- Peer Learning
- Optional Data Center Tours
- Optional Tutorials
- Keynote Address
- Cloud Computing Track
- Data Center Management Track
- End User Case Studies Track
- Facilities Management Track
- Roundtable Discussions
- Product Information Sessions
- Open Forum Closing Session
- Event Overview
- Technologies
- Exhibiting Companies by Name
- Exhibiting Companies by Classification
- Floor Plan
- Strategic Partners
- Data Center World Sponsors
- Data Center World Raffle
- Data Center World End-User Expo Only Pass
With the integration of IT and business, best practices in management processes and procedures have never been as important as they are today. From technology to staffing, security, disaster recovery and more, how you manage these resources will ultimately determine your success.
DCM01: Utilizing ITIL to Take Control of Physical and Software Assets in the Data Center
Jon Lorton, National Data Center Management Specialist, Emerson Network Power
Jon Lorton has over 25 year of experience in systems management. He has worked with a variety of management disciplines including Data Center Modeling, Identity and Security Management, Software and Operating Systems Deployment Management, Service Desk Solutions, Virtualization Management, and integration with the ITIL framework. Jon is currently a National Data Center Management Specialist working with Data Center Management Modeling solutions for Emerson Network Power. His knowledge includes current and future market trends in data center management.
How does ITIL and ITAM increase system availability and uptime in the data center? Bringing standard processes into your data center reduces risk and increases availability. Identifying and managing data center assets have become more difficult due to the use of virtualization, blade servers and ever-changing software deployments. To complicate it further, many organizations manage physical and software assets in different systems, by different teams. Today's data center requires a philosophical change in data ownership and integration into frameworks such as ITIL and the use of CMDBs. This session dives into how data center managers can design systems that allow physical, virtual and software management systems to integrate and work as one entity.
DCM02: Understanding and Managing Today's Compliance Challenges
Robert Klotz, VP Technology, Akibia
As vice president of Technology at Akibia, Robert Klotz partners with Akibia's customers, serving as a high-level resource for advice and best practices while also ensuring the company is delivering services that align with customer priorities. Robert has more than 15 years experience creating and delivering leading-edge technology solutions. In 2001 he was named one of ComputerWorld's "Premier 100 IT Leaders."
With too many compliance requirements, and not enough staff or resources within the data center to address every mandate, most IT managers approach compliance in a piece meal fashion that addresses one regulation at a time. As a result, data center teams are overworked, over budget, and despite duplicated efforts, compliance remains an uncertainty. Gartner research suggests that companies that select individual solutions for each regulatory challenge spend 10 times more on the IT portion of compliance projects than companies that take a proactive and more integrated approach. This presentation will discuss the latest compliance challenges and offer insight into the best way to manage compliance with a more holistic approach.
DCM03: RFID 2.0 in the Data Center – Automating Security and Audit Capability
Patrick J. Sweeney II, Author of RFID for Dummies, Odin Technologies
Patrick Sweeney is a proven technology visionary and founder of the RFID industry. He is the author of two books: RFID for Dummies and the CompTIA RFID+ Study Guide and is well-recognized as a thought leader in the RFID industry with multiple patents. His combination of technical expertise and go-to-market success has enabled him to constantly be ahead of the market. Patrick has been interviewed in CIO Magazine, The Washington Post, Fortune Magazine, Fox and ABC News.
In order to better manage their assets, today's data center managers are turning to passive radio frequency identification (RFID) to track servers, routers and other network gear. A scientifically based system can automate the security and tracking of IT assets, and costs half of what it would have cost just a year ago, with 99.9% accuracy. Come find out the keys to a successful implementation from the industry's foremost expert and never worry about an audit again.
DCM04: Data Center Optimization
Tim Dueck, CDCP, Global Solution Architect, Dell
Timothy Dueck is a senior consultant in Dell's Global Infrastructure Consulting Services group. He provides consulting and assessment services globally as part of Dell's Data Center Optimization Practice. He has over 20 years of experience working with customers such as State Farm, General Motors, E*Trade, General Electric and BAE. Prior to joining Dell, Timothy was a Senior Technical Architect with Intel. He is an ICOR certified Data Center Professional.
