Partner Case Study Sessions

Andrew Vranjes - Practice Manager, Data Centre Technologies, Alphawest

Andrew Vranjes is currently the Practice Manager, Data Centre Technologies at Alphawest, a leading national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services provider and part of the SingTel Optus Group. In his role, Andrew is responsible for creating and executing on Alphawest's data centre strategy.With over 11 years experience in the ICT industry, including a Bachelor of Science in Communications and IT, Andrew draws on his extensive expertise in developing data centre services and solutions to help customers improve operational and cost efficiencies. In particular, Andrew is currently focused on helping customers prepare their organisations for cloud computing and driving business value from Cisco Unified Computing system solutions and virtualisation.When Andrew's not immersed in managing Alphawest's data centre function, he enjoys skiing, travelling and fulfilling his board member duties at the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).

Rodney Haywood - Enterprise Architect, Virtualisation and Cloud Computing, Alphawest

Rodney is currently an Enterprise Architect in Virtualisation and Cloud Computing at Alphawest, the most-awarded Virtualisation IT services provider in the Asia-Pacific region. Having worked in the IT industry for over 20 years, Rodney draws on his extensive experience and expertise in the disaster recovery and data centre space, helping customers get ready for the Cloud and driving business value from Virtualisation and Cloud Computing solutions. In 2009, Rodney was awarded the prestigious title vExpert by one of Alphawest's key virtualisation partners, VMware, for his significant contribution to the virtualisation community. When Rodney's not virtualising the world, he escapes to the Simpson Desert with his 4WD, wife and three children.

Paul Young - Chief Information Officer, Ausenco

Paul is strategically responsible for Ausenco's Information Technology and Knowledge Management initiatives.He has over 20 years experience in planning, managing and deploying networks, applications, web services and management information systems in multi-architectural environments.He has implemented and managed large systems at the DSTC (Distributed Systems Technology Centre), Bond University and the Australian Maritime College.Paul joined Ausenco from Wotif.com, the Australian-based, last-minute online accommodation site, where he built a leading edge development team and re-engineered the site to be a high availability, scalable e-commerce site capable of handling in-excess of 100,000 user sessions per day.

Jon Farrell - Enterprise Architect , Dimension Data

Jon Farrell is an Enterprise Architect at Dimension Data. Jon was appointed one of Dimension Data's first Enterprise Architects, which is a talented group of individuals who have managed to combine their cross-line of business skills, their capability to work collaboratively with different lines of business, and produce solutions for clients that are innovative and commercially valuable. In his role, he provides technical expertise on strategic and complex IT projects for clients around Australia. He also provides provide thought leadership both internally and externally across multiple lines of business, through adoption of new technologies, and by developing innovative new solutions. In 2008 Jon took on responsibility for Data Centre architecture and design focusing on the Cisco Nexus platforms and Cisco Unified Computing System and completing the Cisco Data Centre Network Infrastructure Design Specialist (DCNID) certification. In 2009 Jon was the first integration specialist outside of the US to be trained in the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) prior to its release. Jon has over 23 years of experience in IT, working in Data Centre Architectures and communications, Voice, Video & Data Integration and Unified Communications. He has presented a number of seminars on delivering integrated Voice, Video, Data and Presence solutions for Dimension Data, Microsoft and Cisco. Most recently Jon demonstrated Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and VMware interoperability at Cisco Networkers and VMware Forum 2008, and has been involved in a number of Data Centre architecture projects using this technology.

Background
Jon joined Dimension Data in 1996 as a Systems Engineer, focusing on Infrastructure and NOS Technologies from vendors such as Cisco Systems and Microsoft. At Dimension Data Jon has delivered pre-sales and post-sales solutions concentrating on Routing and Switched network design for many large customers before moving on to the emerging Unified Communications area. In 2007, Jon was inducted into the Dimension Data "Technical Hall of Fame", which is recognition of the highest level of technical expertise within his field. He has worked in a number of roles for the company, including IT Manager for Dimension Data's Victorian branch; Solution Architect, managing the Victorian post-sales engineering group, and Principal Consultant, responsible for network design, presales and consulting on collaborative infrastructure and converged solutions for voice, video and multimedia technologies. Amongst some of his career achievements, in 2004 Jon completed the Microsoft Live Communications Server (LCS) Airlift in Redmond. In 2007 he was presented by Microsoft with an award for "Outstanding Contribution to the Unified Communications Industry in Australia". Jon has deployed numerous unified communication solutions for clients, integrating technologies such as Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007, Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging, Microsoft Identity Management solutions and Cisco CallManager. Before moving to Dimension Data, Jon spent 5 years at Business Computers of Australia, providing support in the LAN/WAN and server environment for products from Novell, Cisco Systems and Microsoft. Jon started his IT career with La Trobe University, supporting IBM and DEC systems, before joining the Victoria Police IT department. At the Victoria Police, Jon provided IBM mainframe end-user support before rolling out and supporting the first wave of IBM PCs deployed to police stations. He holds a Bachelor of Science, in addition to a Diploma of Education and Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) qualifications.

