Networld+Interop 2002 Atlanta will open alongside Comdex 2002 Atlanta, marking Comdex’s first appearance in the city since 1997. The idea is to give delegates a view of all the important developments that affect their businesses, as well as discuss the latest in Gigabit architectures, WAN strategies and convergence issues. Visitors also will be able hear about Web services, and IT/business alignment and strategies.
Hot topics this year include wireless networks, storage and security. There will be a two-day E-Mobility conference that will address wireless LANs and wireless applications, while a security conference will cover issues such as reaching beyond intrusion detection and securing a mobile environment.
Despite the depressed economy and the fact that the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks falls on the third day of the show, Valerie Williamson, president of Interop Worldwide, says the number of visitors is expected to be between 20,000 to 30,000. She declined to specify the number of attendees to N+I Atlanta 2001.
With exhibitors numbering 175, including Extreme Networks, Computer Associates and Cingular Wireless, there will be plenty to see and do. In our Planning Guide, we point out some of the best and most important goings-on.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
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Monday Sept. 9
VPN Day 1
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
How do you provide remote employees access to corporate data in a secure way without incurring sky-high service charges? VPNs are becoming one of the most important access methods in many organizations as the number of remote workers increase. And now, emerging security technologies and public-key infrastructure (PKI) let businesses collaborate through secure extranets. This two-day conference, which starts Monday, will delve into VPN technologies and standards through technology presentations, case studies and demonstrations.
Led by independent consultants Frederick Avolio, principal of Avolio Consulting, and David Piscitello, president of Core Competence, the speakers will discuss the different technologies and standards that could be used to create VPNs, such as PKI, Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol, Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS), IP Security (IPSec), Internet Key Exchange and Secure Shell.
Network forensics day
8:15 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Do you know what your network looks like from a hacker’s perspective? This daylong session provides an opportunity to learn what hackers might see as the weak points on your network and helps you devise a three-part defense plan: choosing reconnaissance tools, assessing your network vulnerability and implementing counter measures.
The Pine Mountain Group’s Executive "Netanalyst" Bill Alderson, Managing Netanalyst Mike Pennacchi and Senior Netanalyst Dan Strohl will talk about the latest techniques in network analysis and forensics. Issues examined will include network architecture, documentation, change and recovery plans, and network intelligence. There also will be case studies demonstrating network performance analysis methods and application response.
Breakthrough technologies
11 a.m. to noon
Some technologies come and go, while others become institutions. How do you keep up with the new inventions that come on the scene, and how do you know which are worth keeping an eye on? This session will feature Johna Till Johnson, CTO of Greenwich Technology Partners and a Network World columnist; Rajiv Laroia, founder and CTO of Flarion Technologies; and Mun Yeun Leong, CTO of Avaya. Laroia will describe a new mobile broadband technology called flash-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (flash-OFDM), an IP-friendly and packet-switched wireless broadband technology that connects existing wired companies with the wireless world. "Flash-OFDM expands on the personal computing experience people have with Wi-Fi but with carrier-class reliability and cellular coverage and support for enterprise-class security,” a Flarion spokesperson says.
Implementing effective portals
2 to 3 p.m.
Most managers agree that open communication with and between employees is the key to a happy and efficient workforce, but what is the best method of distributing information to your teams? Portals often are described as applications that let corporations create a single view into the company. Portals can be used to authenticate users, and users can personalize them so that they get only the information that is relevant to them. Peter Brown, vice president at PricewaterhouseCoopers, leads this session where end users describe their best practices in implementing effective portals.
Tues., Sept. 10
The global technology - keynote by Bobby Johnson, CEO, Foundry Networks
Noon to 1 p.m.
“Ethernet has come to dominate the market because it is superior in terms of performance and cost when compared with ATM or FDDI, and is easier to use as well,” says Bobby Johnson, CEO of Foundry. “The same can also be said of the difference between SONET and 10G Ethernet. The latter has strong cost performance, and all the ease of use of Ethernet. You can also use IP over 10G Ethernet and it is especially important to note that 10G Ethernet is better than OC-192 when it comes to cost. Ten G Ethernet achieves speeds similar to SONET for about one-fifth the cost,” he adds.
“The next advance in speed will be 40 Gigabit or 100 Gigabit Ethernet. They are both in the research and development phases,” Johnson says. “We are producing prototypes to verify and conduct further research into cost, performance, port density and transmission range.”
Web services: The expert perspective on delivering the goods
10:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
We’ve all heard the hype surrounding Web services; now what we want to know is what can Web services do for our businesses and what are the best practices in implementing Web services technologies. John McConnell, principal analyst at McConnell Associates, and his guest panelists aim to look at the performance issues of Web services and explain how better Web application design should lead to infrastructure savings. Panelists are Alistair Croll, CEO of Coradiant; John Morency, vice president of technology services at Sterling Research; Rhodes Rumsey, principal of Plural; Jasmine Noel, director of systems and applications management at Hurwitz Group; and Peter Sevcik, president of NetForecast.
Best practices in implementing voice over IP
2 to 3 p.m.
