As a new entrant to the market myself, I've been bombarded with enough ephemeral edge definitions to fill our magazine. It’s been challenging to decipher which subjects deserve a mainstage debate, which require smaller group discussions, and those that could be relegated to a footnote in a press release.
But I have been overwhelmed with the support from the industry and the DCD content team who have all helped me in my quest to build a comprehensive conference program which caters to all corners of our complex ecosystem.
Together we have crafted a jam-packed agenda featuring over 100 top level speakers who will be sharing their insight across keynote presentations, panel debates, roundtables, fireside chats and other engaging formats.
Here are my top picks. If you're not already registered - be quick, here's a link .
What's on: Digital Transformation
With technology such as 5G and IoT maturing and workloads increasing, digital transformation at the data center edge continues. Exploiting cloud models and edge deployments will drive scalability, reliability and real-time intelligence.
Learn from Schneider Electric’s Kevin Brown on successfully integrating edge hardware and deploying cloud models. David Hybels and resident edge expert Martin Olsen , share Vertiv's four edge archetypes to ensure future-proof implementations and Arelis Soto , Corning, uncovers key ways to get the data center 5G ready.
With forecasts that 75 percent of compute processing will happen outside the core data center by 2025, Jim Fletcher, Momenta Partners , Matt Gleason, Coresite and Russell Senesac, Schneider Electric will join a panel led by Mark Harris, Uptime Institute, to provide insight into this future vision.
My Highlight:
Evolve Or Die - How We Right-sized IT Infrastructure To Fit The Age Of Ubiquitous Computing
CTO of New York State Office of Information Technology Services, Rajiv Rao’s plenary keynote on April 9, will walk delegates through one of the largest consolidations of IT services of any US State Government. The project consolidated 53 disparate data centers to just one “all-in” facility.
What's on: Planning for Hybrid IT
As high-density workloads become more common, 90 percent of organizations will have hybrid infrastructure by 2020. Data center managers and IT directors converge, as workload optimization between legacy applications, managed services and the cloud must be aligned with budget, reliability and availability needs.
Chris Street of STT Global Data Centers will be sharing best practice on selecting international partners and Innovation Norway will be hosting a lunch for executives looking to grow in the Nordics.
Steve Connor of Vantage Data Centers will highlight key considerations for an enterprise utilizing high-density applications when project-managing new colocation implementations.
Eric White, CTO of Clinton Foundation will provide practical guidance on the realities of ‘lift-and-shift’ cloud migration, with Webair’s Sagi Brody , leading a roundtable on the optimal route to hybridization.
My Highlight:Billion-Dollar Infrastructure: Navigating The Path To The Intelligent Placement Of Workloads
Avaya’s Chief Cloud Officer, Jan Wiersma, whose portfolio includes hundreds of internal proprietary data centers, will unpick the complexity involved in balancing these with multiple cloud providers in a cloud-rich ecosystem, during his morning keynote presentation on April 10
What's on: Energy Smart Infrastructure
An energy-efficient approach to data center design and operations can reduce costs, improve uptime and drive new revenues. From power and cooling innovations to reducing costs inside the data center, to new business models, energy storage and PPA/VPP relationships outside the data center, the sessions share best practices from energy source to the data center itself.
David Niles and the team from Avant Energy will be sharing expertise on how to develop effective partnerships with Utilities. Tria Case , Director of Sustainability, CUNY will invite operators to join the City’s new Solarise initiative.
Looking inside the data center at critical infrastructure Joerg Desler , President, Stultz, will look at the 100kW per cabinet cooling challenge and Jake Ring , CEO, GIGA Data Centers will explore cost and efficiency and their $5m per MW facility. Rittal’s Ameya Soparkar, will unpack the challenges of cooling at the edge. And tech leaders from Norway new direct link between New Jersey and Kristiansand in Norway.
My Highlight:
Microgrids: Greening the Data Center While Reducing OpEx
Freddy Padilla of Page and Verizon’s Russell Carpenter will join forces on April 10 at 12:20pm, for a case study that examines how Verizon’s commitment to microgrids is impacting data center reliability and exploring the economic drivers behind ‘green’ facilities and onsite power generation.
What's on: The Business of the Data Center
With data center growth continuing, business models are evolving and stakeholders are converging. Site selection remains a key strategic challenge determining revenues, total cost of ownership and lifecycle. Evaluation factors are complex with environmental risk, taxes and regulations, transportation, construction and permitting costs and speed to market all playing a role. With huge, 24/7 power demands however, power availability, regulation and tariffs are also key.
DCD>Boardroom on April 9 explores these themes with Loudoun County’s Buddy Rizer , uncovering the Northern Virginia boom with 30 million sq ft of data center space and over 1,000MW expected in the near future. Senior TMT specialists such as Chris Moon, ING , Goldman Sachs’ Jeff Ferry , Laura Fazio, Santander and Sami Badri, Credit Suisse demystify the trends driving investment into the technology market and giving rise to the data center-as-a-asset class.
My Highlight:
Altered States - How is New York Responding to the Northern Virginia Effect?
On 9th April at 9:50am, David Liggitt, datacenterHawk will be moderating a blockbuster panel of local data capacity experts to discuss how New York State is responding to the record data center net absorption in Northern Virginia.
At what stage will North Virginia reach capacity? Can New York wrestle capacity back with latency-sensitive requirements from owner-operators headquartered in the state?
Panelists:
Brian Cox, CEO, Stack Infrastructure Datagryd Loudoun County Economic Development Robert Meyers, SVP - Data Center Group, CBRE
What's on: AI-Ready Marketplace
From personalized e-commerce and healthcare, to preventative maintenance and automated ledgers, AI is changing the face of global enterprise. The advent of GPUs and high-density computing, however, presents a significant challenge to data centers. With workload density growing beyond 40-50kW, is the technology and infrastructure ready to support evolving demand?
Dr Suvojit Ghosh, who leads research at McMaster University, opens Day 2 with a plenary keynote looking at the cost of compute in an AI-driven world. Rhonda Ascierto , Uptime Institute , who has recently published a paper on AI in the data center, will lead a panel with Eddie Schutter (Switch) , Phil Harris (Intel) and Eyal Itscovitch (LinkedIn). If you want to catch a glimpse of the future, Kurtis Bowman , President, Gen-Z Consortium, will demo high-speed, low-latency, memory-semantic technology on the innovation stage.
My Highlight:
Man Vs. Machine: Can Robots And Humans Collaborate To Manage Facilities?
DCD’s Bruce Taylor will be joined by a star-studded cast of infrastructure experts consisting of Kevin Brown, (Schneider Electric) , Wells Fargo’s Eric Fuessenegger, Matt Provo of Carbon Relay and CBRE Romonet’s Zahl Zimbuwala to discuss the cross-section between human and machine-led collaboration in data center management.
