Speaking at SharePoint Saturday The Conference DC

Update 8/3/2011: 
The SPSTCDC schedule has been posted! See: http://www.spstc.org/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=38

Dave and I will be speaking at 3pm on Friday, August 12th.

In just a couple of weeks will be the next iteration of the SharePoint Saturday franchise, this time with a little twist. SharePoint Saturday The Conference DC will be held from August 11th to 13th this year in the Washington, DC area (Annandale, Virginia to be exact). No, it's not just on Saturday anymore. This is not your father's SharePoint Saturday. They have expanded the conference to three days. It's still [almost] free--just a nominal $39 registration fee this time around. You can't get a better value anywhere else.

I will be presenting at SPSTCDC with my former colleague Dave Shimko on a topic very near and dear to my heart: "The Cloud." Yep, "The Cloud." Notice the quotes. The Cloud is not always what it seems. Our talk is entitled Cloudy with a Chance of SharePoint.

More specifically we'll be talking about moving SharePoint from your local area network to a remotely hosted environment and the considerations you'll need to address before you make any decisions. This could be in an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment, a Software as a Service (SaaS) environment, just moving your servers from on site to co-located data center, or something in between. Here's the session description:

"Moving to “The Cloud” is a popular topic these days. Many companies and even the government are looking to consolidate IT resources, work within more limited budgets, and the desire to simplify the management of their infrastructure. Naturally, “The Cloud” seems like a great idea.

But is it? And what does this mean for SharePoint?

First off, we will describe the different aspects of “The Cloud,” mainly that The Cloud is really not just one type of technology and often isn’t The Cloud at all. In fact, cloud computing is just a fraction of the services available for hosting servers and websites and SharePoint. You can have a locally “private cloud” or a remotely hosted dedicated Saas (Software as a Service). You might consider a public cloud IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) or a dedicated virtual infrastructure. Or just a plain old rack server in a co-located facility. Which do you choose?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to that question. However, we will dive into the questions that you should ask in order to ensure you make an educated decision about where to go. Some examples:

• What does it mean for SharePoint? 

• Do you really need the elasticity of something like Amazon EC2, or are your computing needs more stable and predictable? 

• Do you want IaaS, where you are in charge of the SharePoint application? 

• Or do you want SaaS, where the hosting provider manages the SharePoint application level for you? 

• What about security? 

• How do you budget for unforeseen costs?

So when your boss, CIO, or the President of the United States says, “We’re going to The Cloud,” you will have a better idea which “cloud” you should hop on to."

Find #SPSTCDC on Twitter and visit the SPSTCDC website for more information about the speakers, sessions, and lodging information.