Mark Pratley - General Manager, Managed ICT product group, Telstra

Mark Pratley is the General Manager of Telstra's Managed ICT product group.Within that role, Mark is responsible for driving profitable growth through the promotion Information Communication Technologies (ICT) which include as core enablement component deep integration with networks and offer productivity and innovation for businesses and Government.Telstra are the leading Telecommunications provider in Australia and have embraced information technology as a key platform to drive closer customer relationships by offering a broader range of industry solutions which help drive collaboration, productivity and efficiency from within the network layer.Beyond business, Cisco works as a leader in corporate social responsibility and also in the promotion of environmentally sustainable work practices through the use of video and Web2.0 collaboration technologies to reduce the need for travel.Prior to this role Mark was a Managed Solutions Sales Executive working with customers across Media, Finance and Manufacturing with Telstra's solutions business unit KAZ and also within the Telstra/IBM owned Advantra. Mark also worked for 12 years with IBM Australia in roles across IBM Global Finance, procurement and planning.Mark has more than ten years experience with Telstra and more than 20 years in the information technology arena. Mark holds a Bachelors Degree in Economics majoring in statistics from the University of New England, NSW.Mark is married to Margaret, lives in the hills district of Sydney, NSW, and has twin sons, 13 year old Edward and William and an 11 year old daughter Annabel.He enjoys sailing, skiing and spending time with family.

Tim Hartman - Technical Alliances Manager, VMware Australia/New Zealand

Tim Hartman is the Technical Alliances Manager at VMware Australia/New Zealand.He has been with VMware for 2.5years.In this role he is responsible for building out VMware's technology alliance eco-system and works with a range of hardware, operating system and software vendors.Prior to VMware Tim worked for Symantec for 15 years as Senior Director pre-sales engineering, Asia Pacific.

Rodney Haywood - Enterprise Architect, Virtualisation and Cloud Computing, Alphawest

Rodney is currently an Enterprise Architect in Virtualisation and Cloud Computing at Alphawest, the most-awarded Virtualisation IT services provider in the Asia-Pacific region. Having worked in the IT industry for over 20 years, Rodney draws on his extensive experience and expertise in the disaster recovery and data centre space, helping customers get ready for the Cloud and driving business value from Virtualisation and Cloud Computing solutions. In 2009, Rodney was awarded the prestigious title vExpert by one of Alphawest's key virtualisation partners, VMware, for his significant contribution to the virtualisation community. When Rodney's not virtualising the world, he escapes to the Simpson Desert with his 4WD, wife and three children.

Andrew Vranjes - Practice Manager, Data Centre Technologies, Alphawest

Andrew Vranjes is currently the Practice Manager, Data Centre Technologies at Alphawest, a leading national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services provider and part of the SingTel Optus Group. In his role, Andrew is responsible for creating and executing on Alphawest's data centre strategy. With over 11 years experience in the ICT industry, including a Bachelor of Science in Communications and IT, Andrew draws on his extensive expertise in developing data centre services and solutions to help customers improve operational and cost efficiencies. In particular, Andrew is currently focused on helping customers prepare their organisations for cloud computing and driving business value from Cisco Unified Computing system solutions and virtualisation. When Andrew's not immersed in managing Alphawest's data centre function, he enjoys skiing, travelling and fulfilling his board member duties at the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).

John MacLean - Practice Manager, Data Centre Technologies  Alphawest

John MacLean is responsible for the global success and growth of EMC Ionix for Service Management. In this role he promotes a future vision where IT is optimised to effectively address the needs of the business and business users, through the adoption of ITIL centric processes.John has over 20 years of IT experience, working within IT departments, for consulting organisations, and for product vendors, allowing him to readily understand a broad range of business and technical perspectives. Prior to joining EMC, John was a Senior Director of Product Management for Vignette.

