AFCOM’s Call For Presentations
Data Center World
October 5-7, 2008
Marriott World Center
Orlando, Florida

Deadline for submission:  April 11, 2008

AFCOM invites submissions from all those involved in data center/operations management and support, including vendors, to share their knowledge to be presented at its upcoming fall Data Center World conference in October. Vendors who would like to speak are given greater consideration if they are participating exhibitors in this show. (Note: Any company that sells supplies, services or equipment to the data center is considered to be a vendor.)

AFCOM’s conferences address all types of data centers, from traditional mainframe enterprise data centers to midrange and Internet data centers, including all major operating systems and data center environments such as MVS, VSE, OS/400, UNIX, Linux and more.

Rewards
If your submission is accepted, you will receive a complimentary conference registration (limited to one speaker per session) entitling you to attend educational sessions, product information sessions, Data Center World Expo, group meals and all other scheduled AFCOM events.
Your name and company will be listed as an official speaker in conference and marketing materials.

Submission
A separate submission is required for each session you are proposing. All submissions must be made using the submission form via the Web (found by using the above URL).
Speakers will be asked to comply with various deadlines in terms of information about themselves and their presentation. Speakers may be asked to give their presentation twice during the program. Sales-oriented presentations, case studies and product pitches will not be accepted from vendor companies nor permitted in educational sessions.

Before you submit, please make sure you are complying with the following criteria:
-My session is purely educational, free from any commercial or sales content.
-My session is not a case study about or from a vendor/supplier/exhibitor.
-I will be including a session description of no more than 150 words.
-My session title is creative, short and descriptive.
-My session topic is original and can be applied to real-life situations in the data center.
-My session topic is of current importance and can be thought of as a hot topic in the data center.
-I will include examples, solutions and success stories in my description and the presentation.
-I understand that only the first speaker will receive complimentary conference registration, and we are responsible for all other conference costs, including but not limited to travel, lodging and food not included in the program.
-I am aware that I am required to provide a PowerPoint presentation by a specific deadline so that AFCOM can review the content. I understand that this PPT will be used and printed in the proceedings book that is given to all attendees, the Session Digest, and memory stick (if applicable).
-I understand that I need to develop enough content to fill a one-hour time slot, including at least one slide for every one to two minutes.
-I understand the importance of building in approximately 10 minutes at the end of my session for Q&A time with the attendees.

For additional information, please contact AFCOM’s Conference Services department at
(714) 997-7966 or email at confserv@afcom.com.

Preferred/Suggested Topics:
Enterprise Systems Skills Shortage: Are you prepared for the inevitable?
Industry experts have been talking about an imminent skills shortage in the data center for the past few years. The fact is that data center professionals possess specific skills that just aren’t being taught in school. Is your organization prepared for this loss of talent? This presentation will focus on real-life solutions to this very real problem in the data center, including in-house training programs, new certification training, and what the vendor community is doing to keep the data center running with new technologies. The talent pool is shrinking; come to this session to begin to develop a plan for the future of your data center.

How to Install New Hardware and/or Software with Zero Downtime
To err is human—or so they say. Every professional makes a mistake at least once in his or her career, but if a mistake can potentially cause the data center to go down, or worse, is the result of lost data, you want to take every precaution necessary so a mishap doesn’t occur. It takes careful processes and procedures to install new hardware or software in the data center. This session will give tips on standards and procedures to avoid downtime during this fragile process.

How Secure is Secure?
How can you be assured your data is secure? It’s now up to the data center manager to protect his/her organization’s data. In a world open to the unstable, often insecure Internet, what measures can you take to secure your data? This session should talk about how to select security software that works, how often software should be updated, and how to keep your data risk-free in an essentially unsafe environment.

Mobile & Wireless Security
As cell phones, PDAs and Blackberries become more prevalent in general business and IT applications, security becomes a greater issue. How can you prevent viruses, worms and hackers from getting to your data through these types of technologies?

A New Approach to Storage
Storage is an increasing problem for today’s data center manager. More data is being processed today than ever before, and with the explosion of new government regulations, the data center is responsible for keeping records they were able to delete just a few years back. This session will review new alternatives to record keeping, and talk about the software technologies available to help contain this growing problem. (Again, if possible, this should be a user presentation, not a vendor.)

How to Prepare for Grid Computing
Grid computing is something that has been talked about for the past few years, and according to a recent AFCOM survey, it is a technology that will become a staple in data centers by 2010. This session will define grid computing and provide details about how to prepare for its imminent role in your data center.

Additional Suggested Topics:
SOA
Data Center Automation
Client/Server
Help Desk
E-Business
Employee Career Paths
Capacity Planning
Motivation
Disaster Recovery
Scheduling
Environmental Systems
Security
Storage
Standardization
Internet Data Centers
SAP
Best Practices
Data Center Relocation
Data Center Facilities
Emerging Technologies
Or any other related topics

Panel Sessions
Do you know of a good topic for a panel discussion and would like to submit your idea and be part of the panel? Please contact the conference services department with your ideas: confserv@afcom.com.