It’s been an exciting few days in the opening of Uptime Institute Symposium 2013. We have a stellar lineup of speakers this year, and the content has been fantastic so far. Here are just a few images from the last few days.

We have started publishing our annual Symposium Speaker Series — video interview with our underwriter keynote speakers. This first edition includes interviews by Kevin Heslin with key executives from Schneider Electric, Emerson Network Power and FORTRUST.

Data center dilemma: Build your own or outsource

DCIM + ITSM: Emerson Trellis and IBM Tivoli partnership

Adopting a modular approach for data center design, construction and delivery

Be sure to register today for Uptime Institute Symposium 2013.

From Kevin Heslin, Research Manager with 451 Group.

The sessions at Uptime Institute Symposium 2013 will help you make better decisions regarding DCIM investment and implementation.

This year’s event will feature expert-led sessions from senior DCIM analysts, peer-to-peer sharing on implementation experiences, and presentations from the leading DCIM vendors in the industry.

451 Research senior analyst Rhonda Ascierto will address the special considerations for assessing and procuring DCIM software. Many of the issues she will cover are crucial and worth underscoring, and they may not be part of a routine DCIM assessment or procurement process. Her presentation is based on a 56-page 451 Research report released in December 2012 titled Beyond the Basics: A Guide to Procuring DCIM Software.

The 451 Research team found more than 100 questions that you should ask your DCIM vendor before purchasing a DCIM product. Asking the right questions can help minimize the risk associated with DCIM by helping data center operators purchase the right level of service, avoid potential incompatibilities, and get a suitable pricing model.

451 Research Vice President Andy Lawrence will deliver a keynote entitled The Disrupted Data Center, during which he will discuss advanced DCIM, among other technologies. In my view, Andy is the world’s foremost expert on the DCIM market, with a fantastic track record anticipating how DCIM will affect data center operations. He’s simply “the right guy” to ask about DCIM and a host of other data center issues.

Uptime Institute Director of Content Matt Stansberry will present the 2013 Data Center Industry Survey results, which delve into DCIM adoption statistics, pricing, key features and barriers to adoption. This data will provide you in-depth analysis of what kinds of systems your peers are buying, and how much they’re paying for them.

I will also contribute to the program, moderating a panel of end users who have experience with DCIM implementation. I’ll ask them to describe the results they got and how those results compared with the benefits they expected. We’ll also talk about product selection, pricing, and lessons learned. What’s more, I expect to explore any difficulties the panelists had during the procurement and application processes and find out how they resolved these issues.

Register today for Uptime Institute Symposium. I look forward to seeing you this May in Santa Clara!

The lack of attention and resource allocation to data center operations has been a looming issue since the founding of Uptime Institute. A highly resilient data center design is not enough because every design can be defeated by human error.

As market conditions and IT economics drive new data centers and consolidation, a robust facilities management program is even more essential.

Take the Crisis of Facilities Management Pop Quiz
• Are you confident in your Facilities team’s ability to manage a technologically advanced and highly efficient design to your 24×7 availability requirements?
• Can you easily replace any member of that team?
• Are you protected against poor operations practices migrating from older sites to higher-criticality data centers?
• Do you have sites that operate in isolation without adhering to global corporate standards? Do you even have corporate global standards?
• If you outsource any aspect of your data center operations, how do you avoid losing responsibility and accountability? Do you manage a contract or direct an expert team?

Attend Uptime Institute Symposium 2013 and gain the insight you need to make informed decisions for your organization. The Symposium program features dozens of sessions focusing on the challenges of the data center operations professional, including this sample:

• Knowing Data Center Operational Cost IS Your Job
• The Why and How of Third-Party Data Center Due Diligence
• Superstorm Sandy Lessons Learned
• Building a Data Center Facilities Team
• High Energy Efficiency! Low workforce productivity?

We will also host a pre-conference tutorial, drawing conclusions form working with Uptime Institute clients and members to provide guidance and real-world experience on the core elements of a successful data center facilities management program.

Uptime Institute technical staff will discuss: How to better manage staff skills and qualification; the importance of thorough commissioning; and advice for developing technical documentation and maintenance policies.

Register here. We look forward to seeing you in May.

According to Uptime Institute’s Second Annual Data Center Industry Survey, reducing data center energy use is an important concern to an overwhelming majority of data center owners and operators.

Uptime Institute Symposium is the must-see Green IT event of the year. Our keynote presenters are pulled from today’s headlines. Our annual Green Enterprise IT Award Winners provide groundbreaking, repeatable case studies. And Uptime Institute and 451 Research experts provide you with the information and leadership you need to drive Green IT initiatives at your own organization.

Highlights from Symposium’s Green IT sessions below:

-Facebook’s senior data center engineers will discuss details of the social media juggernaut’s Open Compute Project.

-Greenpeace’s Senior IT policy analyst Gary Cook will discuss his organization’s latest report on carbon and cloud computing.

-Deutsche Bank’s chief scientist Andrew Stokes will show how this financial institution’s investment in hyper-efficient operations has paid off.

-Dean Nelson will walk us through eBay’s engineering marvel in the Arizona desert – Project Mercury, a hot-water-cooled data center that operates at temperatures as high as 115 Fahrenheit.

-Winners of the Inaugural Uptime Institute Server Round-Up, AOL, will show you how they decommissioned and recycled 9,484 outdated servers to take home the trophy.

-The Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Corps, MBA students partnered with companies to drive energy efficiency, will discuss how their projects so far have saved 1 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually and $1billion in net operational costs over the project lifetimes.

This is your last chance to register for the most important Green IT event of the year, featuring leadership sessions from Uptime Institute Founder Ken Brill, The Green Grid and Stanford Professor and energy researcher Jonathan Koomey. Sign up today, and follow Symposium on Twitter at #Uptime12.