Monday, November 9, 2009

"BTsummit, INDIA", Indeed itz "Where Business meets Technology" only at BTsummit 2009, Bangalore



I am really proud to tell the World that India is on Par in the Latest Technology Updates with the Technical Conferences as compared with that of the conferences around the World coz India too have a Greatest Technical Conference called "Business Technology Summit ( http://www.BTSummit.com/)" that happens once in a Year that is brought to you by "SALTMARCH Media" ( http://www.saltmarch.com/ ). They also produce other events like "Great Indian Developer Summit ( http://www.developersummit.com/ )", "India Game Developer Summit ( http://www.gamedevelopersummit.com/ )" etc...etc... And Events such as these make India to be on the Top-10 Technical Hubs of the World.

Indeed, itz where the Business meets the Technology only at the BT Summit coz this Conference has the sessions where Business & Technology amalgamated together under one roof with all the Celebrity Speakers & Technical Industry Stalwarts from around the Planet talking about the Latest Technologies that can be applied to the Real-World Business. And this Big tent Edition of this years' BT Summit has the speakers talking about Cloud Computing Taxonomy & Standards, how do we Migrate the existing Applications to the Cloud, Practical approach to Cloud Computing Adoption, Cloud Security, Cloud as a Platform for Platforms, how we can deliver the Maximum ROI by mixing-up the Cloud Computing & the Open Source, BI sessions etc...etc...

And talking more about BT Summit, It happened on 3rd & 4th of November 2009, venue being one of the Prestigious Research Institutues in the World, the IISc (Indian Institute of Science), BANGALORE ( http://www.iisc.ernet.in/ ) that is being one of the few Greener Areas of the Silicon Valley of India called Bangalore . And I am really proud to be part of such an Elegant event. :)

8am :-
First & Foremost, I wanna talk about the Technical sessions happened @ the summit.
On the 1st Day i.e., on 3rd of Nov, after the Registration between 8 and 8:50 A.M., everybody needs to head to the J.N.Tata Auditorium for paying heed to the Welcome Address given by one of the Saltmarch media team members who elaborates about the Days sessions & the Speakers.

9am :-
I love the Keynote presentations, for, they being the Trendiest Topics of the Event.
The First keynote Speaker being one of the Industry Stalwarts Mr. Howard Charney who is the Advisory Board Member, Senior Vice President of Cisco Systems, Inc. and is a member of Cisco’s Office of the President and Executive Staff and reports directly to CEO John Chambers. He founded Grand Junction Networks, which invented Fast Ethernet and low-cost switching.

(That is why, it is no Exaggeration in saying that this Summit has speakers who are some of the Big Corporate honchos & the most Influential people of the Technical World who made a difference to the decades of the Technical Industry).
Mr.Charney delivered the Keynote(between 9 and 9:30am) titled "Smart Services, Bright Future" who elucidated on the Technical Buzz word called "Double Bubble" i.e., Business+Technology. It was an Awesome session coz he compared the Technical world of India to that of the other Countries of the World & said INDIA would Top the List of Top-5 Technology Nations of the world by 2010. Isn't that wonderful for being part of the Spiritual Nation called INDIA which is soon gonna Top the List in the years to come. I observed many times in many conferences that if any speaker from US is gonna give presentation in some Foreign Country, he only talks about US & some couple of English Countries & they ignore the fact that this Mother Earth also has 100s of other Countries as well. But Mr.Howard spoke mainly about INDIA as he is giving the presentation here in INDIA. Isn't that so wonderful of him to be speaking mainly about India & not the US.

9:30am :-
Then, next came the 2nd Keynote of the Day between 9:30 and 10am called "Give Cloud a Chance" by Ramkumar Kothandaraman who is the Technical Director of the Microsoft Technology Center, Bangalore. He mainly compared the Various Cloud Computing Services in the Current Industry like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure, Google AppEngine etc. about how each one can be leveraged in our Cloud Computing Requirements.

10am :-
Then, there is this Coffee Break for 15-minutes between 10 & 10:15am for us to Network with fellow Technical Buffs & geeks(Is that the right word, LOLz). We can even engage in a talk with the Speakers as well during that time i.e., in the Offline-mode.

10:15am :-
Then, the actual Expo opens at 10:15 coz all the shuffled sessions(I mean to say, there are Simultaneous sessions happening) are gonna start at the same time in this Main Auditorium as well as in different Halls(Viz.Hall A, B & C) where we as Delegates need to choose & attend the Best one as per our Intuitions & the sessions which we think can be best Applied & would be helpful for our daily Technical needs in our Office Environment.

I came back to the main auditorium for the session between 10:15 & 11:05 titled "SOA, Composite Applications & Cloud Computing..." of Robert Shneider who is a Principal at Think88 Ventures, LLC. Based in Silicon Valley & Think88 provides training and advisory consulting services in three major practice areas:
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
- Technical marketing and positioning.

He compared the Unique Strengths of SOA, Composite Applications & Cloud Computing to produce wonderful Solutions without compromising on the overall ROI for our Business Technology environment.
This session too was good as these are the current happening Technologies.

11:15am :-



I stayed back in the Auditorium for the session between 11:15 & 12:05 titled "Cloud Computing Taxonomy & Standards" by Dr. Robert Marcus(Also called Bob Marcus) who led the Cloud Computing
activities at the Network Centric Operation Industry Consortium (NCOIC.org).
His previous experience includes Director of Technology Transformation and Deployment at General Motors, CTO of Rogue Wave Software, VP of Technical Strategy at the MCC Research Consortium, Director of Object Technology at American Management Systems, Coordinator of Object Technology at Boeing, and Knowledge Systems Engineer at HP. Oh! man, what is he, he has so many Credentials to him.

