Zycko (in)spire / 07 featured speakers from leading analyst houses IDC Research and Freeform Dynamics, professional organisations such as the Business Continuity Institute and customers including Deutsche Bank and Accidents Exchange. The topics spanned key solution areas, such as the influence of technology in today’s world, future trends and developments in the ICT market, business protection, control and continuity within data centre management, consequences of distributed working, convergent VoIP implementation and voice and video over IP.
Data centre efficiency, achieving a green data centre and related areas such as power consumption and asset management, were recurrent themes at the conference. In his speech, Martin Hingley, chief research officer at IDC EMEA Research, emphasised that the trend for Green IT was creating new business opportunities for the channel. Along a similar theme, Tony Lock, programme director at Freeform Dynamics, said concerns to address power consumption and conservation are now initiating investments in technology.
Key speaker Alex Rabbetts, managing director at Migration solutions, provided an overview of the latest trends and predictions for managed services. He began by looking at security as one of the latest trends in data centre management, focusing specifically on IP cameras, access control, biometrics and remote access. Convergence was also named one of the latest trends. Mr Rabbetts talked about how IT and facilities are working together much more closely and that soon they will merge.
Mr Rabbetts concluded that the out-source/in-source question will continue, with rising co-lo costs, in-house built solutions will increase, security will remain paramount and convergence will happen, so it is better to be prepared for it. Finally he reiterated that regulation is on its way and that tight processes and procedures are the only way to ensure stability.
Tony Lock, programme director at Freeform Dynamics Ltd, looked at managing storage and what customers want. He explained how customers need help understanding process and technology and that customers want solutions and to avoid risk. Mr Lock also spoke about infrastructure virtualisation as the future and how it is necessary to communicate in business terms, not just technology.
David Lloyd from the Business Continuity Institute presented an overview of the considerations for a company’s own Business Continuity Management (BCM). He also highlighted the importance of understanding where the technology provider sits in relation to business continuity for their own clients, assessing the level of mission critical services or solutions supplied to the client and the client expectation should a breach occur.
Feedback from the attendees shows that the event was well received and everyone appreciated its educational nature.
Jim Macrae, technical operations director at NGR Technology said; "Many distributors claim to be channel focused. Zycko is one of the few that actually deliver on that promise by adding real value to channel partners through events such as (in)spire / 07."