye to a full-fledged conference with world-class speakers and world-class content.
I'm going to be very busy at this conference attending sessions that help me learn more about my topic areas; I thought I'd share a few of the sessions you're likely to find me at.
- Paul Madsen, senior technical architect at Ping Identity, is doing a session on Fundamentals of Cloud Identity (CBIZ11). This will be an interesting session that talks about why federated identity is so important to increasing security in the new world of traditional on-premise plus cloud computing.
- Jason Milgram will be talking about the opportunities of the cloud from the ISV's viewpoint in Moving from Client/Server to Client/Cloud (CBIZ01). How do you convert your traditional on-premise software model to a cloud-based SaaS subscription model?
- Last but not least, Steve Riley is doing a session that should interest every IT pro: how it will affect your career. In Predicting Your Career: Cloudy with a Chance of Change (CBIZ14), Steve talks about how our familiar concepts of security, administration, and development are all changing under the cloud model, and how you should begin adapting to future-proof your career.
Take a look at the Mobile / Cloud / Virtualization Connections conference as you're working on your education plans for the year. There's content for the smallest mobile devices to the largest cloud service providers. And be sure to swing by the Windows IT Pro booth when you're there to say hi!
Follow Sean on Twitter: @shorinsean
