By Pedro Pereira

The amount of data the digital world generates is expected to grow at a 44-percent rate over the coming decade. In his final piece of a 3-part series for SHARE President’s Corner, veteran tech writer Pedro Pereira explores the Big Deal about Big Data…

SHARE’s Peer Guidance

Along with IT companies, SHARE is taking an active role in helping enterprises with big data by sponsoring conferences and publishing educational materials on the topic. Dr. Rao’s Smarter Computing presentation, for instance, was delivered at the organization’s August 2011 conference in Orlando.

SHARE is an independent association with membership from companies large and small in industries such as finance, insurance, manufacturing, retail and utilities, as well as universities and colleges, government organizations and consultants. SHARE’s mission is to provide enterprise IT professionals with continuous education and training, and facilitate peer networking.

Rosen calls SHARE a valuable resource for IT professionals trying to tackle the big data challenge. There is a lot of information on the subject in journals and case studies but it has limitations because typically those sources cover only the successes, Rosen says.

To find out about failures so they can avoid them, IT professionals have to rely on each other, and that is an important role SHARE fulfills as a peer group. “Telling me what works is great, but telling me what doesn’t is even greater to make sure I don’t go down that path,” says Rosen.

Mainframe Solution

One of the paths to taming big data is through the mainframe – yes, the computing colossus that more than a few industry pundits in the 1990s wrote off as a dinosaur. The mainframe’s bulk processing capacity at high rates of speed presents a “real solution” for big data, says Rosen. It has a central role in helping enterprises keep track of all their data, he says.

“What we are seeing with our customers with mainframes,” says Bhambhri “is they want to look at the data from the instance that it enters the enterprise.” To help those customers, IBM has developed the zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX), which extends System z mainframe management capabilities across the vendor’s server platform and connects with the large-scale DB2 database for business analytics.

“Our customers that have invested in the mainframe and have workloads on mainframe don’t have to change anything,” Bhambhri says. “What we are providing is something that helps extend their data platform. We are providing capabilities that allow them to analyze large volumes of data.”

Enterprises can run workloads on the mainframe while extracting information for analysis on the BigInsights platform. Organizations don’t necessarily know what they will find out from the data, says Bhambhri, but once they run it through the analytics programs, they are sure to find actionable information useful to the business.

Cloud Doubts

Of course, a lot of companies have no mainframes, but still process large amounts of data. For them, cloud-based computing resources present a way to gain big data insights while keeping costs down. Bhambhri says a lot of companies are “kicking the tires” in the cloud.

McKinsey says cloud computing knocks down technology barriers and reduces costs, and it lets companies collaborate with partners and customers on business functions such as R&D, marketing and customer support. In a big data context, you could envision different parties working together to gain and share mutually beneficial insights.

In a recent press release (June 20, 2011) IDC predicted: “Cloud computing will continue to reshape the IT landscape over the next five years as spending on public IT cloud services expands at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.6%, from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion in 2015. But the impact of cloud services will extend well beyond IT.”

Real-time big data analysis will help drive this growth.

Rosen says both the government and private enterprise are seriously looking at how cloud computing can help with big data. Security and reliability, however, remain a concern. “And sometimes the cloud is really complicated because you have to be concerned in some cases where the data is being stored,” he says. “I don’t want my data to be stored in China, for example.”

What to Do

Realizing big data’s vast potential will require organizations that generate and process large volumes of data to understand its value and act accordingly. On the technology side, innovation is needed to address storage and security challenges, and to continue the fine-tuning of analytics to make sense of the data. Policy makers also play a critical role in devising strategies that facilitate analysis of big data while protecting the privacy of personal data.

Education, and sharing of experiences is fundamental to everyone’s success. To that end, attendees at SHARE’s next semi-annual event, scheduled for March 2012, are sure to receive plenty of actionable information to help them meet the big data challenge.

