| DAY 1 |
| 0900h | Official Opening |
| 0910h | Keynote |
| 0935h | Regional Datacentre Leadership Panel |
| Third party colocation and datacentre demand is increasing strongly, driven by factors including the acceleration in e-commerce, hosted applications and mobile data, an exponential rise in video as well as the benefits of outsourcing and cost control. The development of cloud computing, green and flexibility requirements, is also leading to fundamental change in the location, specification - especially modular datacentres - total cost of ownership and benefits of third party data centres.
- What are the prospects for Africa datacentre markets?
- How will colocation and datacentre services and technologies change due to cloud?
- Is the development of regional datacentre providers now more likely?
- What is the biggest change expected in demand drivers in 2012?
- Will modular/pre-assembly data centres change the cost dynamics and how widespread is it likely to be? |
| 1035h | Networking Break |
| 1100h | Fibre Connectivity for Datacentres in Africa |
| Data centres are the networked hub of the connected enterprise. Yet the availability and cost of fibre links is often challenging. Growth in data experienced now will be outpaced by the introduction of HD Video on the Internet, the rise of Internet TV, and through the next decade the launch of Exaflop machines that incorporate multi-millions of fibre optic links. The 120 Gb/s Active Optical Cables for data centres is already being engineered.
-Subsea fibre cables represent a key infrastructure development for Africa – how will datacentres benefit from new international connectivity?
-Terrestrial fibre connections, backhaul and metro fibre may lag in development – what are the prospects? |
| 1200h | Successful Cloud Strategies - which Cloud to follow? |
| Cloud is becoming the critical infrastructure for the future of IT and delivery of video and content. With sustained growth of data intensive applications, infrastructure virtualisation, cloud is set to bring game changer service benefits to a wide range of IT user organizations. Reducing costs, increasing agility, new levels of security and portability are forecast. Outsourcing to third parties, private cloud with pay as you go capabilities, hybrid and on-premise automated infrastructures are among the main options open to enterprises. How will enterprise cloud ambitions be most effectively realized, add value and reduce the IT cost base? How should enterprises plan and execute a successful cloud strategy? What are the pitfalls and how are these to be avoided? How will datacentres be impacted and manage private, public and hybrid cloud? |
| 1300h | Lunch |
| 1400h | Raising Finance and Investment Opportunities |
| The data centre market has proved to be resilient globally, and will now become a key enabler for African economic development. Business models for data centres vary extensively yet already a small part of the sector are publicly quoted companies.
How do investors see data centres as a money making proposition and what are the longer term considerations that come into play?
What instruments are favoured or being used in financing build and expansion?
How is financing expected to play out in Africa over 2012?
What is the scale and market appetite for further investment? |
| 1500h | Achieving Data Centre Efficiency |
| Central to the discussion of efficiency is the power and cooling systems of the data centre. Whether designing and building out a critical facility or upgrading your legacy system data centre managers need to apply wherever possible the very latest technologies to reduce cost and carbon emissions. This session will assess current techniques and technologies that will maximize datacentre PUE and enable green efficiency. The Green Grid estimates that 15% of servers in data centres are consuming power but not running any useful application or service. What are best practices in energy efficiency to reduce energy consumption and maximise opex?
How can servers be optimized for the applications they are running? |
| 1600h | Networking Break |
| 1630h | Data Centre Infrastructure Management |
| The data centre is becoming an increasingly complex environment with more pressure being placed on data centre managers to streamline and simplify operations as well as optimize space, reduce energy costs and increase operational efficiency. Real time monitoring of the interdependent and critical systems can be achieved through the implementation of specialized software, hardware and sensors.
How can this system be successfully implemented?
Will it extend the data centre life cycle? |
| 1730h | Cocktail Reception |
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| DAY 2 |
| 0900h | Modular Data Centres |
| From containerized solutions to pre-fabricated units, modular data centres appear to be an increasingly popular option available across a range of budgets as well as options for long term strategy. As modular offerings become increasingly differentiated, vendors are offering best-in-class power usage effectiveness (PUE) and energy efficiency without the higher build out cost of establishing a fixed data centre. With the lowest corresponding capital and operating expenditures in the industry, these solutions also have the quickest return on investment (ROI) and allow for expansion flexibility to align with the growth of business.
-What are the key cost benefits in adopting a modular approach?
-What special considerations apply in hot climates?
-What are the Pricing and deployment timescales? |
| 1000h | The most innovative cooling architectures for 2012 and beyond |
| Demand for cooling innovation to respond to regulatory requirements for carbon reductions means that the physical environment in the data centre must be closely watched. This track assesses a range of new methodologies for cooling data centres that provide both efficient solutions that reduce waste and cost, as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
Panel discussion |
| 1100h | Break |
| 1130h | Building a Private Cloud |
| Although private cloud still attracts many definitions, it has the capacity to create new resources from virtualized servers that can be provisioned on demand with minimal manual intervention, save on IT costs and increase enterprise agility. This workshop will assess the processes and pitfalls of building a private cloud technology stack. Managing the budget and ROI combined with the technical processes of public cloud integration, scaling, optimizing workflows and reconfiguring infrastructure is no small challenge. Cloud technologies are changing rapidly and building private cloud will also demand that systems are in place to keep up with frequent new software releases as well as assuring security and governance.
-With few if any private clouds available, Enterprises need to evaluate all private cloud offerings based on current and future objectives
- Which vendors, solutions or open source providers to select? |
| 1230h | Keynote |
| 1300h | Lunch |
| 1400h | Special Training Workshop |
| Details to follow soon |
| 1500h | Data Centre Tours |
