Disaster Recovery Journal’s 40th conference, Spring World 2009, was held this year at Coronado Springs Resort and Convention Center, in Orlando. Atlantic.Net was an exhibit sponsor at this event for the first time.  This was a very informative event and a great networking opportunity that allowed us to put our name in front of more than 1,000 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planners, Information Technology Managers, Consultants, Auditors, Corporate Safety and Risk Managers, and Security Managers. We were able to learn from and network with professionals from various industries like Banking and Finance, Manufacturing, Computer Service, Insurance, Health Care, Management Consulting, Communications, Government, Utilities, Retail, Transportation, Construction and Education.

It was interesting to see so many banks and financial institutions seriously involved in disaster recovery, especially since they spent so little time trying to prevent the disaster those industries are in currently .  We were also pleased to see the  growing awareness of comprehensive Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planning within the Health Care community.

With more than 40 informative sessions, certificate courses, seminars, workshops and exercises there was plenty of learning to be done!  The certificate courses, where one can actually take the course and become certified at the show, definitely help the IT professionals get ahead of the game.

Approximately 100 major vendors that cater to the Disaster Prevention and Protection were showcasing their latest services and technology in the industry.

Some of the more notable vendors we liked are featured below:

Moble communications are key and we thought the solar backpack laptop chargers that were on display were really cool!

This particular vendor “Heater Meals” attracted a lot of traffic for their free giveaway: self heating meals designed for extended storage.

Gotta have weather data!!

Josh Simon conversing with a group of experts…

These exercises and seminars can be equally beneficial to all businesses. Any business, small or large, needs disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place.  From these seminars one should be able to walk away with the knowledge to:

•    Complete a Threat Risk Analysis
•    Complete Business Impact Analysis
•    Create, maintain and exercise the business’s recovery plan.
•    Prevent communications crises
•    Obtain a return from the business continuity planning.

Since this conference we are looking into joining the local chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners! We have also been working on developing a partnership to provide essential security and disaster recovery needs for the DRJ. Our very own Joe Cosmano has written up an informative piece on Choosing A Data Center, which can be found in the Summer 2009 edition of the Data Recovery Journal or you can check it out at www.drj.com.

Tags: Community Initiatives, Conference, Data Center, Events, Josh Simon, Server Hosting, Sponsorships, Vendor

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 am by Adnan Raja and is filed under Community Initiatives, Data Center Services, Managed Hosting, Trade Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.