By Pedro Pereira

The amount of data the digital world generates is expected to grow at a 44-percent rate over the coming decade. In his first post of a 3-part series for SHARE President’s Corner, veteran tech writer Pedro Pereira explores the Big Deal about Big Data…

By 2020, there will be 35 zetabytes of data, a staggering increase from the current estimated 1.2 zetabytes. Let’s put that in perspective: 35 zetabytes equals 35 million petabytes. One petabyte is slightly more than 1 billion megabytes. That adds up to 7 quadrillion (that’s 15 zeroes after the 7) sets of Shakespeare’s complete works and roughly 28,200 U.S. Library of Congress print collections, which are estimated at 10 terabytes per collection.

Big data is a worldwide phenomenon that touches everyone who uses a cell phone, searches the web, trades on Wall Street, formats a report, streams video, types on a computer.

“Every click of ours is generating data,” says Anjul Bhambhri, IBM’s vice president of big data products. “When the Internet boom started, I don’t think at that time people anticipated that so much unstructured data was going to be created.”

We all contribute to the explosion of big data, loosely defined as datasets that grow beyond the ability of run-of-the-mill database tools to handle. “In a digitized world, consumers going about their day—communicating, browsing, buying, sharing, searching—create their own enormous trails of data,” states a May 2011 McKinsey Global Institute report.

The number of servers deployed around the world grew six-fold in the past decade to 32.6 million worldwide, according to Dr. Gururaj Rao, IBM fellow, Systems and Technology Group. Storage grew 69 percent in the same time period, Dr. Rao said during a SHARE conference in August 2011. Meanwhile, he noted, the number of Internet-connected devices is growing at a 42 percent yearly clip.

Big Deal, Indeed

Big data poses a seemingly insurmountable challenge for enterprises in a gamut of industries – retail, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, communications and government – to make sense of the volumes of information they produce and that grow exponentially every second. Most of the data – 80 percent or so – is unstructured, which complicates the ability to store, mine, analyze and act on it.

But let’s say you could do all that efficiently, what would be the benefit? What is the big deal about big data?

Benefits range from the mundane to seemingly pie-in-the-sky scenarios: Better targeted consumer products. Improved road traffic flow and urban planning. Catching and fixing potentially dangerous automobile flaws. Preventing credit card fraud. Predicting infection in at-risk newborns. Saving lives.

Enterprises would develop better, safer products they can more precisely target to customers. The healthcare industry, McKinsey posited in its report, could use big data to boost efficiency and quality while reducing costs by 8 percent. Retailers could boost operating margins by more than 60 percent.

Robert Rosen, a former SHARE president currently working in the government, says big data analysis led to a recent Volkswagen recall of nearly 170,000 diesel VWs and Audis over potentially faulty fuel lines. “There’s an example of extracting information from lots of unstructured data,” he says.

Where to Store It All

The benefits of big data analysis surely go beyond what we can imagine, but it poses some big challenges. Organizations have to figure out where to store it all and implement recovery policies and technology. Industries such as healthcare, law and finance are required to archive certain types of digital information and have it easily accessible for recovery in cases such as legal disputes and, of course, data loss.

With data growing at a projected 44 percent clip, it would take millions of storage systems to handle it all. According to the McKinsey report, the United States in 2010 had 16 exabytes of storage capacity, while Europe had 11. Combined, Europe and the United States could store only a fraction of the currently existing 1.2 zetabytes of data, since one 1 zetabyte equals 1,024 exabytes.

 “While 75 percent of the information in the digital universe is generated by individuals, enterprises have some liability for 80 percent of information in the digital universe at some point in its digital life,” according to the IDC Digital Universe Study (sponsored by EMC – June 2011.)

The same IDC study continues: “The number of ‘files,’ or containers that encapsulate the information in the digital universe, is growing even faster than the information itself as more and more embedded systems pump their bits into the digital cosmos. In the next five years, these files will grow by a factor of 8, while the pool of IT staff available to manage them will grow only slightly.

“We are not going to have enough disks to store all this data,” says Rosen.

Vendors such as IBM, Samsung and GE Global are working hard on developing new technology. Be it laser-based, crystal disks, atomic holographic nanotechnology or something we don’t know about yet, the future of storage technology is critical to our ability to collect, organize and analyze big data. You can increase disk density by only so much, and once we reach the limit, says Rosen, “we’ll need something new.”