John Martin - Consulting Systems Engineer, NetApp

John Martin is a Consulting Systems Engineer responsible for data protection and retention services across NetApp Australia and New Zealand. Martin has 20 years of experience in the IT industry and has spent the last decade specialising in Data Protection and Disaster Recovery.Based in Sydney, Martin works closely with NetApp's systems engineer partners and partner consultants from Symantec and CommVault. Martin joined NetApp in 2006 as a Systems Engineer and was promoted to Consulting Systems Engineer in January 2008.Before joining NetApp, Martin was a Principal of GRID IT where he built relationships with major storage vendors EMC, Symantec and StorageTek while at the same time, helping to start two storage related businesses.At GRID IT, he was involved in senior pre-sales, consulting and training for Legato, Veritas and StorageTek.

Paul Cameron - IT Executive General Manager, Business Technology, Suncorp

As Executive General Manager of Infrastructure Services for Suncorp, Paul Cameron is responsible for all BT (Business Technology) infrastructure technology, operations and services which underpin the organization including: the company's data centers, network services including telephony, hosting environments, end-user computing, databases & middleware services, technology solutions and projects, Service Desks, technology security and enterprise applications. As a member of the BT Governance Committee, he aids in technology planning, architecture and standards and is business sponsor of numerous large projects. Mr. Cameron joined Suncorp in 2005. Paul has over 18 years of IT management experience in a variety of industries. Before joining Suncorp, he was general manager with the National Australia Bank and prior to this held senior IT positions with the telecommunications companies of Telstra and Optus, along with numerous consulting roles within government and the manufacturing sector. Paul holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from Southern Cross University.

Greg Singh - Pre-Sales Engineering Team Leader and Principal Consultant, RSA, The Security Division of EMC

Greg Singh is the Pre-Sales Engineering Team Leader and Principal Consultant for RSA. Greg has 20 years experience in IT&T Industries including Technical Team Management & Leadership and Principal Technical Pre & Post Sales functions in the Vendor, Integrator, Telco and End-User spaces. Greg is a Security Specialist and a recognized industry expert in PKI and Identity. Before joining RSA, Greg was a Senior Communications Consultant & Security Subject Matter Expert with Telecom Nez Zealand with a particular focus on technical design of Telco and Integrated solutions involved in building Secure Data, Voice and Convergent Networks. In his spare time, Greg hobbies include percussion, photography & music production. Greg holds several industry certifications from Microsoft, Novell, ISS, Cisco, Critical Path, StoneSoft, RADWare, Siebel, SafeNet and RSA. He earned a B.E. in Engineering from the University of Wollongong and now resides in Sydney.

Bradley Wong, Product Manager, Server Access & Virtualization, Cisco.

Bradley Wong is a Product Manager with the Server Access Virtualisation Business Unit (SAVBU) in Cisco, responsible for the Nexus and Unified Computing System (UCS) product lines. Prior to his current role, Bradley was a Technical Marketing Engineer on the Catalyst 6500 product line, specialising in Data Centre technologies. Bradley was also a Routing & Switching Consulting Systems Engineer for the Asia Pacific region as well as an Escalation Engineer for Cisco's Asia Pacific TAC located in Sydney, Australia. Bradley is a Routing & Switching CCIE.

Alphawest - UCS : Opportunities, Objectives and Outcomes
While the IT industry pinpoints the new Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) platform as a key enabler to developing the next generation data centre to improve IT responsiveness to rapidly changing business demands, many organisations are still confused about what UCS is and what it can deliver. Additionally, they are unclear about what business benefits can be realised from the adoption of this solution and the preparations involved in the implementation.After fulfilling the training and program prerequisites to sell, deploy and support the new Cisco data centre offering, Alphawest has also become the first end-user in the world to implement UCS. This early adoption and experience will help Alphawest fast track customer implementations. As a result, Rodney Haywood and Andrew Vranjes from Alphawest will draw on their UCS experience to help you reap the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of such a deployment.
Attend this session to learn essential practical insights and take-away tips to help you successfully implement UCS in your organisation by:

• Identifying what the opportunity of UCS is in the data centre - from a business, technical and customer perspective
• Hearing first hand UCS learnings and objectives from the preparation to the implementation stages
• Gaining practical insights for architectural design and implementation
• Avoiding the pitfalls associated with the UCS implementation
• Aligning UCS with your business objectives
• Understanding real implementation outcomes

