Hi, my name is Jim McCue and I've had the pleasure of leading the Technology Operations team for the ILTACON 2016 Conference Committee. If you're curious about who is on Conference Committee this year or how to join for next year, all that info is at ILTACON 2016 Planning Committee.
My team covers a couple areas of ILTACON programming, IT Operations and Security. Today I'd like to highlight a few sessions in the IT Operations arena:
For our journey today, let's start in that mysterious and hopefully cold area, the data center (session names are in red for easy reading):
Keep Up With the Trends in Today’s Data Center
This session will contain a potpourri of trends we think are important in the data center, from cooling & servers, to storage & switching. Session attendees will become at least 12% smarter.
Your Servers in the Cloud: Real World IaaS
With Azure, AWS and other contenders readily available, the possibility to locate your servers, network, and even security services in the cloud is fast becoming a true option for any size firm. When is the right time to put some or all of your network in the cloud? How do you make a good decision on this and avoid being a beta tester in the unemployment line? Learn from a panel of experts including Jeff Brandt from Jackson Kelly, who also writes the Pinhawk Law Technology Daily Digest in his spare time.
Storage Options: From Cheap to Deep to High-Performance
I know what you're thinking, I haven't attended enough sessions about storage in combination with a Lord of the Rings or Star Trek premiere. While we probably won't include a movie for this one, this session will review the available options at multiple tiers - all the way from low-cost cold storage up to high-performance flash arrays to give you a broad overview of what the choices are.
Exchange 2016: Why and How To Upgrade
Exchange 2016 brings a number of a new features to the platform. What are the most compelling reasons to upgrade for your firm? Joe Hoegler from Kraft Kennedy, a premier expert on Exchange will be speaking. Avoid that feeling of shame managing an Exchange 2010 server, and let's get upgraded!
If you're like me, rolling out a whole new group of desktops every few years doesn't always sound like a lot of fun. A decent sized group of ILTAns are now journeying into the VDI forest. To help you on your way we have a couple related sessions:
Building the Right Infrastructure for VDI
There are VDI projects and then there are successful VDI projects. What are some of the differences between the two? The success of VDI deployments can depend greatly on the performance and reliability of the infrastructure on which it runs. What recent advances from Citrix and VMWare are changing best practices for VDI infrastructure? Have I asked enough questions about VDI?
Hyperconverged Computing Infrastructures - Is it for you?
Hyperconverged infrastructures integrate servers, storage, networking and management into a single scalable solution. How does the hype measure up to traditional compute and storage? Are the Kardashians actually just one person? Come find out.
Yes, bad things can happen to good people. After watching The Revenant, I've come to the conclusion a lot of bad things can happen. I'd hate to have Leonardo on my health plan. To avoid such disasters, try attending:
Solutions for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
When dealing with DR & BC, how do you identify, choose and implement the right solution? Once you choose, was it a good fit & why? We have a broad range of law firm speakers to cover every size firm.
Dialing During a Disaster
Disaster recovery and business continuity plans exist at most firms today, but do those plans include voice communication? All of the major IP phone vendors and the telecom vendors have methods for recovering your phone system when the lights are out. Are we using them? Come for a life altering experience and find out what law firms are doing, covering a broad range of VOIP systems.
We'll also cover some big picture issues that IT Operations has deal with. These include:
Pay Now or Pay Later? Get the Timing Right on Your Next Infrastructure Upgrade
IT operations must constantly balance capacity, demand, cost, and the organization's willingness to foot the bill for change. How does technical debt impact firm operations? What are the hidden costs of delaying infrastructure upgrades? How will the UK leaving the EU effect all of this? (I think that's a joke, but maybe not)
Large Firm Discussion Forum
Join this thought-provoking discussion on large firm challenges and successes (and a few failures). Everyone will be encouraged to contribute and network with your peers. We'll focus on timely issues that profoundly affect larger legal organizations.
The Newest and Coolest in Legal Technology
Join us for heated discussion, occasional agreement and lively discourse as we bring an all-star group of experts together for a discussion on what emerging technologies we could expect to effect the legal arena in the next few years.
I hope you can join us for some or all of these IT Operations themed sessions and I'll be blogging about the Security session in a few weeks. A big thanks to the ILTACON 2016 Technology Operations Team Members who made all of this possible:
David Alberico, David Neesen, Michael Viscito, Nadia Choptain and Tim Golden
For a complete list of sessions at Conference, click here.
See you in DC!
-Jim