In the next installment of the Big deal About Big Data, Pedro Pereira continues his conversation with experts in the field, who discuss the issues of securing and analyzing all that information.

By Joe Clabby, President of Clabby Analytics

As an information technology (IT) research analyst, I receive regular invites to industry events (because the event sponsors hope that I will share their stories with a broader audience).  But my motivation for attending these events is to conduct information technology research.  I have no qualms about approaching IT professionals whom I don’t know (including teachers, students, IT practitioners, IT executives and vendors) and asking their opinions of various technologies, products and industry trends. And a high percentage of these individuals are usually willing to share their opinions (as long as I don’t mention their organizations in my research).

One of my favorite events to attend is the SHARE user group meeting held twice a year at various locations in the United States. And the reason I enjoy this meeting so much is that a large number of seasoned IT professionals attend and speak at this event.  These people are easy to approach, very knowledgeable and very candid.

Recently, the SHARE executive community asked me if I would be willing to do a little digging into what is “top-of-mind” amongst regular SHARE attendees when it comes to IT professional skills development.  I responded enthusiastically that I would love to do this — primarily because I’ve written several reports on the IT skills situation (where business leaders worldwide constantly lament that there are too few skilled IT individuals to meet demand).  A good summary of the issue can be found here in a report by Emily Stewart of the Australian Broadcast System broadcast on 9/26/2011: http://linkd.in/mWHxjS. 

The following is my assessment of IT skills in 2011 — based on talking to business and government IT managers, teachers, students and vendors in the United States.

IT in 2011: Analyzing the Skills Shortage and Collaborating to Solve It

The argument goes something like this….with the aging of the US population, so goes the aging of the IT workforce.  As seasoned IT professionals reach retirement age and leave the workforce, they are being replaced by recent graduates who want to focus on new “slick” technologies rather than learn about traditional IT architectures – “old” technologies like the mainframe.  So, as these youngsters look for work that will build their resume and impress their friends, finding mainframe talent is becoming increasingly difficult for IT hiring managers. True? Yes and no.  It is true that young IT professionals gravitate toward these new products and architectures. But at the same time, we have a population of college graduates who are facing one of the worst economic climates in recent memory – an economic climate that isn’t expected to improve for quite some time. So the reality is that they NEED JOBS! And anticipating the skills shortage in mainframe technologies, IT professors, IT business executives and IT vendors have been working together to mitigate the problem.  They are collaborating to ensure that there will be skilled talent to fill mainframe jobs – that the education and training provided in colleges and universities will match up with hiring requirements. Let’s look at a couple examples:

SHARE

According to the SHARE Web site, “SHARE Inc. is an independent association providing enterprise technology professionals with continuous education and training, valuable professional networking and effective industry influence.” The members include many Fortune 500 companies, universities and colleges, government organizations and consultants. In partnership with IBM and IBM partners, one of SHARE’s primary goals is to nurture a new generation of IT professionals on the mainframe and supporting technologies, especially knowing that these technologies are not typically as widely taught in today’s schools.  The zNextGen Project sponsored by SHARE, is a global user community specifically designed for prospective System z professionals with a wealth of available resources to support the development of system z IT skills. More information is available at http://bit.ly/boKFrt.

In August 2011, SHARE sponsored its bi-annual event in Orlando, Florida which was attended by more than 1,100 IT professionals. In a recent article, “Mainframe Technology in 2011 and Beyond; Who is Going to Run These Mainframes?”, Dr. Cameron Seay, Assistant Professor at North Carolina A&T State University, had this comment about the event, “… I attended SHARE in Orlando along with two of my students. They each came away with a stack of cards about four inches thick from companies wanting to hire them. (As crazy as it sounds; if I had three times as many students I could place each and every one of them, and that’s just the fact of the matter.)” Additional insights can be found in the complete article: http://bit.ly/q7WfqR.

