What are you doing this August?  If you’re interested in ICS technology then then you want to make your way to Washington, DC and MWLUG.  The Midwest User Group conference has once more moved to a new location for 2017 and will be held at the Hilton Mark Center, Alexandria from August 8-10.

Sessions have started to be announced and as well as the usual popular topics there are new Watson Work and Innovation tracks to play in.  Take a look at the list of announced sessions here .

I’ve attended and spoken at MWLUG for the past 3 years and it’s an event I look forward to thanks the the number and breadth of sessions and a chance to meet customers and spend time with the ICS community.  This year I’m speaking again and I’m very pleased to have three brand new sessions and one new speaking partner(!).

In the Best Practices track I’ll be showing you how to architect and configure a hybrid cloud solution for Domino

Setting Up a Hybrid Domino Environment to Ease your Way to the Cloud

Are you looking at Cloud options and wondering how and if you can get there from where you are? If you have Domino on premises and are considering Cloud then a good option is a hybrid architecture which maintains all your on premises configuration managed by your own administrators but adds Cloud client access managed by IBM. We will look at how simple it is to create this hybrid solution using Domino passthru servers and review how things like user and directory maintenance, client access and mail routing will then work. From Domino Admin to Domino Hybrid Admin in a few simple steps.

In the Innovation track I’ll be discussing IoT in the Enterprise, security implications and opportunities

IoT In The Enterprise Brings You Industry 4.0

IoT brings us to the beginning of Industry 4.0 and with the opportunities for improved delivery, services and customer relationships comes challenges of data management, creative process re-engineering and most of all security. IoT devices are arriving through the door each day, meanwhile the introduction of GDPR compliance next year brings additional responsibility for data ownership and privacy. . In this session we will investigate the opportunities for IoT in different business sectors alongside the risks of the IoT experience. We will discuss how to defend and protect against today’s IoT’s vulnerabilities and review how security offerings such as blockchain are evolving. We wil also offer a checklist for how your enterprise can plan for and benefit from the emergence of enterprise IoT.

Finally , in the System Administration track I’ll be joining Linux expert Bill Malchisky  to discuss Docker on Linux and what you need to know

Running Docker and Linux Together

The introduction of docker within IBM’s product strategy as well as the popularity of containers as a solution means it’s time to learn some new tools. Join Gab & Bill as they offer architectural insight for both Linux and Docker along with storage and network isolation tips. Curious about good and bad devops processes, deployment, upgrades and backups? You will receive technical explanations with examples. If Linux is the path ahead, Docker is the depolyment conduit. Let’s get you ready for the journey.

Thank you in advance to the NH / Maine convoy that will help get me from NY to VA,  I’m looking forward to sharing these new sessions and learning some new stuff myself.