INOC has announced that its senior director of business services, Art Meierdirk, and co-founder and vice president of customer advocacy, Rick Smith, have been selected to speak at the AFCOM Data Center World Orlando Conference, taking place at the Hyatt Regency Orlando October 19-22, 2014. AFCOM Data Center World is the premier international conference for data center and facilities management professionals. 

Meierdirk will moderate the panel, “Software-defined Data Centers: Next Steps for Storage & Networking” on Monday, October 20, 2014 from 9:10 a.m. to 10:10 a.m. in the Manatee Spring 1 room. During the session, Meierdirk and fellow panelists Marco Alves, COO, SDN Essentials; Bina Hallman, vice president, Storage Systems Product Management, IBM; and Aaron Rallo, founder and CEO, TSO Logic, will discuss the deployment, opportunities and risk associated with Software-defined Data Centers (SDDCs), including software-defined storage (SDS) and Software-defined Networks (SDN). The panel will also offer data center service providers a foundation for their strategic SDDC plans, encompassing asset management, security and IT Systems, and management planning.

Later that day, Meierdirk will give a presentation titled, “The Next-Gen NOC: Virtual Simplicity = Decreased Costs” from 11:40 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. in the Barrel Spring 1 room. The session will demonstrate the evolution of the NOC to address the convergence of various infrastructures in the data center and enable effective monitoring of data center and mission-critical assets. Meierdirk will also illustrate how data centers can utilize the next-gen NOC to identify, address and resolve issues to ensure business continuity while simultaneously decreasing costs, improving staff efficiency, reducing resolution time and enhancing end-user experience.

On Tuesday, October 21, 2014, Smith will take part in the panel discussion “Data Centers and Clouds: The Perfect Storm” alongside moderator Jack Story, HP Distinguished Technologist, HP, and fellow panelists Jennifer Torlone, senior director of technology, Amerijet and Subo Guha, vice president of product management, Unitrends. The panel, taking place from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Coral Spring room, will offer industry insight and expertise into the impact of cloud on traditional data centers as well as perspectives on how to forecast and respond to business and IT challenges and opportunities.

Lastly, Meierdirk will participate on a two-hour panel discussion entitled “DCIM for Data Center Visibility and Automation: Critical Elements in the Operational Toolkit,” taking place October 22, 2014 at 9:10 a.m. in the Orlando Ballroom. He will join James Fogal of CareTech Solutions; Paul Goodison of Cormant, Inc.; Paul Bemis of Applied Math Modeling, Inc.; John Kovach of Siemens; James Cerwinski of Raritan; and moderator Jennifer Koppy of IDC to explore how to select the most appropriate data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution for your business. The panelists will also discuss DCIM strategies to manage data centers effectively, and why DCIM implementations don’t always deliver on the initial promise.