IBM Academic Initiative System z program

The IBM Academic Initiative System z program “seeks to ensure that the next generation of mainframe experts will be available to help more companies and organizations leverage the superior security, availability, scalability, and efficiency of the mainframe.”  IBM partners with educators, students and customers by providing:

1)      Access to mainframes, courseware and training to colleges and universities

2)      Scholarships, academic contests and a jobs/internship database for students

3)      A forum  for businesses to establish relationships with colleges and universities that offer mainframe-based curriculums and a résumé database of students with mainframe skills

Details available at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/university/academicinitiative/index.html

IT in 2011: Feedback from IT Managers, Students and Educators

Enterprise IT

Enterprise IT managers are telling me is that they’re doing a lot of “growing from the inside” rather than hiring from the outside.  They constantly point to the need to “do more with less” (the new mantra of the 2010s in business) — and say that they are finding ways to live up to this mantra.  These IT managers are consolidating and virtualizing their environments (which makes management a little bit easier because few distributed systems and associated software needs to be managed).  And they also claim to be using many of the advanced, automated management tools that are available on the market (these tools simplify and automated systems and software management — helping to reduce the cost for human labor).  And when IT managers are hiring, they are looking for younger talent— “gray-haired” IT professionals are perceived as being too expensive, and the goal is to replace these retirees with recent college graduates.

A February 2011 study conducted by SHARE entitled, “CLOSING THE IT SKILLS GAP: 2011 SHARE Survey for Guiding University & College IT Agendas”, found that half of the companies surveyed hire new IT employees straight out of school, with relatively little actual work experience.  The study also indicates a strong demand for mainframe skills with the finding, “In terms of platform-specific skills, companies seek applicants skilled in running two types of environments — database administration and mainframe administration. Specific mainframe administration skill areas also are in demand by a majority, or close to a majority, of companies in the survey — 55% seek mainframe administrative skills, and half are in need of skills involving JCL, or Job Control Language.”

Students

Students (or more precisely recent graduates who now work in the field of IT) have pointed out how they have constantly built their skills in order to command greater salaries and ensure employment.  Some of these students manage more advanced computing environments such as scale-up Unix servers and/or mainframes — while others continue to work on x86 servers (which is what they were trained to use in college.)  Unix/mainframe-skilled individuals seem to have not only improved their scale-up systems experience, but they’ve also grown from a business acumen perspective by working on advanced run-the-enterprise projects that involve custom application design and business process flows.  Demand for mainframe talent in combination with a tough job market will cause students to rethink their course choices, taking advantage of programs and courses offered through the IBM Academic Initiative (my 18 year-old son is one such example — he is pursuing a mainframe program at Marist College — more information is available at http://www.clabbyanalytics.com/uploads/Billy_Mainframe_Report.pdf).

Educators

Some of the professors that I’ve talked to (I regularly attend the annual Enterprise Computing Conference at Marist College) tell me that they now are working more closely than ever with local business leaders to build the kind of skills that those leaders require.  This is a bit of a change in that university professors usually have taken an approach that builds computer generalists — and then those generalists build specialist skills once they are hired by a business.  Based on the success of specific programs taught at the college level, businesses and universities are launching programs to encourage more high schools to offer computer science courses as part of the curriculum — so that specialization can begin at the college level.  IBM’s Academic Initiative extends resources to high schools including courses and roadmaps for teachers, as well as contests and games for students. IBM’s Web site has additional details: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/university/highschool/

This is in an effort to reverse a trend that suggests that fewer students are taking courses at a high school level (in 2009 the Advanced Placement board canceled one of their Computer Science offerings due to low numbers).

By the same token, business leaders are looking for IT professionals that possess not only IT skills but business acumen as well, so many schools and universities are offering IT major programs that require classes in economics, accounting and marketing. In fact, the findings of the February 2011 SHARE study mentioned above indicate that, “about one-third of companies are seeking professionals and managers that can bridge the divides between IT departments and business leaders. Project management, analytics/business intelligence, and enterprise architecture skills are in demand by more than half of the companies surveyed.”

