2006 Speaker List

As high density applications such as blade servers and server consolidation increase, it becomes critical to fully understand the drivers as well as the key challenges one may encounter during deployment. APC presents a review of the business trends driving high density deployment leading to IT trends and, subsequently, to critical issues such as power and cooling challenges in the IT network-critical physical infrastructure. In addressing these challenges, APC also presents optimal high density deployment strategies as well as range of resources and solutions to successfully deploy high density applications.

The rapid growth of servers, CPU power and storage is putting a lot of pressure on data center facilities. Cooling, humidity control and power supply issues are magnified in today's densely packed data centers. New power and cooling systems, from hot/cold aisle strategies to liquid cooling, can offer greater capacity and greater efficiency. Examine the future of power and cooling in the data center

The OWASP top ten was created to help organizations and government agencies focus on the most serious web application security vulnerabilities. Adopting a process to monitor, identify, and remediate these "top ten" flaws is perhaps the most effective first step towards ensuring the security of your web applications. An informative discussion and demonstration of the OWASP top ten web application attacks will be presented during this session.

We can have the most resilient, elegantly designed network, and we will still experience the frustrating situation of application slowdown. The question to answer: is it the network, or not? It is simple to determine a device that is dead, but how do you identify components that are performing sickly, thus affecting applications negatively? This session will discuss top causes of slowdown in the enterprise, and how to quickly isolate and troubleshoot intermittent behavior.

As an enterprise IP Telephony deployment moves from pilot to full implementation, the need for more granular and effective network management becomes more pressing. This session will help you understand the capabilities and limitations of current systems management. You will get up to date on these tools' ability to help you troubleshoot, facilitate moves adds and changes, and to understand the quality of service that your system is delivering at any given moment.

With most availability problems solved, IT managers have turned to application performance management as the Next Big Thing. But deciding which tools and processes to adopt can be frightening. There are many sources of data: agents, passive monitoring, synthetic testing and logfile parsing. And there is a wide range of ways to use this information - from tactical incident management to long-term capacity planning. This session will provide a taxonomy of application performance management approaches to cover all the fundamental requirements without blowing budgets or embarking on multi-year deployment nightmares.

Andreas M. Antonopoulos will be presenting results from Nemertes research benchmark on Data Center technologies. Based on more that 100 hours of interviews with IT executives from a range of industries, Nemertes research will highlight today's big data center trends: high availability, managing extreme growth in servers and storage, and data center operational efficiency.

Conventional network management tools focus on the health of the network elements, mainly in terms of fault and performance management. But are these tools really useful when attempting to manage and troubleshoot issues with converged applications such as VoIP? This session will examine the challenges of managing a converged network, and the associated best practices.

If you are implementing IP Telephony, are you introducing a new security vulnerability to your network? Or is the network itself creating a new vulnerability that did not plague voice traffic in the TDM environment. This session will help you understand how to prioritize your limited security resources to guard against the most pressing security concerns in the VoIP world.

As an enterprise IP Telephony deployment moves from pilot to full implementation, the need for more granular and effective network management becomes more pressing. This session will help you understand the capabilities and limitations of current systems management. You will get up to date on these tools' ability to help you troubleshoot, facilitate moves adds and changes, and to understand the quality of service that your system is delivering at any given moment.

Data centers act as the nerve center of an organization. As such they require very high capacity connectivity, both between data centers and to the branch offices. Network managers may find data centers to be unfamiliar territory, where capacity, latency and availability requirements are much higher than in other parts of the network. In this session we will look at the technologies used to connect data centers to each other and to the various employee locations they serve.

With most availability problems solved, IT managers have turned to application performance management as the Next Big Thing. But deciding which tools and processes to adopt can be frightening. There are many sources of data: agents, passive monitoring, synthetic testing and logfile parsing. And there is a wide range of ways to use this information - from tactical incident management to long-term capacity planning. This session will provide a taxonomy of application performance management approaches to cover all the fundamental requirements without blowing budgets or embarking on multi-year deployment nightmares.

Attend the CIO Bootcamp to land and excel in IT's top job. This engaging and informative course will help you understand the issues, fine-tune skills and prepare you to succeed as a CIO. Click here for details.

Today the market is providing a myriad of solutions to help Enterprises accelerate application performance across the Wide Area Network (WAN). Some solutions work across a wide set of applications and protocols, provide modest performance increases and WAN utilization decreases. Other solutions provide dramatic performance increases, but only address a narrow range of applications and protocols. We will discuss how to map your application and WAN needs to the products offered to make an informed decision about which WAN acceleration technology to deploy.