John Ridley, Coca-Cola Enterprises’ senior technical architect, planning and technology, will share the pros and cons of his company’s initial voice-over-IP (VoIP) deployments. What are the ingredients for a successful VoIP implementation, and what does it take to deploy it in a large corporation? Susan Knott, global network architect at PricewaterhouseCoopers, also will present.
Transformational outsourcing: Miracle or mirage?
3:30 to 4:45 p.m.
The jury is still out as to whether companies should completely outsource their IT operations to a third party or hand over noncritical elements and retain control of the more important functions. But according to the speakers at this session, there appears to be a trend for so-called transformational outsourcing. Here, companies struggling to deal with the infrastructure nightmare caused by complex mergers and acquisitions transfer the problem to a third party that offers to stabilize, streamline and simplify the operations before handing it back to the customer for day-to-day management. Leading the session is Ken Barnhart, CEO of The Occam Group. He is joined by David Henry, CTO at AllTellL Information Services; Iain Black, CEO of The Electric Mail Company; Brian Winter, vice president of channel strategy at SevenSpace/Nuclio; and Carolyn Ruech, executive director of the MSP Association.
Wed., Sept. 11
Network storage strategies
9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Described as “bringing sanity” to the subject of networked storage, this daylong conference will examine how network-attached storage, storage-area networks and the emerging NAS/SAN hybrid could be deployed cost-effectively. With sessions titled “Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of SANs,” and “The Holy Grail of networked storage management,” the conference should be informative and entertaining.
Attendees should come away from this conference, led by independent consultant and author Jon William Toigo, with a knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of networked storage, plus how the technology might best be deployed in your organization.
The day begins with a history lesson and looks at the state of the networked storage industry. This is followed by a discussion of storage protocols such as SCSI and Fibre Channel Protocol. “Plumbing matters” will delve into techniques for creating a simple networked storage system and cover issues such as Fibre Channel fabrics and the role of iSCSI.
The day wraps up with a talk about the security and integrity of data stored within networked storage setups and discusses where security is needed and how it could affect storage I/O performance.
MPLS: The good, the bad and the ugly
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Billed by Network World Global Test Alliance as the protocol that could lead to less-expensive and faster WAN connections, MPLS is being pushed into service providers’ networks so that network executives will no longer have to build large WAN infrastructures. This session describes MPLS technology today and reports on enhancements anticipated during the next year. Led by Steven Taylor, president of Webtorials and co-author of Network World’s twice-weekly WAN newsletters, the speakers include Irwin Lazar, practice manager at Burton Group; Tim Halpern, product director of frame relay and ATM at AT&T; and Barry Tishgart, director of product management at Sprint.
Closing your network host backdoors: TCP/IP network applications security
1:30 to 5 p.m.
Unauthorized users could run riot on your system if there is flawed software in your TCP/IP network applications. Ken Cutler, managing director of the Information Security Institute, the security division of MIS Training Institute, shares what you need to carry out a risk analysis of your network. He will review network address directory services such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and DNS; plus discuss several lookup and diagnostics services.
Root-cause showdown: Compare the players
2 to 3.15 p.m.
Are your analysis tools up to the job of pinpointing potential problem areas before they cause major disruptions? Executives from Smarts, Covasoft and Tavve Software join session leader John McConnell, principal analyst at McConnell Associates, to argue why their tools are worth a second look.
VPNs: Matching needs to speeds and feeds
3:30 to 4:15 p.m.
If you can’t attend the special VPN days Monday and Tuesday, you might want to sit in on this session. John Doyle, director of intelligent Internet product marketing at Nortel will give an overview of the available VPN options on the market. He will aim to unravel the confusing choices - IP VPNs, VPNs with or without MPLS, and frame relay VPNs - and talk about the security and convergence issues surrounding this remote access technology.
Thurs., Sept. 12
Great debate! Is PKI finally enterprise-ready?
10:15 to 11:15 a.m.
Does anyone believe in PKI for establishing trust in wireless and wired networks? According to the pitch for this session, many organizations have invested millions of dollars in PKI technology but with unimpressive results. Many in the industry are looking to second-generation PKI to succeed where the first failed. Join session leader John Pironti, senior Internet security consultant/senior Internet technologist at Genuity, and speakers Gregory Lebovitz, staff architect, CTO office at NetScreen Technologies; and Stephen Kent, chief scientist, information security at BBN Technologies; as they debate whether PKI is worth a second chance.
Understanding the technologies behind Web services
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
It appears the industry is already discussing second-generation Web services, but do you know how the first generation is being used? Bill Cullifer, executive director of the World Organization of Web Masters is joined by Marc Halley, senior principal of e-services at Mitre, and Shaun Wolfe, COO of WRQ, to describe how companies are using Web services to bridge legacy data systems and interactive Web pages, and how future Web services offerings will evolve. Under the spotlight will be the role of XML, Simple Object Access Protocol, Web Services Description Language and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration.
Hacking your own network: Vulnerability and penetration testing
1:30 to 5 p.m.
This minitutorial will show you how to build a cyberspace vulnerability testing toolkit you can use to test for TCP/IP network and platform-specific security holes. Issues discussed include selecting and configuring the necessary network testing workstation; available testing tools for Unix and Windows, and security testing methodologies. Ken Cutler, managing director of the Information Security Institute, the security division of MIS Training Institute, leads the session.
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