RBA Consultants to Present 4 Sessions at Cloud Fest Denver 

RBA Consulting is proud to be a platinum sponsor of Cloud Fest Denver. Cloud Fest is a one-of-a-kind event with over 30 sessions and multiple tracks that allow everyone from developers and architects to administrators and knowledge workers learn about everything cloud. This year, four RBA consultants will be presenting on a variety of topics. If you're attending Cloud Fest, we encourage you to attend these sessions and stop by our booth. Cloud Fest will take place on February 9 at the Colorado Convention Center. You can see the full schedule of events here.

SharePoint Cloud Readiness – Your Top 10 Considerations (Session SPO101)
presented by Shawn Beeson
Is your organization using SharePoint today? Are you curious what it will take to move your SharePoint environment to the cloud? What are the things you can and should be doing today to ensure a painless move in the future? This session will cover the Top Ten things every company should be doing and reviewing to ensure that their environments and customizations will be cloud-ready!

About Shawn
Shawn Beeson is the Principal Consultant in the Portals and Collaboration practice with RBA Consulting in Denver and has expertise in all facets of SharePoint with a strong emphasis on architecting and delivering highly customized, highly usable solutions built on the SharePoint platform. Shawn has worked in IT for the past 12 years and as an IT consultant for the last 6. He is a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer in ASP.NET and SharePoint 2010 Development, a Certified Technical Specialist in SharePoint 2010, MOSS and WSS Configuration and also a Certified Scrum Master. Most recently, Shawn worked as a member of the Patterns & Practices team at Microsoft developing the Version 3.0 of the SharePoint Guidance.
@sharepointshawn

Building Enterprise Applications in the Cloud using SharePoint Online and Azure (Session SPO103) 
presented by Faraz Khan & Seth Crichton
Everybody is talking about the cloud these days. Have you evaluated your options for hosting/migrating enterprise applications to the cloud? What technology do you use? SharePoint Online, Windows Azure or SQL Azure? What are the limitations you might run into? How about a combination of all these to achieve even more flexibility, control and power? This session will show you how to build enterprise applications that combine SharePoint Online with Windows and SQL Azure to build powerful solutions in the cloud.

About Faraz
Faraz Khan is a Senior Consultant in the Portals and Collaboration practice with RBA Consulting in Denver. Faraz has been working on SharePoint since the 2003 release and has been an integral part of several enterprise (intranet, extranet, internet) implementations of SharePoint and has experience with the complete feature set. Faraz has worked in IT for the past 7 years and has been consulting since 2008. He is a Certified Technical Specialist in SharePoint 2010 configuration and a Virtual TS. Faraz was on the advisory board of the Patterns and Practices group at Microsoft, which has been developing new versions of the SharePoint guidance for developers every few months. Faraz has also been a speaker at the last two SharePoint Fest conferences in Denver, Colorado. Most recently, Faraz co-authored a book on Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Deploying Cloud-Based Solutions.

About Seth
Seth Crichton is the Principal Consultant in the Application Development practice with RBA Consulting in Denver. Seth has been developing and architecting enterprise applications for 15 years, and has worked with the Azure platform since its inception in 2009. Seth is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer and Virtual Technical Specialist, and is one of the founding members of the Denver Azure User Group.
@sethcrichton

What is the cloud, why do I care, and how do I get there? (Session PRE101)
presented by Phil Wicklund
If you follow the technology industry, you have probably noticed that everyone suddenly seems to be "going to the cloud" these days. What's all the fuss about? Or more simply put, what is the cloud and why do I care? The conference keynote seeks to level the playing field for attendees by answering these key questions around the ROI behind Microsoft's cloud-based technologies. You'll learn about key cloud characteristics, as well as cloud models such as building your own private cloud, or perhaps deploying to the public, community, and/or hybrid clouds. You'll see how IT solutions can be taken to the cloud on the Office 365 and Azure platforms and how these platforms integrate with one another to create advanced, cloud-based line of business applications. Lastly, you'll come away with an understanding of how to begin the process of planning for and migrating to the cloud.

Office 365 Editions: Comparing Licensing and Hosting Models (Session OFF105) 
presented by Phil Wicklund
When considering a migration to Office 365, what considerations do you need to take to determine what licensing model and hosting solution works best for your business? There are several different tiers of services, including small business and enterprise editions. There's also licensing concepts such as Kiosk and Partner users. Your employees have between E1-E4 levels of service, and with that different feature availability. And to top it off, SharePoint Online comes in both Standard and Dedicated hosting models. This session helps you clear the fog, and determine what licensing and hosting model is best for your business.

About Phil
Phil Wicklund, SharePoint consultant and technical evangelist at RBA, is the Author of Deploying Cloud-based Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Solutions by Microsoft Press, as well as SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Action by Manning Publications. He has over 7 years of SharePoint experience and is a frequent blogger, speaker, and author around SharePoint products and technologies. He started working with SharePoint back in 2003 and has since architected and administered many dozens of corporate SharePoint environments. He started as a SharePoint development instructor and has since moved into consulting with RBA Consulting, where he shares real-world insights and in-depth best practices with his clients.
@philwicklund