Kristopher Turner
Bridging the gap between Azure’s clouds and on-prem realities, one hybrid solution at a time!
Castlewood, Virginia, United States
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Kristopher Turner is a Microsoft MVP in Azure, a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), and a Product Technology Architect at TierPoint, where he focuses on delivering innovative cloud and infrastructure solutions. With expertise spanning Azure Local, Azure Arc, Kubernetes, and disaster recovery strategies using ASR, Kristopher bridges on-premises and cloud technologies to drive digital transformation. A sought-after speaker and thought leader, he frequently presents on hybrid architectures, cloud-native technologies, and monitoring solutions, sharing insights from his extensive experience in modern IT infrastructure.
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Windows 365 & Azure Virtual Desktop: What’s New and Lessons from the Field
Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop continue to evolve rapidly, introducing new capabilities that change how organizations design, deploy, and operate virtual desktops. This session highlights the most important recent updates and explains what they actually mean in real-world environments.
We’ll review key developments such as Windows App improvements, AI-enabled Cloud PCs, security and networking enhancements, and platform scalability updates. Beyond the announcements, the session focuses on practical guidance drawn from real customer deployments, production environments, and support experiences.
Attendees will gain insights into design patterns that work, common pitfalls to avoid, and proven approaches for building reliable, performant, and cost-efficient virtual desktop environments.
Why Azure Policy? Because On-Prem Servers Need a Cloud Cop Too!
See how Azure Policy brings law and order to on-premises servers via Azure Arc. This session covers extending Azure’s governance to hybrid setups, ensuring your on-prem infrastructure stays compliant and secure with a touch of cloud magic.
The Hybrid Update Blues: Orchestrating Patches for Servers, VMs, Clusters, and Clouds
Updates are where good architectures go to die. Learn how to orchestrate patching across Azure Local, Hyper-V clusters, standalone servers, Arc-managed machines, and Azure VMs—without turning your environment into a brick collection.
The 12 Days of Azure Stack HCI and Hybrid Cloud
Get ready to unwrap the best of Azure Stack HCI and hybrid cloud technologies in this festive, fun-filled session! Just like the classic “12 Days of Christmas,” each day brings a new gift—scalable clusters, Kubernetes pods, automated backups, Azure Arc management, and more. Join us on this journey through 12 essential capabilities and best practices that will help you optimize workloads, enhance your hybrid cloud strategy, and keep your infrastructure performing like Santa’s workshop at peak season.
Through engaging demos, live performance benchmarking, and interactive discussions, you’ll discover how Azure Stack HCI can power your hybrid environment with resilience, scalability, and efficiency. And yes—there will be music! We’ll sing through each “day” with a unique take on the 12 Days of Christmas to keep things merry and memorable.
This session is perfect for IT pros, architects, and decision-makers looking to enhance their hybrid cloud strategy with Azure Stack HCI. Whether you’re expanding to the edge, managing VMs, or automating updates, you'll leave with new insights, practical tips, and holiday cheer!
Successful migration strategies to Azure Monitor for enterprise monitoring
As more customers onboard computers to Azure Arc-enabled server for purposes of security, licensing, or other management features, there is growing demand to use cloud-native Azure tools to replace legacy monitoring platforms. In fact, Azure Monitor, working with other Azure services like Azure Arc and Azure Policy can deliver an excellent management experience at highly competitive costs. Learn the steps in a project plan to migrate from current management tools to Azure Monitor, including cost estimation. From-the-trenches tips and tricks developed during successful migrations.
One console to manage them all
Azure has a great set of management services including Azure Monitor, Defender for Cloud, and Update Manager. The problem is they're distributed around the Azure portal making you use multiple windows to manage your environment. They also have different billing and onboarding processes. Operations Center is here to fix all that. It consolidates your management tools into a single portal enhanced by the new Azure agents and a single onboarding experience for your VMs. We'll walk through the features that Operations Center provides today and discuss where the Azure management story is going.
