Agenda
6 tracks and more than 60 sessions are designed to meet the needs of your data center like never before. What’s in store? An in-depth focus on your critical priorities, powerful best practices to ratchet up efficiency, a fresh look at the tools and technologies that are “must-have’s,” plus an exclusive look at emerging trends taking your data center in new directions.
Custom Agendas
Grappling with Cost?
Not too long ago, technology comprised the lion’s share of data center spending. Now that’s shifted to labor costs. How do you reduce them? It’s imperative to make people and systems more efficient. Discover new ways how. View the Cost sessions.
Grappling with Growth?
There are more mission-critical applications now than there were 5 years ago. And don’t expect a slowdown anytime soon. Meanwhile, the legacy workload isn’t disappearing. Is virtualization the only answer? View the Growth sessions.
Grappling with Process?
Improving processes in the data center requires smarter, more agile use of technology and people – whether that’s incorporating business continuity into the guts of your long-term planning or streamlining the organization of your IT infrastructure operations. Get the solutions you’re after. View the Process sessions.
Analyst/User Roundtable Topics
To CMDB or not to CMDB!
Moderator: Ronni Colville & Patricia Adams
Wednesday, November 28, 10:45-11:45am
CMDB is on just about everyone's to-do list. With a flurry of projects focused on ITIL process frameworks coupled with a variety of vendor's marketecture claiming CMDBs, IT organizations are challenged to ensure that they have the right prerequisites in play before they embark on this journey. While many IT organizations think they need a CMDB, not all do. And while so many vendors are claiming a CMDB, many do not have one. IT organizations must start develop a plan and determine and assess process maturity, organizational alignment and ensure that configuration data is trusted. Have you developed the baselines and goals for CMDB initiative? Join us at this user round table to discuss with your peers what steps others are taking to prepare for their CMDBs.
IT Infrastructure & Operations Consolidation
Moderators: Jay Pultz & John Phelps
Wednesday, November 28, 10:45-11:45am
Consolidating I&O remains a major focus for Data Center Managers to reduce cost, increase service levels and improve manageability. And all aspects of infrastructure are fair game here – such as data centers, severs, storage, networks and even client devices. Furthermore, consolidation is a prerequisite for virtualization – the most impactful change that is happening in I&O today and through at least 2010. Come join your peers in discussing their actual experiences and plans when it comes to consolidation.
Deploying Storage for Virtualized Servers
Moderator: Bob Passmore
Wednesday, November 28, 3:00-4:00pm
The movement to a virtualized server infrastructure has created new challenges and questions about storage deployments and management. In this roundtable, we will hear the challenges that many of your peers have faced in this area and discuss how they are responding to ensure the right mix of cost and storage service levels.
Log Management for IT Security and IT Operations
Moderator: Mark Nicolett & David Williams
Wednesday, November 28, 3:00-4:00pm
Many organizations have implemented log management capabilities to meet regulatory audit requirements, but the technology can also be used to improve network and systems management capabilities. This session will focus on sharing best practices for the application of log management technology for operations capabilities such as root cause analysis and change detection.
The Power and Cooling Challenge in the Data Center
Moderator: Dave Cappuccio & Lynne Craver
Wednesday, November 28, 3:00-4:00pm
With the advent of high density computer equipment such as blade servers, many data centers have maxed out their power and cooling capacity. It's now possible to pack racks with equipment requiring 30 thousand watts per rack or more in connected load. The heat produced by this high density requires new solutions in power and cooling management, specialty cooling solutions, data center design and layout, and processor efficiency. This user roundtable will provide a forum for attendees to share their experiences with the power and cooling problem and also discuss their perspectives on solutions; including product and service offerings.
ITIL Implementation Best Practices and Lessons Learned
Moderator: Ed Holub
Wednesday, November 28, 5:00-6:00pm
Many organizations have moved past talking about the IT Infrastructure Library and are in the midst of implementing at least portions of it. Learn from peers what has worked for them, and perhaps more importantly what they would do differently if given the chance.
Developing effective Service Level Agreements
Moderator: David Coyle
Wednesday, November 28, 5:00-6:00pm
Service level Agreements (SLAs) are essential for opening up communications between IT Operations and the business and ensuring that IT is delivering the services and value that meet the expectations of the business. This interactive session with your peers will focus on tips, best practices, and pitfalls for developing SLAs that are meaningful to the business and help promote IT.
Best Practices for Continuous Application Availability
Moderator: Donna Scott
Thursday, November 29, 8:00-9:00am
Downtime of critical IT application services cripples business processes, causing loss of revenues and damaging company reputation. This session will focus on sharing best practices for achieving high levels of IT service availability, including architecting IT services for continuous availability, the importance of change and configuration management and testing.
Best Practices in Server Virtualization
Moderator: Cameron Haight & George Weiss
Thursday, November 29, 8:00-9:00am
The movement to a virtualized server infrastructure has impacted both positively and negatively traditional IT operations processes. In this roundtable, we will hear the challenges that many of your peers have faced in this area and discuss how they are responding to ensure that critical service levels continue to be met.
Deploying Controller Based Replication D/R Solutions
Moderator: Stanley Zaffos
Thursday, November 29, 1:30-2:30pm
Deploying robust D/R solutions is a complex, time consuming, error prone and expensive process. In this roundtable, your peers will discuss the many challenges they faced in designing, deploying, managing and testing their D/R solutions.
Disaster Recovery Service Alternatives
Moderator: John Morency
Thursday, November 29, 1:30-2:30pm
Many organizations are in the process of evaluating the cost effectiveness and sustainability of disaster recovery service alternatives. Learn from peers what has worked for them, and perhaps more importantly what they would do differently if given the chance.
Third Generation Linux: How to Achieve the Rewards and Minimize the Pain
Moderator: George Weiss
Thursday, November 29, 4:30-5:30pm
Many organizations have moved past the first two Linux generations of basic infrastructure and simple web and applications to enterprise critical and strategic deployments. Discuss with peers what the experiences have been – the good, the bad and sometimes ugly – and derive best practices to minimize risks.
How Mature Is Your IT Infrastructure and Operations?
Moderator: Jay Pultz
Thursday, November 29, 4:30-5:30pm
Gartner has recently introduced our Infrastructure and Operations Maturity Model (IOMM). Using the IOMM as a structure, participants will share views on their relative I&O maturity across four key dimensions: people, process, technology and business management. Additionally, views will be shared on best practices to improve I&O maturity.
Best Practices in Server Centralization via Wide Area File Services
Moderator: Joe Skorupa
Friday, November 30, 8:00-9:00am
The movement to centralize and consolidate branch office servers enhances control over data, but often causes significant performance problems. In this roundtable, we will hear the challenges that many of your peers have faced in this area and discuss how they are responding to ensure that critical service levels continue to be met.
Network Management Tools of the Trade
Moderator: Deb Curtis
Friday, November 30, 8:00-9:00am
Join your industry colleagues for a peer exchange on the network management tools that have helped (or hindered!) IT organizations as they attack everything from the basics of network configuration management, network discovery/topology mapping, network fault management and troubleshooting, all the way to the more proactive network performance management, capacity planning and predictive network modeling and simulation best practices.
