Conferences – Note to self

Countdown to Global Integration Bootcamp 2021

Last January, I wrote about this year edition of Global Integration Bootcamp. As you might remember, this year we locked it on 26-27 February (UTC Time) running two different event streams starting at times that can be suitable for the three main time zone areas- APAC, EMEA and Americas.

Lineup

We’ve received an awesome number of sessions and in the end, the event will count with 21 sessions and 19 speakers from APAC, EMEA and Americas, including Microsoft Cloud Advocates, Azure MVPs, Community Leaders and Industry Experts – covering a long list of topics in the from cloud and data integration to hybrid integration and API design/development. Here is this year’s lineup:

Global Integration Bootcamp 2021 goes Virtual!!!

Hey there! Happy New Year!!!

Many of you were asking about if we would be doing another Global Integration Bootcamp this year. I know that there is been a while since we provided any news about it, but the team was trying to come up with a formula that would work for our goal of a 24 hour around the globe marathon of Microsoft Integration goodness! We knew that we wanted:

Stream it in a way that you could just tune in and watch whenever you were, instead of having to join a specific application.
Run through as many timezones as possible.
Open up for the community to bring their content either live or pre-recorded.

After much discussion (read HEAPS of Whats App messages going back and forth, tests on multiple streaming platforms, and trying to find a time that didn’t clash with other events), we locked it on 26-27 February (UTC Time) running three different event streams starting at times that are more suitable for the three main time zone areas- APAC, EMEA and Americas.

But for that to fly we need sessions and people ready to present right? So the Call for Papers process is now open. We are catering for both lightning talks (15 minutes) and breakout sessions (30-45 minutes) and any level (from introductory to advanced), so if you are interested in Microsoft Cloud and Hybrid Integration and would like to present in one of those time zones, please submit a session -or 3. The link for the CFP page is:

https://sessionize.com/gib-2021-virtual/

Submissions end on 5 February, so get your thinking caps on, or dust off that classic session you would like to revisit and send it our way!

Also, make sure you keep an eye on the event website (https://integrationbootcamp.com/ ) as we will be adding more information about the format and the links for the streaming pages, closer to the event.

In Summary

Global Integration Bootcamp is back on 26-27 February 2021
The event will cover most of the globe catering for time zones in APAC, EMEA and Americas
CFP is now open at https://sessionize.com/gib-2021-virtual/.
CFP closes on 5^th February.
Make sure you keep an eye on https://integrationbootcamp.com/ for more info.

Recapping Integrate 2020

Last week I’ve attended the Integrate conference once again. It was my 5th time attending the conference, and the 4th time I’ve participate as a speaker.

But Integrate 2020 was quite a different experience from the last years. Dubbed Integrate 2020 Remote, to reflect the fact that was yet another event that had to adapt to the pandemic reality that assaulted the planet since the end of last year. Kovai, the company formerly know as BizTalk 360, and the event organizer since its inception in 2012, took some time to decide that the event would go ahead, but when decided that it would be in a new format, didn’t pull any stops to get it running. With almost 1000 online attendees – which is impressive for a paid event, Integrate 2020 had 28 speakers, between Microsoft Program Managers and Microsoft MVPs and as many technical sessions distributed across three days.

Integrate 2019 in Review

I was on my flight back from London, returning from Integrate 2019, when I started this blog post. It was a very long flight, around 24 hours each way, but even if the jetlag hit me really hard this time around, it wsa worth it. Integrate grew from an initiative from a group of BizTalk MVPs, into the premier conference for Microsoft Integration technologies. It was my honour to be a presenter for the third year in a row, presenting alongside a Microsoft team comprised of Product Managers, Architects and Engineers – the people that actually design and implement the technologies I use on a daily basis – and legends from the Microsoft Integration community like Sandro Pereira, Steefan Wiggers, Richard Seroter, Michael Stephenson and Kent Weare, just to name a few.

The conference is run by Kovai Co – the company formerly known as BizTalk 360 – as a very well oiled machine. A large team from Kovai dedicate months ahead preparing the conference. This edition of Integrate was the largest yet, with over 480 participants, with 26 speakers and 28 sessions, across 3 days.

If I had to choose one theme from the conference this year, would be governance. Seems like most of the integration related technologies got to a stage where the core set of features are available and companies are using them actively. All that activity highlighted the requirement for better tooling and guidance around various aspects of the governance of the platform. From DevOps guidance to security and bettern integration between on-premises and the cloud, pretty much every product group had recent or new announcements around that theme.