Wednesday February 22nd
| 5:30 – 8:30 pm | Registration desk opens |
| 7:30 pm | Welcome reception and buffet |
Thursday February 23rd
| 7:45 – 8:45 am | Information desk open for registration, Welcome breakfast, informal meetings and debate briefings |
| 8:50 – 9:00 am | Opening welcome and conference introduction |
| 9:00 – 9:30 am | Keynote Presentation by Dan Pitt, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation A Revolution in Networking is on the Horizon… |
| Network technology had its roots in the Cold War era, when full decentralization was a smart strategy for defending the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) and maintaining reliable performance across unreliable or war-damaged network links. In today’s data centers, however, a pair of redundant, centralized controllers should be all that’s needed to ensure reliability and survivability. Time for a revolution?Yes, indeed! And we are privileged to welcome one of the leaders of this revolution – Dan Pitt, Executive Director of the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). With 20 years at the coal face developing networking architecture, technology, standards, and products at IBM Networking Systems in North Carolina, IBM Research Zurich in Switzerland, Hewlett Packard Labs in Palo Alto, Bay Networks in Santa Clara, and Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions Technology Center – not to mention his contributions to academia – he was among the first to recognize the potential for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and to sign up with the ONF. Judge a revolution by the quality of its leaders: Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo! got together last year to found the ONF, to rethink networking and accelerate SDN standards and solutions. Its first conference was massively over-subscribed – a sign of a world hungry for this revolution. What is SDN? What are the benefits and who reaps them? What has already been achieved and is the ONF living up to its dazzling promise? Where is this revolution taking us in the longer term? We call on Dan’s wisdom and experience to answer these and other questions… | |
| 9:30 – 10:10 am | Devil’s Advocate: Debate I – Software Defined Networking (SDN) – is it really the future of networking? Introduced and Chaired by: Ian Keene, Vice President, Gartner ONF? SDN? Yeah, yeah, yeah – has Gartner heard all this before? |
| Ian Keene’s USA-based colleagues at Gartner, analysts Joe Skorupa and Mark Fabbi were the first to comment on the foundation and aims of the ONF in their independent report Open Networking Foundation Formed; The Battle to Commoditize Network Hardware Begins – so they should know what they are talking about.The good news is that the report gives the ONF’s aspirations the thumbs up, recognizing that: “If OpenFlow gains traction, the core data centre network market could see significant disruption, with dramatically falling equipment prices”. But note the word “battle” in the report’s title: since when have revolutionaries ever stopped fighting amongst themselves? The ONF was launched by massive data centre operators, with much to gain from open systems and hardware cost reductions, but what attracted the big NEMs to a revolution that promises to butcher their prize cash cow? Could this be a re-run of the ATM Forum scenario, where vendors delayed rather than accelerated the passing of profit-threatening standards? Our Gartner guy Ian Keene gives credit where credit is due, but presents our panel with these and other challenging issues around market politics and the need for realism in a movement that had its roots in the ivory towers of academia. They may also suggest alternative solutions. Industry Saviour versus Devil’s Advocate. Let the debate begin… Panellists: Craig Easley, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, Accedian; Marc Lasserre, Director of IP Standards, Alcatel Lucent; Peter Feil, Director, Research and Innovation; Transport and Aggregation Infrastructure; Telekom Innovation Laboratories; Deutsche Telekom; Volker Distelrath, Head of Research; Transport, Aggregation, and Fixed Access, Nokia Siemens Networks; Dan Pitt, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation; Markus Nispel, Chief Technology Strategist, Enterasys | |
| 10:10 – 10:30 am | Coffee break |
| 10:30 – 11:10 am | Debate II – CIO’s Perspective: Managing ‘Change’ within the Enterprise Introduced and Chaired by: Peter Hall, Principal Analyst, Ovum |
| Networks are becoming ever more complex to manage with the growing need to monitor and optimise the performance of an ever increasing array of individual business critical applications in addition to broader network requirements such as maximising throughput. CIOs are faced with the choice of managing this complexity in-house or using the capabilities of a managed service provider. To obtain the highest levels of performance should CIOs trust a third party to manage their networks or can they gain greater benefits by using best of breed technology vendors and managing in-house. Peter Hall, Principal Analyst at Ovum, will put the alternative approaches to a panel of leading technology vendors who will argue the case for which approach is best. In addition the CIO has a growing role in the organisation of being a champion for innovation and change and ensuing that the benefits of technological change are realised as an enabler for new business models and ways of competing. How do technology vendors assist CIOs in this important role.Panellists: Charles Ferland, BNT Vice President, IBM System Networking Europe; Carolyn Crandall, VP Global Marketing, Riverbed Technology; Daniel Beazer, Senior Research Analyst, EMEA, Tier1 Research; Brett Johnson, VP Business Development, AboveNet Communications | |
