SNWOnline: Tools and Techniques for Working with Storage

A Virtual Conference and Expo Presented by Computerworld

Managers who deal with storage on a daily basis face a number of challenges in today's corporate environment. Skyrocketing energy costs and impending environmental regulations have turned "going green" from a political statement into an economic necessity. Virtualization tools have redefined how servers can be deployed and provisioned, dramatically improving flexibility while simultaneously creating unexpected challenges. Ongoing threats from terrorism and nature have brought about the need for disaster recovery and business continuity planning. And how do you find qualified staff to deliver on all these new requirements?

Managing all of these changes is a daunting task, one which our SNWOnline virtual conference is designed to address for forward-thinking storage and IT managers.

Presented by Computerworld, the SNWOnline virtual conference brings together thought leaders, eager attendees, and knowledgeable vendors into a seven- hour, online-only event where they can share best practices, ask tough questions and get solid answers from people who share the goal of managing their storage capacity in a way that will support and enhance their organizations for years to come. For sponsors, this virtual conference will provide a robust, highly interactive environment to share whitepapers, presentations and brochures with attendees who are highly involved in improving storage and data center operations. Sponsors will also be able to provide product demonstrations and company seminars as well as chat live with visitors to their "virtual booths."

Listen to Industry Experts and Engage with Top Visionaries Presenting at this Event

Laura Campbell, Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives and Chief Information Officer, Library of Congress

Ms. Campbell was appointed to the position of Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives in 2000 by the Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington. He noted that "Laura has already made many significant contributions to the realization of the Library's digital future. Her demonstrated leadership, technical knowledge and network of expert colleagues in the public and private sectors will bring added strength to our decision-making process."

Creation of the position of Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives responds to a recommendation contained within the 2000 National Academy of Sciences report Ms. Campbell is also director of the National Digital Library Program, a cooperative national effort to digitize and make available online primary source materials of American history and culture. The program's award- winning Web site, American Memory (memory.loc.gov), offers more than 11 million items from the collections of the Library of Congress and those of its partners.

Ms. Campbell is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University (B.A., 1973), the University of Maine (M.A. in management, 1979) and Georgetown University (M.S. in accounting, 1983). In 2007, Ms. Campbell was the recipient of the EMC Information Leadership Award from the Computerworld Honors Program.

Mark Showers, Chief Information Officer, Monsanto Company

Mark Showers is Chief Information Officer for Monsanto Company. Mark has primary responsibility for the strategic direction of the company's information technology resources along with the operations of information technology functions on a day-to-day basis. These global responsibilities include Commercial, R&D, ERP, Architecture, Infrastructure, Security and Operations. Mark has been with Monsanto for 25 years. He has spent his Monsanto career in Information Technology with the exception of two years in the Strategic Planning group. Prior to joining Monsanto, Mark worked as a chemist in the high performance coatings industry. Mark is active in the St. Louis community as Chairman of the St. Louis Coalition for Information Technology, board Chairman for the Technology Entrepreneur Center (TEC) and as a member of the Innovate St. Louis board. In 2007, Mark was named as one of the Premier 100 Leaders in Information Technology by Computerworld Magazine. Mark holds undergraduate degrees in mathematics and chemistry from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, a Masters Degree in physical chemistry from Washington University and an Executive MBA from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Ron Milton, Executive Vice President, Computerworld

Ron manages the events business and strategic business programs for IT executive titles in storage networking, mobile and wireless, data center and business intelligence market sectors. Milton leads the team responsible for creating content, sponsor sales, operations, marketing and audience development for all of Computerworld's events, such as brands like Premier 100 IT Leaders, Storage Networking World, Mobile & Wireless World, Business Intelligence Perspectives and IT Executive Summit Series. He has 20+ years of experience in information technology, serving in both vendor and information services management positions. Before his current role at IDG, Ron was Senior Vice President of CXO Media and General Manager of CIO Magazine's Executive Program Divisions. Prior to joining Computerworld in 1999, he was President and CEO of IDG's Internet Commerce (ICE) business unit, which he founded in 1996 as a start-up business, and was a pioneer in using e-commerce systems and web marketing. He was a 1996 recipient of the coveted IDG Chairman's Award for the most successful start-up business globally. Before joining IDG, Milton spent five years as Vice President/Partner of GLA computer Systems, a software developer and channel integrator with market share leadership in wholesale travel solutions. Prior to GLA, he also held a variety of management positions in channel management, field sales and marketing at Honeywell Information Systems and Bull HN. He holds degrees from Concordia University and Sir George Williams University.

Hu Yoshida, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi Data Systems

Hu Yoshida, as Vice President and CTO, is responsible for defining the technical direction for Hitachi Data Systems and currently leads the company's effort to help customers address their Data Life Cycle requirements to address compliance, governance and operational risk issues. He was instrumental in evangelizing Hitachi's unique approach to storage virtualization which leverages existing storage services within the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform and extends it to externally attached, heterogeneous storage systems. Yoshida is well known within the storage industry, and his blog was recently ranked among the "top 10 most influential" within the storage industry by Network World. In 2006, he was named "CTO of the Year" by Jon Toigo, and in October of 2006, Byte and Switch named him one of "Storage Networking's Heaviest Hitters.".

