State of the Industry: Technology in Texas
6/4/2008 8:30:00 AM
While the analysts debate how much the economy is slowing in 2008 and what those numbers mean for the future, some companies are better equipped than others to handle this period of weakness. Is YOUR company one of them? Other regional IT conferences barely scratch the surface of the issues that are on your mind, but ITEC will take on the local economy in our State of the Industry: Technology in Texas session, the single most important resource of the year for decision makers and large and small business owners. This in-depth session will tell you how the national economy is helping or hurting your business. We'll help you benchmark your current business plan with the latest segment-specific economic data and analysis to make informed decisions about your business. Get a jump on your competitors and test your assumptions and 2009 growth plans by attending this important session.
Speakers:
Anthony Huang
Founder and Chairman
TECHXANS
Lisa Kirtley-Noorlag
Forrester Research
Timothy O'Connor
Systems Consultant
CrossTech Partners
Pam Terry
Executive Director
Techxans (Moderator)
[TOP]
Featured Keynote: The New Telephony Initiative for Business
6/4/2008 9:00:00 AM
This session will discuss how advances in the cellular market and VOIP/unified communications have increased expectations and impact of voice in the workplace. I'll discuss the measurable impact that customers should be looking to obtain, and manufacturers / providers should be looking to deliver in 2008 and beyond.
Speakers:
Kevin Brown
President and CEO
IPcelerate
[TOP]
The Benefits of Social Computing in the Enterprise
6/4/2008 10:15:00 AM
In this session you will hear how many of the largest brands in the world are utilizing social computing and online communities to extend their brands, engage their customers, enhance customer support, and improve employee productivity and collaboration. These examples of success can provide you with ideas on how you can implement Web 2.0 features and functionality in your own organization.
Speakers:
Adonis Bitar
Senior Sales Engineer, Interactive Solutions
Telligent
[TOP]
Optimize Your Web Experience with Next Generation Web Content Management
6/4/2008 10:15:00 AM
How you package and deliver the information assets of your organization is critical to driving prospect and customer activity, employee productivity and partner enablement. Delivering an optimized web experience by providing targeted messaging for specific customer segments at their exact time of need, in a useful format, and presented in a relevant context has become the difference between meeting customer expectations and falling behind.
Takeaway points include:
Learn how to how to define the value of your content and deliver it in context
Discover ways to package your content, assembling information in a useful and meaningful way
Get ideas to facilitate true communication with your customers on the web
Speakers:
Michael Serulneck
Solutions Activist
RedDot - The Open Text Web Solutions Group
[TOP]
UTM: Simple, Elegance and Power
6/4/2008 10:15:00 AM
Modern IT security managers are essentially required to protect against multiple attack vectors while ensuring optimal performance for their organization. This session offers information about Unified Threat Management solution for comprehensive perimeter security. Featuring:
Network Security - Firewall, VPN and Intrusion Prevention
Web Security - URL Filtering, Malware Detection, Bandwidth Management and Application Control
Mail Security - Antispam, Antivirus, Antiphishing and Email Encryption
Deployment as hardware, software or virtual appliance
Astaro Security Gateway provides immediate protection for your network, web access and email traffic. The Astaro solution integrates more security applications than any competitor in one award-winning management device. A complete range of hardware appliances scale to the performance level that you demand.
Speakers:
Charles Tracey
Systems Engineer
Astaro
[TOP]
Beyond E-Mail: The Future of Work Includes Telecommuting, Flex Time and Virtual Teams. Globally Dispersed Workers Need A "Place" To Work Together On Line
6/4/2008 10:15:00 AM
With oil projected to reach $200/barrel, more and more work will be done outside the traditional workplace. But working in isolation is not efficient and teamwork on line is even harder to accomplish than it is off line. How do you prepare a workforce for "virtual teaming"? What are the challenges? What tools are needed? What problems must be addressed?
This session is based on 10 years of successful online team building. The examples are live. You will be introduced to people from Europe, India and the US who work on line everyday providing greater value for their employers while reducing the struggles and costs of commuting and travel.
In this session you will see case studies of successful globally dispersed teams. You will learn about the platforms, processes and tools that have been proven successful in forming online teams. And you will see live examples of online project management, time management, document management, contact management, online training, video conferencing, and more.
