AFCOM Data Center World fall 2008 preview |
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By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer
03 Oct 2008 | SearchDataCenter.com |
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Oct. 5-7, hundreds of IT and data center facility managers will flock to the Marriott Resort and Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., for AFCOM's Data Center World show.
Jill Eckhaus, the CEO and chairman of AFCOM's board, fell ill before the show and was unavailable to talk to SearchDataCenter.com. But Layne Maly, AFCOM's communication director, provided a few tidbits on what to expect from the upcoming show.
On the keynote
The for Data Center Institute (DCI), the effective research arm of AFCOM, will give the keynote, entitled "The Current Economic Downturn and Its Impact on You and Your Company." Four members of DCI will present:
- Sam Somashekar , a product management director at CA, will discuss how economic downturn can spur growth in the greening of the data center efforts and in business overall.
- Rick Sawyer, a principal at EYP Mission Critical Facilities, will discuss the impact of budget cuts on data centers in reducing efficiency of company-wide operations.
- Maureen Versen, the head of commercial real estate and data center initiatives at Seimens Building Technologies, will discuss the centrality of data center performance to company competitiveness during an economic downturn.
- Tom Roberts, the director of data center services at Trinity Information Services, will argue that the economic downturn could result in data center budget increases.
"They'll be incorporating into that the results of an economic survey that AFCOM put to its membership in the last couple weeks," Maly said.
On the sessions
AFCOM always makes its educational agenda as timely as possible, said Maly.
"Historically we've been able to do that, and the fact that we're growing year over year is testimony to that," he said. Thus the keynote is on the economy, a pressing issue on just about every company's agenda.
"We are very diligent [about] topics that are timely and relevant," Maly added. "There are always basic elements of data center management from the IT and facilities side that we cover, but we are always on the lookout for topics that are progressive or coming down the pike, such as virtualization and cloud computing."
On the exhibitors
Data Center World will feature a record number of exhibitors and a busy show floor be. Maly said the conference has attracted so many exhibitors largely because of the size of and quality of the crowd it draws (another record, at about 850).
"We put motivated bodies on the show floor," he said. "These are not attendees solely interested in walking the aisles to collect giveaways and tchotchkes. These attendees are eager to learn, and a healthy percentage of them actually have decision-making and purchasing power, and those who don't have influence on bringing the information back to those who do."
Key topics at Data Center World
AFCOM has highlighted four topics of interest to all Data Center World attendees:
- The 10 ways to minimize energy costs in the data center
- Greening techniques that will result in operational savings
- How to avoid overspending on compliance efforts
- Achieving significant savings through virtualization and automation
Let us know what you think about the story; email Mark Fontecchio, News Writer. You can also check out our Data Center Facilities Pro blog.
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