2010 Speaker List
Hear from IT leaders and industry experts in more than 100 sessions at the leading business technology event.
Michael Dortch
Director of Research, Focus
Michael has been empowering information technology (IT) buyers, sellers and users since 1979, by translating what technical people say and do into language that non-technical businesspeople and consumers can understand and use. Michael is Principal Analyst and Managing Editor at DortchOnIT.com, "an independent voice for technology-dependent people." As Director of Research at Focus.com, Michael helped to grow that site into a community of more than 850,000 people including some 5,000 Focus Experts, and a Top 10 Media Web Site according to Crain's B2B Magazine. Michael has also been a senior analyst at Aberdeen Group, Robert Frances Group (RFG), and Yankee Group. Michael has helped established and emerging vendors to craft go-to-market messages and strategies aligned with users' goals and needs, and companies of all sizes and types to choose and deploy IT solutions more successfully. In 1990, Michael wrote "The ABCs of Local-Area Networks" (remember those?), a book published internationally in three languages by Sybex, Inc. A transplanted "Noo Yawker," Michael lives and works in beautiful Santa Rosa, California, about 50 miles north of San Francisco. Michael can be reached directly at medortch@dortchonit.com.
Sessions
Virtualization-Life in the Trenches
Location: Room 1E13
Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 2:00 PM-3:00 PM
Articles often describe the value that virtualization technologies can bring to IT but what are the realities of implementing server and desktop virtualization? Do they really offer the benefits that vendors are touting? What are the "gotchas" to avoid? Hear about the experiences of those who have implemented various virtualization solutions. Find out what strategies worked and which ones didn't. Listen to accounts of life in the trenches, and learn next steps to consider in your own implementations of virtual infrastructure.
Virtualization Security and Compliance
Location: Room 1E13
Thursday, October 21, 2010, 2:00 PM-3:00 PM
Virtualization impacts every major compliance standard and requires fundamental changes to security practices. What should this mean to you? This session will discuss what gaps are introduced in the move from physical to virtual where compliance is concerned, and prescribe specific steps to ensure compliance for production deployments. Regulatory areas discussed will include FISMA, DIACAP, PCI, HIPAA and SOX/GLBA. The session will also discuss how to build a framework for securing virtual data centers and private clouds, and how to take physical security constructs like Zones and propagate them to the virtual infrastructure to enable consistent security across the entire data center. You will learn how various hypervisor security architectures coupled with VM Introspection and automation can deliver dynamic, granular insights into security.
