Many people have asked me to recommend some sessions to go to at Microsoft Ignite (a good planning tool to build your own schedule is available online). With nearly 800 sessions to select from over five days, there’s enough going on to suit every one of the 15,000 or so people who will be there. I’ll publish my own schedule closer to the event so you know the sessions that I plan to attend, but to start the ball rolling, here are a set of sessions given by MVPs working in the Exchange and Office 365 space. MVPs are supposed to be independent experts, so there should be a reasonable amount of focused, practical, and above all independent advice given in each session.

Scheduling is still ongoing and some change can be expected as Microsoft juggles with the rooms so that the most popular speakers are matched with the biggest rooms. Microsoft is tracking the numbers of people who select each session and add them to their Ignite calendars, so they have a pretty good idea of what should happen. Speakers can see this data too, so I know that at the time of writing 425 people have signed up to attend my “Bumps and Blips” session. It’s also true that some inconsistencies need to be ironed out of the schedule, such as the fact that Paul Robichaux is currently scheduled to speak in two places at 5PM on Thursday. That should be worth seeing.

The session descriptions shown here are not mine – I took the text from the session catalog! Make of it what you will… The two workshops at the end of the list are scheduled for the Sunday before Ignite starts.

MVPs Unplugged: Real-World Microsoft Exchange Server Designs and Deployments

Jeff Guillet, Nicolas Blank, Paul Robichaux and Siegfried Jagott

Monday, 3:15PM

Join this session to engage in a dynamic question and answer session with some of the best Exchange MVPs in the business. We make time for both the moderated questions and your own questions that you can ask during the session. Topics are driven by the audience!

Planning and Deploying Call via Work for Enterprise PBX Users

Brian Ricks

Tuesday, 9AM

Want to know how to take best advantage of your aging PBX system while moving to Skype for Business? Come learn about Call via Work, the new capability that allows everyone in an enterprise to have a great voice experience even with their old PBX phone. We not only review the capabilities of the feature but also the configuration and topology requirements so you can quickly get started planning and deploying.

Ten Ways to Secure Your Office 365 Tenants

Brian Reid

Tuesday, 10:45AM

Do you want to ensure that your data in Office 365 is protected? Then come to this session where we look at ten things to help you further secure the access to the data over and above the security already in Office 365. We demonstrate and discuss features such as data loss prevention (DLP), message encryption , rights management protection (RMS), multi-factor authentication (MFA), client security such as patching and MDM, sharing content internally and externally, network encryption (SSL), AD FS restrictions, and anti-spam settings. But there is more, and we plan to cover that too!

Experts Unplugged: Exchange Top Issues

Jeff Guillet

Wednesday, 9AM

The unplugged panel is your chance to hear directly from product experts in an unscripted, conversational format. The panel includes a mix of perspectives—from engineering to support to real-world deployment experts—so you get answers that range from visionary to practical. Bring your tough questions and hear them answered live on stage, as top experts discuss the issues that matter to you.

Exchange Hybrid: Make Office 365 Work for You

Michael Van Horenbeeck

Wednesday, 1:30PM

Exchange hybrid deployments are one of the most common Office 365 configurations. In this session, we dig into the architecture of hybrid deployments, review the deployment options, discuss the capabilities of the hybrid configuration wizard, and review the co-existence user experiences.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Public Folder Migration

Siegfried Jagott

Wednesday, 3:15PM

Learn how to migrate Public Folders from Exchange Server 2007 and 2010 to Modern Public Folders in Exchange Server 2013. This Instructor-led Lab walks you through all of the PowerShell cmdlets to perform a migration. You also learn about administration of Modern Public Folders. Steps to migrate to Microsoft Office 365 are discussed, but not included in the labs due to time constraints. The ILL is led by an Exchange MVP expert.