Summary Observations

Much has been written about the IT skills shortage (particularly with respect to mainframe talent) and most of it has a tone of “gloom and doom”.  In my opinion, collaborative efforts between businesses, universities, vendors (like IBM and its Academic Initiative) and independent industry organizations (like SHARE) will forestall any crisis based on a talent shortfall.  Continued feedback from businesses will ensure that Universities are teaching the right courses and that students are learning the skills necessary to compete for available jobs. By extending programs to the high school level, skills will be developed sooner and our college graduates will be more specialized.  And in the end — in a tough economy — college students will pursue the skills that will get the jobs.

We had a great week at SHARE in Orlando! The meeting rooms and hallways of the Walt Disney World Dolphin were crowded and resounded with the energy of IT specialists making professional connections and gaining knowledge on the latest technologies for their companies. I would like to thank all of our volunteers who helped make this event successful as well as our speakers and everyone who attended. In particular I would like to thank our keynote speakers, Bill Capodagli of Capodagli Jackson Consulting and Dr. Gururaj Rao of IBM Corporation, for sharing their knowledge and expertise.

We were excited to once again have an opportunity to have the newest member of the IBM zEnterprise family, the z114, on our trade show floor running all of our hands-on lab sessions.  We offered over 30 sessions related to the zEnterprise including user experiences. We also featured a dozen sessions on IPv6, as well as a number of sessions covering other recent announcements such as CICS TS v4.2, WebSphere Application Server v8 and NetView v6.1. At our opening reception, attendees enjoyed a luau with a tropically inspired theme, food and live music. If you missed SHARE in Orlando, check out SHARE Live! which offers access to recorded sessions from our Orlando event for up to six months.

SHARE has been executing a plan to provide year-round engagement to our Members and their employees. One example is by holding monthly webcasts to provide more information in a timely fashion. We have hosted webcasts covering CICS, NetView, Virtualization, WebSphere, cloud and the z114 announcement. The z114 webcast was held only two days after the announcement by IBM.

In Orlando, SHARE announced our newest membership option, known as SHARE Select. By upgrading to SHARE Select, your organization will be able to access the valuable content typically only experienced during our bi-annual events. SHARE Select members will receive exclusive access to more than 100 recorded sessions and web classes in the SHARE Hub, one virtual conference license per live event (two per year), as well as research papers, technical documents and white papers. Learn how you can expand your conference experience throughout the year by visiting the SHARE Select web page.

SHARE continues to encourage young professionals in Enterprise IT, and is pleased to partner with CA Technologies who will be awarding over $1 million in scholarships to their Mainframe Academy. We would like to congratulate the first recipient of this scholarship, Daniela Ferreira de Paiva, Systems Analyst at BRQ IT Services in São Paulo, Brazil.

SHARE Members elected two directors at SHARE in Orlando. The SHARE leadership team is committed to delivering strong programs and ongoing collaborative opportunities which will help you drive business value from your IT investment. We look forward to the next year and the opportunities it will present.

Make sure to save the date for SHARE in Atlanta which will be held March 11-16, 2012 at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center, in Atlanta Georgia. We are already planning the event, including holding our ExecuForum conference for IT executives. In the meantime, continue to watch for year-round activities from SHARE. Join us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, learn about our ongoing opportunities and stay connected to SHARE. I look forward to your continued support and participation in SHARE activities.

Sincerely,

Janet L. Sun

SHARE President

By Jim Willette (Sunrise e-Services) and Karla Houser

If you watched IBM’s Watson take on and soundly defeat the two ranking champions on Jeopardy!, you were probably both impressed and occasionally amused at some of Watson’s answers. You may have also wondered how, or even if, this impressive mix of hardware and software technology impacts real-world situations.

As Enterprise IT professionals, we know that the real test of the technology behind Watson lies in applying the underlying data management, natural language processing and analytics technology in both business and government situations. Will it really work in the real world?

Watson is an impressive milestone in the development of Artificial Intelligence. However, from the outside looking in, there appears to be much more work left to do so that we, as IT professionals, can deploy the technology against business problems even in limited domains such as health care, search engine optimization or service desks. The technologies that power Watson may soon find their way into a variety of software applications and robots. I can picture the day when we have an actual smart computer, maybe a “Data” from Star Trek, which can interact with us as humans as if it were a person.

