Overview
Free Registration is now open for the W.Michigan Tech
Summit. Location: JW Marriott Hotel
Hotel Address: 235 Louis St NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503
Hotel Telephone: (616) 242-1500
Join your peers by registering now. Gather the key IT knowledge needed to be indispensible. This year's Tech Summit agenda is carefully designed to provide you with the latest IT trends and knowledge needed to make the best possible decisions on behalf of your organization. It will allow you to see the best practices other leading companies have adopted, key IT challenges they are facing, and new solutions that are solving these challenges. The available seating is limited so be sure to sign up as soon as possible to ensure you will have a seat. You are welcome to invite other key people on your team.
Information on Sponsoring This Event
Agenda Summary 
| 9:40 am: | Registration, Signature Refreshments, Peer Networking |
| 10:20 am: | The Latest Security Detection and Response Tools. |
| 10:40 am: | What's New in Backup and Disaster Recovery. |
| 11:00 pm: | Trends in Application and Mobile App Development. |
| 11:20 pm: | Brunch Served, Presentation and Peer Networking |
| 12:00 pm: | BYOD Implementation and Management Strategies. |
| 12:20 pm: | Network Security Present and Future |
| 12:40 pm: | Best Practices in Cloud Utilization & Security. |
| 1:00 pm: | New Network and Wireless Technologies. |
| 1:20 pm: | End of the Main Event, Raffle Drawings, Vendor Networking and Finale. |
| View Detailed Agenda |
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Date: June 19, at the JW Marriott Grand Rapids HotelFee: FREE to Register (Limited Seating so Register Now).
Example Past Participants in Our Nationwide Events
| • AECOM • Aggreko llc • Ally Financial • Altegra Health • Aramark • Arby's Restaurant Group • BB&T • Bell Flavors & Fragrances • Big Lots • Burrow Global, LLC • Capital One • Catholic Charities USA • CH2M HILL • City of Atlanta • City of Fort Worth • City of Sacramento • Clay Co School Board • ClearResult • Cleveland St University • Cox Enterprises |
• CVS Health • DC Department of HR • Dept of Veteran Affairs • Detroit Housing Comm • Dollar Tree • Dunkin' Bands • Encore Capital Group • Energy Transfer • Equifax • FEMA • First Green Bank • Florida Blue • Franczek Radelet P.C. • FUJIFILM SonoSite, Inc. • GameStop • Gates Corporation • Georgia Institute of Tech • Georgia Lottery Corp • Great Lakes Cheese Co. • HealthPort |
• Hilton • Hotel Managers Group • Kelly Moore Paint • Kennesaw State • Luminant • Mansfield Oil Company • Marriott • MARTA • McKesson • Montgomery County Gov • Museum of Art San Diego • National Labor Relations • Pasco Co Sheriff's Office • PepsiCo • Petro Hunt, L.L.C. • Philip's • Phoenix Health Care • Plains All American • Progressive • RelaDyne LLC |
• Rexel USA • Rutgers University • Santander Consumer • SBM Offshore USA, Inc. • Sharp HealthCare • Southeast Restoration • Starwood • SunTrust • The Container Store • Goodyear Tire & Rubber • The Home Depot • TransCentra • TXU Energy • United Natural Foods, Inc • University of Colorado • University of Georgia • Utah First Credit Union • WestRock • Willis Towers Watson • YWCA Rhode Island |
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Date: June 19, at the JW Marriott Grand Rapids HotelFee: FREE to Register (Limited Seating so Register Now).
Event Series Sponsors |
Wish to be a sponsor? |
Detailed Agenda
9:40 – 10:20 am: Registration, Signature Refreshments, Peer Networking, On arrival you will be greeted for check-in, vendor area is open along with the main presentation room with refreshments being served on arrival. First speaker is on shortly after. This time is spent networking with your peers and vendors.
10:20 – 10:40 am: The Latest Security Detection and Response Tools. Experts predict that by 2019 the cost of Cybercrime will rocket to over 2.1 Trillion. At over $400 Billion annually now and the average identities of 1.1 million exposed per breach, cybercrime threatens businesses from all angles, including reputation. The conversation has changed, no longer if you will be targeted, its more of a question of when you will be targeted. Join us and hear from experts in the field who will cover the following:
10:40 – 11:00 am: What's New in Backup and Disaster Recovery.IT disasters happen every day, in every company. With the right preparation, no one ever hears about them. Without it, these disasters can make the evening news. The first step is to define what your company cannot live without, otherwise known as a Business Impact Analysis (BIA). Once the mission critical applications have been identified, you must then agree upon what is acceptable downtime or the recovery time objective (RTO). The difference between zero downtime and fifteen minutes of downtime is significant from a cost perspective. This session will then cover the new tools available for the actual backup and disaster recovery process including testing.