Dimension Data - Virtualisation and the Next Generation Data Centre
This session provides delegates with two perspectives - those of the systems integrator and the end user - on the role that virtualisation is playing as formerly disparate elements of the enterprise IT infrastructure start to operate securely across a single IP network. Dimension Data's Gerard Florian will introduce the topic, exploring the current trends in the market as enterprise storage, applications, computing and facilities management increasingly operate on a common platform. Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) and Energy Wise will be discussed as examples of how technology is evolving to take advantage of this convergence. Providing a case study on the business benefits of this converging network and the power of virtualisation, Paul Young, CIO of Ausenco will provide an insight into a number of technical initiatives undertaken by the engineering services firm in this space, and his plans for the future. The session's goal is to provide food for thought and practical next steps on the ways in which network and data centre consolidation and virtualisation can have a profound effect on your organisations' IT service delivery.

Take control of your Virtualisation data centre, not the other way around
As you move your IT infrastructure from physical to virtual, the most strategic issues become how to manage everything so you maintain reliability, improve operational efficiency through automation, and gain control of the virtual Data Centre.

EMC meets these issues head-on with their Ionix portfolio of IT Management solutions. Join EMC to learn about 2 of the most significant and relevant technologies in this space - EMC Ionix Data Centre Insight, and EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager.

EMC Ionix Data Centre Insight provides a single discovery solution for applications and infrastructure, including dependency information across an entire virtualised infrastructure - spanning applications, VMs, hosts, storage systems and network devices - including specific integration with and visibility of Cisco's UCS infrastructure.

EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager delivers a complete network compliance, change and configuration management lifecycle solution - auto discover, baseline, design, validate, update, secure, audit, report and manage your network. Join EMC to discover how to deliver collaborative network infrastructure design, deliver controlled change processes, and ensure compliance with corporate and regulatory requirements - all aimed at enabling you to ensure the security, availability and operational efficiency of your network.

Telstra - Infrastructure and the Cloud (Network Computing Services)
The cloud computing market is exploding and service providers are investing in their strategies to take a share. How can Telstra leverage the network, build on engineering depth and drive toward a service driven culture and offer 'cloud' like capabilities within the network and deliver them across Business, Enterprise and Government markets.What have Telstra learned from our own transformation and how are these learning's being incorporated into our product and services roadmaps for our customers.To really change the way that people and organisations work we must;

• Fully exploit the innovative capabilities of research facilities and partners
• Continue investing in the growth of professional services capability
• Understand the business of the customer
• Keep the network footprint robust, flexible and world-class

Knowledge of the customer, the technology and the network will provide the basis for the evolution of products that address business needs - however the human component is the one that makes these services real for our customers.

VMware - Building the Enterprise-Ready Cloud with VMware
In today's highly automated, technology-enabled economy, business performance has become inextricably linked to IT capability. The successful innovators have utilised VMware virtualisation to meet their key challenges. But in 2009, as we enter the era of Cloud computing, the need to open to new opportunities in technology has become imminent in order to keep up with the infinity responsibility of IT.While most organisations are still grappling with the concept of Cloud Computing, Alphawest, together with VMware, Cisco and EMC are building Australia's first Enterprise-ready vCloud environment using VMware vSphere 4.0, Cisco Unified Computing and Networking technology and EMC Storage products.VMware Australia/New Zealand Technical Alliances Manager Tim Hartman explains how these industry leading companies are solving business problems by delivering secure and scalable on-demand infrastructure as a service.Tim will be joined by key executives from Alphawest, part of the Optus SingTel group. Guest speakers include Rodney Haywood, Enterprise Architect in Virtualisation and Cloud Computing and Andrew Vranjes, Practice Manager, Data Centre Technologies.

Deploying the Foundation for a Dynamic Data Center
Virtualization technologies are altering the way data centers are architected and deployed. Siloed architectures are giving way to more flexible and efficient unified architectures, creating new challenges for manageability and data security. In this session, you will learn how the unique capabilities of NetApp and Cisco are integrated with VMware to enable a flexible and secure multitenant virtualized infrastructure that lays the foundation for a dynamic data center. You will also learn how unified fabric technology, intelligent storage, high-performance data center infrastructure, and VMware virtualization technologies work together to provide immediate savings and efficiency gains.
Key Highlights:

• The joint NetApp Storage and Cisco IP Network vision for the virtualized dynamic data center
• Suncorp Case Study: How a dynamic data center infrastructure enables increased efficiency, resulting in higher performance, and improves manageability of virtualized infrastructures
• Emerging technologies and new protocols for connecting servers and storage across the network
• How automation can be realized through virtualization