Schedule

Check in, pick up your name badge, conference materials and enjoy a hot buffet breakfast.

Bob Cassiliano, 7×24 Exchange chairman, will open the conference, provide an overview, review meeting logistics and address general housekeeping items.

Rich Karlgaard (bio)
Forbes Publisher and Global Futurist

The rapid evolution of technology’s four driving forces – Cloud Computing, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things – together will upend the business landscape and destroy the old ways. These forces will create huge opportunities for new efficiencies, customer channels, speed and investments. This new, faster pace of evolution is occurring when greater political uncertainty exists in the U.S. and around the world. Political policies – tax, monetary policy, trade and regulation – will be furiously debated in the run up to the 2018 elections. How will the 2018 elections shake out? What policy changes and geo-political events will shape the landscape for business and investment? Come and hear one of the most influential and respected figures in the technology, economic and business worlds, provide advice on how to harness an organization’s disruptive spirits to maximize business opportunities in the global marketplace.

Selfless Service Award
presented by Salute Mission Critical

This award recognizes the selfless support of veterans initiatives and support of Salute’s mission, to give veterans the opportunity to work in the data center industry.

Patriot Award
presented by The Department of Defense

This award recognizes the continuous efforts made to support citizen warriors through a wide-range of measures including recognition and support of the military, including veterans, active reservists and guard. The award is presented to those who have inspired others and set the example for others to follow.

IT organizations have spent the last 25 years focused on component level technology and metrics rather than looking at what it takes to actually run the business. While IT professionals have created many kinds of low-level metrics about the discrete resources required to build and operate data centers (including power and cooling, staffing, and maintenance), what the IT Infrastructure business actually needs is a clear understanding about an organization’s ability to support revenue goals, which is a function of how business processes have been transformed to be digital-centric. Companies need to know what to expect and how to measure these expectations against delivered performance. The business cares very little about the price of a kilowatt of power, instead a more important metric is to understand the business cost for every transaction completed. This cost per unit of work mentality is dramatically different from traditional metrics about square footage, kilowatts and tons. In this session, we will focus on the new era of measuring the IT function, and how to identify the key drivers and architectures that affect the bottom line.

Mark Harris (bio)
Senior Vice President of Marketing
Uptime Institute

Today, data centers account for roughly 2 percent of the total U.S. electricity use, and computational demand continues to accelerate. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Initiative partners are setting aggressive energy efficiency goals and using a variety of metrics to measure success. Data center energy consumption can be reduced by 20 to 40 percent through proven, commercially available energy efficient technologies. A panel of Better Buildings partners from Digital Realty Trust, Intel, and the Lawrence Livermore, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories will share their stories and lessons learned in improving efficiency and resiliency.

Moderator:
Dale Sartor, PE (bio)
Staff Scientist
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Panelists:
Aaron Binkley (bio)
Director of Sustainability
Digital Realty

Nissim Hamu (bio)
Data Center Engineer
Intel

Brandon Hong, PE (bio)
Electric Systems Engineer
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Designed to encourage in-depth discussion and debate on the latest challenges in data center planning, design and operation, topics will include: trends in infrastructure design resiliency, energy efficient design and operational practices, capacity planning and management, and the day-to-day challenges in managing data center operations. The moderator will guide the discussion with the use of PowerPoint slides and handouts; However, the real star of this session will be you, the end user! Bring your appetites, but more importantly, be ready to engage your peers in an exciting interactive discussion on the latest challenges of our industry. Don’t forget those business cards as this will be a great opportunity to meet your peers in the industry!

Moderator:
David Schirmacher (bio)
President, Reset Advisors, LLC and
President, 7×24 Exchange International

As colocation providers expand their footprints into new regions around the world, a multifaceted set of challenges are encountered, including delivering standard solutions and configurations, flexibility to meet the needs of customers of all sizes, and offering predictable & economical TCO to customers. All of these challenges are then intensified by the breakneck speed of hyperscale data center deployments. This joint speaking presentation with Digital Realty and Schneider Electric will explore the challenges and solutions in deploying a globally consistent hyperscale data center architecture at hyperscale speed.

Domenic Alcaro (bio)
VP, Data Center Software Solutions
Schneider Electric

Kevin Dalton (bio)
VP of Engineering
Digital Realty

As a diligent data center operator, you’ve optimized many parts of your facility but what happens when you have worthwhile energy-efficiency projects that do not meet the financial criteria of your CFO? Many data centers have picked their low-hanging fruit and the remaining projects are still worthwhile, but their paybacks do not meet the threshold for consideration in the budgeting process. In this session, we’ll explore the various financial tools available to data center operators in both private industry and the public sector which can help businesses, agencies and institutions accomplish a greater number of projects that do not meet budgeting thresholds typical of the data center & IT industries. Some of the benefits of these approaches include off balance sheet/off credit transactions, embedded Operations and Maintenance support of new equipment and the ability to fund the project from energy savings.