Leighton C. "Chris" Wood, Jr., Director and Chief Technology Officer, Global Storage Practice, Sun Microsystems

Mr. Wood is responsible for identifying and delivering the best technologies and solutions available that can address our customer's complex data management problems. Prior to that, Mr. Wood was the Director of Technical Sales and Marketing - Global Network Storage Sales, and was responsible for delivering technical support, education and interface into Network Storage product development as well as architecting solutions to Sun's customers storage management problems. He joined the Network Storage Division (NWS) of Sun Microsystems when MaxStrat was acquired by Sun early in 1999. Before joining MaxStrat, Mr. Wood was the Director of Open Systems Architecture for the Storage Systems Division (SSD) of IBM. Prior to that, Mr. Wood held numerous jobs at IBM in OEM sales, product development and support; primarily in the networking area. Mr. Wood graduated from Union College, Schenectady NY in 1970 with degrees in Economics and Electrical Engineering. He currently holds three patents in the area of RAID design and very large data object storage architecture and is a member of the Executive Board of the IEEE Mass Storage Technical Committee (MSTC), SNIA Data Management Forum as well as numerous other professional organizations.

Mark O'Gara, Vice President, Infrastructure Management, Highmark, Inc.

Mark O'Gara, Vice President of Infrastructure Management, Highmark, is responsible for the operation and strategic direction of the enterprise infrastructure. His organization manages the company's critical technology and application platforms supporting Highmark's business objectives. Highmark was recently voted the Top Green IT organization by Computerworld (February 2008) in large part, due to the innovations applied in the construction and operations of their data center. Mr. O'Gara's interests in environmentally responsible computing has evolved from his previous strategy focus on organizational efficiencies and optimization demonstrated in his former position as the Senior Vice President, Internal Computing for American Online (AOL), where he reconstituted the leadership for a 500-person organization, reducing expenses by 15% and capital spending by $40 million dollars. Prior to joining American Online, he consulted with several international companies and served as the Chief Technology Officer for Ganley International and Winstar International. Mr. O'Gara frequently speaks on IT efficiency, optimization and green computing environments at technology based conferences and forums across the nation including IDC and Computer World; he is a registered subject matter expert and has written papers on the topic of environmentally responsible computing. Mr. O'Gara is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering, and he holds a Master of Science degree in Information Systems Management from the University of Central Texas.

Andrew Fanara, Product Development Team Leader, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Mr. Fanara works on the ENERGY STAR Product Specifications Development Team. ENERGY STAR is part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Protection Partnership Division. The ENERGY STAR Program is intended to help businesses and individuals protect the environment by identifying products with superior energy efficiency and water savings. Mr. Fanara's team is responsible for writing product specifications and for teaming with manufacturers to encourage the design, manufacture, and sale of products that meet them. More than 50 product categories have been created for the residential and commercial sectors. To date, American consumers have purchased more than 2 billion ENERGY STAR qualified products. In 2006 alone, Americans -- with the help of ENERGY STAR - prevented the emission of 37 million metric tons of greenhouse gases; this is equivalent to the annual emissions from 25 million vehicles and a national savings of $14 billion in energy bills. Mr. Fanara is currently leading the effort to develop an ENERGY STAR specification for servers. He is also responsible for managing policy coordination with countries using ENERGY STAR in their markets. This includes Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Canada, China, and the European Union; many of which are coordinating with EPA on data center energy efficiency efforts. Previously in his tenure with the agency, Mr. Fanara worked on the EPA's Green Lights Program, which assisted commercial enterprises with the implementation of energy-efficient lighting upgrades. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin - Madison and has worked for the EPA for more than 10 years.

Ed Goldman, Vice President, Technology Strategy, Information Resources Shared Services, Marriott International

Edward Goldman is Vice President of Technology Strategy at Marriott International, Inc. and has accountability for the information technology strategy for all Marriott brands and business units. In this position, he is responsible for identifying what role specific technologies will play today, and in the future, to enable Marriott to achieve our company's objectives. Mr. Goldman has been with Marriott for over 10 years and has held a variety of leadership roles within the organization. He joined Marriott from NASD in 1996 where he served as a director in the Systems and Operations group. Prior to that role, Mr. Goldman served as a senior technical resource for several IT consulting companies such as Boeing Computer Services, Operations Research International and IBM Corporation. Mr. Goldman holds a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland and an MBA in information systems from Mt. St. Mary's College.

Jim Swartz, Chief Information Officer, Sybase, Inc.

Jim Swartz leads a global team of professionals aligned with the business units and focused on using Sybase technology to continue the company's restructuring as a solutions oriented, mobile enabled customer-centric e-business enterprise. He is engaged in an aggressive program to simplify, standardize and consolidate the IT environment at Sybase. This includes the geographic centralization of data centers and related services that has reduced the number of key centers from nearly forty, to three primary centers and one disaster recovery site. Swartz currently directs a number of software development efforts focusing on an enhanced e-store, web analytics, data warehousing/BI, information integration, upgraded portal/dashboards and an improved CRM system aimed at bettering the customer experience with Sybase.

Tom Georgens, President and Chief Operating Officer, NetApp

Tom Georgens has responsibility for all product operations and field operations worldwide. Georgens joined NetApp in October 2005 and served as the company's executive vice president of product operations from January 2007 until February 2008. Previously he served as NetApp's executive vice president and general manager of enterprise storage systems. Before joining NetApp, Georgens spent nine years at Engenio, a subsidiary of LSI Logic, the last two years as CEO. He also served in various other positions, including president of LSI Logic Storage Systems and executive vice president of LSI Logic. At Engenio, he built the business into a successful OEM storage provider for companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, StorageTek, Silicon Graphics, and NCR. Prior to Engenio, Georgens spent 11 years at EMC in a variety of engineering and marketing positions. Georgens holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Engineering degree in computer and systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as well as a Master of Business Administration degree from Babson College.

Virtual Conference Campus