He reviewed the Cloud Computing terminology and taxonomy driven by the US National Institute Standards and Technology (NIST). But, I think he mixed another one of his session called "Cloud Computing Use Cases" with this one (which is in the afternoon). Thats why I didn't attend his afternoon session & chosen another Track instead.

12:15pm :-
Then, I headed to Hall-B which is way smaller than the Main Auditorium where people were sitting on the Ground & Standing at the Doors for the lack of space & seats. Even I too sat on the Ground. Its really been eons I sat on the Ground & that felt good.
The Track this time is "The Cloud as a Platform for Platforms" by Mr.Jinesh Varia who is a Technology Evangelist at Amazon for the Web Services. He discussed the Real-World Customer stories & Case-studies of AWS(Amazon Web Services).

1:05pm :-
Lunch Break & we indulge in knowing more about the Services offered by the Respective companies @ the Exhibitor Galleries.

1:45pm :-
Keynote by Shouvick Mukherjee titled "Cloud Computing : State of the Union Address".

2:15pm :-
This one is my Most Favorite Track in Bt Summit 2009 coz this session was the most-Inspiring session.
This Keynote was delivered by Mr. Som Sarma titled "Managing IT in Turbulant Times". He talked about how we can be Creative in this Economic Down-Turn.

2:55pm :-
I don't know, but I didn't like the session of Mr. Alan Pelz-Sharpe who talked about SharePoint 2007.

3:45pm :-
Coffe Break.

4pm :-
This one by Mr. Abhay Bhargav who did a Fantastic job explaining about how to secure our Payment Card Industry for our Web Applications.
ave
I have attended only the First-Day as I registered for only one day.

Some things I didn’t like about BT Summit’2009 :-

1) Halls A, B & C are way too smaller than the Auditorium & can not accommodate more people to sit. Delegates sat on the Ground & even were standing at the Doors, I am being one of them.
2) When we sit on the left-seats of the Hall, the Speaker area is covering almost 60% of the Projected area.

I didn’t understand one thing that IISc being th geart one, how they could Architect the seats in such a Fussy-manner.

3) Sessions should have been at a Continuous Tracks instead of in jumbled-Tracks so that people don’t repent of being missing the desired sessions that are happening at the same time. I am sure people would be willing to pay for an Extra Day.
4) The Speakers’ Introduction slides were not present for all the Speakers, only few Speakers have that. And there is no E-mail ID mentioned at the End of the Each session.
5) Some Speakers Slides were way too small to see for the Audience sitting at the back of the Hall. At least they could have used some kind of ZOOMING Application (Ex:- there is this Zooming App called ZoomIt.exe that can be downloaded from the Sys Internals website http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx ).
6) Mikes were not given at the proper time to the Audience when the Question-Time came.
7) There should have been some Live-Streaming happening over the Web as well where Delegates can watch it over the Internet in their Homes if they are gonna miss the Actual Event.
8) At the End of the Event, some Unique CD & Book should be given that is not available in India instead of just giving the T-Shirt which will make BT SUMMIT unique from the other Technical events.
9) Everytime, at the start of the each Track, the LIGHTS at the Speakers were switched-OFF where we cannot see the Speaker at all, especially in smaller Halls.
10) It would be good If some interesting & Unique Vidoes are played in between the Track-timings.
11) PLEASE SPELL THE CORRECT NAMES OF THE SPEAKERS in the AGENDA coz I observed, one of the Speakers name is : Janakiram M.S.V where as they spelt it as JANAKIRAMAN. Hey Saltmarch team, you can check this out with the actual speaker itself if you want.
12) If any Acronym is there in the slides of the Speakers, the Speaker should elaborate it instead of just saying the Acronym.
13) The BT SUMMIT being one of the great Conferences of India, the ANNOUNCERS in each room should be some what Elegant instead of just somebody from the Volunteers.
14) There is AWARDS function at the End of the Event so that the Delegates can stay till the End of the Event for some Fun. (Like, you people did in the Last Event of GIDS’2009 by calling Mr. CYRUS BROACHA.)
15) This time the WI-FI connection was provided by AIRTEL BROADBAND that 16mbps connection. That’s indeed so wonderful of you people to provide the Free-WI-FI connection for the Delegates during the Whole event.
But a small suggestion to the SALTMARCH team that it would be good if the WI-FI connection could have been secured & the SECURITY KEYS were given to all the Delegates who are attending.
16) The Speakers should be advised to use BIGGER-FONTS,
17) There are no Technical Artciles present on the individual websites of the Slatmarch other than the Summit material.
18) The Q & A session should be limited to 3-Questions due to the Time Constraints.
19) It would be good if SALTMARCH conducts some VIRTUAL EVENTS that are both Paid as well as Free.
20) Feedback Forms should have been given for each Track instead for the whole Day so that the Delagates can write the FEEDBACK for individual speakers.

Some things I liked about the Event (& the observations that I found as comparing to the previous events of the SALTMARCH) :-

1) There is a 10-minutes GAP between one Track & the next Track,
2) The Post-Event slides are present in PDF format that can be downloaded,
3) The Participation Certificate is given at the End of the Event,
4) FOOD was excellent indeed.
5) Even though it was by IISc, Each Hall had the Clocks.