Business Problem: Organizations are struggling on a daily basis to make their businesses more resilient. In this presentation, “Inside Out: A Business View of BC/DR Today and Tomorrow,” Michael Croy will address the trends in IT that must be considered to maintain operations at a time of crisis.

Business Problem: IT organizations must develop new levels of process automation to keep pace with the growing technology complexity and relentless pressure from the business. We will take a look at how to marry process improvements via ITIL with infrastructure management and automation software to raise service levels you deliver. To deliver meaningful and measurable improvements in service levels really requires an effort in both areas – process and technology. Business users demanding faster time to market for IT services. Users are requiring greater application/service availability than they have in the past or then they are generally receiving now. Many of these evolving needs are driven straight from the office of the CEO which realizes that business agility is critical to enterprise success and that IT can either be instrumental or detrimental in achieving it. Therefore IT must explore the best ways to increase service levels, time to deploy, and overall application availability to the business.

Business Problem: As the number of remote and mobile workers increases, so does the amount of critical business data being created at the edge of the network. Most organizations tend to ignore this distributed data, leaving that information at risk. Availability and accessibility to critical business data means it needs to be protected and secure for recovery and compliance purposes.

IT Solution: Utilizing Continuous Data Protection such as PC backup and recovery, Server backup and recovery and DataDefense that automatically backup and protect distributed data that resides on devices operated by remote and mobile workers. Server and PC backup and recovery backs up and protects that data so it can be recovered. DataDefense is a multi-layered security application that can automatically encrypt and eliminate data on a laptop or PC if that device is lost or stolen.

Business Problem: Global Service Providers are deploying new wireless and wireline broadband networks. Industry periodicals frequently propose: wireless reference architectures and specific services e.g.; VoIP, cellular data, IP-PBX’s, IMS, and various flavors of convergence as the next “big” revolution in communications. But -- How have service providers and technologies been evolving? How might they evolve in the future and how can enterprises plan for and justify investments in these services?

IT Solution: This presentation examines these topics from the end users and the business leader’s perspectives. It shares global observations and experiences and focuses on examples to highlight: What’s new, what’s important in various markets and it suggests some actions that might allow enterprises to effectively discover or capture the benefits of these new services in the coming year.

Presented by:

Doug Hubbard, President, Hubbard Decision Research

He asserts that the idea that some things are immeasurable is based on a set of misconceptions about statistics and measurement in general or, in many cases, a lack of a clear definition of what the proposed “intangible” really is. Whatever is relevant for a business to know must have observable consequences. The presentation will include:

1. The three reasons why anything is ever (incorrectly) thought to be immeasurable
2. Quick and simple methods for measuring any uncertain quantity
3. An overview of some of the more advanced methods
4. Interesting examples of where “impossible” measurements had clever solutions

Discussion:

• What are the key characteristics of a successful CIO
• Changes in the role of IT in the company – the future & what skills are required of IT people
• What qualities do women have that make them well suited to a role in IT? As an IT leader?
• How to juggle career and family – tips and tools
• Why is networking important – especially for women
• Discuss value of affinity groups or women’s networking groups
• Opportunity for women to give back to the community and finding the time

Facilitated by:	Alan Guibord, Chairman & Founder, The Advisory Council and Former CEO, Computerworld, and former CIO, R.R. Donnelley & Sons
	Peter Schay, EVP & COO, The Advisory Council
	Dennis Daniel, VP ITS, NC Mutual Life Insurance Co.
	Jim Kinney, President, Mariner Consulting and Past President SIM International

Discussion: An interactive session where audience teams will get together to brainstorm solutions to actual problems. Proposed solutions will be presented to the general audience for discussion. The moderators will then present a real-life case study to the audience. All attendees will be supplied with a synopsis of the discussions as well as the actual cases. Typical discussion subjects include:

• Realigning your business for today’s markets
• Governance and portfolio management
• Staffing and recruiting
• Compliance
• Why is networking important – especially for women
• Smart sourcing
• Security and business continuity

Discussion: As technology becomes more ubiquitous and robust, business units and departments are seeking technological solutions to their complex business needs and problems. This session will focus on collaborative efforts in the public and private sectors that have developed as a way to manage the complexities, mitigate risks, and provide efficient and effective solutions to mission-critical business needs. The emerging roles of CIOs and technologists are no longer focused on "how do I code a custom solution for my internal customer", but rather "how do I scan the landscape of technology solutions and partners to create the best value-add for my organization." You will hear from C-level leaders who have successfully partnered with Cisco to create cutting-edge, replicable solutions that can be utilized in your organization. In addition, we will highlight the drivers behind the solutions, the mechanisms that facilitated the partnerships, and the real dollar savings and value created by the collaboration and enabled by the technology.

Panelists:	Rick Tanner, Dir. Business Continuity/Risk Mgmt, Laboratory Corporation of America
	Gary Hull, Director of DR, Quintiles, Inc.

Discussion: Join us for a Question and Answer panel discussion with representatives from various organizations to discuss the pitfalls and shortcuts to building, managing and maintaining a quality Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan in today’s chaotic world. How have firms found real ways to fund a program? How have organizations managed to keep a DR or BC plan current in the face of ever changing technology and business process? How does acquisition impact a plan?

Business Problem: The role of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) in enterprise communications networks has yet to be clearly defined, but network managers need to begin understanding IMS NOW to be in position to capitalize on the technology as it matures.

