Information Architectures Companion
	Practice Leader:	John Webster	bio	email	keynote

Stored information, in today's IT infrastructures, is commonly associated with a single storage device attached to a single server. But what if that information needs to be available to multiple servers, running multiple applications, around the clock, around the globe? Information Architectures explores how to store, process, move, and manage information in the SAN-enabled, network-centric enterprise.

"Spinning rust" and I/O pipelines are not business drivers. Information Architectures goes beyond a simple review of storage devices and technologies to examine how users need to deploy and access information. How can information be centralized and remain available to distributed applications on disparate platforms? Can information be moved or replicated within the IT infrastructure without compromising performance or data integrity? What are the best approaches? What are the necessary tradeoffs? Illuminata's holistic approach studies information storage and retrieval in the context of critical business applications.

Information Architectures Companion

• Data Integration - Turning disparate data into intelligence for the business;
• Data Placement - Where should data live? And how should it be managed?
• Storage Virtualization - blocks, files (oh, those dreaded global file systems!) and beyond;
• Storage Automation - allocating/shifting resources without operator intervention;
• Storage Management - The Storage Management Initiative (SMI-S, "Bluefin"), vendor and product activity, user requirements, and the huge monitoring and controlling task
• Business Continuance - Replication, snapshots, transaction- and write-logging, and "rewinding" back to previous data states;
• Data Retention, Archiving and Protection - The rise of government regulations, customer needs, and vendor responses related to keeping certifiably unaltered data for long periods of time; also referred to as fixed-content storage;
• Backup: It's All About Restore! - Just what does "backup" mean in a multi-tier, transaction-oriented environment? How do customers ensure they can recover their multi-part applications from equipment or data loss? Ties in to Retention and Protection, above.
• Continuing convergence and hybridization of SAN, NAS, and IP-based options such as iSCSI;
• Commodity Storage Trends and Applications - Parallel and Serial ATA (SATA), Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Intel-Architecture based appliances, etc., and their uses.

The Information Architectures Value Proposition

For CIOs and CTOs   Understand how Information Architectures practices and techniques can be used to effectively solve business problems.

For Outsourcers and Systems Integrators   Evaluate the alternatives available for deploying and managing information storage resources within client sites.

For Systems/Storage Vendors and ISVs   Determine the technologies and methods users will employ to overcome barriers to information access and movement.

Take control of your Enterprise information today! Contact sales@illuminata.com.