Speakers:
Tom Simon
Founder, CTO
iPrismGlobal, Inc
[TOP]
Botnets: Battling the Borg of the Internet
6/4/2008 11:30:00 AM
Sure, you've heard of bots and botnets. But have you ever actually seen a bot, bot source code, or a bot herder's Command and Control (C&C) center in action? Now you can. In this presentation, network security analyst, Corey Nachreiner, uncovers what makes bots tick. The talk covers topics both beginning and advanced:
What a "botnet" is
What bot source codes looks like and does
How bot herders control bots via a C&C centers
How a crook might recruit an army of bots
How to render bots powerless on your network
During this talk, you'll see the inner workings of some real-world, malicious bots, found in the wild on underground sites. Learn about the many attacks botnets can launch, and how to defend against them. Since the best way to understand these sophisticated attacks is to see them unfold right before your eyes, Nachreiner will present video captures of bots in action. Once you understand how these evil botnets get built, you'll have the power to avoid assimilation. Resistance is not futile.
Speakers:
Corey Nachreiner
Network Security Analyst
WatchGuard
[TOP]
Email Archiving: Improving Productivity and Meeting Compliance Requirements
6/4/2008 11:30:00 AM
Email today contains discussions, agreements, documents, notifications, contact information, and many other kinds of critical business information. By automatically storing email records, your organization can ensure that they are not loosing or misplacing the information they need. In this session you'll hear how to easily and automatically maintain the required records and to search and find specific information. Takeaway points include:
Options for eliminating the need to retain large volumes of old emails on your mail server.
Details about the government regulations (Sarbannes-Oxley, HIPAA, etc.) that require the retention of and access to email records.
How to use a compact network appliance for your archiving needs. Speakers:
Dean Richardson
Vice President of Sales
ArcMail Technology
[TOP]
Hardware Unplugged: Storage Software Secrets
6/4/2008 11:30:00 AM
While there are numerous software products that help you backup, manage, tune, and manipulate data, they all eventually read and write to a physical device. For optimal performance, data integrity/security, and ROI, you must factor the inherent strengths and weaknesses of your hardware, and understand where you need to point the proverbial finger at when things do not go "well"
This will be a fast-moving presentation that will cover a wide range of topics relating specifically to various disk/RAID technologies rather than application and O/S-specific software. Portions will be relevant to seasoned system administrators and storage product VARs to marginally technical end-users just trying to get the best bang for their storage buck and need to know what questions they should ask their potential storage product vendors.
Topics will include:
Disk drives: Why does the "same" PC disk cost 3-10X more money when all they did was stick a fibre channel or SAS controller card on it? Which benefits may not be a benefit for you?
Storage hacking & security .. are any disk (including USB) technologies inherently more vulnerable then others to hacking? What kind of outside-of-the-box attacks can bypass security software.
What can you do to measure performance, errors, and health from physical hardware to identify bottlenecks, or find places where you can deploy older, slower, cheaper hardware. How can you accurately measure real I/Os on physical disks so you can do real tuning.
Speakers:
David Lethe
President
SANtools, Inc.
[TOP]
Web Desktop Virtualization
6/4/2008 11:30:00 AM
Truly effective web desktop virtualization goes beyond delivering just another virtualized Windows desktop. You need a simple, less bloated, remotely accessible operating environment that runs in a browser and is independent of the underlying operating system. The best ones deliver a rich desktop-like experience, coupled with access to all of your organization's business applications and services. In this session you will learn:
How to find an option that can provide a complete desktop interface through web 2.0 technology
The importance of finding a solution that provides access to all of your organization's applications, content, and services
Why you need a solution that delivers ubiquitous desktop access to your growing remote and mobile workforce
Speakers:
Rick German
CEO & President
Stoneware, Inc.
[TOP]
Luncheon Keynote: Products of your Habitat: Evolving your Security Solutions
6/4/2008 12:15:00 PM
The presentation will focus on the following 3 areas:
An overview of past enterprise security tools that have become commonplace today.
The benefits of true unified threat management solutions, what to look for, and how to evaluate them.
Upcoming trends for 2008 and how to plan for a solution that will evolve with them.
Speakers:
Charles Tracey
Systems Engineer
Astaro
[TOP]
The Advantages of Decoupling Business Logic from Physical Databases
6/4/2008 1:15:00 PM
Traditional ETL tools cement data transformation routines into physical
databases. This approach creates a high degree of difficulty in applying
revisions to ETL routines and re-purposing developed code for new
connections. It also adds substantial time and effort in implementations
where data is collected from multiple homogeneous sources.
In this web seminar, you will learn;
How Genio Data Integration enables a singular ETL script to run
against multiple physical databases within a single process.
