STORAGE AREA NETWORK SUMMIT and CLUSTERING SUMMIT

Most organizations have very simple requirements when it comes to their data: they want it always available, completely accurate, instantly accessible and universally compatible. And, by the way, data now means images, streaming video; sound and every other format that is today’s information overload. Combine these requirements with a huge increase in information quantity and add the need to tie systems and data to the Web and Internet-based applications, and you have a recipe for potential disaster.

If you want to reduce storage costs, increase reliability, boost network and Web performance, build a highly scalable and bulletproof storage infrastructure with exceptional disaster recovery functions, you can’t afford to miss the SAN Summit at PC EXPO 2001. No other event will give you the quality of information and education in the convenience of this one-day, in-depth conference.

By attending the SAN Summit, you will:

Get a Technical Crash Course on Storage Area Networks
Be able to identify and evaluate the pieces that make up a SAN, including RAID storage systems, bridges, hubs, switches, backup / recovery tools, and operating and management software
Understand how SANs work with and relate to storage technologies like Clustering and NAS
Know the principal ways of implement SANs in your environment
Meet with storage experts in an interactive and open educational forum.

SAN Summit sessions will include:

9:00 am SANs -- A Technical Crash Course on Storage Area Networks

Presenter: Jacob Farmer, Chief Technologist, Cambridge Computer Services

This overview is a compressed but comprehensive consideration of SANs at a technological level. It is geared toward individuals who are familiar with networks and SCSI devices. Storage Area Networks are cutting edge technology, but they are firmly rooted in existing technologies. Despite their familiar components, there is a lot of confusion even among highly technical end-users about how SANs work and how to differentiate one solution from another. While many people understand what one or two company's SAN products do, very few people clearly understand all of the major competing paradigms within the SAN environment. This talk is designed to lend such understanding, without endorsing one model or another - the pros and cons of each possibility will be discussed, so that attendees can form a clear idea of what all of the possibilities are. Attendees will leave with a strong conceptual understanding of SANs and with enough knowledge to enable them to ask the questions that will allow them to distinguish one solution from another.

10:00 am SAN & NAS: Compatible or Competitive?

Presenter: Rick Ruskin, Executive Vice President, MTI Technologies

Until recently, companies had to make a fundamental storage choice: should they opt for file sharing right off the LAN using network attached storage (NAS) or centralizing storage in large and scalable disk arrays using storage area networks (SANs). But as enterprises seek to maximize control over data and information, they see value in both approaches and are demanding products and techniques that allow these technologies to work together. This session explores how NAS and SANs compatibility is progressing, when working together is the best approach, and where the industry and market are heading with these technologies.

11:00 am Implementing a Storage Strategy

Moderator Jeff Brandes, President and CEO, TidalWire Inc.

Panelists: Scott Robinson, Chief Technology Officer, DATALINK

Joe Baldwin, Manager of Projects and Engagements
Professional Services
StorageTek

Dennis Law, Vice President – Hosting Services, EDS

In these times of economic uncertainty, companies need to develop and implement a smart strategy for managing their storage and data requirements. This strategy has to meet today’s needs while providing a path for growth, continued accessibility and maximum security. This session will help you develop metrics for estimating storage needs, evaluate alternative storage environments for your organization-specific criteria, compare build-vs.-buy solutions, and finally develop an implementation plan to ensure success – and ultimately survival.

12:00 pm Lunch -- All Summits Conference Participants are invited to our luncheon just outside the meeting room area.

1:00 pm - SUMMITS GENERAL SESSION in the SAN Room (#1E11)
Taking Storage Solutions Beyond E

Presenter: Dennis Law, Vice President – Hosting Services, EDS

Information is the core of the digital economy, and successful IT enterprises around the world must seize the opportunities that today’s managed hosting solutions provide. E-commerce, CRM and ERP contribute heavily to the deluge of information glutting the market. Resource-hungry applications such as medical imaging, optical tomography, CAD, digital photography and video are substantially increasing the amount of information inundating businesses. Adding to the flood are wireless, rich media, next-generation Internet services, and other technologies that are driving the market beyond E. To keep up, storage capacity has seen explosive increases. Where once applications, data delivery, and storage needs were measured in megabytes or gigabytes, petabytes now reign—and zettabytes and yottabytes are on the horizon. Today’s infrastructures must scale as never before to accommodate the expansion. This presentation will discuss how to overcome the burdens and capitalize on the opportunities made possible by this explosive growth in information and storage requirements.

2:00 pm SAN Over IP

Moderator: Jeff Brandes, President and CEO, TidalWire Inc.

Panelist: Ted Scardamalia, CEO and Founder,Times N Systems

Gerry Maldonado, Director of Storage Architects, FalconStor Software

Jacob Farmer, Chief Technologist, Cambridge Computer Services

SANs have typically run over Fibre Channel, and most development currently is headed in that direction. But tools are starting to appear that make storage over IP (SANoIP or IP-SAN – the term SoIP is copyrighted) a reality. Enterprises are familiar with IP networks and protocols and want to leverage existing expertise and infrastructure; they are looking to SANoIP to improve the way they share and deploy storage devices, and to make their SANs function with LANs. This session examines where SANoIP is today, what its network backbone requirements are, what its remote access capabilities are, where it is heading in the near future, and why you should care.

NOTE: The Session, "SSP's and ASPs: The Quick Way to Implement SANs was canceled, however this topic will be discussed in this SANoIP session regarding the outsourcing of SAN implimentation and maintenance using storage solution providers (SSPs) and application service providers (ASPs).

3:00 pm SAN Management: Making SANs Work

Presenter: Calvin Hsu, Technical Product Marketing Manager, DataCore Software

SANs are an integral part of clustered computing environments, so SAN management must be included in the overall storage and data management schemes. Because they are designed to instantaneously process large amounts of data, and there is a separation between users and that data, SANs required significant management activities. This session identifies the primary challenges of managing a storage area network, and presents a storage network management model that you can use to surmount these obstacles.

4:00 pm Joint SAN / Clustering Roundtable

Moderator: Thomas Henderson, Principal Researcher, Extreme Labs, Inc.

Panelists From: CITRIX, COMPAQ, DATACORE, EDS, LEGATO, MTI, TIMES N SYSTEMS

This joint session will be an open and lively discussion of the current and near-term developments in SANs, clustering and load balancing applications and technologies. All topics – including virtualization, DAS, the Internet, IP, Linux, iSCSI and even InfiniBand – are fair game so this is your best chance to have your concerns addressed and opinions heard. We'll bring together the vendors, users and analysts; you bring your curiosity and your systems, applications and storage needs.