Ignite 2019 is still ringing in our ears: Azure Arc announcements, Edge Chromium momentum, Teams as the center of gravity for collaboration, security messaging that assumes identity is the control plane, and a thousand breakout sessions that all claim to be the future. This post is not a session catalog. It is what we are telling Microsoft-shop CIOs and infrastructure leads to put into 2020 planning — and what we are telling them to ignore.
The through-line from our practice: hybrid is the strategy, not the apology.
What “hybrid is the strategy” means in practice
For a decade, “hybrid” was sold as a temporary bridge to a pure cloud end state. Some workloads will get there. Many enterprises we serve will not be pure anything by 2022, and designing as if they will produces brittle programs.
Hybrid as strategy means:
- Identity is deliberate (Azure AD + on-prem directory with known sync topology and health)
- Network paths to Office 365 and Azure are designed, measured, and owned
- Management planes (ConfigMgr, Intune, co-management) have a written destination
- Data gravity is respected — not every database is a hero migration story
- Sovereignty, latency, and app coupling are first-class inputs, not footnotes
Azure Arc’s direction — manage servers and Kubernetes across environments with Azure control planes — fits that worldview. We will not deploy Arc everywhere next month because a keynote existed. We will evaluate it where multi-cloud and multi-datacenter operations already hurt.
Teams is no longer optional
If Skype for Business Online retirement (July 2021) did not fund your Teams program, Ignite’s continued Teams gravity should. Meetings, calling roadmaps, and the collaborative surface area keep expanding. Islands mode as a forever state remains a mistake. Voice and rooms remain the long pole. We covered the runway earlier this year; Ignite did not lengthen the calendar.
Edge Chromium and the browser as endpoint
Edge moving to Chromium is good news for web LOB compatibility pressure that IE11 still creates in 2019. It is not a free “retire all old browsers” button. Application certification, GPO/ADMX, and extension control still need a program. Pair browser strategy with Windows 10 servicing and Conditional Access device signals.
Security: identity-first is not a slogan anymore
Every security session rhymes: assume breach, identity as perimeter, legacy auth as liability, admin tiering. For our clients, the actionable 2020 list is boring and valuable:
- Block legacy authentication where inventory allows (see our basic auth notes)
- Privileged Identity Management / just-in-time admin where licensed
- Tiered admin workstations for tier-0
- Endpoint detection coverage that includes VDI session hosts, not only laptops
- Backup and recovery drills that include identity recovery, not only file recovery
Supply-chain trust is not yet in this industry’s daily vocabulary as we write — the principle still holds: trust chains and privileged paths need design.
Azure IaaS honesty after the hype cycle
Lift-and-shift still exists; FinOps still follows. Arc and hybrid management features do not fix a VM that should have been retired. Our 2020 assessment stance is unchanged: right-size, classify, exit what you can, land what you must, measure monthly cost with owners.
Windows Virtual Desktop GA (September) belongs in the desktop strategy conversation next to Citrix and RDS — requirements-matched, not keynote-matched.
What we are putting in 2020 plans for clients
- Identity health as a funded ops workstream (AD Connect, PTA/federation, CA)
- Teams meeting-first progress with voice discovery started
- Legacy auth burn-down with service-account ownership
- Windows 7 residual risk closed or explicitly accepted with ESU/isolation
- VDI/WVD decision paper with cost and UX criteria
- DR tests that actually run (ASR or secondary site — pick and rehearse)
- Patch and vulnerability cadence that assumes commodity worm risk is normal
If your 2020 plan is only “migrate more to cloud,” it is a slogan. Attach owners and dates.
What we are not doing because of Ignite
- Ripping out working Citrix for WVD without a pilot metric
- Deploying every newly announced Azure service into production in Q1
- Promising pure cloud identity with no on-prem exit for apps that still bind to LDAP like it is 2005 without funding those app changes
- Letting security PowerPoints replace protocol inventory
Field posture for a Microsoft-centric consultancy
Our stack remains pragmatic: Office 365 hybrid migrations, Azure landing where it pays, System Center and modern management coexistence, VDI that meets SLAs, identity that pages at 3 a.m. when broken. Ignite confirms Microsoft’s center of gravity; it does not suspend operations physics.
One-page 2020 plan template we leave behind
| Initiative | Owner | Q1 outcome | Risk if slipped |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legacy auth burn-down | Identity | Pilot CA block | Password spray exposure |
| Teams meeting default | Collaboration | Mode decision + pilot | Skype Online deadline crush |
| Win7 residual | Desktop | Zero unmanaged or accepted ESU | Post-EOL incident |
| VDI strategy paper | EUC | WVD vs Citrix decision | Hardware refresh waste |
| Identity health ops | Platform | Monitored AD Connect/PTA | 3 a.m. pages without runbooks |
| DR test | Infrastructure | Measured RTO | Binder-only DR |
Fill the owners before you fill the product names from Ignite.
If you're facing this
If your board wants an “Ignite strategy” deck, give them a hybrid operating model with funded identity, Teams, and legacy-risk burn-down — not a list of product names. We help Microsoft-shop teams turn event hype into year plans with owners. Bring your current architecture diagram and the three initiatives you already know are understaffed.