Agenda

General Session Topics - Tuesday, 21 October

SOA Report Card


Everyone seems to be doing SOA, but how many organizations are doing it well? Is anyone making a passing grade? Burton Group is conducting intensive research into real-world SOA initiatives to learn what works and what doesn’t, and we’ll present our findings at Catalyst 2008. We’ll also have a number of companies present their personal experiences. This topic will explore the challenges and impediments to SOA success, and discuss options for dealing with them. It will examine the organizational and cultural ramifications of SOA. It will look at business models and metrics. And it will answer the following questions:

Software as a Service (SaaS)


New financial and architectural realities have promoted SaaS to a first-class application delivery model. Already popular for collaboration and customer relationship management (CRM) applications, SaaS solutions are now available for almost any type of application or functional service. And leading indicators tell us that this market will continue to grow. The SaaS model engenders a number of benefits that can make these solutions preferable to in-house hosted solutions. This topic will discuss the risks and rewards of SaaS, including:


Server Virtualization: Beyond Consolidation


2008 marks the year of choice in virtualization solutions for commodity hardware and operating systems. Over the past few years, x86 server-based server virtualization has spread like wildfire throughout organizations and has enabled a wave of system consolidation in an effort to stem the tide of growing business demands. The next step in server virtualization is beyond consolidation, where high availability and dynamic systems management enables virtualization to be the new operating system for the enterprise. However, roadblocks stand in the way, including vendor licensing practices mired in the static unmovable past as well as lack of standards. Movement in these areas will enable the next huge value proposition of the virtualized dynamic enterprise to be realized. Key areas explored include:


Storage for the Virtual Data Center


The dynamic data center requires the mobility of IT resources that are decoupled from the constraints of physical systems. The integration of server and storage virtualization enables dynamic resource allocation and movement for both applications and the storage they require. This topic explores what happens when virtual worlds – servers and storage -- collide. Choices in storage virtualization enabled by lower cost iSCSI Storage Area Networks (SANs), increased choices in Network Attached Storage (NAS), and the improvement in global file systems is paving the way for improved virtual storage support of server virtualization platforms. However, the lack of standardized storage management interfaces and protocols has slowed the adoption of low-cost, virtualized storage and threatens to create vendor lock-in. Key areas explored include:


Identity Market Overview


Details forthcoming.

Identity and Society


Identity systems are applicable to a wide range of societal interests, in both public and private sectors. Governments are looking to online identity systems to help control borders, fight crime, and provide government services. Businesses use identity systems to help run businesses efficiently and in accordance with policies and regulatory mandates. To date, the IdM market is almost exclusively a software market, with very few businesses operating identification services for profit. Is there a business model for identity? In this topic, attendees will learn about important new developments that move IdM past a strict command/control model, including:


Authentication


The need to authenticate users across domain contexts is reaching a boiling point. Governments need to authenticate citizens, businesses need to recognize partners’ employees, and banks need to authenticate legitimate customers. Solutions are everywhere, but each solution is effective only for a limited number of use cases. The industry desperately needs a workable, scalable approach to distributed authentication. Is it possible to build a global authentication standard, or is every attempt doomed to become nothing more than another tactical authentication technology? In this session, attendees will


Planning for Pervasive Mobility


With wireless from mobile devices now becoming the preferred form of communications and application access for many users, there’s a powerful incentive for developers, product designers and manufacturers, network operators and others allied to the field to push wireless broadband to parity with --- and beyond -- wireline networks and applications. Despite dropped calls, lack of coverage, and the limited bandwidth for data that characterize many current wireless services, mobile broadband communications continue to improve at a rapid pace.

This topic area will cover not only the major technologies, systems, services and devices that are enabling wireless LAN and WAN broadband, but perhaps more importantly to most enterprises, the impact of untethered communications on applications, devices, and security. Consumer (employee) choice of wireless devices and services is creating many new management challenges. Planning for pervasive mobility is expected to affect nearly every aspect of enterprise application development and deployment.

WANs and Telecom: Services and Providers in Transition


The specific WAN service choices available to enterprises continue to be affected by disruptive telecom industry developments, such as carrier megamergers and acquisitions. Many WAN service providers are struggling to support new business models (such as delivering their own video content), but concerns this will lead to “walled gardens” puts pressure on regulators to establish new telecom public policies promoting ’net neutrality” -- so that enterprise and residential network users will still have the freedom to access competing third-party network applications and content.

New service provider technologies such as IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystems) and 3G/4G wireless, combined with next-generation residential broadband service offerings (such as those based on fiber), are creating new transport and service alternatives for enterprises. Public Internet services are often becoming acceptable substitutes for MPLS, ATM, or frame relay virtual-circuit-oriented services. In the near-term, many enterprises have realized significant value from their WANs from deployment of WAN performance optimizers/accelerators.

