Conference: Data Center Track

Host:
Doug Washburn
Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations
Forrester Research

Data centers and the IT professionals that operate them are increasingly challenged to deliver on the business’s insatiable demand for reliable, flexible and resilient IT services at an affordable cost. These pressures are only exacerbated by data center out-of-space and power concerns, rising energy prices, new ownership models and heightened expectations for the IT professional of the future. This track is designed to help data center professionals plan for the data center of the future, while optimizing the data center of today.

Tuesday Wednesday

Open All Descriptions |

Close All Descriptions

Tuesday, May 19
10:15 am–11:15 am	Conference Sessions Key Skill Sets for the Data Center Manager of the Future Data center managers be warned—the business's insatiable demand for IT services, coupled with out-of-space and power concerns, rising energy prices and increased outsourcing, will require skills beyond technical versatility. Forecasting, project management and vendor management will all become necessary skills for future data center managers. To better manage their own career and develop up-and-coming staff, this session will discuss the evolving role of the data center manager, drivers for change, as well identify key skill sets necessary for success into the future. Moderator - Doug Washburn, Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations , Forrester Research Doug serves IT Infrastructure & Operations professionals, primarily focusing on green IT, green business, and IT leadership skills. His research helps IT executives successfully approach green IT, determine strategy, and then move from green IT awareness to action. Previously at Forrester, Doug was the global council manager and senior advisor for the Forrester Leadership Boards IT Infrastructure & Operations Council, a best practice community for senior IT executives in $1 billion-plus organizations. In this role, Doug regularly advised clients on Green IT strategy and practices. Additionally, Doug was also an advisor on the Forrester Leadership Boards Enterprise Architecture Council. Prior to Forrester, Doug was a VP of strategy and business development for Red Oxygen, a wireless communications startup, and living and working in Australia and France. In addition, Doug co-created CU Networks, a computer networking and servicing startup serving the students of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Doug holds a B.S. in finance from University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded the Undergraduate Certificate in Entrepreneurial Excellence.
2:45 pm–3:45 pm	Conference Sessions Forecasting: How to Determine What Your Next-Generation Data Center Requires There is a lot of buzz—and uncertainty—around the next-generation data center. What will it look like? When will it arrive? Will it even exist? Data center managers should take matters into their own hands by forecasting their future requirements for growth, reliability, flexibility and resiliency. Empowered with this information, data center managers can then make the next generation data center conform to their needs, as opposed to the other way around. This session will identify best practices to accurately forecast future data center requirements that data center managers should employ to effectively plan for the next-generation data center. Moderator - Doug Washburn, Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations , Forrester Research Doug serves IT Infrastructure & Operations professionals, primarily focusing on green IT, green business, and IT leadership skills. His research helps IT executives successfully approach green IT, determine strategy, and then move from green IT awareness to action. Previously at Forrester, Doug was the global council manager and senior advisor for the Forrester Leadership Boards IT Infrastructure & Operations Council, a best practice community for senior IT executives in $1 billion-plus organizations. In this role, Doug regularly advised clients on Green IT strategy and practices. Additionally, Doug was also an advisor on the Forrester Leadership Boards Enterprise Architecture Council. Prior to Forrester, Doug was a VP of strategy and business development for Red Oxygen, a wireless communications startup, and living and working in Australia and France. In addition, Doug co-created CU Networks, a computer networking and servicing startup serving the students of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Doug holds a B.S. in finance from University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded the Undergraduate Certificate in Entrepreneurial Excellence. Speaker - Jim Smith, CTO, Digital Realty Trust Jim Smith is the Chief Technology Officer at Digital Realty Trust where he oversees datacenter development, the company's efficiency and green strategy, and power procurement and energy management. In the past three years, Mr. Smith and the Digital Realty Trust team have delivered more than 75 MW of UPS capacity on over 40 datacenter projects in North America and Europe. This portfolio includes the industry's first LEED Gold certified datacenter. Mr. Smith was recently named one of the top 25 CTO's of 2008 by InfoWorld Magazine and holds a Jim a BSc in Chemistry from Fort Lewis College and an MBA from the London Business School.
4:00 pm–5:00 pm	Conference Sessions Green IT Outside Of the Data Center: PCs, Office Peripherals and Beyond While the data center often receives much of the Green IT spotlight, tremendous value is being left on the table by overlooking PCs and office peripherals. In fact, The Climate Group estimates that PCs and related peripherals consume close to three times the amount of energy and related CO2 emissions as the data center. This does include the green value from collaboration tools such as video conferencing, virtual meeting and work-from-home technologies. To help IT professionals expand their scope of Green IT, this session will introduce greening strategies beyond the data center. Moderator - Doug Washburn, Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations , Forrester Research Doug serves IT Infrastructure & Operations professionals, primarily focusing on green IT, green business, and IT leadership skills. His research helps IT executives successfully approach green IT, determine strategy, and then move from green IT awareness to action. Previously at Forrester, Doug was the global council manager and senior advisor for the Forrester Leadership Boards IT Infrastructure & Operations Council, a best practice community for senior IT executives in $1 billion-plus organizations. In this role, Doug regularly advised clients on Green IT strategy and practices. Additionally, Doug was also an advisor on the Forrester Leadership Boards Enterprise Architecture Council. Prior to Forrester, Doug was