Surveys by industry analysts have found that
three out of four IT departments have
implemented or are planning to implement
virtualization. An additional analyst
survey found that of those that are
currently using virtualization, 45 percent
of new server deployments within the new
year will be virtualized.
Virtualization
of IT infrastructure and applications
promises the following benefits:
-
Business needs can be prioritized
-
Service levels can be improved
-
Equipment can be maintained with less
effect on the availability/functionality
of applications
-
Consolidation servers and storage
-
Offering a logical, rather than
physical, view of consolidation of
computing and data, allowing IT to
replicate or relocate workloads from one
virtual environment to another
-
Cost savings
But what is it, how does it work and what
are the real benefits and pitfalls to watch
out for??
This conference is designed for:
Enterprise IT professionals who are trying
to understand how virtualization can help
their organization as well as individuals
who are learning how to refine their current
virtualization implementation.
Who Should Attend:
CIOs/IT Directors
Network Managers/Engineers
Storage Managers/Engineers/Architects
Desktop/Server Professionals
What You Will Learn
In this one day conference we will cut
through the clutter and hype and provide
enterprise IT professionals with in-depth
information on:
-
Understanding what virtualization is and
how it works
-
What are the real versus promised
benefits
-
How to leverage virtualization for the
extended enterprise
-
How to understand the different
virtualization technologies
-
How to implement an assessment of
virtualization readiness
-
How to put your plan in action
-
How to avoid pitfalls in planning and
implementation
Conference Program
8:00 am - 9:00 am - Registration and
Continental Breakfast
9:00 am - 10:00 am
Think Strategically: How to Leverage
Virtualization to Benefit IT & the Extended
Enterprise
Lewis
Prosper,
Systems Engineer, PlateSpin Ltd.
IT Departments are continuously being asked
to do more with less. Consolidation if done
properly can lead to many efficiencies to
the extended enterprise including:
-
Real estate space & costs savings
-
IT infrastructure savings
-
Closer alignment between IT & the
business
In this session attendees will learn:
-
How to define the starting and endpoint
points
-
How to articulate to management the need
for upfront budget for the project
-
The effects to existing infrastructure
-
How to project the associated ROI
-
An understanding of metrics and specs
-
How to capitalize on your existing
infrastructure and expertise
10:00 am - 10:30 am - Refreshment Break
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Making Sense of It All: The Benefits and
Pitfalls of the Various Virtualization
Approaches
Dave Anderson, President & CEO, Binary
Visions
In this session attendees will learn to
dissect all of the different virtualization
technologies and understand what the
benefits are, but also the limitations with
the these technologies.
Areas that will be covered include:
-
VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
-
Server virtualization
-
Storage virtualization
-
Full virtualization vs.
Paravirtualization
11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Virtualization Assessment: Thoroughly
Identifying Areas for Simplification
Edward O'Connell, Sr. Product Marketing
Manager, Hitachi Data Systems
Before going down the path of
virtualization it is essential that you
have an understanding of what portions
of your IT
operations
can be virtualized. It is dangerous to
assume that all components can be
virtualized.
This session will walk you through a
thorough assessment which includes:
Attendees will learn how to conduct the
assessment and how to examine the
results.
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm - Luncheon
1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Virtualization Strategies: Understanding
the Distinct Differences between
Virtualized and Physical Environments
George Pradel, Systems Engineer, Vizioncore Inc.
This technical session will provide
attendees with an understanding of the
distinctions between the Virtualized and
Physical Ecosystems in the context
of:
-
Disaster Recovery
(Backup/Recovery/Replication)
-
Business Continuity
(Backup/Recovery/Replication)
-
The need for chargeback
capabilities
-
Capacity management
-
Performance metric analysis
in a virtualized environment
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Refreshment Break
3:00 pm-4:00 pm
Data Center Consolidation: Putting the Plan
in Action
Steve McDonald, Vice President of
Information Technology, Optimus Solutions
After you have a thorough understanding of
your virtualization environment it is time
to put the building blocks together. In this
session attendees will learn how to
implement a plan that covers your unique
data center needs. Different examples will
be provided.
Content that will be covered includes:
-
Myths of virtual machine consolidation
-
Migrating a physical machine into a
virtual machine
-
Print servers and file servers
-
How to handle hardware keys when
consolidating servers
-
How to simplify 64-bit server adoption
-
How to consolidate servers
-
Integrating storage and server
virtualization
4:00pm-5:00pm
Balancing Risk with Reward: How to Avoid
Pitfalls In Your Virtualization Plan &
Implementation
Moderator: John Sharkey, Systems Engineering
Manager, Force10Networks
Panelists: David Siles, Chief Technical Officer,
Kane County,
Steve McDonald, Vice President Information
Technology, Optimus Solutions,
Jesse Luna, Distributed Systems Solutions
Architect, Acxiom Corporation,
Kent M. Walker,
Manager, Computer
Operations,
Underwriters Laboratories
David Wollenweber,
Staff System Engineer, Tellabs
In this session attendees will learn from
four enterprise IT professionals as to how
they worked through the challenges and
avoided virtualization pitfalls. Content
that will be covered includes:
-
Reliability/serviceability/availability
Issues
-
Challenges with increasing the number of
virtual machines
-
Security holes that can present
themselves
-
Dealing with application providers that
are not supporting application on
virtual machines
-
How to handle disaster recovery/business
continuity issues