The connections' properties do not need to be pre-determined; as
they are dynamically assigned at run time.
The tangible benefits of business logic's decoupling from the
physical data store.
This presentation will be of interest to developers, ETL developers, IT
managers, integrators and consulting firms.
Speakers:
Serge Savchenko
Director
Genio Solutions Sale, Hummingbird the Open Text Connectivity Group
[TOP]
Simplifying Data Storage Management
6/4/2008 1:15:00 PM
Systems fail, users accidentally delete files, natural disasters occur, and mistakes happen. Throughout, businesses are exposed to data loss.
One of the most important questions IT management needs to ask is, "What is my data recovery plan?" StoreVault storage appliances can provide a comprehensive set of backup and recovery options to ensure data is recoverable and usable, and to help reduce or eliminate the amount of downtime experienced in a crisis.
Back up a complete multi-terabyte Microsoft Exchange or SQL Server database completely in seconds, not hours, and recovery is just as fast
Implement Disk-to-Disk Backup (D2D) or Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape Backup (D2D2T)
Consolidate or eliminate Microsoft, UNIX/Linux and Macintosh file servers
Expand capacity on the fly with no downtime
Implement storage for virtual machines (VMware, XenSource, Virtual Iron)
Speakers:
Vern Bell
Senior Storage Specialist
VAST Data Systems, presented by StoreVault, a NetApp Division
[TOP]
Unified Communication: How Will it Really Be Implemented?
6/4/2008 1:15:00 PM
More organizations of all sizes are adopting Unified Communications in 2008. If you're ready to experience real-time communications, this session will tell you what you need to know about UC today and in the future. We'll tell you why you should consider switching to unified communications and how it can help you to cut costs in many areas, improve workforce efficiency, and encourage integration of business processes. Takeaway points include:
The benefits of migrating at your own pace and using existing PBX and voicemail systems.
How to use the convergence of computers and telephony to multiply the effectiveness and speed of communications within your company.
The best way to integrate your Outlook email, Instant Messaging, Voice-mail, mobile phone, Fax, video conferencing and more.
Speakers:
Steve Miller
Vice President
Insource Technology Company
[TOP]
Leading the Mesh Revolution and Mobility Solution Opportunities
6/4/2008 1:15:00 PM
In this session you'll get to participate in an exciting discussion of next generation mesh networking for city-wide scalability and performance. You will also get in depth information about the Intelligent Wireless networking choice from an expert in the field.
Speakers:
Jerry Dodson
Sales Director
SkyPilots Networks
Charlie Provenza
.
Colubris Networks
[TOP]
"The Perfect 10": The key characteristics to look for in an Internet infrastructure provider
6/4/2008 2:00:00 PM
As your clients put more of their business processes online and become more dependent on an open network (with inherent security and quality of service risks), a new frontier of opportunities is opening for system integrators. By working with the right infrastructure partner, you can deliver higher-margin services as opposed to merely marking up commodities like hardware or traditional software licenses.
Join David Driskill, Senior Engineer with Verio as he discusses IN DETAIL what to look for when selecting the right outsourced infrastructure partner for your organization. Hear how the right partner can:
Simplify your business
Address real market needs
Liberate you from IT maintenance and security hassles
Differentiate you from your competitors
Positively impact your TOC
And More!Speakers:
David Driskill
Senior Engineer
Verio
[TOP]
Top 10 Technology Trends to Revolutionize Your Business
6/4/2008 2:00:00 PM
All of us have probably felt that our small business requires Herculean strength. After all, to compete in the marketplace, our businesses have to: adapt quickly to changing conditions, squeeze maximum productivity from a limited staff, and keep overhead low. In short, we have to do more with less. Fortunately, we have help. There are ten powerful trends that can help small businesses compete?by boosting flexibility, productivity, and communications, and by reducing costs. Join us for Cbeyond's Top 10 List of Tech Trends and walk away with powerful knowledge on how you can take your business to that next level.
Speakers:
. .
.
Cbeyond
[TOP]
Project Management - What's in it for YOU!
6/4/2008 2:00:00 PM
Project Management is a universal need across all
industries, including - Aerospace, Information Technology, Software
Development, and Telecommunications, just to name a few of the obvious.
By developing a common knowledge base from which your project team
members can reference, you can streamline processes, and therefore your
organization - resulting in a substantial increase in your ROI.
