Track D: Key Innovations and Best Practices to Modernize your Data Center
Data center managers are continuously challenged to deliver a highly available, secure, flexible data center infrastructure as the foundation for the business' mission-critical applications. In addition, they must grapple with agility, service levels, responsiveness, cost, technology selection, energy consumption, environmental planning, administrative management and location issues. Particularly challenging is the explosive growth in storage requirements and its implications. The emerging concepts of fabric computing with vertical integration of server, storage and network systems and components with some level of management software is another area of both risk and opportunity. Faced with a bewildering array of technology innnovations and discontinuities this track will address the factors that are driving these changes and explore the benefits, savings and investment.
Sessions
Storage Scenario – Getting to Underwhelmed
13 June, 2011 (10:45 AM - 11:45 AM)
The storage infrastructure required to support a virtualized data center will be much different in 2014. This session focuses on making the right decisions today to avoid problems in the future. Up for examination are the new hardware technologies and storage system architectures. Also discussed are the new storage software offerings that will address issues of lowering costs, and simplifying the management of the storage infrastructure while satisfying demanding SLAs.
The Server Scenario: Riding the Server Technology Roller Coaster
13 June, 2011 (01:45 PM - 02:45 PM)
Not long ago, server technology evolved at a slow and predictable rate. The mainstream vendors, server types and products along with their value propositions were well-understood by IT organizations. However, in recent years, the situation has changed dramatically. Today, IT organizations face a staggering array of new technologies, and users grapple with decisions relative to developments such as blades, fabrics and multicore. The economic climate has caused many organizations to revisit basic assumptions, such as how long to hold on to servers, how many vendors to work with for a given platform or operating environment, and how to best utilize personnel and deal with skill shortages.
Future Data Centers: How to Increase Capacity and Improve Efficiency In a Much Smaller Space
13 June, 2011 (04:15 PM - 05:15 PM)
The traditional method of data center design and equipment placement has started to shift, and leading-edge companies are realizing that smaller designs, or retrofits, can accommodate 300% - 500% more compute capacity per square foot. This presentation discusses this trend and show models that validate the concepts.
Wrestling Control: Power Strategies for Data Lifecycle Management
13 June, 2011 (05:30 PM - 06:30 PM)
Stored on corporate storage systems, data is rarely deleted and continues to take up operations time and IT dollars. Furthermore, when the data is actually needed, it is often impossible to retrieve. This session outlines what needs to be done to weed out duplicate and junk data, how historical data should be stored so it can be accessed, and how to reduce the cost of storing it.
Backup Redefined: Rearchitecting Data Recovery
14 June, 2011 (10:15 AM - 11:15 AM)
Every organization struggles with their backup and recovery practices. Server farms, the number of applications and the network infrastructure have grown tremendously in recent years. But often the backup approach for each has not kept pace. Now IT organizations are being asked to protect remote office and mobile employees as well. Service levels, scale and ease of use are often challenges. Learn what new technologies are available to better address current and upcoming recovery challenges and find out where the backup market is headed in the future.
Best Practices in Data Center and Server Consolidation
14 June, 2011 (01:15 PM - 02:15 PM)
The economy has put added pressure on many organizations to more efficiently utilize the capacity they have in place. As such, even though many organizations have past experiences with consolidation projects, they are finding they are under increased pressure to optimize costs and possibly further consolidate. The good news is that advances in technology have made second- and third-wave consolidation projects now viable. This session looks at key trigger points in deciding when to consolidate, best practices in how to get started and recommendations for each phase of a consolidation project.
Uptime All the Time
14 June, 2011 (05:30 PM - 06:30 PM)
The speed and pace of business demands around-the-clock availability for mission critical applications and IT services. Moreover, the proportions of mission-critical applications are growing due to application integration and componentization. In addition, applications are more frequently being enhanced due to rapidly changing business requirements and the use of more agile development methodologies. This can result in increased application and business process downtime if resiliency strategies, architectures and processes are not well developed and executed. If your business is demanding higher levels of availability, don’t miss this session.
Best Practices for the Design and Implementation of Critical Data Center Facility Systems
15 June, 2011 (08:00 AM - 09:00 AM)
Principal in data center design should be the concepts of efficiency, flexibility, and scalability. When looking to upgrade or build a new data center there are five critical areas that should be considered in your designs and decisions. This session examines best practices in the five critical areas of site selection, fire protection, security, power and cooling:
Is a Radical Server Right for You?: Replacing x86 with ARM, MIPS, ATOM et al
15 June, 2011 (10:00 AM - 11:00 AM)
New server makers beckon with claims of dramatic reductions in energy usage, sharply lower costs and substantial increases in density. Is this an idea whose time has come or are their hidden costs, unrealized risks and unexpected complexities that will turn a dream solution into a nightmare? This session explores the genesis of this new approach, explores the realities of these new server types for various uses and proposes a decision framework for evaluating whether and when to make a shift away from the mainstream x86 server market.