Bumps and Blips on the Road to Cloud Nirvana: From On-Premises Microsoft Exchange to Office 365

Tony Redmond

Thursday 1:30PM

Come learn from one of the most experienced Exchange MVPs what it’s like to make the journey from on-premises Exchange to Exchange Online. It’s easy to start using Microsoft Office 365 if it’s a fresh start, but things can get more complex when you are moving your existing users and content to Exchange Online. To be successful, you have to get comfortable with the cloud, understand its limits, and be able to embrace and utilize its strengths. The presenter has strong opinions on what works and what doesn’t. You’ll hear what’s good and not so good about Exchange Online and how to make it work for you. Intensely practical and honest, this is a must-attend session for anyone who’s contemplating the move to Exchange Online.

Experts Unplugged: Exchange Online Migrations

Michael Van Horenbeeck with Tim Heeney (Microsoft)

Thursday, 5PM

The unplugged panel is your chance to hear directly from product experts in an unscripted, conversational format. The panel includes a mix of perspectives—from engineering to support to real-world deployment experts—so you get answers that range from visionary to practical. Bring your tough questions and hear them answered live on stage, as top experts discuss the issues that matter to you.

Microsoft Office 365 MVP Panel

Brett Hill, Darrell Webster, J. Peter Bruzzese, Jethro Seghers, Martina Grom and Sean McNeill

Thursday, 5PM

Learn from the Office 365 experts. This session brings together a few of Office 365 MVP experts to share and discuss the hot topics they have seen while working with customers. Bring your questions and expect to interact in this session.

Exchange Online Archiving: Notes from the Field

Paul Robichaux

Thursday, 5PM

Users love email—so much so that their mailboxes can grow almost without limit over time. Archiving old mail helps keep things tidy, and Microsoft has offered personal archives as part of Exchange since Exchange 2010. Moving your archives to Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) gives you flexible archiving, but to get the most from EOA, you’ll need to know how it works, how EOA integrates with on-premises and Office 365 mailboxes, how to efficiently move your users’ data into EOA, and how to manage and troubleshoot both the import process and ongoing operations— luckily, all topics covered in this session.

Servicing Microsoft Exchange Server: Update Your Knowledge

Brent Alinger and Paul Robichaux

Thursday, 5PM

This session takes a close look at the servicing model for Exchange Server. Join us to gain a deep understanding of the update process for Exchange Server, including the support requirement for Cumulative Updates. You won’t just hear the Microsoft strategy but also learn how this strategy is applied in the field with first-hand experience from an Exchange MVP expert.

MVPs Unplugged: The Journey to Microsoft Exchange Online

Jeff Guillet, Michael Van Horenbeeck, Nicolas Blank and Tony Redmond

Friday, 10:45AM

Join this session to engage in a dynamic question and answer session with some of the best Exchange MVPs in the business. There is time for both the moderated questions and questions that you can ask during the session. Topics are driven by the audience!

Get Ready to Deploy Exchange Server 2013 (Workshop)

Nicolas Blank

Learn from Exchange MVP experts and jumpstart your Exchange Server 2013 deployment. The day focuses on building a design for a selected scenario and provides opportunities to test your deployment knowledge first hand. This pre-day session provides deep hands-on opportunities and a chance to learn from experts in the field.

Building a Hybrid Exchange Server 2013 Environment (Workshop)

Michael Van Horenbeeck and Nathan O’Bryan

In this pre-day session, learn how to deploy a hybrid Exchange Server 2013 environment from scratch. Through a mix of tutoring and hands-on exercises, gain experience in how to install and configure Microsoft Azure Active Directory Synchronization Services (AAD Sync) and Active Directory Federation Services for Office 365. Learn how to use the Exchange Server 2013 Hybrid Configuration Wizard to set up a hybrid deployment and then move mailboxes to Microsoft Office 365. The lab is hosted in Microsoft Azure, so all you need to bring is your own laptop!

Whatever sessions you chose to attend, remember to pace yourself and not try and get to everything. The sessions you don’t manage to get to will be available on Microsoft’s Channel 9 video streaming service soon afterwards, so you’ll be able to catch up that way. And of course, make sure that you include some after-hours events in your schedule as all work and no play makes anyone pretty dull.

Follow Tony @12Knocksinna