8:00-8:30AM Registration and Breakfast - Breakfast Sponsor: DuPont Fabros Technology
8:30-8:35AM WSTA Introductions- Michael Maffattone, Chief Technology Officer, Harvard Management Company and WSTA Vice President
Today’s presentations will be available online on the agenda page at http://www.wsta.org/events/event_archive_photos
8:35-9:20AM Keynote -- “The Industrialization of the Data Center”
Richard Fichera, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
The industrialized data center is driven by the evolution of core data center facilities, IT systems, and management tools. We’re seeing this trend unfold across all industries, but it’s particularly acute in financial services where pressure to build a “private cloud” is reaching a boiling point. So what are these financial services firms looking for? To create more reliable, dynamic, and cost efficient data centers. To get there, IT leaders must tie technology developments to best practices, moving from basic virtualization to implementing enterprise cloud infrastructure architectures. By attending this session, you will:
• Identify key developments in data center facilities, IT systems, and management technologies
• Learn how new infrastructure architectures and staff responsibilities will maximize resources
• Understand next steps to transform today’s data center into a cloud-ready environment|
• Discuss how the trend to private cloud and industrialized datacenters is specifically affecting financial services companies
9:20-9:35AM "Enterprise Data Center Strategy"
John Speak, Vice President, Data Center Services, Fidelity Investments
We have experienced a technology revolution over the last twenty years. That has changed what, and how much compute is hosted in our critical space. Our facilities and technology infrastructure that house distributed and mainframe services are significant investments. It is imperative that they meet our business needs, and are efficient. A collaborative firm wide data center strategy can by an effective way to reach that goal. This session will cover:
· A review of what is driving corporations to establish data center strategies.
· The endless considerations that must be accounted for at the outset, and throughout the initiative.
· Structuring an approach that will keep the enterprise focused, and positioned for success.
· Continually looking forward and building in the ability to adjust the program is a must.
9:35-10:00AM “Financial Services Messaging Infrastructure”
Greg Olsen, Director, Business Development, Sendmail, Inc.
There is a tectonic shift in enterprise information technology underway. IT until recently had been dedicated primarily to data processing and process automation as a source of competitive differentiation and the ability to operate on the minimum cost curve for the firm. IT is changing however. IT had been primarily built around systems of record – the structured data and software that automated processes, such as ERP, financial transaction processing, financial reporting and business intelligence. Those systems of record are largely complete and most IT spend on those systems is now dedicated to optimization. With the consumerization of IT, smart phones, tablets, social media, the next wave of IT is in systems of engagement – systems used to communicate with supply chains, outsourcers, partners, and customers. These systems of engagement are dedicated to collaboration and communication. They are the source of competitive differentiation. The messaging infrastructure of an organization is the enabler of the systems of engagement. Email is still the most dominant form of communication for commercial firms although IM, Web 2.0, text messaging are also rising in enterprises. The email system is optimized when built around an email backbone that centralizes email routing, policy control, and higher value functions such as encryption. The email backbone is an on-premises infrastructure that ties systems of record and systems of engagement and enables deployment of the optimal mix of applications and platforms (on-premises, virtualized data centers, and Cloud).
Key takeways
- Systems of record are largely complete and systems of engagement are the source of competitive differentiation
- Email is still the dominant form of communication for enterprises and core to systems of engagement
- An on-premises email backbone optimizes systems of engagement
- An on-premises email backbone is an enabler of the optimal mix of on-premises, virtualized, and Cloud email enabled applications
10:00-10:25AM “Reducing Outages and Degradations With Proactive Application Performance Monitoring”
Ted Wilson – Vice President Business Development, SL Corporation
For leading financial institutions, custom applications are often key to competitive advantage. However, as the number of applications continues to grow, the environment becomes increasingly complex and distributed, requiring even more infrastructure and monitoring tools to keep systems performing as expected. Ted Wilson will discuss how application support teams can more proactively monitor their critical applications while leveraging existing investments and increasing efficiency. A case study on one of the US’s top 5 banks will also be presented.
10:25-10:45AM “Break and Demo Area Visit”
10:45-11:10AM “When to Scale UP and When to Scale OUT”
Ari Zilka, CTO and Co-Founder, Terracotta, Inc.
Commodity “big memory” hardware has the potential to improve the performance of enterprise applications, but the realities of Java garbage collection limit scale up on a single machine. Many financial institutions are using virtualization to “slice up” machines, but this workaround becomes increasingly complex and inefficient as the number of nodes grows. What companies want is the performance and simplicity of scaling up and the HA and flexibility benefits of scaling out. Can both be achieved on “big memory” boxes?
11:10-11:35AM “Going Modular? Lessons from 500 modular data center implementations around the world”
John Kundtz, Data Center Services Manager, Global Services, IBM
Every day we face unpredictable demands from the business and continue to drive new technology and compute models in to our data centers. These are the challenges we all face in how to best design our next data center. Learn how to extend the life of your existing data center, rationalize your overall data center portfolio or design new data centers to lower your data center’s costs. We will discuss proven data center design approaches from implementing 500 modular data centers around the world that address data center availability, capacity, capital, and operating costs in a cost effective and flexible manner, providing capacity when and where it is needed.
11:35-12:00Noon “WAN Optimization and the New Data Center”
Chris Rogers, Manager, Systems Engineering, Eastern US Region, Silver Peak Systems
Data centers and their supporting infrastructures are undergoing fundamental change. Virtualization is changing not only the economics of computing but the very nature of application delivery. Consolidation means more data in fewer sites with greater demands for availability. Convergence of server, storage, and communications data onto a single shared network demands higher performance and control over the quality of service delivered on an application by application basis. And budget pressures drive the need for efficiency and cost-effective scalability. Learn how WAN Optimization can enable higher performance and more control while driving networking costs down.
12:00-1:30PM Luncheon
Seminar Wrap-Up - Michael Maffattone, Chief Technology Officer, Harvard Management
Company and WSTA Vice President
Demo Area Open
1:30PM Seminar Concludes