• Key Questions Answered?
• What is it? And where did it come from?
• Why pay attention to it!
• What is the vision behind IMS?
• What does it look like? High level architectural overview
• What is the significance of an access aware and an access independent application environment?
• What are some of the promising applications on the horizon with IMS?

IT Solution: In the world of true convergence the network is brought to the end user (rather than you going to the network) and in a manner that is seamless, simple, personal, portable and presence aware. This can be accomplished through complete convergence across services, across networks and across organizations. Value over IP (tm) enables an enterprise to participate in and make use of a seamless lifestyle communications experience that brings the full capabilities of the network directly to the individual. The Value over IP (tm) stage is characterized by an ability to utilize services through fully operational converged Next Generation networks built on IMS architecture.

Moderated by:

Jon Meyer, SIM North Carolina Chapter & Director, Blue Cross & Blue Shield NC

Discussion: Today's CIO is a business leader involved at the board room level providing technology as an integral part of the business solution. This discussion will focus on the role the CIO plays on the leadership team and the positive characteristics that make him/her effective in this role. Many significant opportunities/issues face the CIO daily. What are they and how do we address them? What are some best practices that allow you to be an effective CIO?

Presented by:

Rob Lloyd, SVP, US & Canada Operations, Cisco Systems

Discussion: The role of collaboration in driving better customer experience and increased customer loyalty. How do you scale your business and your knowledge workers to ensure that you are providing you customers with the best experience possible? CIOs and IT managers can understand the increased role of collaboration in business, the latest collaboration technologies and how to integrate those technologies into their business infrastructure by listening to a real-world case study from Cisco Systems.

Moderated by:

Rebeka Clifton, Regional Director, Advanced Services, NWN (formerly 4Front Systems, Inc.)

Panelists:	Bill McCarthy, CIO, Circles
	Skip Tappen, Executive Vice President, NWN Corporation
	Brad Lytle, Director-Service Operations & Support, UNC- Greensboro

Discussion: Panel will focus on how managed services can increase IT Service Levels and Team Lifestyle by adding additional resources and eases challenges of keeping skilled resources in house, keeping up with management tools, and maintaining 24x7 operations, well as providing a back up to in house IT Team.

Moderated by:

Peter Funke, Executive Consultant, IBM

Panelist:

Michael Rimmey, Director Customer Solutions, Laboratory Corporation of America

Business Problem: The emergence of component-based delivery models provides an opportunity for massive uplift to today’s operational and management processes. While CIO’s and their teams can readily anticipate some of the new use cases for the wide array of new “off the rack” components and services, Line of Business (LOB) investors and Senior Management have great difficulty “seeing” the value. Traditional means of communicating I/T value through outdated engineer-to-order engagement models do not support the need for firms to deploy mass-custom, configured-to-order, composite applications. I/T application development dollars are wasted, LOB customers are dissatisfied, and Senior Management ends up under-investing in the infrastructure…all because they cannot “see it."

IT Solution: Rich composite applications that offer LOB executives true business transformation (and associated huge ROI) are designed visually using an innovative approach to render the corporate vision explicitly using HTML mock-ups. CIO teams can now respond to emerging requirements with model-based visual designs, built upon emerging “best practices” business patterns (harvested from a large library sponsored by IBM). The modeled-designs are iteratively configured on-the-fly as LOB discussions traverse the roles, processes, and tools needed in the transformed organization. Using a powerful new tool from IBM, the IBM Portal Experience Modeler, the CIO team can lead the dialogue by showing “what done looks like” in the form of customized HTML mockups, turned and iterated as needed to capture the vision of each of the LOB sponsors. Once external designs are iterated to final, requirements are cleanly passed to the implementation team.
Abstract

Moderated by:

Don Schleicher, VP Sales – East Region, VMware, Inc.

Panelists:

Hugh Flanagan, Senior IT Analyst, Progress Energy

Business Problem: What if you could take 300 servers without VMware software and move them to 8 servers, 1 Rack with VMware software? In a recent Gartner report, it is estimated that through 2007, organizations with more than 200 servers will waste between $500,000 and $720,000 annually supporting underutilized application/server combinations. VMware Virtual Infrastructure Solutions allow corporations to run multiple Operating Systems on a single server. The impact of this is that enterprises can use dramatically less hardware and manage their existing hardware more efficiently.

IT Solution: What if you could:
Minimize your total cost of infrastructure ownership? Improve your team’s responsiveness, serviceability, availability and flexibility? Create a self-optimizing IT infrastructure today with the most widely deployed software suite for optimizing and managing industry-standard IT environments through virtualization? Significantly improve your organizations IT optimization including, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery? Implement a secure desktop environment for application developers, offshore workers, engineering and systems operations staff?

Moderated by:

Mark Hess, President, Western Technology Management Group

Panelists:	Jimmy Carter, Asst. Secretary & CIO, NC Dept. of Environment & Natural Resources
	Bob Morrison, Manager of Applications & Operations, Lord Corporation
	Vijay Verma, VP Information Resources & Associate CIO, UNC – Office of the President

Business Problem: Enterprise Architectures are a major investment for most enterprises. By standardizing the business and IT environment, CIOs hope to reduce complexity, lower costs and improve support and service. Yet EAs raise two of the most challenging IT management issues today: managing IT complexity and the shared management of IT.

IT Solution: This session will bring together three CIOs, with diverse perspectives, to discuss the management challenges of EAs. It will describe practical approaches to developing an EA, managing it (governance), how SOAs are being used, how user resistance is being addressed and how EA success is being measured.

Abstract