Maximizing Your Microsoft Investment: Navigating Licensing, Contracts, and Support
Unlock the full potential of Microsoft with a deep dive into essential licensing and contractual agreements. This presentation will cover key aspects of Microsoft 365 licensing, the new Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA), comparisons between Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) and MCA, MACC and Azure Consumption Discount (ACD), Extended Security Updates (ESU), Unified Support, and other critical support options. Gain insights into optimizing costs, ensuring compliance, and leveraging the best support solutions for your organization.
Evaporate your Environment: Move it to the Cloud
Datacenters are expensive to operate. As infrastructure ages, a lot of companies are making the decision to invest in the cloud instead of investing in HVAC, Generators, and Batteries. But how do we get there? Sure, we can just take what we have and drop it somewhere, but is that the most cost-effective method? Does that make the most business sense? We'll look at the things you should consider, how to manage a large-scale migration, and what decisions you might need to make during the process.
Beyond the Azure Datacenter: A Panel Discussion on Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Operations
Hybrid and multi-cloud environments are no longer edge cases—they are the operating reality for most enterprises. Windows Server workloads running on Hyper-V and SCVMM, Azure Local deployments at the edge, Azure-native services, and workloads hosted in multiple public clouds must all be managed, secured, and monitored together. The challenge isn’t choosing the “right” platform—it’s making all of them work as a cohesive system.
This panel brings together experienced practitioners to discuss how organizations are actually running hybrid and multi-cloud environments today. Panelists will share real-world perspectives on operating Windows Server and virtualization platforms alongside Azure services, extending management and governance with Azure Arc, and handling monitoring, patching, and security across infrastructure Microsoft doesn’t host.
Rather than focusing on a single architecture or toolset, the discussion will explore trade-offs, failure patterns, and lessons learned from the field. Topics will include when traditional tools like SCVMM still make sense, how Azure Arc changes the hybrid operating model, what modern monitoring and health modeling look like outside the Azure datacenter, and how teams can avoid alert fatigue, cost surprises, and operational sprawl.
Attendees should expect candid discussion, contrasting viewpoints, and practical insights drawn from environments that span on-premises datacenters, Azure, edge locations, and other public clouds. This session is designed for IT professionals and operators who need hybrid and multi-cloud to function reliably—not just look good in diagrams.
Azure Update Manager: The Future of Server Patching
After years of effort, you find yourself running a fully modern IT organization. Almost everything Autopatch or SaaS but you still have some servers kicking around. How do you keep them patched?
Come learn the answer: Azure update Manager. A fully cloud-based patching solution with just enough control to solve your server patching needs. We'll walk through the setup process and how to manage patch deployment to both cloud and on-prem server resources. We'll talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly giving an unvarnished view of what it can and can't do.
Breaking Free from VMware: Your Azure Local & Hyper-V Migration Path
Discover how Azure Local and Hyper-V provide a compelling, cost-effective alternative to VMware. Learn migration strategies, compare feature parity, explore Azure Arc integration for hybrid management, understand licensing benefits, and see real-world implementations. We'll cover performance benchmarks, high availability, disaster recovery, and how to leverage Azure services while maintaining on-premises control for your virtualization infrastructure.
Azure Stack /Azure Local - Deploy, Manage and migrate from Hyper-V or VMware
So, Azure Stack HCI is being "updated", it is now part of Azure Local, the biggest change in many years. In this session you will learn how to deploy, what options you have, how to build and use Azure Local cluster with no AD, and simple storge, how to setup and configure AVD on-premiss, there is so many new options when running in a hybrid world
Azure Migrate: Your Bridge to Azure Local
Whether you’re fleeing VMware licensing gravity or planning a slow, graceful migration, Azure Migrate is the Swiss Army knife for discovering, assessing, and moving workloads. This session covers migrating to Azure Local. It will cover migrating from legacy Hyper-V and VMware. Real-world patterns, tools, blockers, and performance expectations included. And finally how to clean up a botched migration effort.