Data center optimization can be a complicated mixture of physical infrastructure, enterprise architecture and operations. This session reviews the challenges of operating a world class data center, and describes a roadmap to best practices through practical and simple assessment, design and implementation phases. Simplicity is the key to making data center changes that will result in lower costs, higher productivity and better performance. The presentation will cover energy efficient infrastructure, high performance technical architectures and operational practices that will minimize downtime and improve service quality.
DCM05: Pods in Data Centers. What Is Everyone Talking About?
Gregory Goode, National Data Center Practice Manager, The Frame Group Pty Ltd
Greg Goode is a senior Data Centre Practice Manager specializing in data center consulting with the Australian-based company, The Frame Group. Greg has extensive knowledge and expertise in a diverse range of information and communication technology environments, facility infrastructure and civil infrastructure technology. Greg's 36 years of experience in the IT industry spans technological solutions that have addressed many generations of IT delivery. In the last 10 years, Greg's skills have assisted users to strategize, design and construct technologies that constitute this contemporary "data center."
This presentation discusses the pod architecture that is starting to be used in data centers. The session will review the architecture and the technology that makes up the pod, highlighting what issues the pod is attempting to address in the data center. Included will be examples of how these solutions are being deployed and a review of the advantages and disadvantages in utilizing data center pods.
DCM06: Using Third Party Maintenance Providers to Lower Your Costs
Robert Michel, Data Center Manager, Signature Technology Group
Robert Michel has been in the IT field for over 35 years. The last 10 years he has helped companies all over the U.S. to lower costs for IT support by using Third Party Maintenance (TPM) companies rather than the OEMs for post-warranty service. Robert was also heavily engaged in the Y2K movement with some of the largest companies in the U.S. Prior to that, he was an operating systems development specialist at Honeywell.
As companies are being forced to keep and run equipment longer, they are finding an increased need for post-warranty support of their IT equipment. While the OEM is the default choice to provide this support, Third Party Maintenance (TPM) companies are also a viable solution. How do you choose the right company? What benefits will result from selecting a TPM over the OEM? Are there services that TPMs cannot provide? This session will answer all of these questions and more.
DCM07: Acquiring Funding for a Data Center Facility Project
Rich Cotten, Director of Data Centers, Arnold & O'Sheridan
Rich Cotten offers singular insight into the planning and design of data centers. Drawing from his in-depth experience working with stakeholders, Rich focuses on creating date centers that deliver unmitigated uptime and performance, energy and operational efficiency, reliability and security, flexibility and scalability for the future.
Analysts are forecasting that over 80% of U.S. companies will have inadequate data center capacity within the next 12-24 months. Yet obtaining capital funding for building a new or expanding an existing facility is a major obstacle. This session explores the capital funding process, elements of a successful data center facility fund proposal and pitfalls to avoid during this process.
DCM08: Build vs. Buy: Vendor Selection and TCO
Daniel Hahn, Associate Director of Technical Services, Trans Union Interactive
Daniel Hahn is a certified PMP (Project Management Professional) and has over 20 years information technology management and project management experience. This experience has provided a solid foundation in technical architecture, project management, system analysis, operations and technical staff management. Moreover, Daniel teaches and conveys the symbiotic relationship of technology and successful business management through Build vs. Buy Analysis, Vendor Selection, Total Cost of Ownership and Return on Investment processes.
This session provides tools that assist in determining if an organization should build or purchase a solution based on the total cost of ownership for both alternatives. It will also include a discussion on how to select the right vendor once the decision to purchase takes place.
DCM09: Data Center Management 101
Ray Baumann, Data Center Manager, Arch Chemicals
Ray Baumann is the data center operations and IT support manager for Arch Chemicals – a global specialty chemical manufacturing company. With Arch Chemicals since 1999, Ray is a retired U.S. Air Force officer with over 26 years of experience in the IT industry. Ray is a Certified Data Center Design professional and ITIL certified. He is also a veteran presenter at previous Data Center World conferences.
If you are new to the role of data center/operations management you will want to attend this presentation. Many data center managers "inherit" legacy data centers, not designed for today's computing environment or inherit the job of data center manager without a strong data center management background. This session will cover "real life" experiences from a seasoned data center manager who inherited a data center not designed for a server/storage-based environment. He will discuss some home grown tips, tricks, and tools on outage prevention covering UPS, Generator, Cooling, and other data center management topics. You will walk away from this session with some easy-to-implement tips and tricks for improving your data center.
