ITUG Summit 2005

The HP NonStop community gathered in San Jose, California, 23-27 October for ITUG Summit 2005. This years conference attendees enjoyed a comprehensive technical program along with a number of networking opportunities. With more than 1600 attendees, ITUG Summit 2005 was a success.

Click here for the ITUG Summit 2005 Photo Gallery.

ITUG members can view the conference proceedings using their membership login and password. If you do not remember your login and password or if you are not yet an ITUG Member, please contact ITUG Headquarters at itug@itug.org.

NonStop Quality Technical Education and Training
ITUG provided an enhanced technical program for attendees to expand and sharpen their technical expertise. Attendees chose from more than 160 technical sessions that were presented by HP developers, managers, and product engineers; experienced NonStop users; and third-party vendors and were focused around the following tracks: Platforms: Servers, Storage, Operating Systems, and Data Communications; Developing Applications; Managing Enterprise Applications; Enterprise Solutions; Vendor Presentations; and Special Interest Group Presentations. Attendees were able to tailor their educational experience with the tracks above as well as focus on individual topic threads and their personal level of expertise for each session.

ITUG Summit 2005's program included more than 20 dedicated sessions focusing on the new HP
Integrity NonStop server based on Intel® Itanium® 2 processors. This gave attendees the opportunity to learn more about the new HP Integrity NonStop server from HP and Intel experts first-hand.

The ITUG Summit 2005 Pre-Conference Technical Seminars offered 8 full-day pre-conference seminars the weekend prior to the conference to increase participants' depth and breadth of knowledge and enhance their professional value within their own organizations. Additionally, the HP Certified Professional program conducted free NonStop Systems Certification training and testing throughout the week. The sessions in this program are designed to give participants a chance to ask questions about the published competencies that are tested in first-level exams.

Exhibition: Products and Solutions Showcase
ITUG Summit 2005 Exhibition: Products and Solutions Showcase featured 55 vendors displaying the latest NonStop software, tools and utilities, system management and consulting services. Attendees packed the ITUG Summit Exhibition: Products and Solutions Showcase to chat with vendors about the latest products, view innovative product demonstrations and network with their peers .

New to 2005 was the ITUG Solutions Theater, where attendees experienced live demonstrations showing split implementations from NonStop, Linux, and/or Unix that mirror enterprise environments today. This allowed attendees to view cross platform hybrid implementations from the following top HP NonStop partners: Insession/ACI Worldwide, Network Technologies, NuWave Technologies, and Simdesk.

ITUG Summit 2005 Featured Speakers
After welcoming remarks and an ITUG organization update from ITUG Chairman Richard Buckle, the conference was kicked off on Monday morning with a keynote presentation from Ann Livermore, HP Executive Vice President of the Technology Solutions Group. In this engaging presentation, she focused on HP's business strategy and future directions.

In the Monday afternoon general session, Martin Fink, Vice President and General Manager for HP's NonStop Enterprise Division and Open Source & Linux Organization, presented a high-level view of HP NonStop server strategy and success and the new HP Integrity NonStop server and the extraordinary benefits this powerful new platform brings to HP's global customer base. Martin was joined by Randy Meyer, Director of NonStop Product Management, Strategy and Technology and Craig Wagner, Director of NonStop Marketing, who discussed additional exciting details about new product directions and recent customer successes.

Rounding up Monday's general session was Kirk Skaugen, GM of Intel Server Platforms Group, who presented Intel® Server Platforms and Future Strategy. Skaugen gave an overview of Intel's enterprise platform offering, including platforms based on the Intel® Itanium® 2 Processor Family. He also discussed the reliability and scalability of the Intel® Itanium® architecture, along with the broad set of robust features that Intel brings to the world's leading enterprises.

Tuesday's general session was opened by Tom Moylan, Director of HP NonStop Americas and Neil Pringle, Director of HP NonStop EMEA with their HP Integrity NonStop Server Early Adopter Customers Panel presentation. Moylan and Pringle hosted a lively panel discussion with users who were early adapters of this new server. Panel members discussed b usiness challenges that prompted them to make the move, as well as their experience with the migration and their level of satisfaction with the results.

Jim Murphy, General Manager, HP NonStop and BCS Support Services, closed Tuesday's general session with his presentation HP Services: Partnering to Meet Your Business Challenges. Jim Murphy discussed why there's more to high availability than just technology.