As SHARE looks to the future of IT technology and real-world uses of technology, from both near and longer-term perspectives, the implications of Watson and similar efforts appear to be huge. As part of the volunteer team at SHARE, we are proud that SHARE is able to offer a series of sessions on the business implications of Watson to Enterprise IT. These sessions offer both a behind the scenes look at IBM’s Watson as well as a look into the potential business implications of applying the underlying systems, data management and analytics technology in business and across different industries. These sessions begin on Wednesday morning and continue through Thursday noon. The sessions are:

·     9575: “Beyond Watson: Technology Implications Today and In the Future” on Wednesday at 8 a.m.

·     9577: “Behind Watson: The Hardware and Software (Linux on Power) Used to Deliver Watson” on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.

·     9502: “Beyond Watson: Applying Watson and Analytics to Your Business Needs” on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.

·     9581: “Behind Watson: The Turing Test – Machine or Human?” on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m.

·     9503: “Beyond Watson: The Business Implications of Big Data” on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

·     9505:” Beyond Watson: The Business Uses of Natural Language Processing” on Thursday at 8 a.m.

·     9583: “Behind Watson: Project Management: Choosing the Right Technology Platform for the Building of Watson” on Thursday at 9:30 a.m.

·     9341: “Seven Reasons Why Information Technology Projects Fail” on Thursday at 11a.m.

We look forward to hearing the speakers’ perspectives on IBM’s Watson and learning from their experiences. Hopefully, you will be able to attend some or all of these sessions and be willing to SHARE your thoughts with us about these exciting technology advances and their potential for life in the “real world.” Look for Watson sessions in your Onsite Guide – they are marked with a “W” icon. If you’d like to meet and SHARE your ideas, wander by Southern Hemisphere I-II on Wednesday or Thursday. We’ll be looking for you.

Posted by: Jim Willette, SHARE Volunteer

Is your organization made up of “road warriors”, or have you found yourself in that role as I have? Mobile computing has become an important and rapidly-evolving technology in recent years, thanks in part to various flavors of smartphones. It’s also become a must in the Enterprise space with more and more companies supporting a remote and constantly moving workforce. Are you trying to find new and effective ways to improve your mobile applications’ effectiveness? Concerned about the “dark side” of mobile computing? Just trying to survive as a remote employee or contractor? These sessions could be just what you need.

SHARE in Orlando has developed a number of sessions designed to answer your questions regarding what is and isn’t practical, what lies ahead for mobile computing and application development considerations for mobile devices. Below is a list of some of the sessions planned for SHARE in Orlando this August.  

Sessions in this area of interest include:

Tuesday 4:30 p.m. – 9629 – Making System z Sexy Again with Social and Collaboration Software
Wednesday 9:30 a.m. – 9774 – You Have an App for That: How to Build an iPhone App
Wednesday 11:00 a.m. – 10026 – You Have an App for That: How to Build an Android App
Wednesday 4:30 p.m. – 9773 – Privacy in an Online World – Fact or Fantasy?
Thursday 3:00 p.m. – 10030 – Tips, Tools and Toys for the Road Warrior
Thursday 4:30 p.m. – 9765 – The Dark Side of Connectivity: Reach Out and Hack Someone

Road warriors aren’t shy. I would love to meet you there and exchange war stories, other helpful hints, or ideas for topics to cover in the future. You can post them here, of course, but I hope to see you in Orlando.

Posted by: Jim Willette, SHARE Volunteer

One of the areas getting significant face-time at SHARE in Orlando 2011 is cloud computing. There is a lot of buzz around the cloud, with more companies beginning to explore this as a way to extend IT’s existing capabilities without adding overhead, new software or infrastructure. You may be surprised at the impact on resources in a cloud implementation. Cloud computing has been one of the hottest topics among the analyst community and even the media, but how are real-world IT professionals using the cloud effectively?

In a recent blog, John C. Dvorak stated, “Somehow the idea that the cloud is so much better is just accepted as fact, because it was said so at GroupThink2010. Then is was repeated at DroneCon, then at a Conference for Dummies, and at the UsuakSuspects2011. From there, it was picked up by bloggers, and the rest is history.” 