DCM10: Collaboration: How to Resolve Communication Gaps
Kenneth Jackson, Vice President, Fortress Technology Group
Kenneth Jackson has been involved in the electronics industry since 1996 with the bulk of years working with data centers. Most recently he was responsible for supporting the maintenance, growth, and migrations of nine data centers across the U.S. and Canada for AMD. After significant corporate restructuring within AMD, Ken turned down multiple offers in order to create Fortress Technology Group. FTGs main focus is energy management within the data center.
One of the greatest problems in today's critical environment is a lack of collaboration. For example, it is crucial fo IT and Facilities personnel to work together, but this doesn't always happen. Most managers are aware of this communication gap but do not know how to address the situation. This session will look at how new monitoring and control software tools can address these concerns in a simple and straightforward manner. To date there are several manufacturers with new software tools that allow real time data collection to be shared across all departments while ensuring system safety and integrity. We will analyze how these systems can help your personnel work together in the data center to make on-the-fly decisions using real time information. This collaboration will allow you to resolve even the most significant issues in less time.
DCM11: Time Management for the Data Center Manager
Darrell Gardner, Director of Market Development and eMarketing, PlanNet Consulting
Darrell Gardner has been involved with IT for 25 years, specifically with data center implementations and associated systems migrations. As a former director of IT and principal IT infrastructure consultant, he has significant experience in the transitional challenges of moving a data center and the applications that live there. Darrell has spoken at user groups regarding server operations, security and management. He has been architecting, planning and leading data center migrations since 1997. Currently, he is a principal consultant and manager of strategic initiatives with PlanNet Consulting.
Do you find yourself lacking the time to meet deadlines for projects and goals? After you've set your goals, what systems do you have in place to achieve them? This session will look at the driving factor of successful project management: setting goals and using time management as a tool for success. The speaker will discuss several techniques used to take control of your schedule and meet all project and personal goals.
DCM12: Evaluating a Colocation Data Center
Kirk A. Killian, Executive Vice President, Partners National Mission Critical Facilities
Kirk A. Killian is Executive Vice President at Partners National Mission Critical Facilities, a specialty real estate brokerage firm representing financial institutions, IT outsourcers and telecom companies in selecting and procuring data centers (both dedicated facilities and colo space) worldwide. Kirk has represented many leading corporations in selecting and procuring data center and telecom switch facilities in 30 states and internationally.
Many data center managers that traditionally run and occupy their own facility have begun evaluating the option of leasing data center space in third party colocation facilities to meet immediate needs for more space or power, improve business continuity, or overcome budget constraints. The colocation data center industry has improved significantly since the "dot com" era, but it is not "One Size Fits All," nor is it right for all IT users. This informative, interactive session will help attendees determine if colocation data center leasing is a good fit for their specific organizational and project needs, discussing strengths and weaknesses of this facility delivery model. The presentation will include an overview of the colocation data center industry, including key terminology, metrics and pricing models, plus a "Top 10 List" of questions to answer about any prospective facility to ensure the right organizational fit, control costs and maintain contract flexibility.
DCM13: Designing a Virtualized Data Center
Arup Chakravarty, Sr. Solutions Architect, Cisco
Arup Chakravarty has more than 16 years of IT industry experience. Eleven of those were spent working for Cisco with Fortune 200+ global companies in financial, pharmaceutical, retail and service provider verticals. His expertise includes technologies such as LAN, WAN, security, application networking, video, and storage. Arup specializes in designing scalable, secure, resilient, cost effective, energy efficient global end-to-end data center architectures.
Virtualization technologies in a data center enable cost effective, green, ITIL-friendly architectures that do more with less. This session will highlight approaches to designing a virtualized data center, addressing network, computer and storage components. It will also include an in-depth discussion about industry trends for adopting emerging technologies within the data center, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of virtualization.
DCM14: Getting Serious About Data Center Automation
David Cramer, Vice President, Product Management, CA, Inc.
David Cramer is vice president of Product Management for the Virtualization and Service Automation Business Unit at CA. David has spent the past 15 years focused on IT automation solutions for applications, systems and networks. He recently joined CA from AlterPoint where he was vice president of Product Marketing and Product Management. David earned an MBA from Southern Methodist University and a BBA from Georgia State University.
Want to learn how to better support the goals of your business with data center automation? Whether you are just starting to leverage automation, moving quickly toward virtualization or building an internal cloud, this session provides an opportunity to learn how automation and virtualization help address operational considerations today and in the future. Learn the four key steps to take and the four pitfalls to avoid in order increasing efficiency, lower costs and bring greater value to the business while preparing for future innovation.