Miles Auvil (bio)
Senior National Sales Manager, Data Centers, Building Technologies Division
Siemens Industry, Inc.

Rick Sievertsen (bio)
Managing Director, Enterprise Accounts
Siemens USA

It’s easy to recognize the physical changes within a data center and the evolution of client-driven demands: from yesterday’s enterprise solutions to today’s colocation models, to tomorrow’s edge computing and hybrid cloud solutions. Yet, as the physical infrastructure and complexities of managing data continue to evolve, the industry must also recognize the quantum leap needed for those managing these rapidly changing facilities: technical qualifications and skillsets must concurrently innovate and change to meet technology advancements and demands of end users. Through case studies and key insights, this discussion aims to compare the technical qualifications once needed to manage a data center to those needed for the data centers of today, and to project the skillsets and preparation crucial for the data centers of tomorrow.

Greg Young (bio)
Senior Managing Director
CBRE Data Center Solutions

Data center alley is running out of land, but not a lack of interest in continuing to develop the US’s largest concentration of data centers. With continued demand, developers and operators need to take to the sky, expand vertically, and start to consider “watts per acre” as a metric. A business case analysis shall be presented to encourage maximizing use of land, and power and cooling density in a smaller footprint.

Bill McCarthy (bio)
VP
CallisonRTKL

Christopher McLean (bio)
Director of Mission Critical Services
M.C. Dean

Tom Sandlin, Jr. (bio)
Principal
Avison Young

Social media has become a powerful marketing and communication tool in today’s society. Building your personal brand and creating a strong community can be a challenge. This workshop session is designed to help you learn the steps needed to build your own personal brand on social media and provide pointers on how to set up your profile and maximize your presence. Additionally, this session will provide ideas on what to do before, during and after the conference, to maximize your attendance. Boost your career, your business, and your community while improving your digital and social media skills.

Organized by the Women in Mission Critical Operations (WiMCO)^® Committee

Juli Ierulli (bio)
Marketing Communications Manager, Large Power Systems – Industry Solutions, Caterpillar, and
Marketing Director, Vendor Representative, 7×24 Exchange International

Lillian Rivera (bio)
Director of Marketing
Primary Integration

Denman Wall (bio)
Sr. Director of Interactive Services,
Dolci Interactive

Bob Cassiliano will review day one highlights, recognize the conference Corporate Leadership Program sponsors and give a 7×24 Exchange update.

David Schirmacher (bio)
President, Reset Advisors, LLC and
President, 7×24 Exchange International

Many billions of dollars a year are spent in the design, construction and operation of mission critical data centers. For an industry that supports the core of the global business economy and impacts the lives of virtually everyone on the planet, it is hard to believe that so little of what we do is driven by a common set of measurable metrics. The introduction of the PUE metric in 2006 was a major leap in beginning to define performance but it only addresses one slice of a very large pie. Numerous metrics have followed but none have achieved the same almost universal acceptance. In this presentation, David will discuss some of the historical challenges to metrics adoption and will take a deeper dive into the measurement of cost and performance and the tools that leading edge firms use to validate their performance.

See. Mitigate. Manage. Three simple words that—paired with the right technology—keep your workers safer. All companies focus on safety hazards on the jobsites, so how can technology help you work both smarter and safer? Google, along with their contractors and vendors, is exploring a number of initiatives using technology to identify risks before and during work. Using personalized metrics, teams can now mitigate hazards before they put people at risk. From fatigue monitors and other wearable technology to virtual reality “walk throughs,” the metrics provided offer innovative, process-changing insight, arming companies with the knowledge to make better decisions from project kickoff to completion.

Moderator:
Doug O’Neill (bio)
Senior Vice President, Mission Critical Director
JE Dunn Construction

Panelists:
Eric Hanson, CSP (bio)
Director, Environmental Health and Safety
The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company

Anita Tarab (bio)
Global Director for Sustainability, Environment, Health and Safety
Google Data Centers

Chris Teddy (bio)
Vice President, Mission Critical
JE Dunn Construction

Eric Zuhlke (bio)
National Safety Director
JE Dunn Construction

This panel discussion will present available UPS chemical battery technologies including the latest innovations in Lead Acid Valve Regulated and Flooded Cells as well as Lithium Ion and future battery technologies. Reuse of electric vehicle batteries, battery recycling technology and the future of battery ecology will be discussed. We will review the pros and cons of each technology, application of the tech as well as review total cost of ownership case studies for the various technologies. Panelists have extensive experience in the design, application and ongoing use of batteries for UPS support. Each panelist will provide a short presentation on the technology, case studies and TCOs will be reviewed and then the floor will be open to questions.

Moderator:
Steven Shapiro, PE ATD (bio)
Partner
EYP Mission Critical Facilities, Inc.

