AFCOM's Australia Symposium

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AFCOM's Australia Symposium Educational Programming

 

 

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

8:00–9:00am

 

Keynote: Managing Risk Through Data Centre Innovation

Speaker: Tom Roberts, Senior Technical Architect, Data Center Facilities, Trinity Information Services

In the past ten years there have been new technologies, processes and standards within the data centre environment that have been game changers in how systems are being managed. Businesses today are highly dependent on data centres, leaving us more vulnerable to risk than ever before. Our charge is to determine where the risks lie and identify solutions to mitigate these risks.

It is an exciting time to be in this industry, but at times it can be overwhelming for those individuals in charge of running one or more data centres. Large scale changes can be extremely expensive, and it has become more difficult to achieve the results expected by upper management.

Tom Roberts, AFCOM's 2011 Data Centre Manager of the Year and Senior Technical Architect, Data Center Facilities, for Trinity Health, has managed to successfully mitigate risks within his facilities through innovative thinking and proper planning. This keynote will provide attendees with an overview of what's going on in today's data centre market, how these things have changed the job of the data centre and facilities manager, and how to use innovation to mitigate the risks associated with today's data centre platform.

Biography:
Tom Roberts' responsibilities include the facility and infrastructure readiness of three corporate data centers and 27 hospital-based computer centers for Trinity Health in his 30+ years with the company. He also handles capacity planning and asset management for all the equipment located in the data and computer centers. Tom and his facility management team are also involved in evaluating the readiness of the hospital computer centers nation-wide for the continued rollout of common clinical, financial, and ERP applications for all Trinity Health hospitals. Prior to working in healthcare, Mr. Roberts worked as a master electrician in the electrical construction field. He has been President of the local Michigan AFCOM chapter for nine years and a member of the Data Center Institute Board of Directors for seven years. Tom also was the 2011 AFCOM Data Center Manager of the Year.

 

9:15–10:15am

Presentation: From Sheds to Services: Evolving the Australia Government Data Centre Strategy

Speaker: John Sheridan, First Assistant Secretary Agency Services

The Australian Government Data Centre Strategy 2010-2025 was launched on 22 March 2010. It aims to avoid $1 billion of data centre related costs over the next 10 to 15 years. Previously, Australian Government agencies had been independently establishing or sourcing data centre facilities without access to the economies of scale that can be achieved through a whole-of-government initiative. This presentation will describe the progress made over the first two years of implementing the Strategy, identify the next steps, and provide insight into the aims of the Strategy.

 

Biography:
In 2009 John Sheridan became the First Assistant Secretary Agency Services. His division's responsibilities include whole of government matters such as australia.gov.au, Government 2.0, data centre strategy, coordinated procurement, improvements in the ICT industry marketplace, and telecommunications services including ICON, the Ministerial communications and telepresence networks. Prior to his current role with the Australian Government John served as the Senior Executive Assistant to the Chief Defense Scientist, Acting Head of Information Systems Division, and Division Manager of the Business Improvement Division. He is a graduate of the Officer Cadet School, Portsea and the Army Command and Staff College. He has a BA(Hons) degree and a Graduate Diploma of Computing Studies from Deakin University, a Graduate Diploma in Management Studies, and a Master of Defence Studies from the University of New South Wales.

 

Presentation: What You Need to Know About Modular Data Centre

Speaker: Ross Hammond

Modular, containerized, scalable data centres are the future. The benefits of such an approach include speed of deployment, modular and scalable construction and energy efficiency. With data needs exploding and global economic conditions applying pressure on CAPEX budgets, this fresh approach to data centre design provides a new way forward for global business. This session will discuss the differences between 'traditional' data centre design and modular, containerized design, considering differences in data centre performance, availability, operating costs, PUE, management and maintenance requirements, and include an outline of what to consider when evaluating modular containerized data centres.

 

10:30–11:30am

Presentation: Is Technology Making Disaster Recovery Easier or Harder?

Speaker: Glen Allan

Disaster Recovery is changing new technology and legislations are changing the way we recover Data Centres. With every new technology can change your DR planning and may make it more complex to execute and maintain. This presentation reviews the use of backup and restore capabilities, snap-shotting , de-duplication , version controls , encryption can all cause data integrity failure of not restored correctly . Is backup to tape still relevant today how do you cost the benefits which one is right for your Data Centre , can you recovery site retain you for extended periods , what are most likely to need. What items does you site need as recovery site. What are the hard question you need to ask about your site before your boss or auditor does! Are cloud data centres ready for prime time can I back up there and can I recover into it? Where should my next DC be located?