Takeaway points include:
Getting started on the road to professional project management
Developing the right skills in a competitive market place
How project management increases ROI, Revenue, and Customer Satisfaction
Speakers:
Tim Bergmann
Chief Education Officer
True Solutions Inc
[TOP]
The 7 Deadly Sins of Backup and Recovery... And How To Avoid Them
6/4/2008 2:00:00 PM
In maintaining the continuity of your business systems, there are often hundreds of components that can fail, and many more ways that environmental and human factors can trigger such failures. But it can be surprisingly straightforward to implement appropriate protections that will limit the occurrences-and the impact-of the inevitable failures.
You will leave this session knowing:
The 7 Deadly Sins Of Backup & Recovery ? Most common BSC and DR Mistakes.
The Wages Of Sin ? Impacts Of The Inevitable Failures.
How To Avoid Them ? Prescriptions For Redemption.
Avoiding these common mistakes vastly improves the odds that an organization will successfully sidestep the worst of the inevitable failures. We'll explain each mistake in detail, and offer strategies for avoiding the traps they represent.
Speakers:
Philip McKinzey
Regional Sales Manager, South Central Region
Unitrends Corporation presented by Computer Tech
[TOP]
Second Circle Content Management: Considerations in Selecting and Deploying Content Management Solutions
6/5/2008 8:15:00 AM
In the vast landscape of web applications, there are literally hundreds of content management systems to choose from. How are you going to direct your web content management strategy? In this session you will gain insight into various aspects of web content management, including: choosing a server environment, deciding between open-source and proprietary, and mapping internal business processes to core features and functionality. Come away with the knowedge you need to make informed decisions around your web content management strategy.
Speakers:
Timothy O'Connor
Systems Consultant
CrossTech Partners
[TOP]
Information Security in 2008 and Beyond: Overcoming the Next Threat
6/5/2008 9:00:00 AM
You are already battling worms, zombies, ransonware, rootkits and a whole host of uninvited visitors. But are you truly ready for what's coming next? This session will help you get prepared for the future, as well as helping you understand why you might not be doing enough today. You'll learn: You'll learn:
Solutions for managing and protecting data throughout your organization.
How to tell which defense strategies are working and which ones need to be replaced.
The best system monitoring tools to allow you to identify, analyze and stop viruses, worms, Trojans and other forms of malicious code.
What you can do to make sure your business is Web 2.0 ready and how to make sure your organization, your data and your people are protected.
Speakers:
Jesper Jurcenoks
Co-founder
netVigilance
[TOP]
Data Centers: State of the Market
6/5/2008 10:15:00 AM
This session will review the recent evolutions of the managed services marketplace with an eye to what the future holds. It's a "don't miss" for anyone considering an infrastructure transformation.
Speakers:
Josh Buis
President
Clearview Managed Services
[TOP]
Navigating the Labyrinth: How to Select a Managed Services Provider for Your Web Applications
6/5/2008 10:15:00 AM
The focus of this session will be to discuss whether a hosted
infrastructure is the right option for SaaS and Web 2.0 companies. As
SaaS becomes the preferred software delivery method, and individual SaaS
providers grow their businesses, they need a hosting infrastructure that
can seamlessly scale with their needs, and provide uptime for their
mission critical applications. When should SaaS providers focusing on
their core competency of software development, entrust their
infrastructure to hosting providers who can provide expertise in
security, application uptime, network connectivity, data backup and
compute resource scalability? What type of hosting platforms exist, and
which are best suited for SaaS providers and web-based businesses that
are in different stages of their maturity?
Speakers:
Emil Sayegh
Vice President of Product Management and Marketing
Rackspace
[TOP]
The False Positive: Anti-Spam's Dirty Little Secret
6/5/2008 10:15:00 AM
Before anti-spam, you never asked, "did you get my email?" Spams, viruses and phishing threats forced the use of email filtering systems, software and services. However, these solutions have made email untrusted for their high false positive rates and inconvenient quarantines. They often require extensive, hands-on training by your administrators, as well as your end-users. In this session you'll learn how to block spam AND save your legitimate email from being caught. Takeaway points include:
You'll learn how to avoid false positive rates.
The significance of SPAM signatures and how an appliance defeats them.
The new technology you need to successfully eliminate email threats and still deliver important, business critical emails to your user's inbox.
Speakers:
DAVID TROUP
CEO & FOUNDER
MAILFOUNDRY
[TOP]
A New Virtual Reality: Virtualization Present and Future
6/5/2008 10:15:00 AM
One of the
hottest topics in IT today is virtualization. The ability to multiply
computing power to almost limitless proportion is changing the corporate
infrastructure on a daily basis. As corporations look for new ways to
increase bandwidth while decreasing expenses in power consumption and
required data center square footage they are looking to virtualization as
the solution for these requirements.
