We had a dress rehearsal of one of the presentations last night with a small local audience. The most technical guy, stopped me on our way out the door and said “I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I learned something tonight. I shouldn’t have but I did. Who was that speaker again?” I was thrilled. That’s what it is all about, isn’t it? Picking up that tidbit that you didn’t know. Even if you think you know something inside and out there is always room to learn just that much more on a technical topic. When you pick up that nugget it make the whole thing worth the effort. That’s why I love IT and I bet that’s why you love it too. I’m looking forward to being in a whole room of amazing IT professionals. See you in Vegas! We have a great day planned for you.

Haven’t registered yet? Please do so now. www.thirdtier.net/registration Your registration fee includes a full day of training, lunch and an evening with Third Tier at the local pub. Space is limited so register today.

2011 Brain Explosion – A Master Class in Remote Access

8:30am – doors open, meet & greet, welcome by Amy Babinchak
9:00am – DNS Mysteries Unveiled
10:15 – break (15 min)
10:30 – Under the Covers of Remote Web Access
12:00 – Lunch – Calyptix Security
12:30 – Securing Remote Access using Radius
1:15 – Direct Access for Smaller Businesses
2:30 – break (15 min)
2:45 – Becoming a Messaging Sleuth
3:30 – Thin Client Standardization and Configuration
4:15 – Final thoughts, dismiss by Amy Babinchak

Later that same evening: PARTY with Third Tier and SBSMigration at McFadden’s Pub.

Direct Access for Smaller Businesses – Cliff Galiher

DirectAccess is a remote connectivity technology that opens new doors for end users to access company resources like never before and can greatly reduce the support burden of managing computers that are regularly outside a company LAN. Implementing DirectAccess can be a daunting task with most of the documentation focusing on large enterprise deployments. In this session you will learn about the DirectAccess from the inside. When you are done, you will know where it can fit in your network, how to do a deployment focusing on the small or midsized business, and some common pain points with troubleshooting tips, making DirectAccess more available to small businesses than ever before.

The Managed Edge – Ben Yarbrough, Calyptix

Calyptix Security is pioneering the development of “The Managed Edge” ^tm cybersecurity solution. The Managed Edge is born out of two massive trends that are converging to put extreme pressure on IT security for small and medium sized businesses. We’re seeing a massive migration of computing and network infrastructure from the main office into the cloud; and a parallel rapid proliferation of mobile computing devices in the form of bigger, faster tablets and smart phones. The combination of these two forces has resulted in a dramatic expansion in demand for remote access to corporate computing resources from employees who are increasingly working from home, on-the-road, or deployed virtually in an array of satellite offices.

KISS Edge Security – Brian Higgins

What do your wireless access point, a cable / DSL modem, and a VPN connection have in common? They can all be authenticated against a central user database such as Active Directory using RADIUS. RADIUS is one of the least known / utilized methods of authentication available in Windows, but one of the most useful. The most common use for RADIUS in small business is to authenticate external users who want to connect to a company’s VPN appliance, enabling them to use the same username and password for their remote access as their AD logon, because everything, including their password, is tied back to their Active Directory account. Ever wonder how an ISP tracks who is connected to their network, or what speed internet service you purchased? In this session we will answer that question and more as we explore some of the various uses of RADIUS, ways you probably already interact with it (probably unknowingly), and how you can take advantage of this very useful protocol to provide your clients with a simpler, more streamlined connection process, while actually making things easier to manage.

Under the Covers of Remote Web Access – Eriq Neale

Since SBS 2003, the SBS family of products has included a feature that, quite frankly, has made some of the other product lines jealous – the Remote Web Workplace (now called Remote Web Access in the 2011 series of products). Starting with the 2008 product series, Microsoft made some significant changes to the way this remote connectivity tool works behind the scenes, and in some cases that has led to some frustration on the part of the user and IT support community. In this session, we will show you how remote connectivity works under the hood so you can learn how to gain remote access to servers and workstations while bypassing the RWA interface, as well as finally being able to allow Macintosh and other devices to remotely control PCs using this same mechanism. Plus, we’ll show you how to build your own remote access infrastructure using the same tools that MS uses to make the remote connectivity of RWA work.

Becoming a Message Sleuth – David Shackelford

Sometimes as a consultant you are asked to be the expert on what happened to a message that was or wasn’t delivered. While you may have used the Exchange message tracking logs and the application log, there are also the SMTP protocol logs, the filtering logs and additional diagnostic logging at your disposal. This session will get you familiar with the tools and give you the best practices for getting useful data out of them, making you look like a CSI guy (or gal). I’ll focus on the scenarios that I encounter every week working for ThirdTier.

DNS Mysteries Unveiled – Jeremy Anderson

Name the single most important aspect of any computer network, from the smallest office to the largest multi-national corporation. Name the one thing that each of us use every day, that we don’t even think about. This is DNS.DNS is a complex protocol that is required for daily operation of your networks. DNS is often set up behind the scenes and has little maintenance and configuration. But what do you do if it’s not working? How do you troubleshoot and verify its operation? Can you be certain that you have your DNS set up and configured according to best practices? An overview of DNS and how it works, with an emphasis on ‘WHY’ it matters, how to troubleshoot, and what tools to use to verify its operation. I will go over the different types of DNS servers, split scopes, DNS replication, and other terms that you may have heard. DNS is a practical solution to an everyday problem, that we do not nearly spend enough time on, assuming that it will just work. The intricacies and mysteries of DNS will be explained to you.

Thin Client Device Standardization – Steven Banks

In a world of MultiPoint and increased use Remote Desktop Services it’s time we gained some understanding on how to best manage thin client devices. They aren’t PC’s after all and capabilities and available tools very from manufacturer to manufacturer and even among models of devices. Get too many varieties and you could have a real mess. We’ll have several different types of devices with us to demonstrate management techniques.

We still have a few tickets left, so feel free to share with your friends!

Haven’t registered yet? Please do so now. www.thirdtier.net/registration Your registration fee includes a full day of training, lunch and an evening with Third Tier at the local pub. Space is limited so register today.