- New tools available to detect and trigger DR activation as needed.
- Automated damage assessment and notification tools.
- Latest backup tools/methodologies/costs and speed of recovery for each.
- Reconstitution challenges and solutions.
11:00 – 11:20 am: Trends in Application and Mobile App Development. Organizations are under pressure to develop and deliver sophisticated cross-platform web applications faster. This session will discuss the latest development platforms including cloud development platforms and open source frameworks. How to create more visually compelling models to drive usage and ease of use will also be discussed.
On developing mobile apps this session will cover how to develop with your audience in mind, how to learn from competitors and like-applications, and key considerations in the user experience and achieving collaboration in both the coding and user experience to build up valuable social value points within your apps.
11:20 – 12:00 pm: Brunch Served and Peer Networking.
12:00 – 12:20 am: BYOD Implementation and Management Strategies. There's little doubt that bring-your-own-device (BYOD) adoption has profoundly changed the enterprise. By 2017, one-half of organizations will no longer provide devices to their employees, according to industry research. This is another banner year where personal devices are expected to make a bigger leap forward than ever and with the line between personal and business blurring, BYOD technology needs to be able to adapt with the changes ahead.
- Keep usage policies updated.
- Secure the end points.
- Track impact and set device ceilings.
- Plan security around the data/content/holes.
12:20 – 12:40 am: Network Security Present and Future. Any computer within your network that is connected to the Internet, directly or indirectly, is a potential risk for an attack from viruses or external attackers. Before you invest in the latest expensive technology, it’s important to plan properly. This will help you make the most of your budget without compromising the level of protection. Many companies have spent considerable resources protecting their perimeter networks but have allowed their internal infrastructure to remain extremely vulnerable.
You should also be sure to take sufficient steps to harden your core operating systems and major applications from common attacks and employee theft/misuse of data which is the single largest point of vulnerability in most companies.
This session will cover items such as Encrypting your data, Using digital certificates to sign all of your sites, Implementing DLP and auditing, Implementing a removable media policy, Securing websites against MITM and malware infections, Best spam filters to use on email servers, Using a comprehensive endpoint security solution, Network-based security hardware and software, Maintaining security patches, and of course Educating your users.
12:40 – 1:00 pm: Best Practices in Cloud Utilization & Security. The goal of any organization is to use IT at its most effective level. For an IT manager cloud sizing doesn’t have one correct answer, since every environment is truly unique in its demands. A few considerations and best practices. A Cloud migration project can be a relatively simple exercise, where applications are migrated "as is", to gain benefits such as elastic capacity and utility pricing, but without making any changes to the application architecture, software development methods or business processes. However, there is no business transformation as part of this move. If the expectation is broader strategic capabilities as a result of a move to the Cloud, it is important to develop a true Cloud migration plan to include core tactics such as:
- Shift to DevOps
- Cloud Containers
- Hybrid Clouds
On the security side, there are different considerations and vulnerabilities specific to each cloud model such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This session will discuss DLAs, security architecture drawings, specialized protections for the perimeter, firewall secretion, function segregation, and vulnerability analysis.
1:00 – 1:20 pm:New Network and Wireless Technologies. Designing a local area network from scratch is always fun, the wired side of this presentation will cover issues such as the latest Network management tools, design complexity to meet the requirements, PoE or not, just 100GB and choices for going beyond, and redundancy considerations. On the wireless side, although there are many ways to configure and use Wi-Fi, this session will focus on some of the newest tools that best-in-class organizations are applying to achieve the following goals out of their wireless networks:
- Practicing active management.
- Using managed wireless products.
- Prioritizing usage.
- Developing a guest policy carefully
- Building security from the start.
1:20 – End of the Main Event, Raffle Drawings, Vendor Networking and Finale. This concludes our speaker sessions, but we encourage to you network and discuss the days topic and reach out to any of our vendors and/or speakers for any addtional information. Thank you for your time and particpation in our event.