Join Mark "Doc" Shipley of ETC Solutions (a division of EduCorp) as
he presents his view of the IT virtualization landscape based on his 20
years if IT experience. His presentation will provide you with key
information about the current state of virtualization and how you can get
the most out of your infrastructure. He will also offer insight into the
future of the virtualization and the business drivers that will take us
there.
Speakers:
Mark "Doc" Shipley
Edu Corp Training and Consulting
[TOP]
Constructing a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan to Protect Your IT Infrastructure
6/5/2008 11:15:00 AM
What is the cost of your IT continuity strategy, and can you be confident it delivers? This seminar will discuss why continuous availability solutions that require no user intervention should be an important focus for companies. It will also address the importance of continuity strategies that look at business risk in the context of linking people, processes and data and will discuss why the adoption of this strategy is both cost-effective and important in addressing risk.
Takeaway points include:
An understanding of the barriers to adopting traditional high availability solutions
An overview of automated continuous availability solutions currently on the market and how they address risk
A summary of the benefits that automated continuous availability solutions bring to SMEs and larger organizations alike
Speakers:
Eric Vaughn
Director of Channels
Neverfail
[TOP]
9 Major Power Problems and How to Protect Against Them
6/5/2008 11:15:00 AM
There are 9 major power problems that IEEE states will effect your computers. We will talk about:
What they are
How they will effect computers
How to protect against them
Speakers:
Andrew Ellis
President
Power Factor Inc.
[TOP]
Providing a Method to your Madness: Aligning Your Hiring Strategy with Your Business Plan
6/5/2008 11:15:00 AM
How can companies compete and win in the increasingly competitive war for talent?
Recruiting and hiring strategies are often an afterthought in business planning- although every company's mission statement mentions the importance of a great team. This session will show business owners how to align their hiring strategy with their business plan through workforce planning, a repeatable recruiting methodology, and through aligning the business forecast with available resources to come up with a future looking recruiting plan. Takeaway points include:In this presentation you will learn:
How to develop a workforce planning culture within your organization
How a talent acquisition methodology can help align your hiring and business strategies
How to drive a hiring plan from the business forecast and create a hiring strategy that considers the same planning horizon as your business plan.
Speakers:
Gary O'Neal
Founder and Senior Partner
Coolhires Ltd.
[TOP]
Protect your Company's Information Assets:
The hidden risks of moving sensitive data, and the 5 secrets to doing it safely.
6/5/2008 11:15:00 AM
Learn from the mistakes of other companies that failed to secure their
data movement.
Learn about the consequences of losing sensitive data.
Learn about common points of vulnerability that might affect you.
Find out about who can see or touch your data when it is being moved.
Learn ways to help make your data movement procedures survive a systems
or legal audit.
Learn the safest ways to move large volumes of sensitive data files
securely.
Sure, your environment is safe, .isn't it? You took precautions. You have firewalls and other measures to keep out hackers and others that might try to break into your systems to steal your data, or cause damage.
But what about the shipments of data files that regularly come in and out the door? How safe is that? Protecting static data that sits in your database in your protected environment is one thing, but what about when that data is on the move?
Some companies have hundreds or even thousands of files passing in and out every day as part of their normal business. Who keeps track of all
that? How do they do it? How do they know when something goes wrong? Is
that data exposed at any point in its journey from your customers or
suppliers to you? What about outgoing transmissions? Do you know who is
touching your data?
Come and learn ways to best protect your company's precious data asset whilethey're on the move.
Speakers:
Val Serrie
DMBGroup, Inc
[TOP]
Master Mind Panel and Lunch: Security for Second Circle Technologies
6/5/2008 12:00:00 PM
Our panelists will discuss the latest twist on security risks associated with the proliferation of web-based applications, SaaS, Web 2.0, social networking and anything that might impact your network. You'll get detailed information and analysis from a panel of experts who are ready to share the trends and challenges of securing second circle technologies. Light lunch will be provided during this session and you can pick it up at one of our mobile lunch stations on the Expo Floor.
Speakers:
JAMES GASKIN
AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST
Jesper Jurcenoks
Co-founder
netVigilance
Corey Nachreiner
Network Security Analyst
WatchGuard
DAVID TROUP
CEO & FOUNDER
MAILFOUNDRY
[TOP]