Archives: Seminar

Ruminations, Musings and Contemplations of an Extant CIO

  Presented by Dr. Patrick Burns • Vice President for IT and Dean of Libraries, Colorado State University

The presentation will begin by asking what constitutes success for a CIO in a modern higher educational setting. What modern trends in higher education will be covered by asking, “Is this time different?” How higher ed’s funding model has changed recently along with the public’s perception that higher education has gotten too expensive will be shown to be misunderstood. We will ask, “How much are students learning?” and conclude from data, distressingly, “not much.” We will explore the student behaviors that influence their learning as well as their success – retention, persistence, and graduation.

These modern trends constitute a crisis in higher education, which has caused many CIOs to shift their focus recently to be much more involved in higher-level academic functions and student learning. Strategies to help students learn faster, better and more will be presented, followed by trade-offs that must be addressed in today’s IT environment in higher ed: focusing attention on higher-level learning yet ensuring that the “IT plumbing” must still work to near perfection. Also, why achieving this trade-off effectively is so deucedly difficult in today’s environment will be addressed. Come listen to Dr. Patrick J. Burns as he addresses the question: “Are CIOs being successful in IT in higher ed today?”

Dr. Burns received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1978 from the University of California at Berkeley in the area of heat transfer and energy systems. He joined the Mechanical Engineering department at Colorado State University in August of 1978 and performed research and teaching in that department for 20 years, receiving four teaching awards, and rising to the rank of full professor. In January 1998, he became Director of Academic Computing and Networking Services at Colorado State University, and eventually became the Vice President for Information Technology. In July 2008, he was given the joint appointment as interim Dean of CSU Libraries and became Dean of CSU Libraries in 2010. He has taught undergraduate and graduate students in STEM disciplines for over forty years. He is intimately involved in transforming the higher education pedagogical environment as CSU’s primary representative to the Unizin next generation learning consortium, co-PI on CSU’s Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success grant from EDUCAUSE, and CSU’s Adaptive Analytics Platform grant from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

The Secret Sauce to Attract and Manage the Millennial Workforce

  Moderated by INTERFACE Advisory Council

With 75% of the workforce being Millennials by the year 2025 we can no longer avoid the differences that this generation bring to the table. They are the 1st generation who are fully raised in a digital age. We will be discussion different ways to attract the individuals who fall into this demographic as well as management techniques needed to effectively develop and retain them. Not only are they employees, but with this percentage, they will be advancing into leadership roles.

Physical Security in an IT World

  Presented by Eric Smith • President of ASIS Denver Mile-Hi Chapter

This session will focus on the protection of information technology systems from physical threats, both internal and external. Learn how to develop an understanding of key physical security controls and how those can by layered to protect an organization. Creating a strategic plan for physical controls is critical to long-term success, as well as building the right partnerships to achieve those goals. Join this conversation and learn more about how physical security controls will protect your vital information.

The Current Malware Threat Landscape & Enterprise Grade Remediation

  Presented by Malwarebytes

Malware has become one of the biggest threat challenges faced by security and IT teams. Malwarebytes Labs conducts extensive proprietary research and analysis. The findings are periodically published to help security teams better understand the nature and evolution of these threats.

This presentation will cover key findings from our newly released annual report. It will highlight malware category trends and discuss new and emerging threats to be on the watch for. There will also be a discussion of industry best practices and technologies that can help your business to prevent, detect, and remediate these threats.

Attendees will leave with insight into the current malware threat landscape, as well as an understanding of steps they can take to mitigate breaches.

Architecting the New SD-WAN Edge for the Cloud-first Enterprise

  Presented by Silver Peak

Adoption of cloud services has driven enterprises to re-think WAN architecture. Architectures based on traditional, manually-programmed routers can’t keep pace. A business-driven SD-WAN can provide secure direct connections from the branch to SaaS/IaaS across the internet, significantly increasing application performance resulting in a superior end-user QoEx (Quality of Experience). By integrating SD-WAN, WAN optimization, routing and security in a single unified platform, enterprises can simplify branch WAN edge architecture, accelerating time to value and dramatically reducing operational costs. From a centralized SD-WAN orchestrator, application priorities and QoS and security policies may be configured and assigned to automate traffic handling across the WAN. A single mouse click distributes SD-WAN configuration parameters to all sites, improving operational efficiency and minimizing the potential for human errors that can negatively impact application availability and enterprise security. This session will describe why SD-WAN adoption continues at a breakneck pace because of the user productivity, agility and cost savings benefits that a business-driven SD-WAN delivers.

Welcome to the New Age of Converged Data Protection

  Presented by Storage Craft

Managing storage continues to be complex, and often expensive. Something needs to change, and it certainly won’t be a dramatic increase in staffing. Fortunately, object storage is the answer. By eliminating the use of legacy RAID, object storage, can be the foundation for a scale-out converged storage solution that solves both data protection and primary storage challenges. Want to recover a multi-TB VM in less than a second? No problem. Want to protect files from ransomware? No problem. Need an enterprise file serving, archiving, or virtual server storage solution? No Problem. Attend this session to learn how object storage is changing the landscape for IT admin and the technology of the future.

Exploitation of IT Vulnerabilities is Escalating

  Presented by Quest Software

Cybercriminals are savvier than ever. They understand that IT complexities create serious vulnerabilities, and these criminals are continually developing new ways to breach your organization’s boundaries. That is why a proactive, unified endpoint management (UEM) strategy should be part of your organization’s core business strategy.

Adapting to Fight Back: How Cyber AI Neutralizes Never-Before-Seen Threats

  Presented by Darktrace

In a world that is increasingly digital, cyber-attack has become the most significant risk confronting today’s businesses, smart cities, and critical infrastructure. Online crime cost the world more than half a trillion dollars last year, while recent attacks have managed to influence the U.S. presidential election and disrupt the Ukrainian power supply. This troubling state of affairs is the product of several fundamental weaknesses with the traditional approach to cyber defense, which relies on predefining what threats look like at a time when criminals launch never-before-seen attacks daily. Moreover, these attacks increasingly strike at machine-speed, preventing security professionals from responding before their damage is done.

Identity is the New Perimeter

  Presented by Alchemy Technology Group

Data breaches continue to dominate mainstream media, impacting millions of consumers and costing millions of dollars for the liable parties. With the acceleration of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms, the Cyber Security world has evolved from vandalism, to theft, and now all-out war. The bad actors have become extremely creative in compromising credentials to impersonate users, infiltrate environments, and collect confidential data. The value proposition of “anytime, anywhere, any device” access sounds great in principal, but often presents extreme risk in practice. A formal identity strategy provides a backdrop to extend corporate policy well beyond the walls of the corporate office, offering flexibility to embrace evolving technology without compromising security posture. In this session Alchemy Technology Group will outline 10 principles for a successful Cyber Security strategy, with a focus on identity’s role as the new perimeter.

Emerging Trends in Cybersecurity

  Presented by Trace3

As the threat landscape rapidly expands, enterprises across all industries are seeking approaches and technologies to safeguard their interest from advanced and persistent threats. Mounting regulatory and financial penalties against a talent shortage, the need for better cybersecurity only becomes more apparent.

Startups are emerging to offer solutions that address vulnerabilities arising from the growing threat vectors introduced by the expansion of the enterprise domain. Understanding trends and technologies that are driving the future of cybersecurity is critical to both individual contributors and leaders.