November, 2008
by Adam Grummitt
The traditional, one day UKCMG autumn forum adopted a new and highly successful format this year, which resulted in over 200 registered delegates and over 150 attendees. These numbers are much higher than in the recent past for UKCMG, validating our decision to change the format.
Why was it so successful? Four elements of the new design appear to be responsible. This congress was free to delegates (the 18 exhibitors effectively sponsored the entire event). The event was held in central London and it was easy to get to (CBI Conference Centre, CentrePoint). And possibly it was because it was not a requirement to attend all day (but rather ‘drop-in for as long as suits you, any time between 10 and 4'). But the most important factor is that even in these times of credit crunch or recession, the long-standing benefits of UKCMG remain as true as ever. The clear benefits of UKCMG are: good quality presentations, pertinent exhibitors and opportunities for sharing experiences and networking.
The event was billed as the ‘UKCMG FREE FORUM' and addressed ‘sharing best practices and experiences.' The sessions were in three streams. All sessions were pro-actively chaired with excellent papers throughout the day and many interesting discussions ensued.
Metron sponsored the Capacity Management track, including presentations on zIIP, zAAP, z/OS WLM, ISO20000, linear forecasting, process ‘buy-in', over-booking strategies, green considerations and gap analyses. BMC sponsored the Performance track which included presentations on end-to-end service performance, testing techniques, application monitoring, load testing and performance testing tools. Compuware sponsored the Service Management track which included presentations on Problem Management, application outage root cause, ITIL v3 implementation, SOA and Agile Development, Business Service Management, LEAN, and quality management of third party software development.
The presenters welcomed full rooms and the sessions were highly interactive. During the breaks, the 18 exhibitors were kept busy with demonstrations and discussions of their products and services. The gold sponsors were Metron, Compuware and BMC. The silver sponsors were EPV Technologies, Systar, Quotium and XSLS. Vital is UKCMG's official media partner.
The net result was one of the most busy and interesting days at UKCMG for many a year.