Wednesday afternoon's general session included a panel discussion with Scott Stallard, Senior VP and General Manager of HP Enterprise Storage and Servers, Martin Fink VP & GM of the HP NonStop Enterprise Division & Open Source & Linux Organization, and Bob Shultz, Sr. VP & GM of HP StorageWorks. Their presentation included an interactive discussion about how HP's Enterprise Storage and Servers organization is deploying HP servers and HP storage together to deliver unique advantages to meet IT and business needs. This session was followed by a popular and lively question and answer panel with a number of HP executives.

Thursday's closing session included an address from incoming ITUG 2006 Chairman Volker Dietz and a question and answer panel with HP NonStop representatives moderated by ITUG Summit 2005 Chair Jay McLaughlin.

ITUG Summit 2005 Award Winners
ITUG and HP congratulate the 2005 NonStop Availability Award recipient MasterCard International. This award rewards a company for focusing their efforts on best practices to prevent outages from occurring. Winning this prestigious annual award is proof to a company's customers and employees that availability matters. This year, entrants from around the world were judged on numerous criteria, including system and network availability, change and problem management practices, and service delivery to end-user customers. PULSE EFT/DFS, VISA, Bank-Verlag GmbH, and Electronic Transaction Services Limited were presented Meritorious Achievement awards.

The success of the ITUG Summit is in large part due to the incredible user and HP speakers in the technical breakout sessions. Throughout the week attendees shared feedback on the speakers on the session evaluation forms. At the end of the conference week, an award was presented to the speakers who received the highest ratings on the evaluation. The Best User Speaker Award was presented to Dr. Bill Highleyman from The Sombers Group, Inc. for his presentation on Practical Considerations for Building Active/Active Systems - A Compendium for Skeptics. The target of his presentation was those skeptical of the effectiveness of Active/Active applications.

The Best HP Speaker Award was presented to Jeff Iswandhi for his presentation on Modular I/O Architecture for Storage and Communications. This presentation demonstrated how the new modular I/O hardware and software architecture delivers superior data integrity, enhanced fault tolerance, and higher performance for storage on HP Integrity NonStop NS-series and NonStop S-series servers.

Each year ITUG recognizes the contributions of several individuals who have truly made a difference to the success of our organization. These ITUG Awards of Excellence were introduced by a former ITUG Chairman, David Lawler, and have been awarded each year since. The 2005 recipients were:

• Chris Rooke
• Suri Harish
• Dave Wilson
• Patty Fennell
• Lyn Berg
• Michael Rossbach
• Sam Ayers
• Sara Matthys
• Marcia Daudelin

More Networking and Special Programs
In addition to the content-rich activities, conference participants were able to network with each other in informal settings such as the Welcome Reception in the Exhibit Hall on Monday evening, Birds-of-a-Feather lunches held daily, Customer-to-Developer Chat Area, and the annual ITUG Summit 2005 Party, sponsored by HP and Intel. At the annual party, attendees enjoyed a relaxing evening of playful fun and networking at the inventive Tech Museum of Innovation. Attendees enjoyed a host of high-tech interactive exhibits, live entertainment, and the opportunity to watch a movie in the unique IMAX Dome Theater.

In addition to the technical education programs, the always well-attended ITUG Special Interest Group (SIG) sessions brought ITUG members together for valuable discussions on a variety of topics including: Consultant; Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity; Java; NonStop SQL; Open Source; Operations Management; Performance; and Security & Audit.

The ITUG Summit 2005 Leaders Day program had a very successful event with participation exceeding last year's event. This program is a highly interactive, exclusive program designed to encourage discussion between attendees and HP executives about leveraging NonStop and Open Source for the best future business advantage. The Leaders Day program gave attendees a forum focused on discussion, interaction, and information sharing. The Leaders Day attendees welcomed industry analyst, Nina Lytton, President and Principal Analyst of Open System Advisors who facilitated the Leaders Day program and offered her industry vision and knowledge to support group discussions throughout the day.

Looking Ahead
With the closing of ITUG Summit 2005, the planning for ITUG Summit 2006 begins! Next year's conference will again be held in San Jose, California and will take place on 15-19 October 2006. Keep watching www.itug.org for the latest program details.