a VP of strategy and business development for Red Oxygen, a wireless communications startup, and living and working in Australia and France. In addition, Doug co-created CU Networks, a computer networking and servicing startup serving the students of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Doug holds a B.S. in finance from University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded the Undergraduate Certificate in Entrepreneurial Excellence. Speaker - Greg Kovich, Director of Education Practice, Alcatel Lucent Greg Kovich brings 20 years of experience in information technology to his position as Senior Account Director at Alcatel-Lucent. In this role, Mr. Kovich serves as a business development specialist for the higher education and K-12 market in North America, working closely with education customers to more closely align Alcatel-Lucent's product portfolio to their needs. Prior to the merger of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies, Mr. Kovich was the Product Marketing Manager in Alcatel's Enterprise Solutions division. Greg Kovich holds a bachelor of arts degree in accounting from Indiana University.
Top of Page
Wednesday, May 20
10:15 am–11:15 am	Conference Sessions Technologies that Data Center Managers Can't Live Without The business demands reliable, flexible and resilient IT services. Data center managers rely on a combination of technologies - from blade servers, thermal modeling and intelligent protocol data units (PDU), to data center monitoring, automation and capacity planning tools - to meet these expectations. So what technologies are essential to managing your data center? This interactive session will reveal hardware, software and facilities technologies that data center managers can't live without. Moderator - Doug Washburn, Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations , Forrester Research Doug serves IT Infrastructure & Operations professionals, primarily focusing on green IT, green business, and IT leadership skills. His research helps IT executives successfully approach green IT, determine strategy, and then move from green IT awareness to action. Previously at Forrester, Doug was the global council manager and senior advisor for the Forrester Leadership Boards IT Infrastructure & Operations Council, a best practice community for senior IT executives in $1 billion-plus organizations. In this role, Doug regularly advised clients on Green IT strategy and practices. Additionally, Doug was also an advisor on the Forrester Leadership Boards Enterprise Architecture Council. Prior to Forrester, Doug was a VP of strategy and business development for Red Oxygen, a wireless communications startup, and living and working in Australia and France. In addition, Doug co-created CU Networks, a computer networking and servicing startup serving the students of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Doug holds a B.S. in finance from University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded the Undergraduate Certificate in Entrepreneurial Excellence.
11:30 am–12:30 pm	Conference Sessions Should You Own Your Next Data Center? When your current data center facility has reached its capacity, will you maintain ownership—or turn the reigns over to someone else? How will you make this decision? From collocation to cloud computing, it is no longer necessary for IT shops to own and operate data center facilities to offer critical data center services. This session will evaluate the various forms of data center ownership to help data center managers determine their ownership strategy into the future.
2:00 pm–3:00 pm	Conference Sessions The Green Data Center: Your Playbook of Eco-Strategies for Today and Tomorrow The green data center strategy is to maximize current facility, infrastructure and IT investments, coupled with energy conservation tactics. Unfortunately, data centers are not static and the business's insatiable demand for IT services will eventually force you to buy new - whether it be it a new server or storage array, or a new chiller or entire facility. To maximize the green data center's value, this session will present data center managers with strategies to generate both eco and economic benefits today and into the future. Moderator - Doug Washburn, Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations , Forrester Research Doug serves IT Infrastructure & Operations professionals, primarily focusing on green IT, green business, and IT leadership skills. His research helps IT executives successfully approach green IT, determine strategy, and then move from green IT awareness to action. Previously at Forrester, Doug was the global council manager and senior advisor for the Forrester Leadership Boards IT Infrastructure & Operations Council, a best practice community for senior IT executives in $1 billion-plus organizations. In this role, Doug regularly advised clients on Green IT strategy and practices. Additionally, Doug was also an advisor on the Forrester Leadership Boards Enterprise Architecture Council. Prior to Forrester, Doug was a VP of strategy and business development for Red Oxygen, a wireless communications startup, and living and working in Australia and France. In addition, Doug co-created CU Networks, a computer networking and servicing startup serving the students of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Doug holds a B.S. in finance from University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded the Undergraduate Certificate in Entrepreneurial Excellence. Speaker - William Kosik, Principal, Green IT Lead, HP Critical Facilities Services, delivered by EYP Bill Kosik is the Energy and Sustainability Director at HP Critical Facilities Services, delivered by EYP MCF. He assists in the development of the upcoming LEED for Data Centers standard, and is the primary author of the Energy and Atmosphere credit requirements. In addition, he provides technical assistance to the Green Grid's committee that is responsible for developing the forthcoming data center energy use rating scheme. He is also the co-developer of the upcoming ASHRAE publication, Green Tips for Data Centers. Bill is also a published author and expert on research, simulation and application of data center energy efficiency techniques.
3:15 pm–4:15 pm	Conference Sessions Retrofitting Today's Data Center for Better Capacity and Efficiency While data centers are expected to last approximately 25 to 30 years, you need to periodically refresh your environmental gear for better capacity. Why? Modern hardware, such as blade servers, is continually demanding more power and cooling capacity—likely beyond your current capabilities. But before you start making capital improvements, have you squeezed all the efficiency out of your existing equipment? This session will identify efficiency tactics that data center managers can employ today to defer major data center facility investments.
Top of Page