Azure Local: How to Stay Sane While Staying On-Prem
Azure Local is here to modernize your on-prem infrastructure, but managing hybrid environments can feel like juggling flaming swords. This session dives into practical tips and tools to keep your sanity intact while maximizing Azure Local’s capabilities. Spoiler: sanity comes standard with Azure Arc integration.
AVD Anywhere: Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Local Without Losing Your Mind
AVD on Azure Local is powerful—but comes with quirks the docs gloss over. This session covers hybrid AVD architecture, image builds, VMSS oddities, FSLogix tuning, GPU placement, identity flow, networking constraints, and hybrid lifecycle management. We’ll dig into monitoring patterns, cost-conscious logging, patching workflows, and the “haunted host pool” failures everyone eventually hits. If you want AVD to behave on-prem, this is the session.
Automating Azure Virtual Desktop Deployment with VS Code and GitHub Copilot
Join Microsoft MVP and Product Technology Architect, Kristopher Turner, for a live demo on automating Azure Virtual Desktop deployments to Azure and Azure Local using GitHub Copilot and VS Code. Learn how to accelerate hybrid AVD rollouts, apply governance with Azure Policy, and streamline operations with AI-assisted Infrastructure as Code. Whether you're managing Microsoft 365 environments, enabling remote work, or securing hybrid edge deployments, this session is packed with actionable insights
Ask the Azure MVPs
Grab a drink and bring your questions about Azure. The MVPs will answer them or at least say a bunch of words that sound intelligent.
Arc of Power: Managing and Securing Multi-Cloud with Azure Arc
Multi-cloud complexity meets Azure Arc simplicity. In this session, you’ll learn how Azure Arc provides a unified approach to managing and securing resources across Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and on-premises environments. We’ll explore how Azure Policy, Update Manager, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud can be used together to enforce governance, automate patching, and strengthen security posture across disparate platforms. You’ll also see how Azure Arc helps extend protection to legacy systems using Extended Security Updates (ESU), all from a single, centralized control plane. This session is ideal for IT professionals looking to reduce operational overhead and regain control in a multi-cloud world.
AI at the Edge: Running Real Workloads on Azure Local Without Setting Anything on Fire
AI doesn’t have to live in hyperscale datacenters. Explore how to deploy AI models, vector search, and ML pipelines on Azure Local: GPU placement, data gravity, Arc machine learning extensions, and edge-optimized design patterns.
IaaS On Azure Stack: Yes it is a valid platform?
Join us as we demo and discus real world examples of using Azure Stack as a valid IaaS solution. We will talk about lifting and shifting to the cloud, Infrastructure as Code, and more. Using Azure services like Update Management, Azure Monitor, Azure Automation, and more to run the full power of the cloud on premises.
It's time to give Kubernetes on Azure Stack a TRY!
Microsoft has released Kubernetes (K8s) for Azure Stack (AzS). K8s can be used to run and orchestrate your Docker containers on hybrid cloud. In this session we will go into reasons why in the world you would run Kubernetes and Containers on Azure Stack. In this session we also will go on the journey of deploying the ACS-Engine based Kubernetes ARM template to your AzS and run your containers. This session will be your guide so you can walk away and start running containers in your AzS instance today!
Hybrid Cloud: Extending Azure Into Your Data Center With Azure Stack.
Using SQL Server 2019 Always On Availability Groups deployed on an Azure Stack Kubernetes Cluster, we will design and deploy applications across Azure and Azure stack to show the best of what both Azure and Azure Stack have to offer. We will have a demo heavy session showing various Hybrid solutions that can fulfil various Hybrid Cloud Use cases we currently see in the enterprise today.
Securing Your Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Systems Using Azure Arc
How to use Azure Arc to secure you multi cloud and on-premises workloads. Demos and discussions about using Azure management tools such as update management, azure policy and more to provide governance and security including defender for cloud and Microsoft sentinel.