Businesses in 2006 depend heavily on their networked applications, and require consistent, measurable performance for all users. A major step towards Business / IT alignment can be achieved by measuring and reporting application performance for the critical applications of each business. In this session we will discuss how application performance can be measured, how it should be presented to non-technical management, and how this approach can be used to determine where and how IT resources should be spent.

While most companies are just beginning to explore wireless, there are many companies today that have successfully changed their business operations through the many available wireless technologies. Join our panel of IT managers with extensive knowledge in large-scale wireless deployments and learn from their experiences in designing, implementing and managing enterprise-class mobile solutions.

Network management systems have long been the poor stepchild of networking, always the last to be invested in and often an afterthought only. But as networks have scaled both in size and complexity, and with multiple services converging onto the same IP layer, network management systems must evolve to be more powerful and easier to operate. Leading vendors are investing large sums in innovations that promise to revitalize the industry. This session will explore the key developments and trends to look out for.

We have heard a lot about application networks. Moving processing intelligence into network components can increase their reliability and scalability, as a new generation of routers treats messages and services the way their predecessors handled packets and sockets. But the ultimate measure of success is business productivity - as driven by users? ability to accomplish tasks quickly and successfully. This panel of application networking technologists will look at the impact application networks can have on end-user productivity and business success.

Attend the CIO Bootcamp to land and excel in IT's top job. This engaging and informative course will help you understand the issues, fine-tune skills and prepare you to succeed as a CIO. Click here for details.

Today?s organizations rely on their network and data storage systems. Mission critical applications require better security, improved performance, and reliability. New product offerings now bring these features into the reach of even small organizations. This session will introduce the nMU, the intelligent hardware module that manages networks. It will describe methods of deployment with mirrored Gold Servers for storage, and security with the S-Key hardware token.

The competition in metro broadband access technologies continues to heat up and has been a subject of much debate. But these technologies will also compete in enterprise networks, specifically in large, campus deployments as users call for high speed access beyond the confines of the office walls. This session will examine the three major contenders for future mobile broadband access - Wi-Fi mesh, WiMAX, and cellular ? and evaluate their role in the future of enterprise networks.

Companies are aggressively rolling out MPLS-based WANs for many reasons: to get more data bandwidth for the buck; to enable the convergence of data, voice and video; and to lay the groundwork for next-generation WAN architectures. This session addresses both MPLS deployment today, and some of the challenges facing companies looking to roll out MPLS today and in the future, specifically: * How can companies accurately gauge their voice and data requirements on a converged MPLS backbone? * What are the "best practices" for crafting an MPLS RFP and telecom contract? How many providers are appropriate? * What are the options (wireless, cable, DSL) for gaining connectivity to the MPLS "cloud" for remote and mobile users? * As the Internet becomes more widespread and robust, is MPLS even necessary? Learn the answers to these questions, and more, at "MPLS and Beyond".

A new era of applications management not only requires service providers to converge voice and data communication, but to integrate wireless, VoIP, presence, conferencing, messaging and collaboration. In fact, this is further challenged by the addition of multiple vendors, deploying secure private IP networking, configuring QoS and managing applications such as CRM, SCM and ERP. Learn how you can achieve an enterprise-grade solution that delivers business value in a trustworthy environment.

New innovations in web data centers appear almost daily: Processor, OS and application virtualization; traffic acceleration; monitoring; change management; security; and even fraud detection. And in many cases these innovations are driven by legislation; in others, by new business models or simple lack of capacity. Our panel of hands-on web operations personnel will look at some of the latest technologies and separate value from hype as they discuss which ones they will be deploying in the coming months.

A new era of applications management not only requires service providers to converge voice and data communication, but to integrate wireless, VoIP, presence, conferencing, messaging and collaboration. In fact, this is further challenged by the addition of multiple vendors, deploying secure private IP networking, configuring QoS and managing applications such as CRM, SCM and ERP. Learn how you can achieve an enterprise-grade solution that delivers business value in a trustworthy environment.

The release of Microsoft Vista introduces a new range of security capabilities for the world?s most popular operating system as well as the supported applications. This session will highlight some of the more interesting security features that will be included in the Vista operating system (including access controls, firewall functionality, and encryption capabilities) and discuss their attributes and benefits.

Windows Vista includes many new technologies that will usher in the next generation of deployment capabilities, networking security, desktop management capabilities and improved reliability and diagnostics. Come learn how Windows Vista can help reduce your desktop infrastructure TCO with these new improvements

Nobody understands IP Telephony systems better than the enterprise IT staff and decision-makers who have implemented these systems. In this session, a panel of battle-hardened VoIP veterans will help you benefit from their experiences: what worked, what didn't, where they found hidden costs and technology problems and where they go from here.

