Northern California Computer 

Measurement Group

8:30 – 9:30      Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:30 – 10:30    Application Monitoring in the Cloud

                        Speaker: Mark Addleman, CA Wily Technology

Nowadays it’s virtually impossible to go a day or so without hearing about the cloud – from cloud computing to cloud services to cloud storage.  But all this industry press generates as many questions as it provides solutions – from what goes into the cloud to how one manages the “stuff” in the cloud.  Providing reliable services is key to the successful exploitation of the cloud, and having the proper tools, policies and procedures in place to ensure performance is a critical piece of the overall cloud strategy.  Mark’s presentation will provide attendees insight into application monitoring in the cloud – why this is so important and best practices for getting best results. 

 10:45 – 11:45  Nanotechnology Is Coming To Storage

Speaker:  Ted McGavin, McGavin Consulting

The hard drive has been with us, in one form or another, for over 40 years.  The modern disk array first appeared nearly 20 years ago and revolutionized the storage industry by taking (relatively) cheap PC hard drives, using the newly-developed RAID technology to increase reliability, and using large caches to increase performance. 

Now another revolutionary change in the storage industry is headed our way.  A nanotechnology breakthrough has just been made that will make it possible to make hard drives that have 15 times the areal density that is possible today, have better environmentals, and have better performance. 

Come to this presentation and learn about the new storage breakthrough and its implications!

11:45 ‑ 1:00    NCCMG Business Meeting/ Lunch sponsored by CA Wily Technology/Wily Product Presentation

1:00 – 2:00      **2007 Mullen Award Winner** Death to Dashboards:  Alarming, Performance Management Based on Variance, System Priorization and Other Thoughts on Data Visualization

Speaker:  Peg McMahon, Sprint Nextel Corporation

When does the light on the executive dashboard turn from yellow to red?  When do you order new hardware? Traditionally, these decisions are handled by setting thresholds — picking some number to use as an upper or lower limit.  Thresholds might have worked well in the days of a handful of beloved systems.  But for today’s complex environments, thresholding is not only painful to manage but conceptually bankrupt.  Let’s talk about the problems with thresholds and dashboards and work to identify some practical alternatives.  Vendors, put on your iron underwear and attend this session.

Please pre-register by contacting Keith McAndrew at (916) 715-8352 by Friday May 1, 2009. Registration is $25 at the door.

Report from the February 2009 meeting:

   Speakers:  Dr. Neil Gunther and Tom Halinski

Call for speakers in 2009. If you are interested in speaking, call Cathy Nolan at (925) 675-5308 or (925) 890-8390.

If you have not attended a meeting within the last two years, you will be deleted from the mailing list.  To remain on the mailing list, either attend one meeting or email cathy.nolan@bankofamerica.com by November 1, 2009.