Manage permissions of any identity, across any cloud, with one unified platform
Are you interested in what Entra Permissions Management can do? This session goes beyond the onboarding of Azure and Google Cloud Authorizations systems (Subscriptions and Projects). This session we will go deeper into how to analyze the data collected and move into how to create reports, run audits, and even allowing Entra Permissions Management to automate some of the remediation tasks.
Azure Site Recovery. Don’t recover your resume but recover your servers.
This demo-rich presentation will dive into Azure Site Recovery. We will discuss some real-world examples, how to deploy ASR, how to configure your environment to failover to Azure, how to failover from Azure to Azure, and most importantly how to fallback if needed.
Can you replace on premise tools like SCOM and ConfigMgr with cloud solutions?
This session will allow for discussion and demos around cloud solutions to help you move your in premises management tools into the cloud. Azure Arc, Azure Update Management, Server and Client deployments from the cloud, and more.
Entra Permissions Management, what is it and do I need it?
Let’s talk Entra Permissions Management a solution in the Entra family of security and identity products. Demos and open discussion as we dive into this great tool to help manage permission across multiple clouds
The 12 Days of Azure Arc-mas
Azure Arc provides a consistent management experience, bringing Azure services to infrastructure across multi-cloud, on-premises, and edge. Just like the 12 days of Christmas give us unique and memorable gifts, Azure Arc delivers a suite of gifts to your IT management needs.
Deploy Kubernetes on Azure Stack
This will be a demo rich session on how to deploy Kubernetes on Azure Stack. Will visit some of the differences between K8s on Azure Stack vs Azure. Also some basic management of the newly deployed K8s cluster.
Managing Azure Stack VM's with Azure Update Management and Configuration Management
With the new Azure Update and Configuration Management extension for Azure Stack you can now manage your Azure Stack VM's from within Azure's Update Management and Configuration Management. This will be a quick demo on how to install the extension on a single Azure Stack VM or deploy the extension using an ARM template to multiple Azure Stack VM's. As well as a demo of how to update your Azure Stack VM's, monitor changes, and get inventory from within the Update Management and Configuration Management tools in Azure.
Beyond the Cloud | Azure Stack Edge
This session will dive into Azure Stack Edge, an AI-enabled edge computing device with network data transfer capabilities. We will explore the use cases for "just-enough-compute" at the edge and demonstrate how to configure compute and storage on Azure Stack Edge.
Azure Stack Experts Panel
Join this global list of Azure Stack Experts for an open question and answer session as we discuss real world scenarios.
Whales, Helmsman, and the Borg! Oh my! Kubernetes in Azure and Azure Stack!
New to Kubernetes? Looking to move small to large enterprises to containers? Learn about Kubernetes on many platforms running both on Azure and Azure Stack. From Pivotal’s PKS to AKS, find out how to have a successful experience with Kubernetes.
Building Cloud Native Hybrid Apps with Azure (1.Stack)
In this session, we will explore how Microsoft Cloud can provide edge compute for developing intelligent apps. We will further discuss edge and disconnected scenarios with Microsoft Azure & Azure Stack. Join us to experience a live demo of extending your cloud native app strategy to from Azure to Azure Stack.
MMS 2025 Music City Edition Sessionize Event
M365 Community Days NYC Sessionize Event
MMS 2025 at MOA Sessionize Event
Microsoft 365 Nashville Community Day 2025 Sessionize Event
Festive Tech Calendar 2024 Sessionize Event
Festive Tech Calendar 2023 Sessionize Event
DFWSMUG April 2023 User group Sessionize Event
HASMUG - 2304 - Security Edition Sessionize Event
Festive Tech Calendar 2022 Sessionize Event
MVPDays "Azure Stack / Azure Stack HCI" Day Online 2020 Sessionize Event
Experts Live Europe 2019 Sessionize Event
MVPDays "Azure Stack / Azure Stack HCI" Day Online Sessionize Event
MVPDays Azure Day Online Sessionize Event
MVPDays Online November 2018 Sessionize Event
Kristopher Turner
Bridging the gap between Azure’s clouds and on-prem realities, one hybrid solution at a time!
Castlewood, Virginia, United States
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