Over 70% of code in corporate software systems is dedicated to application integration between services and modules. Such effort must be planned ahead using the best methodology and tools and built into the very fabric of the application by design from the ground up. Solving these integration tasks, while allowing for agile business processes, is a key strategy for IT groups and development teams. You must enable the integration without compromising on the application's requirements for availability, scalability, deployment, configuration, security, maintainability, extensibility and reuse. Service orientation as a methodology has evolved to address some of these challenges through standards-based communication, however, several integration needs remain unfulfilled. This track covers the products and technologies that are relevant to integration challenges. Microsoft® BizTalk® Server, Windows Server® AppFabric, Windows Azure™ Platform AppFabric and the capabilities in the Microsoft® .NET Framework (WCF and WF) are brought together to demonstrate how to solve real integration problems. Learn how to use these products and technologies in concert, get best practice guidance from the top experts, and see the roadmap for the future.

Sessions in the Architecture track are designed to help architects, as well as developers and IT pros who practice architecture in their respective roles, to make better architecture choices—whether it’s researching and evaluating new technology and platforms, choosing or creating patterns, guidelines and practices, or influencing and educating the business team. Learn about potential processes which you can use to translate business vision, intent, and strategy into effective technological change in the Enterprise. Build your toolkit as an architect by learning how to bring predictability and repeatable success to projects by employing frameworks, methodologies, patterns, and best practices; and how to take a vendor-neutral approach when creating architectures. Hear industry leaders share their best practices around the skills of creating, communicating, and improving the key tenets, principles, and models that describe the Enterprise's future state and enable its transformation, evolution, or migration.

With the new Azure Services Platform, developers can take advantage of an Internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers to build new applications in the cloud or extend existing applications quickly and easily, using a flexible and interoperable platform. The Azure Services Platform track explores Azure’s cloud operating system and set of developer services, including Windows Azure, SQL Services, .NET Services, and Live Services. Sessions provide an overview of services currently in Community Technology Preview (CTP) and beta release, in addition to discussions on the future of the Azure Services Platform and the possibilities it provides for your business to reduce costs and accelerate innovation.

Improve your technical and professional skills in the development, support, and implementation of Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions. In the Business Intelligence track, learn how to easily integrate, analyze, and report on all of your corporate data, using the Microsoft BI platform, end-user tools, and analytics applications. Hear from experts about how they implement Business Intelligence Solutions and see how to build custom, robust Business Intelligence solutions, and easily manage them. Key products and technologies covered: SQL Server 2008 R2, SharePoint Server 2010, and Office Excel 2010 (including PowerPivot Add-in).

The Microsoft® SQL Server® data platform helps your organization manage any data, any place, any time with the security, reliability, and scalability that your mission-critical applications require. The Database Platform track offers the knowledge you need to maximize your Microsoft SQL Server investments and gain the skills needed to seamlessly run a mission-critical environment. Gain insights into future SQL Server technology investments so you can rest assured knowing the bets you make today will continue to pay off in the future.

Every industry is defined by a set of standards, patterns, and practices, and the software industry is no different. Your knowledge of the accepted standards and practices, and ability to apply the patterns appropriately will set you apart from your peers and enable you to build better software, faster. The Development Practices track provides you the opportunity to focus on both widely accepted and newly emerging patterns and practices. Improve your development and software testing skills by learning how to apply software patterns and build a more proficient team with Application Lifecycle Management, Agile methodology, and development management best practices.

Your knowledge of development languages and proficiency with the tools you use to create software are the core of your skill set. The Developer Tools, Language & Frameworks track is packed with deep technical training that covers the best of Microsoft® Visual Studio® and the Microsoft® .NET Framework. Get in-depth information on building mission-critical software using native and managed Visual C++®, Visual Basic®, F#, and Visual C#®. Amplify your application development impact with Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) best practices using Visual Studio, Visual Studio Test Elements, and Team Foundation Server. Acquire the skills that you need to make an immediate impact in your organization while preparing for adoption of the latest version of Visual Studio.

What is Microsoft doing around sustainability, and sustainable IT?  How can Microsoft help customers with our learnings?  Come and hear and share about what you can do in IT, and with IT, to save energy and carbon.

IT Strategy and Business Alignment track focuses on the challenges IT Managers tackle daily, aligning the capabilities of IT with the needs of the business. Session speakers and interactive “peer” dialog sessions address the strengths of the Microsoft integrated platform and solutions designed to ease these challenges.

Managing today's increasingly complex IT infrastructures requires integrated solutions which cross multiple disciplines. Truly integrated toolsets and scenario-based solution sets are key to managing costs during planning, deployment, and maintenance of new IT services required by your organization. In addition, the growing importance of virtualized and cloudbased solutions as well as the need to manage such environments side-by-side with their physical counterparts, makes truly integrated management solutions critical to IT success. The Microsoft® System Center suite provides eight tightly integrated management products which together enable powerful solutions to help plan, install, configure, and monitor your critical applications, services, servers and network. In the Management track, learn how to increase your operational efficiency today using products such as Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Data Protection Manager, and System Center Essentials and the new Service Manager.