 

Presentation: How Green is Your Data Centre? IT Sustainability Best Practice for Your Data Centre

Speaker: Mark Winter

This presentation will discuss the key value propositions around the greening of your data centre. Today, data centre managers are experiencing an unprecedented level of pressure to be more accountable when it comes to reducing their energy consumption and environmental footprint. The question is: what steps should you be taking right now to minimize the environmental impact of your facility? This session will discuss the benefits gained from creating and implementing green IT initiatives, how to achieve certification around IT sustainability practices, and how to gain enterprise wide support for these initiatives and incentives – as well as rewards for performance.

 

3:15–4:15pm

Presentation: The Impact of the Cloud on the Data Centre

Speaker: Simon Elisha

As organizations look to take advantage of cloud services as part of their overall IT strategy, the ability to connect existing Data Centre investments to these services must be well managed. Key considerations include security, performance and availability as well as flexibility of deployment to include branch offices and remote locations.

This presentation will take a look at some of the technologies available to enable existing DC investments to be combined with cloud services - allowing companies to take advantage of the elasticity of the cloud whilst maintaining existing operational processes and enterprise security requirements.

 

Presentation: Storage Trends that Will Impact the Data Centre

Speaker: Greg Goode

Data centre managers handle massive amounts of data, which has caused many headaches when it comes to storage. As technology continues to advance, today's marketplace provides a number of solutions to address the increasing demand for storage. Is storage driving different demands on data centre infrastructure? With emerging technologies, cloud services and virtualised environments, the data growth and performance requirements are significant drivers in the data centre technology landscape. This session will discuss these emerging technologies, and how they will impact the data centre today and tomorrow.

 

4:30–5:30pm

Presentation: Impact of Airborn Pollutants on IT Equipment

Speaker: Tim Chewter

How is the use of air side economisers changing the way we address air quality control in the data centre? In 2009, an ASHRAE technical committee published a white paper raising concerns related to IT equipment failure associated with airborne pollutants (gaseous and particulate). This session will discuss how these pollutants will impact the data centre, why data centre managers should be concerned, and what you can do to prepare for and overcome this issue.

 

Presentation: DCIM: from Zero to Hero

Speaker: Kate Crossley & James Crossley

DCIM or Data Centre Infrastructure Management tools are one of the hot topics in data centres. In fact, Gartner tells us that 60% of data centres will be using DCIM tools by the year 2014. This session will provide an overview of the data centre maturity model, introduce the concept of DCIM tools, look at some emerging trends in DCIM, and take attendees on a journey from being a "Survivor" to a "Trusted Partner" in their organization.

 

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

8:30–9:30am

Presentation: Cyber Security and Data Centre Threats

Speaker: Brian Hay

Traditionally cyber threats have been viewed as external to the organization – but are they? Through the adoption and rapid migration of new remote access technologies, social networking and a willingness by all and sundry to propagate the internet with their personal information (sometimes willingly sometimes not) – employees have become the new target of choice. So how do you protect them, in order to protect your organization? This presentation will cover a 3 pillar strategy for protection that includes exploiting technologies, investing in security, and developing the right organizational culture. This presentation will demonstrate through case studies, organizational and personal failings that could have been avoided with our 3 pillar strategy.

 

Presentation: Designing a World Class Data Centre: A Cass Study

Speaker: Dean Forster & Macquarie Telecom

This session includes a discussion of the design decisions and lessons learned when building the Intellicentre 2, a state-of-the-art data centre that focuses on sustainability, security and high availability. A must attend for anyone considering a large-scale data centre build, the presentation will cover the technologies employed, how problems were overcome, and tradeoffs made between costs and performance.

 

9:45–10:45am

Presentation: How Virtualization Changes the University of Canberra's Data Centre

Speaker: Tom Townsend

At the Beginning of 2008, the University of Canberra had almost 250 physical servers inherited from 4 separate IT departments and spread between 7 locations (4 main rooms). Through aggressive consolidation and virtualisation they now have fewer than 150 physical servers and are building a new primary data centre. This case study will take an in-depth look at this project, as well as at the division of services between two data centres, addressing high level DR strategies and architectures.

 

Presentation: How Sunshine Coast Council Consolidated Six Data Centres into Two

Speaker: Mark Reynolds

This session will discuss the lessons learnt when the Sunshine Coast Council built a new data centre and consolidated six facilities to two within 12 months. The speaker will share some of the challenges and successes of building the facility within an existing government building, showcase some of the innovative features implemented in the new facility and talk about how he managed the key stakeholders.