DCM15: Raised Floor Tune-Up: How to Get the Most From Your Infrastructure
W.L. McCulloch Jr., Principal, DFW Consulting Group
As principal of DFW Consulting Group, Inc., W.L. McCulloch, Jr., PE, LEED AP focuses on technology and commercial projects. He has been involved in engineering project management since 1972, with more than 20 million square feet of hotels, high-rises, mission critical facilities, commercial buildings, corporate headquarters and healthcare facilities to his credit. A LEED Accredited Professional since 2004, W.L. has completed several LEED recognized projects. He is an active member of ASHRAE and is an associate member of the Dallas AIA.
Ray Pfeifer, SVP Business Development, SynapSense Corporation
Ray Pfeifer is Senior Vice President of Business Development at SynapSense, a mesh wireless sensor networking company. He has over 20 years of design experience for research labs, biotech and semiconductor plants and data centers. Ray is Co-Chair of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Other accomplishments include being a part of: the data center energy efficiency initiative USGBC Data Center LEED Adaption Working Group and research contributor to LBNL for development of DOE DCPro Assessment Tools.
A lot of time is spent on defining best practices related to new data center construction; yet more than 80% of the challenges actually center around existing installations. This presentation addresses practical methods of optimizing existing operations resulting in increased capital benefits: how to eliminate cold air waste and fix hot spots; how to recover tonnage capacity of your CRAHs and chillers; how to improve your monitoring using a breakthrough technology and how to improve your PUE and increase reliability all at the same time. Don't miss this presentation if you are interested in reducing your energy usage by 15% or more!
DCM16: Achieve Higher Availability with an Effective Plan for Data Center Maintenance
David Cole, Manager, Data Center Education Services, PTS Data Center Solutions
Dave Cole is a recognized industry leader in the field of data center monitoring and management technologies. Prior to joining PTS Data Center Solutions, he served as the president of the real-time monitoring division of Aperture Technologies, now a division of Emerson Network Power. He was the founder, president and senior software architect for The Advantage Group, a software development company focused on data center management software. Dave also held the position as data center manager at Contel.
Is preventative maintenance the only proactive component of your maintenance program? Discover tools and methods that will allow your organization to take best practice actions based on monitored and reported conditions to achieve higher availability in your data center.
DCM17: Physical Security in the Data Center
Tom Skoulis, Principal, Resource One Solutions, LLC
A professional with 30 years of experience working within the Information Technology industry. Tom currently is Principal at Resource One Solutions, LLC, a 19-year old company who is the leading Physical Security Integrator in the State of Ohio. Resource (R1) One combined its background in IT systems/software/data communications, with expertise in Physical Security. Tom has spoken at AFCOM presenting on the topic of Physical Security in the Data Center.
This session provides an overview of the latest and greatest physical security equipment specific to the data center, combined with best practices protocols that data center managers should consider adding to the protection of precious assets and people within their facility.
DCM18: Electronic Access Solutions at the Rack Level
Steve Spatig, Business Development Manager, Southco
Steve Spatig has worked in the electronics packaging and engineered access industry for 13 years. He worked as a mechanical engineer for Motorola's GSM Engineering Group until 1998 when he moved to Southco, a supplier of engineered access solution. Since joining Southco, Steve has worked as a product design engineer and holds three patents for mechanical access solutions. For the past four years, he has led Southco's efforts in the transition from mechanical to electronic access solutions.
Mike Fahy, Field Applications Engineer, Southco Inc.
Data centers managers have historically used substantial physical security at building and data center entry points, as well as extensive security measures to prevent electronic access to secure information. Adding physical security at the server rack itself can supplement building and logical data security, streamline server access and provide remote monitoring to an individual rack via IP addressable access points. This presentation will provide an overview of the electronic access solutions available for rack access and how they can be integrated into the data center security system.
DCM19: Avoiding the Most Common Causes of Data Center Facilities Downtime
David Boston, President, David Boston Consulting
David Boston is a consultant specializing in Critical Facilities Operations. For 10 years, he served as facilities manager for GTE Data Services' 100,000 square foot Tampa data center and another 14 years as program director and facilitator for the Site Uptime Network & consultant for Computersite Engineering. Representing Network, David teamed with AFCOM members in 2007-2008 to successfully propose changes (to minimize risk) to NEC's disconnecting means (EPO) requirement.
