Myrcurial gets placed in the Leader's Quadrant - Gartner Days 1&2

June 3, 2008

Gartner IT Security Summit – June 1-3, 2008 – Washington, DC.

Alright – call this an omnibus posting.

I had planned to do a better job of intra-day postings, but the schedule here is hectic and as anyone who knows me can attest, I really do work to get maximum value out of any conference that I go to.

Highlights here – much more detail available if anyone comments/emails me to ask.

Day 1
Opening Keynote – The next 10 years in IT Security – Rated: Good.
Keynote – Google’s Security – Rated: Excellent.
Keynote – SciFi Authors’ Future View of IT Security – Rated: Excellent.

“F” Track – Gartner Analysts/Researchers speak on the topic of “The CISO” – Rated: Mediocre to Good.
Exhibition Floor – Rated: Good.
Food – Rated: Hotel Std. Bring Pepto
Product Highlight – Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess 3500 Nonstop Laptop Guardian It’s a way to lojack your laptops – a device that stores your crypto keys, 2nd factor auth token, acts as your 3G WWAN, GPS enabled, has an on-board Linux which acts as the “IT department’ controlled/controllable machine. Main feature – remote kill the laptop you lost.

Day 2
Keynote – Security Architecture for the Next 10 years – Rated: Excellent
“F” Track – Gartner Analysts/Researchers speak on the topic of “The CISO” – Rated: Good to Better
Exhibition Floor – Rated: I don’t want to try to get that much shwag through airport security. SRSLY.
Food – Rated: I cannot wait for my kitchen. I cannot eat this much commercial grade food and stay healthy/alive. Amazing how even the fresh fruit is labelled “Hotel Froot”. It’s like an episode of the Simpsons.

Overall Review: I’ll probably come back – the issue of credibility in ensuring that I can quote someone that the business / IT folks respect rather than just my own opinion is a good thing, however, as a prominent (ha – take that Mike) security blogger, I’m a 4-5 on the CISO-CMM — and I’m surrounded by a whole lot of zeros and ones. Gartner is a good host, they take feedback seriously and are very interested in delivering some real value to people like me.

What needs to be fixed:

You may have noted that I’m not really chuffed by the food, and you’d be damn right. What is it with the “Conference Hotel/Venue” market that gives them such perfect 2 dimensional homogeneity of image and food? Fix the food.
Reorganize the environment such that I spend less time walking back and forth down this hallway.

Wifi… oh terrifying wifi. If there was a Wall of Sheep here, you couldn’t read it – it’d be scrolling too fast. Don’t you idiots have a freakin’ VPN?
BoF Sessions would be good — there’s not a whole lot of time in the schedule just to stir around and talk to people. There should be a number of areas that allow for free form communication amongst attendees. Have Gartner Analysts in and around those areas to spur conversations.
And lastly – Washington? WTF? Flying in to the DC area is practically a strip search. Conferencing is getting harder as the airline industry squeezes – and if I’ve got to fly, I want as little friction as possible.