New for 2009 - Roundtables

Storage Expo is responding to the requests of our visitors to the show, and introducing roundtable discussions to the education programme.  These sessions will offer visitors the opportunity to take part in topical and practical debate with their fellow end-user and vendor peers, catalysed by a facilitator rather than an address.

In today’s financial climate, it is more important than ever to ensure you are kept at the forefront of technology trends and industry issues, and what better way to do this than a highly interactive and informative roundtable discussion?!

Places for each session are limited to ensure the interactive element, so make time in your show schedule to participate in this year’s discussions.

Reserve your seat in any of the roundtable sessions below.  Places are limited.

Data classification is often seen as too complex by many, or not as something that is required by their organisation.  However, with an increasing regulatory load making legal data disclosure more of a possibility, being able to rapidly and effectively identify what data you are holding through a rapid “slice and dice” approach is important.  Also, the major threat to organisations is often not the malicious intents of externals, but accidental data leakage by internal staff.  Data classification can help in this - and it doesn’t have to be as complex as many believe.  This roundtable will allow for discussions around how data classification should be approached, and what the benefits will be.

Roundtable Leader:
Mr. Clive Longbottom, Service Director, Business Process Analysis, Quocirca Ltd.

Data storage may be “cheap”, but data management isn’t.  Although the capabilities of compute and storage equipment means that the speed of dealing with data is now far greater than it has ever been, an inefficient data topology and storage policy can mean that data recovery speeds can be seriously impaired.  There are many levels of data deduplication, from file level to block level, and data deduplication can now be applied across an organisation’s entire data environment, from desktops to data centre, from databases to email.  This roundtable will allow attendees to drill down into what data deduplication is really about, and how it can add real value to a business.

Roundtable Leader:
Mr. Clive Longbottom, Service Director, Business Process Analysis, Quocirca Ltd

Cloud computing is a hot topic in IT right now, and although opinion remains divided on whether it is here to stay or just a flash in the pan, the promise is that cloud computing represents a step change in the way IT is procured, accessed and delivered. Research suggests that the future success of cloud deployments – whether they are public clouds or private clouds – will depend greatly on innovation at the data management and storage layer. This roundtable discussion will focus on the storage-related challenges and opportunities that cloud computing presents and will consider whether ‘storage clouds’ are something that CIOs and IT managers should be pursuing.

Roundtable Leader:
Mr. Simon Robinson, Research Director – Storage, The 451 Group

This roundtable discussion investigates how records management principles can be used to decide what to store, where and how.

Issues such as retention, disaster recovery and retrieval rates all factor into the choice of storage technology and the way it is used. Knowing your information types and mapping their lifecycle are essential prerequisites of any storage decisions.

This session promises a lively discussion in which delegates share their thoughts and experiences and help formulate rules for a successfully aligned records management and storage strategy.

Roundtable Leader:
Ms. Alison Gibney, Deputy Managing Director, Cimtech Ltd