| 11:10 – 11:50 am | Debate III – Smart security solutions for tomorrow’s networks Introduced and Chaired by: Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst, Communication, Collaboration and Convergence, Quocirca |
| With latest generation firewalls and in-line IPS systems scanning real-time data at gigabit speeds – is there anything more that can be done to improve security for tomorrow’s networks? One look at the statistics for successful cyberattacks and the answer is “yes”. Or rather: it has to be “ yes”.Cut to the TV crime series cliché: when the serial killer has struck for the second time and the operation chief says: “I want to know EVERYTHING, every alibi, every movement , about EVERYBODY having ANY connection with the victim or crime scene!” And the police team groan – knowing it means days ahead sifting through mountains of mostly meaningless data. It’s an amazing human ability: to scan those mountains and pick out meaningful patterns that lead not just to a criminal conviction but even to stopping the next crime before it happens. It’s the holy grail for IT security – anticipating attack – but we have a long way before machines can match the intuitive skills of the criminal fraternity. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) has long been serving the needs of compliance reporting, but provides the equivalent of the mountains of police data. So how well can we mine that data for meaningful patterns? How readily can the search be shaped to detect potential threats and avoid false alarms? And what sort of interface is best for initiating countermeasures? Between the vision of the ideal active counterintelligence system and reality lies a gulf of practical choices: hardware v software solutions; centralized v distributed; unified, heterogeneous or layered approaches. We have brought together the top names in security for our panel, and we invite them to look over the horizon, share ideas and guide us through these challenging choices. Panellists: Markus Nispel, Chief Technology Strategist, Enterasys; Pascal Oetiker, Director EMEA, NetIQ; Thomas Hemker, Security Strategist, Symantec; Frank Thias, Senior Systems Engineer, F5; Franz Kaiser, Regional Director Switzerland, Austria & Czech Rep, Fortinet | |
| 12:00 – 1:00 pm | Lunch |
| 1:10 – 2:30 pm | Scheduled press & analyst meetings |
| 2:30 – 2:50 pm pm | Coffee break |
| 2:50 – 4:50 pm | Scheduled press & analyst meetings |
| 5:00 – 5:45 pm | Bob Metcalfe, Inventor of Ethernet, announces a New Ethernet Generation . . . |
| 5:45 – 6:30 pm | Open meeting’ time for informal networking. Press area also available for filing stories |
| 7:15 pm | CMeet in hotel lobby for 7:30pm departure for traditional dinner and entertainment at the Pflegersee Alpine Chalet |
Friday February 24th
| 7:30 – 8:30 am | Breakfast, informal meetings and conference session briefings |
| 8:40 – 9:00 am | Guest Speaker Presentation by Carolyn Crandall, VP Global Marketing, Riverbed Technology The Next Era in Consolidation |
| Consolidation continues to be a compelling initiative, driven by the increasing prevalence of server virtualization and virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI). These powerful technologies have introduced ways to reduce cost, and complexity while offering IT management higher levels of control and security.Carolyn Crandall, Riverbed’s VP of Worldwide Marketing will introduce to you an evolutionary new concept in IT consolidation. Much as VDI has enabled consolidation of desktop infrastructure to the data center, the introduction of an innovative technology called edge Virtual Server Infrastructure (eVSI) will now enable organizations to further centralize their servers and storage into the data center. Primary use cases such as complete consolidation, rapid service deployment (VM Projection), and lower TCO are all drivers for the interest and adoption of this new technology. Carolyn will also share challenges companies face and how visibility into performance could be impacted by consolidation, along with ways to overcome issues related to a distributed enterprise: reliability, latency over distance, and traffic bottlenecks. She will show how businesses can increase their productivity, efficiency, control, and resilience. | |
| 9:00 – 9:50 am | Debate Session IV- Transformation of the Datacentre Introduced and Chaired by: Daniel Beazer, Senior Research Analyst, EMEA, Tier1 Research |