Wireless LANs are well on their way to achieving both primacy and ubiquity. They will become the default for access in the enterprise, on the road, in the home, and with coverage and reliability that rival, in many cases, other wireless technologies and systems. This session will explore the core directions for wireless LANs going forward ? the role of 802.11n, unified wired/wireless architectures and support for voice (VoFi). We will also highlight the next set of advances in WLAN technologies and products, as well as the impact this continuing evolution will have on enterprises of all sizes and types.

It's time to unleash your inner-most geek at this always popular show and tell session. Preview the latest mobile communication devices from established leaders and startup innovators alike. What is the right balance of function, size and power? What are the trade-offs of voice vs. data? And, is an all-in-one device possible, or even desired? Take a look at the future of what's new, what cool and most importantly, what's effective.

Information security is an ever changing and evolving concept. The threats that are posed to organizations are constantly changing and becoming more challenging. The solutions used to protect organizations against these threats are also changing and evolving. This panel discussion will look at the emerging trends in information security from both a business and technological perspective.

IP Telephony requires unprecedented levels of QoS and security, and compliance standards require comprehensive levels of documentation and proof--even when networks are down. Experts recommend vigilant configuration management, proactive network management, precise auditing of user access, device changes and session logs to achieve optimal service level requirements. This session identifies emerging technologies that should be used for meticulous and preemptive configuration and network management via a secure, non-SNMP, remote access connection, in in-band and out-of-band modes.

With most availability problems solved, IT managers have turned to application performance management as the Next Big Thing. But deciding which tools and processes to adopt can be frightening. There are many sources of data: agents, passive monitoring, synthetic testing and logfile parsing. And there is a wide range of ways to use this information - from tactical incident management to long-term capacity planning. This session will provide a taxonomy of application performance management approaches to cover all the fundamental requirements without blowing budgets or embarking on multi-year deployment nightmares.

We have heard a lot about application networks. Moving processing intelligence into network components can increase their reliability and scalability, as a new generation of routers treats messages and services the way their predecessors handled packets and sockets. But the ultimate measure of success is business productivity - as driven by users? ability to accomplish tasks quickly and successfully. This panel of application networking technologists will look at the impact application networks can have on end-user productivity and business success.

New innovations in web data centers appear almost daily: Processor, OS and application virtualization; traffic acceleration; monitoring; change management; security; and even fraud detection. And in many cases these innovations are driven by legislation; in others, by new business models or simple lack of capacity. Our panel of hands-on web operations personnel will look at some of the latest technologies and separate value from hype as they discuss which ones they will be deploying in the coming months.

The web as we know it is changing. Yesterday?s page-by-page navigation and ?document? metaphors have evolved into today?s rich-client model where browsers are an integral part of the application; more like client-server than web browsing. Some analysts have described rich client applications as the web's "last mile.? Just as the telecommunications last mile is fraught with complexity and challenge, rich client applications can be harder to build and manage. Whether running Adobe?s Flash client?installed on nearly every browser in the world?or executing AJAX applications written in JavaScript, this new model has significantly different network behaviors in terms of throughput, caching and request volumes. This session will look at how rich client applications impact your network, and what changes you need to make to prepare for them.

With so many employees using so many communications devices besides the traditional telephone desk set, can you still justify the investment of putting (and supporting) a telephone on every desk? What end devices are replacing the telephone, and what are their advantages and limitations when it comes to enterprise communications? Will session initiation protocol (SIP) make telephones more feature-rich and versatile, or will it commoditize them? Will users be able to have one communications "identity" that can live on multiple end devices? This session will be a lively discussion of whether the phone is headed for extinction, evolution, or renaissance.

A new era of applications management not only requires service providers to converge voice and data communication, but to integrate wireless, VoIP, presence, conferencing, messaging and collaboration. In fact, this is further challenged by the addition of multiple vendors, deploying secure private IP networking, configuring QoS and managing applications such as CRM, SCM and ERP. Learn how you can achieve an enterprise-grade solution that delivers business value in a trustworthy environment.

With increasing adoption of the Web computing model to support business initiatives, SSL encryption is becoming the de facto approach to securing enterprise communications. Unfortunately, while the network can ensure the integrity and optimization of SSL traffic to/from application resources it owns, you lose all visibility into the application flows. This "blind spot" creates a difficult situation, making it harder to troubleshoot network issues and rendering content-aware networks useless. This session will examine the issues and best practices around managing a network where SSL has a predominant role.