Organizations that operate critical data center facilities invest significantly in reliable electrical and cooling system design. They typically choose fully redundant or fault tolerant configurations to protect their computer operation from impact should a single component or an entire infrastructure system fail. Why do we go to these lengths to ensure uptime, but then fail to invest in the staff plans, time and training to successfully operate the facility? It is now widely known that facilities related downtime events are most commonly caused by human error. Drawing on successful practices in the most critical industries (nuclear, airlines and military), as well as best practices at several data centers, this presentation will identify specific strategies that can be employed to avoid the most common causes of facilities systems downtime.
DCM20: 7 Things IT Does to Enable Cybercrime
Daniel J. Molina, CISSP, Field Marketing, Americas Kaspersky Lab
Daniel J. Molina, CISSP, is a field marketing manager for Kaspersky Lab and considered a thought leader in security. He has been called to speak on issues such as the state of the security industry, "Security Best Practices," "Business Aspects to Information Security" and "Operational Efficiency in IT Security," among others. His view on security maturity has made him a sought-after resource to help explain and justify, in business terms, what users, businesses, and governments require.
Today's IT managers are empowering cybercrime by their own actions. This session covers seven common mistakes that leave organizations vulnerable to cybercrime: assuming data resides in the data center; treating mobile devices based on the value of the physical asset, not the data on the physical device; treating mobile devices as desktops; adopting social media without proper protection; allowing Apple and Google to become the IT/QA department; focusing on protection rather than detection, and assuming everything is OK.
DCM21: What Data Center Managers Need to Know About IEMI: A New Tool for Cyber Criminals
Gale Nordling, CEO & President, Emprimus LLC
Data centers need to consider the evolving threat of cybercrime, as represented by criminals, disgruntled employees, competitors (aided in some cases by foreign agents) and terrorists. The technologies and methods that these actors employ can range from the kinetic, physical damage and theft, Cyber or (logical) exploitation (for both theft and malicious damage) to IEMI (Intentional Electromagnetic Interference), which has both physical impact (damage to electronics) and Cyber-like impact (changing data states, and corrupting data). These exploits are further troubling because they are often used in concert with each other representing "blended attacks," where IEMI can be used to "soften or erode existing defenses" whether they be physical or Cyber .The threat will be discussed, along with the potential impact and resolution strategies.
DCM22: Cyber Security, What Really Matters?
Harry R. Haury, CTO, Bick Laboratories
Harry Haury is the founder and CTO of Bick Laboratories, an information technology think tank, technology developer and proving grounds for supporting Bick Group's technology clients. He has a long history with the strategic use of technology, consulting, project management, SOA, web services security, and software solutions development extending over several decades. He is also the cofounder of several companies including Dataflow, a workflow automation company; and NuParadigm, a security and distributed computing software company.
Not all risks are equal when it comes to the data center and applications running within them, in the new cloud computing environments. It is well known that 85% of real vulnerabilities can be dealt with if we just concentrate on a limited number of issues. Find out the best practices surrounding risk mitigation strategies and how these techniques can be leveraged by existing facilities and new data centers of all sizes.
DCM23: The Solution to Data Center Efficiency
Mark Evanko, Principal Engineer , BRUNS-PAK
Mark Evanko is a principal and one of the original founders of BRUNS-PAK. BRUNS-PAK's 29 years and more than 4,500 projects building high-technology data centers serve as the basis for the evolution of the ultra-reliable facility. He continues to actively participate as a BRUNS-PAK project director integrating facilities with information systems. Over the years, Mark has chaired BRUNS-PAK's business partner affiliations with major computer manufacturers and Fortune 500 service providers.
Data center efficiency encompasses multiple technical and management disciplines that continuously change. The job of the data center manager is to orchestrate each of these individual processes so they work together in creating a much more cohesive and effective operation than any of them bring to the table individually. The overall data center efficiency solution includes the integration of computer hardware, computer software, telecommunications (data/tele), facilities, disaster recovery, and personnel. Learn how you can bring these elements together the most efficiently, and how by doing so they will contribute to "greening," energy efficiency, virtualization, cloud computing, and modularity. The demand is for totally efficient data center solutions that can scale as IT services evolve. This session provides insights to the solution process.