Once again we are poised to make history for Microsoft by holding the first ever full-fledged Launch event in Second Life.  With less than two weeks to go I wanted to post again about the event and provide more details on what is going on the day of the event.

Things You Will Need to Attend the Launch

In order to attend this event you will first need to do the following things:

1. Join Second Life, if you haven't already, at http://www.SecondLife.com.  It is FREE to join so come on in and hang with us.
2. Download and install LiveMeeting for the demos we will be showing during the event:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733831033.aspx
3. After you have joined Second Life and played around a little, then click on this link to go to the Microsoft User Group Island at this location:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft%20Island/190/73/22

Agenda (Times are Pacific Time Zone/Standard Linden Time)

Session Descriptions

Windows Server 2008

What’s New In Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008--in addition to incorporating new capabilities and enhancements to existing features--includes a number of improvements in the core OS that enhance the Operating System’s capabilities; such as features aimed at increasing the ability of Windows Server 2008 to support highly critical workloads by improving operational reliability, reducing system failures, and easing management. We will also discuss improvements in other related elements of the platform that help Windows based systems and services move an organization's IT Department forward.

Virtualization and your Infrastructure

The new Windows Server Virtualization technology, Hyper-V, and Presentation Virtualization technologies like Terminal Services RemoteApp are core features in Windows Server 2008. This session will provide you with an overview of virtualization in Windows Server 2008: the scenarios, features, and benefits that make server virtualization important. Virtualization management is becoming a critical tool for improving overall manageability for the IT environment; join us in this session to learn how Hyper-V and our management technologies build a strong flexible platform and improve overall manageability.

Securing your IT Infrastructure with Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 offers rich capabilities for securing your IT Infrastructure and proving tools to ease with compliance mandates. This session will discuss the Windows security and compliance features such as Network Access Protection, Right Management Services, Active Directory Federation Service subsystem, why auditing is important and how to configure an audit policy in the updated Windows Server 2008 event subsystem.

Exploring Windows Server 2008 Web and Application Technologies

Windows Server 2008 includes Internet Information Server 7 perhaps the most important upgrade to IIS since its inception; aimed at creating a seamless environment where administrators and developers can create, maintain, and modify web assets.. We will also discuss improvements in other related elements of the web platform that help Windows based systems and services move an organization's IT Department forward.

SQL Server 2008 / Data Platform

Mission Critical Applications on SQL Server 2008

Attend this session to learn how newly enhanced SQL Server 2008 provides you with the highest levels of availability, protects your business critical data and scales across growing data volumes and mixed workloads. This session provides an overview of the new security, scalability, performance and availability features in SQL Server 2008.

Simplify Management of your Data Infrastructure

Attend this session to learn about the new manageability improvements in SQL Server 2008 that enable you to administer, monitor and maintain your data platform infrastructure while reducing the time and cost of management. This session provides an overview of the new manageability improvements that enable you to manage the infrastructure with policies, monitor and optimize your platform with insights and relevant information, and scale your management across multiple servers.

Exploring Business Intelligence and SQL Server 2008

Attend this session to learn how the new enhancements in SQL Server 2008 provide a comprehensive and scalable Business Intelligence platform that enables you to integrate and manage your growing data volumes, comprehensive analysis and enterprise reporting, and deliver insights through the Microsoft Office System. This session provides an overview of the new data warehousing, reporting, analysis and integration features in SQL Server 2008.

Next Generation Data Applications

Attend this session to learn about the enhancements in the Microsoft Data platform that enable developers and administrators to build and deploy the next generation data applications. This session provides you with an overview of how SQL Server 2008, the .NET platform and Visual Studio enable you to build data logic faster with the new T-SQL enhancements, deploy applications on any type of data from spatial to documents and on any device, and while accessing the data easily with LINQ, ADO.Net Entity framework and Data Services.

Visual Studio 2008 / Developer

Breakthrough Challenges with Visual Studio 2008

Explore all the new Visual Studio 2008 features, from language enhancements, improved designers, Web and smart-client development tools; to Visual Studio Team System, a suite of software lifecycle management tools poised to transform how you deliver software for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and the Web.

Reach End-Users with Next Generation Web Applications

Visual Studio 2008 enables developers and IT operators to dramatically reduce the amount of time, effort and code required to develop and deploy real-world Web applications. ASP.NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 and IIS 7 each provide much improved administration and management support, on top of dramatically improved performance. Also covered are support for ASP.NET AJAX, JavaScript enhancements, rich support for CSS standards and rapid development of data-bound Web pages.

Create Instantly Familiar Applications with the Microsoft Office System

The 2007 Microsoft Office system has evolved into a business application platform that developers can use to build and deploy Office Business Applications (OBAs), an emerging class of applications that address critical business problems. This session demonstrates how developers can use Visual Studio 2008 to build OBAs, customize Microsoft Office applications, and utilize the Microsoft Office platform to build scalable line-of-business solutions based on Microsoft Office.

Defy Occasionally Connected Challenges with Smart Client Applications

This session introduces the new features and improvements incorporated into Visual Studio 2008 for smart client development. This session also introduces new client services that allow your applications to authenticate users providing role-based UI, and be occasionally connected with offline data storage. We demonstrate how you can leverage both Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Forms in a single application to build the right experience for your customer. Finally, we show feedback-driven improvements to existing features in Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation, and ClickOnce.