| The datacentre is so critical to many operations that the first question must be whether to attempt any major transformation or whether it is just too risky to shift the foundations of a working enterprise. How do different vendors go beyond delivering the kit, to ensuring a smooth transition?In previous NetEvents datacentre debates it was generally agreed that the enterprise needs open solutions – clearly a touchy topic, as it led to several “we are opener than you” scraps. In particular, those who argued the case for fabrics to meet the “East-West” communication demands of a virtual datacentre, were accused of stealth-promoting proprietary lock-in. So, what’s it to be: fabric or a better hierarchy? Another question: every vendor promises more processing power, but what about the customers’ need to use less electric power – and other resources? And what about the use of public as well as private cloud – where do we draw the line? Faced with these and many other balls for the CIO to juggle, Daniel Beazer will present our team of vendors with some typical but contrasting enterprise scenarios. What would be their suggested deployment, and why is it better than their competitors’ offerings? They get the chance to fight it out, and you get the chance to vote on the outcome. Panellists: Andreas Lemke, Senior Manager of Cloud Solution Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent; Sven Klindworth, Head of BT Advise Compute, BT; John Rollason, Senior Manager Product & Solutions EMEA, NetApp; Paul Griffiths, Global Consulting Engineer, Riverbed Technology | |
| 9:50 – 10:15 am | Coffee break – Lobby |
| 10:15 – 10:45 am | Debate Session V – Helping Operators Boost Profitability from Mobile Services |
| Today’s Mobile Operators face a formidable challenge. As customer demand moves from voice to data services, the volume of data traffic crossing the Mobile Operator’s network continues to grow exponentially, driving up the cost of the network. At the same time, however, the average revenue per user is generally remaining flat, severely impacting the profitability of their business. All wireless operators agree that delivering the bandwidth required for 4G-LTE wireless backhaul is the single biggest challenge and operating cost in the industry. The need for a robust and future-proof infrastructure is now critical. No two networks are alike, so what are the pain points impairing growth and profitability?Increasingly, as bandwidth demands have grown, Carrier Ethernet has become the target solution for mobile backhaul. Instead of leasing DS1s/E1s, the Mobile Operator leases Single CoS Ethernet Virtual Connections (EVCs) from an Access Provider. This arrangement has come about primarily in the name of simplicity, trying to make the EVC behave in a way that is equivalent to a high-bandwidth TDM circuit (DS1/E1). But, do these “high bandwidth” pipes alone enable Mobile Operators to engineer the network in the context of varying traffic priorities and significantly reduce costs? Panellists: Craig Easley, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, Accedian; Roland Klemann, Director, Service Provider Practice, Western Europe, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco Systems; Alan Solheim, VP of Corporate Development, DragonWave Inc.; Kevin Vachon, COO, MEF; Greg Gum, Chief Marketing Officer, TelcoSystems | |
| 10:45 -11:05 | Guest Speaker Presentation by Roland Klemann, Director, Service Provider Practice, Western Europe, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco Systems A Vision for Mobile Cloud |
| Beware! Where a river flows into a tropical ocean, sharks will hunt. The most intense competition arises at the interface between great currents – and “Mobile” and “Cloud” are the two most dynamic currents in IT today.Roland Klemann, as the European head of Cisco’s global strategic consulting arm, the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), has firsthand insight into the exciting SP opportunities arising in this rich new ecosystem. IBSG is leading the field in SP business transformation to address customer needs ahead of market trends, expectations and perceptions in regions where dumb pipe providers could evolve into multimedia impresarios – research that also uncovers the many risks and challenges awaiting the unprepared. Seventy percent of all mobile users anticipate using cloud services by 2013, and the demand for bandwidth hungry video content alone could break any service provider’s back without a realistic monetization framework in place. Roland will share research data and lessons from customer engagements to support key findings. What do users really want? Which provider group is best trusted to deliver? And which is best trusted to be secure? Where do users expect to pay, and where do they expect free service? What does the user expect from “personalized services”? For service providers, Roland’s presentation will be the difference between survival and growth. For all of us, it’s about our mobile future. | |
| 11:05 – 11:25 am | Guest Speaker Interview & Audience Q&A—Roland Klemann interviewed onstage by Manek Dubash, Editorial Director, NetEvents |
| 11:25 – 11:30 am | Conference round-up |
| 11:30 – 12:00 noon | Open meeting’ time for informal networking. Press area also available for filing stories, hotel check outs |
| 12:00 – 1:00 pm | Lunch – Roter Salon |
| 1:00 – 3:00 pm | Scheduled press & analyst meetings – Peacock Lounge, Sonnenbichl & Zirbelstrube |
| 3:00 – 3:40 pm | Specialist Industry Round Table Briefings – Raum Zugspitz |
| 4:00 pm | Close of Press Summit event |