You and your customers share the same goal to deliver value by satisfying critical business needs efficiently. Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions from Microsoft Dynamics enable your company to be that kind of business. In turbulent economic times?managing customers effectively is vital to sustaining business growth. The opportunity to be successful through CRM solutions is more important now than ever. The Microsoft Dynamics track at Tech·Ed 2010 expands your technical knowledge of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM v.next  architecture, introduces Microsoft Dynamics CRM v.Next that can help you quickly increase functionality, and shows innovative and valuable new ways to integrate business intelligence and mobility platforms with your existing CRM systems. The Microsoft Dynamics track also introduces an agile xRM platform, designed for rapidly building and deploying custom internal business applications. This track provides the tools and information to create a 360-degree view of your customers, using a highly flexible customer relationship management (CRM) solution that can adapt, grow, and scale with growing business needs.

The Office and SharePoint track provides IT professionals and developers both an overview of all the new investments in the 2010 products and deep drilldowns into specific areas, including Microsoft® Office 2010, Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010 and Microsoft® Project Server 2010. Come and learn from industry experts about best practices and advice on how to architect, design, deploy, and implement world-class solutions built on the Office and SharePoint platform technologies. As an IT professional, learn about SharePoint Server and Office client applications with sessions covering security, deployment, management, customization, and administration. As a developer, learn how to take your Microsoft® ASP.NET expertise to the fast-growing SharePoint ecosystem, how to build on exciting new technologies in SharePoint and Office such as Sandboxed Solutions, REST, and the Client-Side Object Models.

In order to drive growth, businesses are looking to increase collaboration and access to information, while protecting assets and infrastructure. Security continues to be a major concern for IT professionals who are always looking for ways to better secure their organizations and reduce costs without compromising on business productivity. Microsoft brings unique capabilities together to deliver business ready security through protection, access and management solutions all built around user identity and integrated with a highly secure, interoperable platform. This broad identity-centric approach to security helps companies achieve their business goals while managing risk and empowering people. The Security, Identity and Access track provides guidance and technical detail on Microsoft® Forefront™ products, identity-based access technologies, Windows® security technologies, and more!

Microsoft unified communications technologies use the power of software to deliver complete communications—messaging, voice, and video—across the applications and devices that people use every day. The Unified Communications track strengthens your knowledge of the Microsoft Unified Communications platform and technologies, including Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft® Office Communications Server, Microsoft® Exchange Online, and Microsoft® Office Communications Online. Explore how you can streamline your organization’s communications, build presence-aware applications, roll out an on-premise, hosted (or combination thereof) messaging and collaboration system, and much more!

The Virtualization track covers all aspects of virtualization to address the current demands on IT professionals looking to virtualize their environment. Understand the overall Microsoft Virtualization strategy and where the future of virtualization is heading. Learn about Microsoft products in this space, including Windows Server® Hyper-V, Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server, Microsoft® Application Virtualization (App-V), Microsoft® Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager, and Terminal Services (Remote Desktop Services), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), and our new Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit for Enterprises.

The Web and User Experience track brings you all the latest information on cutting-edge Web technologies and provides you with the latest in developing great user experiences from the Windows® desktop to mobile devices to cross-browser and cross-platform on the Web. Get the latest information on Windows Presentation Foundation, XAML, Microsoft® Expression® Studio, and Microsoft® Silverlight™, as well as all the in-depth coverage of Microsoft® Internet Information Services (IIS), ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX, Microsoft® Internet Explorer®, Windows Live™ Platform, and Commerce Server. Whether you are interested in taking your ASP.NET development to the next level, or finding out how you can use your .NET development skills to build rich experiences that run in the Safari browser on the Mac, the Web and User Experience track is for you.

The Windows Client track will offer everything customers need to know about adoption, deployment, virtualization and development for the Optimized Desktop and Windows® 7 Platform. Key focus areas for Tech·Ed 2010 will include a technical dive into Windows 7, Microsoft® Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), and Windows® Internet Explorer® 8. Proposed content will improve customer readiness to asses, implement, support, and drive deployment of Windows and the Optimized Desktop technologies. The track will also focus on migration and upgrade scenarios from Windows XP and Windows Vista to Windows 7, providing best practices and tools for application compatibility and guidance for the right deployment tools. Finally, our track will showcase techniques, and benefits of developing on the Windows 7 Platform, including touch. The Windows Client track will reinvigorate customers on the Windows Client Platform, prepare them for the challenges they face, and provide them the tools to make successful technical decisions for the Optimized Desktop.

With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft takes a fundamentally different approach to phone software. The Windows Phone track gives you the background that you need for this game-changing, new mobile platform. You’ll be introduced to the new phone interface and interaction system and learn how to develop applications with the skills you already have and freely available tools. Find out how Microsoft is delivering a different kind of mobile experience in the Windows Phone track.

The Windows Server family of products provides you with the best solution to build your IT infrastructure. The Windows Server track shows you the solutions and set of technologies to ensure success and new efficiency for every company. In these sessions we focus on a core Windows Server scenario, covering all technical levels and company sizes, including Networking, Direct Access, Virtualization, High Availability, Server Management, Branch Cache, File Services, and Security in the platform.