General Session Topics - Wednesday, 22 October

Reinventing User Experience with Web 2.0


User experience has been widely recognized as a pivotal element in web site design during the last decade, and it’s now a critical enterprise application consideration as well. Individuals accustomed to contextual and communication-extended experiences with consumer-oriented Internet services now seek similar capabilities in their workplaces, and the onus is on IT to deliver. Combined with fundamental changes in productivity applications, the new user experience model will result in the biggest information worker changes in the last twenty years. This topic will explore:


The Business Value of Social Software and Enterprise 2.0


Social software, including blogs, wikis, and tagging/bookmarking systems, are moving from the edge to the center of the infrastructure model for communication, collaboration, and content management. Rather than simply being a “Facebook for the enterprise,” social software plays a key role in domains ranging from attracting “net-generation workers” to passing on the institutional knowledge of a retiring workforce generation. It has the potential to ultimately make all organizations more productive and responsive. This topic will discuss social software challenges and opportunities, including:


Super-Crunching Your Way Through Security Metrics


What do over 136 academic studies tell us that we don’t already know? That evidence-based quantitative research is almost always better than qualitative, subjective opinions – even from experts, even with expressed concerns about data. Measuring things matters, and makes IT programs more manageable. But it has to be done right.

These sessions will help codify how and when to address security metrics in your environment:

Conducting Secure Business Over Open Networks


For many enterprises the network perimeter firewall is unable to guarantee that only trusted users and traffic are present on the managed network. Network and security vendor attempts to shore up the network with Network Access Control solutions are incomplete and over-hyped. Burton Group experts and customers will propose an overlay architecture approach that shifts defenses to the endpoints, application systems, information systems, and data centers and challenge vendors to justify the value of NAC products and their strategy for building security intelligence into networks

Topics to be covered include:

SharePoint: Fixing A Hole Where the Pain Gets In


SharePoint: Fixing A Hole Where the Pain Gets In


Companies that need to collaborate across business boundaries face difficult challenges when using traditional domain-centric collaborative tools. Case in point: SharePoint. For best results, SharePoint requires all users and resources to be part of the same AD forest. Most organizations don’t have that luxury. Attendees of this topic will


Policy and Privilege Management: The Witches Brew of Compliance


A growing list of IdM tools stake claim to solving the compliance challenge for enterprises, leaving us with the question: how many tools does it take to accomplish the task? Products range from user provisioning to automate account administration, role management for abstracting users and privileges, enterprise applications control management to address intricate policy rules in applications, entitlement management to externalize policy decisions for fine-grained authorizations from applications, and identity audit tools to validate and certify the environment. Is all of this necessary? Are there opportunities to converge technologies? This session will look at the solutions available in this market and push for greater integration, better interoperability, and more convenient packaging. Issues discussed include:

Data Center Efficiency: Energized, Miniaturized, and Highly Available


Data center expenditures have become top-of-mind for CIOs and IT administrators. Global competition and eCommerce are driving the phenomenal growth of data and systems. As a result, data centers are running out of power and space. Also, a 24x7 operation demands a resilient, dynamic data center to service the needs of international customers. Energy efficiency, space, and uptime requirements are driving data center technology advancements including virtualization, server and storage density, and increased availability. Data centers are built with power redundancy, advanced thermal dynamics, and business continuity in mind. Attendees will gain insight into the technological evolution of new hardware designs in blade servers and compute nodes, efficient and resilient facilities infrastructure, and high availability design for business continuity. Key technologies and trends discussed include:


New Realities for Data Management


Data management is undergoing a significant transition, with new database management system (DBMS) capabilities, major advances in XML data management with emerging standards such as XQuery, and pervasive business intelligence and analytics opportunities. Enterprises are also grappling with new data management challenges, such as the massive databases and data streams associated with web sites and sensor networks. This topic explores and explains the new data management realities, including:


General Session Topics - Thusday, 23 October

Data Security: More than the Reach of the Breach

Staying out of the news (bad news, specifically) is an admirable goal. But data security is more than merely avoiding breaches, disclosures, and reputation blemishes. Enterprises have vast data landscapes with varied needs. In the land of data, those who control data are king. Such control includes protection of data in motion, use, and at rest—to be sure—but it also involves classifying, architecting, and discovering information properly. It also requires appropriate technical responses to conflicting compliance requirements: some of which require greater confidentiality and others that require greater availability.

The session will cover:


Unified Communications: Real-time Enterprise Collaboration and Networking


Media coverage of unified communications (UC) exploded in 2007. But how are organizations progressing on their journey towards converged real-time communication services, including voice, videoconferencing/telepresence, instant messaging (IM), and presence? Fixed and mobile devices, systems, and services will need to be consolidated, and security issues must be considered.

However, unified communications is much more than just technology consolidation. Undertaking such efforts will have dramatic impacts on organizational roles, responsibilities and structures. Unified communications also has to provide greater business relevancy than simply deploying a fancier phone or IM client. Adapting work practices to better integrate real-time communication within process activities are design and development skills that are not very mature. The evolution of call centers/customer contact centers is also part of the equation. This topic examines the current state of unified communications, challenges impeding adoption, and prospects for success.

The Business Value of Social Software and Enterprise 2.0


Social software, including blogs, wikis, and tagging/bookmarking systems, are moving from the edge to the center of the infrastructure model for communication, collaboration, and content management. Rather than simply being a “Facebook for the enterprise,” social software plays a key role in domains ranging from attracting “net-generation workers” to passing on the institutional knowledge of a retiring workforce generation. It has the potential to ultimately make all organizations more productive and responsive. This topic will discuss social software challenges and opportunities, including:


The Information Architecture Renaissance


A fundamental market transition is taking place among the many software product categories related to enterprise database and content management, addressing databases, documents, files, images, messages, records, and web content. Previously treated as multiple product categories, technology trends and market dynamics are combining to rapidly consolidate information architecture into a new and different architectural model. This topic explores new enterprise content and data life cycle realities, including trends such as: