The 2008 AITP Region 5 Spring Conference was hosted by the Illowa Chapter and held at the Isle of Capri Casinos & Hotel Convention Center in Bettendorf, Iowa on Thursday April 24 & Friday April 25, 2008. Feel free to read below and see wht you missed!
Conference registration: The registration fee for the conference will be $35 for AITP members , $65 for non-members and $10 for student members. Please use the registration link on this site to register online and reserve a seat by Friday April 18, 2008.
Room rates of only $72/per night with room tax of 12% added for both single and double occupancy-with 3 or more an additional $10.00 per person would be charged. The hotel check in is 4:00 pm and check out at 11:00 am. Please check out their website for more details www.isleofcapricasinos.com.
For Reservations: Call 1-800-724-5825 and ask for the Group Reservations. They will need to provide the group code: AIT0423 and the Group name is Assoc. of Info. Tech. Professionals. The room reservations need to be made by end of day on Monday April 14, 2008. If you have any trouble with reservations through the 800 number, you can contact the Sales Director, Kay Hawotte at 563-344-2657. Please check out their website for more details www.isleofcapricasinos.com
Presentations: We are pleased to announce that Alliance Technologies in Des Moines Iowa will be a platinum level sponsor for this event and has provided 2 speakers for our event. On Thursday afternoon, we will hear from Sean Clark and our speaker for our dinner meeting Thursday evening will be Michael Keen. Delta Communications in Waukesha WI is a gold level sponsor for the event and is pleased to bring to us Todd Everett for our first session. Robert Half Technology in Cedar Rapids is a gold level sponsor for the conference and will be conduct a session with Eric Haltearound the State of the IT Job Market.
Beginning at 1:00 pm on Thursday, Delta Communications sponsors Todd Everrett, Packeteer, presenting Wide Area File Services: Delivering on the Promise of Storage and Server Consolidation at the Branch Office
Server and storage consolidation projects naturally introduce distance and delay between your users and their business critical data. The needs of your enterprise for secure, consolidated data seem to be at odds with your user’s need for fast access to files. However, the business benefits one side of a double-edged sword. With CIFS (Common Internet File System) providing the transport and management for files over networks, consolidation brings new performance challenges to an already overburdened IT infrastructure. Alone, the performance challenges, facing IT can compromise consolidation benefits. Collectively, they can derail and entire effort-effectively undermining consolidation’s intent and its benefits to the business. This presentation looks at the major issues impacting a successful consolidation project. We will explore how the unique Packeteer WAFS (Wide Area File Sharing) approach addresses these issues to ensure your server and storage consolidation projects not only succeed your user and business expectations. Todd Everett is a WAFS Consultative Sales Engineer for Packeteer. Todd has over 19 years in the industry and is certified as MCSE, CCSE, CNE and PCE.
Beginning at 2:20 pm on Thursday, Sean Clark, Alliance Technologies, presents Tips and Tricks For a Successful "VMware First" Strategy
Motherhood, apple pie and server virtualization: all things we can agree are good. Virtualizing servers enables turn-key, affordable DR plans, lower electric bills, more manageable environments and lower capital expenses. But despite the many benefits, people are still reluctant to virtualize their critical IT systems, large SQL Server or Oracle databases, Exchange mail servers and Citrix application servers. In this session, we'll debunk the myths surrounding the virtualization of these important systems. We'll also dive into the tips and tricks necessary make a "VMware First" strategy pay off for your company. Sean Clark is a Solutions Architect with Alliance Technologies and a VMware Certified Professional with over three years experience designing and managing VMware Virtual Infrastructures. Sean has worked as a programmer, web developer, Oracle trained DBA, SMB IT consultant, systems analyst, VMware engineer, IT Security coordinator, IT Infrastructure manager and now Solutions Architect with Alliance Technologies. This varied background has helped cultivate a unique perspective on IT, and deep understanding of how server virtualization impacts IT.
Beginning at 4:00 pm on Thursday, Eric Halter, Robert Half Technology, presents State of the IT Job Market
Business and Employee priorities change frequently in the current IT market, so effective management requires planning and flexibility. Understanding how the workplace is evolving and the ways in which firms react to new circumstances can give you and/or your company the edge. We'll discuss the state of the IT job market, including: Emerging technologies and trends, the speed at which open IT jobs are filled, the use of project-based professionals and Offshore Outsourcing, employee retention improvement programs and most appreciated benefits. Eric Halter, Division Director at Robert Half Technology in Cedar Rapids. We work with clients and candidates in Eastern Iowa, including Waterloo, Dubuque, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Muscatine, and the Quad Cities. Eric started his career with Robert Half in a marketing role, working with clients to identify their staffing needs, and fill them with highly qualified professionals. He worked in this capacity for approximately a year and a half, before moving to the recruiter role for a year and a half. As a recruiter, he worked with candidates to evaluate their skills, place them in suitable positions, and provide career counseling, resume and interview coaching. For the past 8 months, Eric has been the Division Director, back on the marketing side of the business.
For our evening dinner meeting beginning at 7:15 pm on Thursday, Michael Keen. Alliance Technologies, presents Developing a Strategy around Virtualization and Application Delivery”
There are three very powerful forces happening right now in the global economy. They are so influential that they are creating conditions that are making IT virtualization the dominant technology in the data center. How are you dealing with these forces today? There are many types of virtualization and we will discuss a few of them, share what these forces are, and how you can start putting a strategy together to be proactive instead of reactive. Michael didn’t start out in IT, but came to it in a very interesting way. In a previous life, what he calls B.I.T (Before I.T.), Michael was spending his time on the highest mountains and granite walls in the world as a professional alpine and big wall climber. During the last couple of years of his climbing career he carried with him every book on IT he could get his hands on. After his retirement from climbing he was an independent consultant working on the development of strategic IT planning projects around access strategies for some of California’s largest companies. He joined Hewlett Packard in 1997. He started working on the Remote Access Client team developing access strategies and implementing environments for the Mergers and Acquisitions division for “day one” access for newly acquired companies. Before he left in May of 2006, he had architected some of the largest Citrix environments in the country, most notably for the State of California, Hewlett Packard, Defense Logistics Agency, and FedEx to name a few. He is the creator and author of the Hewlett Packard Access Infrastructure Reference Design, where his design and strategies helped save Hewlett Packard over $25million dollars over five years. Today, Michael is the Director and Senior Solutions Architect in the Enterprise Architecture Group at Alliance Technologies. He is currently working on multiple projects ranging from developing application delivery strategies with executive management teams, to implementing these solutions with teams of infrastructure engineers where they are turning data centers into delivery centers. He is also in the process of rewriting the Access Infrastructure Reference Design to reflect the latest features and functionality of Citrix.