In taking a look at the 16 Technical Tracks and some of the breakout sessions that have been listed for Tech-Ed, I found myself most interested in some of the case study presentations that are being offered by the Microsoft IT department (which is obviously one of the largest enterprise IT shops in the world).

I’m a sucker for case studies. I just always enjoy learning about how other people handle problems and how they figure out how to meet tough goals. I realize that the Microsoft IT department won’t be able to be brutally honest about their experiences (for obvious reasons) and the sessions will likely have a bit of spin to them. Nevertheless, I’m very interested in these four case study sessions:

— Microsoft IT: Exchange Security at Microsoft
— Exchange Best Practices from Microsoft IT
— How Microsoft IT Deploys Windows Mobile for 60,000 Users
— Securing Microsoft: How Microsoft Does IT

The last session should be particularly interesting because, besides national governments and financial institutions, Microsoft could be the organization that is most widely-targeted by attackers. It is certainly one of the highest value ideological targets for hackers. I’ll be very interested to see what Microsoft IT has to say about their security posture and some of the methods they use to handle security in a high risk environment. I truly hope that the speaker(s) of this session speak frankly and provide as much detail as possible.