Conferences that solve current IT challenges

Network and Systems Management

Strategies to help IT design, implement and manage the IT infrastructure to align to business needs, maximize uptime and leverage Green IT

May 7, 2009

9:00am-5:00pm

7 CPE / 0.7 CEU / CISSP / 7 PDU Credits Awarded

   

Donald E. Stephens Convention Center  Rosemont (O'Hare) Illinois

Overview

Due to the abundance of networking technologies available, as well as the changing needs of corporate enterprises, it is essential to have a well thought-out network and systems management plan.  To be most effective the plan must align network and systems operations to the needs of the business.  In this challenging economy, what should you be doing differently? How can you do more with less and still be effective?

What You Will Learn

In this one day conference attendees will learn:

  • How to Do More with Less
  • The Role the Network will Play in the Next Generation Data Center
  • How to Plan for, Implement and Manage Infrastructure Changes & Upgrades
  • Strategies for Simplifying Network Management
  • Implement Service-Level Management through IT Processes (ITIL)
  • Monitor Availability and Performance Through Metrics
  • How to Monitor Diverse Systems and Technologies and Make Sense of the Results
  • How to Articulate the Value of the Network and Systems in Terms that Line Executives can understand
  • How to leverage Green IT for the benefit of the network, data center and the extended enterprise

Conference Program

8:00am - 9:00am - Registration and Continental Breakfast

Bakstran

9:00am-10:00am

Gaining Competitive Advantage: How to Align Network & Systems Infrastructure with Business Needs

Brian Bakstran, Vice President of Product Marketing, CA

CEOs and CIOs want IT to be converted from a cost center into an enabler of competitive advantage.  But what does this mean and how do you accomplish this?  Can disciplines such as ITSM/ITIL really help you?  What things can you do informally or at a ‘grass roots’ level that can help you make your infrastructure more responsive to business needs? How can you leverage your infrastructure to better support applications that the business is demanding?

In this session attendees will learn: 
  • How to leverage formal IT disciplines to help align infrastructure with business needs
  • How to ensure your systems will be able to support next generation business required applications
  • How to articulate to management that IT is an enabler and not a cost center
  • How to form teams internally to drive business/IT infrastructure decision making that is closely aligned to business needs
  • How to make the datacenter and systems more agile/flexible to support business needs
  • How to choose technologies that support the next generation business application needs
  • How investments today can help reduce cost operating costs in the future
  • What individual and collective actions you can take to 'push' vendors to fill your needs

10:00am -10:30am - Refreshment Break

Muradian

10:30am-11:30am

How to Manage Your Network and Systems During Challenging Economic Times

Sevan Muradian, Engineer, Kace and adjunct faculty for Northwestern University

In these tough times, IT departments have the added stress of being asked to do more with less staff, resources, tools and funding.  However, this presents an opportunity for individuals to lead, achieve and prove the flexibility of IT.

 

In this session ,attendees will learn how to use these challenging times as opportunities for innovation, growth and achievement.

 

Topics that will be covered include:
  • How to leverage your network and systems for energy efficiency
  • How to improve service delivery and effectiveness
  • How to better negotiate with your suppliers
  • How to crosstrain the staff that you have

Landrum

11:30am-12:30pm

How to Leverage WAN Optimization Techniques to Reduce Application Performance Issues

Alfred Landrum, Manager, Global Consulting Engineers, Riverbed

A stumbling block to successful server consolidation & virtualization is the severe impact on application performance experienced by remote users.  The problem is caused by three key factors: application latency, TCP latency and application chattiness over the Wide Area Network. WAN optimization techniques including application streamlining, data streamlining, and transport streamlining address these issues.  This talk will describe the key elements of WAN optimization, concomitant security challenges, and how these issues are being solved today.

12:30pm - 1:30pm Luncheon

Dahl

1:30pm-2:30pm

Getting a Handle on Your IT Infrastructure with a Model-Driven Approach

Erik Dahl, CTO, Zenoss

A model is at the heart of all IT infrastructure and management tools.  It attempts to describe the IT environment so the tools around it can perform various monitoring and management functions that are critical to seamless IT operations.  Erik Dahl, CTO and co-founder of Zenoss, has been using modeling to build IT management tools for over 16 years.  In this session, he will look at the evolution of modeling from simple lists of devices to ping, through network topology root cause analysis and virtual computing sprawl management.  Critical workflows of detailed models will be examined: discovery, population, automation, and change tracking and their impact on TCO and ROI.  The CMDB, now the gold standard, will be discussed as a starting point towards future implementations of IT modeling. 

 

In this session attendees will learn:
  • What is a model?
  • Why is it important?
  • A brief history of different models
  • Where are we today?
  • A quick look into the future

2:30pm - 3:00pm - Refreshment Break

Sumar

3:00pm-4:00pm

Employing Your Infrastructure to Come Work for You: How to Effectively Plan, Design and Implement Strategies to Consolidate and Centralize your Infrastructure to Lower Total Cost of Ownership

Annur Sumar, Sr. Infrastructure Architect, Duff & Phelps, LLC

As the economy continues to weaken and follow a receding trend, there is more pressure than ever on IT Managers to reduce operating costs and lower TCO by consolidating and centralizing their IT Environment. The one major roadblock that most IT Managers and IT Professionals run into during the planning and designing stage is "Funding the Cost to Lower Cost". If technology enhancement projects are on hold, head count is limited, and budgets have been drastically cut, what tactics and technologies can be employed to consolidate and centralize an infrastructure to streamline processes?

 

In this session, attendees will learn:

 

How to position and design strategic technology driven process improvements based on the Microsoft Operations Framework Model by aligning IT Services, Engineering best practices, Operations Management, and Helpdesk Support to lower Total Cost of Ownership and raise Return on Investments.

Phinick

Kwong

Wieczorek

Tracy

Warner

4:00pm-5:00pm

How Network Managers are Doing ‘More with Less’ to Support the Business

Moderator:
 Mark Phinick, Regional Manager, BigFix
Panelists will include:
 Fred Kwong, Ph.D., Network and Distributed Security Technology, GITO, Zurich Insurance
David Wieczorek, Network Manager, Loyola University Chicago
Kim W. Tracy, Exec. Dir.  University Computing Services, Northeastern Illinois University
Scott Warner, Manager Technical Operations, Hart Schaffner Marx

In this session, attendees will learn from seasoned network managers as to how they are working challenges that the current economic environment presents.

 

Content that will be covered includes:
  • How to adapt to reduced funding
  • How to work more efficiently with suppliers
  • How they are supporting new applications
  • How they are partnering with the business
  • How to prepare for the economic recovery

Conference price: $249 per person.


Each attendee will receive a certificate awarding 7 CPE credits for CISSP continuing education, in addition to 0.7 CEUs and 7 PDUs. CISSP is a registered certification mark of (ISC)², Inc.

Exhibits

As is always the case at CAMP IT Conferences events, the talks will not include product presentations.  During the continental breakfast, coffee breaks, and the luncheon break you will have the opportunity to informally meet representatives from the following sponsoring companies, who have solutions in the area of the conference.

  


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Submit your speaking proposal or call us at (312) 527-2800 Add yourself to the CAMP IT Conferences mailing list. Directions
Lodging Information
Village of Rosemont
Chicago O'Hare Airport