Well, SHARE is not for dummies. Learn about what real people are doing with cloud computing. Cut through the buzzwords, and get past the groupthink to discover how you can benefit from this technology, and whether or not it is better for you.

You cannot take full advantage of cloud computing without first becoming familiar with what it entails and how the latest issues and trends relate to cloud computing such as:

• How are real IT professionals implementing the cloud?
• What efficiencies are they gaining through this implementation?
• Should you be considering a Public Cloud, Private Cloud, or Hybrid Cloud approach?
• What makes sense for your organization?
• What should you be aware of?
• What are the broader business implications?
• How is the role of the mainframe being elevated by cloud computing?
• What are the major architectural implications?

SHARE is well aware of the increasing importance of cloud computing in IT. In this series of sessions, you, as a SHARE attendee, will learn from, and network with, enterprise cloud computing professionals and experienced users. You will leave with ideas and examples that you can immediately apply to leverage the cloud. You will also gain an understanding of the entire scope of the cloud computing spectrum – from architecture to storage to security.

What issues around cloud computing are important to you? What are you hoping to learn about the cloud at SHARE in Orlando? What else would you like to learn in the future? Are you ready to implement cloud in your organization? What’s holding you back? Share your ideas and opinions, here and in Orlando.

Sessions in this area of interest include:
Monday 9:30 a.m. – 9915 Introduction to Cloud Computing: What’s It All About?
Monday 11:00 a.m. – 10017 Using SOA to Implement Cloud – One Company’s Modernization
Monday 1:30 p.m. – 9261 IBM’s Cloud Computing Reference Architecture: Cloud Gets Real
Monday 3:00 p.m. – 9844 Cloud Storage: Backups in the Cloud
Tuesday 9:30 a.m. – 9354 Securing Data in a Cloud Environment
Tuesday 11:00 a.m. – 9916 Business Decisions for Cloud Computing
Tuesday 12:15 p.m. – 9600 CICS TS and the Cloud
Tuesday 1:30 p.m. – 10029 Business Strategy and Innovation: Cloud Computing is Elevating the Role of IT Mainframes
Tuesday 1:30 p.m. – 9772 Fit for Purpose Platform Selection
Tuesday 4:30 p.m. – 10055 Innovative Computing Solutions with System z and Other Architectures– Including Implication in Performance Models
Wednesday 3:00 p.m. – 9352 Securing Your Data No Matter Where it Resides or Who Manages It
Thursday 8:00 am – 0459 Cloud Computing with IBM System z

By: Brian Cummings, SHARE Volunteer

What sessions am I attending at SHARE in Orlando? Some of the sessions I’m most thrilled about this year are designed around Security and Cryptography. Security is one of the most important responsibilities we have as IT professionals. It’s also one of the most important things we do for our businesses. The financial downfall due to poor security or hacking can cripple a company’s revenue outlook, erode customer confidence and lead to some pretty bad PR. In short, every aspect of the business is affected when we compromise our customers’ data.

In keeping with this year’s theme of Delivering Mission Critical Business Services Through IT SHARE has arranged a number of sessions designed to take a deep dive into this topic – and most importantly – how it relates to our role as the facilitators of our organizations’ security. From the latest training in z/OS to the impact of hardware availability to your disaster recovery (DR) plans, Public Key Infrastructure and more – these sessions will showcase best practice approaches from real-world IT security professionals. In this series of sessions, SHARE attendees will be able to learn from and network with other IT security professionals. They will leave with a better understanding of Cryptography and the impacts of Cryptography on their organizations through formal sessions, discussions and hands-on labs. Sessions focus informatively and helpfully on topics that address “Software Updates”, “How To’s”, and “How I did it.” Even the experienced IT security professional will take something away. Are you planning on attending these sessions? What topic areas are you most looking forward to? What key issues around Cryptography are you most interested in?

To view a complete list of sessions related to this topic, visit: http://tinyurl.com/6c92qrf