Panelists:
Bruce Cole (bio)
Sr. VP of Sales
East Penn Manufacturing Co.

Jay Frankhouser (bio)
Director Reserve Power Business Development & Marketing
EnerSys

Jerry Hoffman (bio)
President
LiiON Corp.

Nick Shanley (bio)
Sales Manager – Data Centers
Saft America, Inc.

Equipment being used for power distribution in data centers is witnessing a major revolution in their power electronics that will improve their efficiency, size and heat dissipation metrics. This includes transformers, UPS, circuit breakers, panelboards, switchboards and lighting. Power electronics (diodes, MOSFETs, IGBTs, converters, inverters) are conducting electricity with a better material than Silicon. Because Silicon based devices are so mature and inexpensive, it might be hard to believe that any material could replace it. But Silicon Carbide (SiC) is doing it! The US Department of Energy says that Wide Bandgap SiC semiconductors will transform multiple industries resulting in billions of dollars in savings. This includes data centers!

Charles Deal, PE (bio)
Electrical Associate
Wick Fisher White

Ryan Kennedy (bio)
CEO
Atom Power

Anthony Pinkey (bio)
Business Development Manager
Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc.

Rogelio Sullivan (bio)
Project Manager
PowerAmerica

How many times has a data center owner/developer proclaimed, “I could have built a brand-new data center for the same price as this retrofit”? When the need to diversify one’s data center portfolio by building a new facility in an area with little to no undeveloped land occurs, how does one identify a good property? When is it advantageous to upgrade or retrofit an existing structure when an undeveloped or greenfield site is not available? When does speed to market outperform the price premiums associated with retrofitting? DPR Construction’s data center experts, Mark Thompson and Mark Whelpley, will guide the audience through various case study examples of when data center retrofits ended up saving time and money, and when they did not. They will also provide rules of thumb for space and programming ratios, which are key when considering a site and existing facility for retrofit.

Mark Thompson (bio)
Advanced Tech Core Market Leader
DPR Construction

Mark Whelpley (bio)
Advanced Tech Preconstruction Leader
DPR Construction

The presentation will explore installations done in three mission-critical facilities: enterprise data centers, colocation data centers and healthcare data centers. Challenges MTU Onsite Energy faced and remedied in designing, delivering and installing systems at these facilities will be addressed. Customizing units, meeting government regulations and installing systems in remote locations will be highlighted. Attendees will be able to walk away equipped to accommodate any data center design concerns and installation considerations they may face in the future.

Nicholas Paolo (bio)
Business Development Manager
MTU

In depth review of why/how building automation and electrical control systems have become vulnerable over time as the Internet of Things (IoT) has become more integrated. As IoT converged networks have become more integrated their cyber security vulnerabilities have had consequences effecting operations and uptime availability. This presentation will highlight these vulnerabilities, why they are vulnerable and ideas on how to enable resilience through cyber security best practices. The best practices would focus on organizational leadership recommendations, technology enablers to create scale, and processes that shift risk of down time operations for critical assets.

John Collins (bio)
Senior Account Executive
FoxGuard Solutions

Bob Cassiliano will review highlights from day two and address housekeeping items of interest.

John V. Healy (bio)
Vice President, Data Center Group
General Manager of the Software Defined Datacenter Solutions Group
Intel Corporation

We are going to need new data architectures that can scale to meet the demands of a range of data analytics workloads while accelerating the development of the data models that will drive these new applications. In this new role, data centers will become teachers for factories of robots, fleets of autonomous vehicles, and new Bio/IT labs all performing feats that were recently considered science fiction; to turn unprecedented quantities of data into real-time decision making.

As we continually seek to reduce costs and improve efficiency, robotic process automation (RPA), chatbots, drones and land-roving robots are being adopted at multiple companies. The focus of this presentation will be the application of Robotic Process Automation to reduce human work, improve efficiency and quality, as well as scale human work in datacenters. The presentation will discuss the evolving landscape of infrastructure operations, potential improvements as well as downsides of applying robotic process automation to datacenter/technology operations. We will provide details on how to measure the impact of bots, potential ratios of bots vs. people required for management, and other new metrics required in management of robotics.

Amaya Souarez (bio)
Vice President, Global Infrastructure Software & Automation
First Data

When ASHRAE 90.4 was first published in 2016 there were concerns voiced as to why an energy standard was needed for data centers. The first part of this presentation will explain what ASHRAE 90.4 is and why it is needed. It will explain the reasons for the new metrics and how this works in conjunction with ASHRAE 90.1. The second part will be a demonstration of the calculations required to show compliance with the standard.

Dave Kelley (bio)
Member
ASHRAE TC9.9 – Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment and
Member,
ASHRAE SSPC 90.4 – Energy Standard for Data Centers

Vali Sorell (bio)
President
Sorell Engineering