If you never heard of MMS or Midwest Management Summit then I will try to help with that. MMS is a conference, which started in 1998 and was initialy more a user group meeting, the main focus was SCCM. That conference ran so well that Microsoft took it over and dropped it after 2013. So the Minnesota System Center User Group restarted the initiative 2014 and now MMS is in its second year again. The difference between the conference held by Microsoft and the one from the user group is that it is smaller (which is really positive) and closer to the customer. You can feel that it is not a Microsoft promotion but a real user group event. The people have time to talk to each other and they use the chance. Speakers are close and the fact that the sessions are not recorded also help to avoid fears. So besides the System Center Universe conferences this is the conference you should attend specially when you are based in the US.
MMS 2015 was held in Minneapolis (Minnesota) between Sunday, Nov. 8th, and Wednesday, Nov. 11th, at the Radisson Blu Mall of America. The location was fantastic. Great hotel and I do not need to mention the mall nearby ;-). There were some pre-conf sessions on Sunday and also the welcome reception, where attendees and speakers could meet first time.
It was my first time speaking and it was a pleasure to do that during this conference. The technical support was very good, they were in the room 10 min before the session started, to fix things. The organization and communication before and during the conference was great. The only negative thing which was mentioned by nearly every speaker was the bad wifi connection.
I had two sessions:
- Real word automation with Service Manager and Azure Automation with Steve Buchanan and Rob Plan (who built the Azure lab for us)
- Getting the most out of Operations Manager with Natalya Vank as Team Nat & Nat.
To my co-presenters: you were wonderful! We rocked it ;-).
I attended most of the SCOM sessions and also the early bird sessions for Data Center and Cloud Management and realized that all SCOM sessions covered different parts. So that was really good, not much overlaps.
I met a lot fantastic people and even the Jet lag did not reduce the fun we all had.
The next MMS will take place between May 17th and May 19th 2016 at the same place as this year. So add this to your schedule, perhaps you can meet some of us there.
Here are some impressions:
Entrance of the Radisson Blu
Steve, Rob and I
My first session
Nat, Cameron & Nat
Lee & Sam
Nat, Dieter & Nat
Nat, John & Nat
Final Dinner at The Crave
SystemCenterTipps 