IM Local Edition – San Francisco

10:30-11:15am – Keynote 1

Presenter: Billy Rios
Session Details: Cyber security expert Billy Rios has created WhiteScope, a database containing hundreds of thousands of “known-good” files from makers of SCADA and ICS software with the intent to support users to identify legitimate ICS/SCADA files. Billy is recognized as one of the world’s most respected experts on emerging threats related to software security, Industrial Control Systems (ICS), Critical Infrastructure (CI), and, medical devices. Billy has worked at Google where he led the front line response for externally reported security issues and incidents. Prior to Google, Billy was the Security Program Manager at Internet Explorer (Microsoft).

11:15am-12:00pm – Keynote 2
Presenters: Scott Noteboom and David Wang
Session Details: Data Center Automation & Robotics – Scott and David led a conversation about the future of AI in the data center, sharing some data center projections that fit into an overall study that projects % of workforce that will be affected by automation. They discussed how AI shifts from artificial to real, through the effective human-to-machine learning interface, how it’s more about computers being taught by humans, using the human language as the primary interface. They also discussed how machine learning driven AI will become “co-workers” in the modern workplace; not replacing people, but supplementing people. How every person on the planet will have an army of AI empowered co-workers as performance enhancements that enable them to reach and exceed their natural human potential.

12:00-1:00pm – Data Center Performance Index Working Session and Working Lunch
Today’s data center standards do not represent the needs of infrastructure professionals. There is no standard way to objectively evaluate the performance of a data center portfolio including owned and leased locations. To compound this problem, most data center site selection processes are usually based on a checklist written by procurement teams or consultants, not on actual sustained performance of the data center. Members have shared that they contracted “Tier IV” data centers with providers guaranteeing 99.9999% availability, only to have them not meet their SLA. While there were financial penalties in the contracts about not meeting the availability SLA, it was pennies compared to the revenue impact from a single second of power loss.

Dean Nelson led the working session where members will discuss and debate the new Data Center Performance Index (DCPI). This new rating system is targeted at measuring the actual performance of data centers on an annual basis. The SFO Local Edition was the sixth members only working session on DCPI. Attendees at the California, Colorado and New York sessions provided excellent input to help fine tune and focus DCPI.