Andrew took over for Jeff Alexander in Adelaide.  Here are his responses to my mini-interview questions.

Aside from the boiler plate text that is posted on the eForum web site about your presentation, what would you say are the cool points in your presentation? 

SMS ITMU rocks!   Being able to easily get the updates I need for ALL Microsoft products, and Custom Updates with R2 makes my life a hell of a lot easier.   Also being able to richly target the distribution of said patches and roll them back when needed saves heaps of time and money, not to mention keeping me safe from security issues.

MOM ADMP is also cool…. That diagram view knocks me senseless everytime…

 From your talk, what are the top 3 things you want the attendees to take home with them?

• Patching is not an option, it’s a requirement.
• If Active Directory is not resilient to attacks, your whole network is compromised.
• Being able to proactively address problems as they occur means there is less likelihood of AD disasters in the future.

 Why is your talk important, what is the industry need behind it?  

The industry needs to be aware that Patching and Monitoring are vital to a healthy network, which is turn is vital to keeping your network secure.

Who do you think will get the most from your talk? 

IT Pros with a management bent, also those people who have not seen the need for monitoring previously.

What is your ‘pet’ security topic?

Patch Management and the nuances thereof. 

What do you think IT Pro and Developers need to be looking to do better in the future?

Better coding practises, leading to more secure code, leading to fewer patches, leading to redundancies for Patch Management guys (dammit) J

 Stay tuned for more answers from the experts!