UCISA Annual Management Conference 2011
IP Performance were delighted to step back up to the plate and exhibit at the UCISA Management Conference and Exhibition, which was held at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) from Wednesday 23rd of March 2011 through to Friday 25th March 2011.
UCISA (the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association) represents the whole of Higher Education, and increasingly Further Education, in the provision and development of academic, management and administrative information systems, providing a network of contacts and a powerful lobbying voice. UCISA exists to promote excellence in the application of information systems and services in support of teaching, learning, research and administration in higher and further education. UCISA is an open, impartial and representative association. It provides a national and international presence for the people who make information systems and services work. It helps them to share best practice, maximise cost effectiveness, develop ideas and inform and support policy making within their institution, nationally and internationally.
One of the themes of this years conference revolved around Tim Marshall's "Marshall Plan" on how best to plan for, and deal with, the impacts of public sector funding cuts.
The conference programme included Business Showcases and University Showcases. In parallel, UCISA hosted the largest supplier exhibition for the Education sector with over 60 key partners and suppliers to the UCISA community, of which IP Performance are proud to count ourselves as one.
The IP Performance team spent their time talking to delegates and conference organisers, and chatting to customers old and new about the latest products in our portfolio, industry trends and technologies. Every year, we find that one or two key technology trends or requirements capture the imagination of the delegates, and UCISA 2011 was no exception. In keeping with the closing keynote speaker this year, Eliza Manningham-Buller (ex Head of MI5), we found that security was a top issue, spurred no doubt by a series of recent high-profile security breaches and data losses in the public and private sector. We were able to address these concerns in discussions around Secure Web Gateway and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies and solutions from Blue Coat Systems, as well as conversations around data log management, audit and analysis systems for regulatory compliance and governance, through our vendor partner LogRhythm. The next most prevalent topic was Software, Platform and Infrastructure as a Service, and all things Cloud, and associated virtualisation and management issues. IPv4 exhaustion and migration to IPv6 was a topical talking point, as were the perennial favourites of bandwidth management and P2P control.
Competition: As always, IP Performance hosted a prize quiz on our stand. The questions this time were fewer, but harder (and use of Smartphones or disappearing then coming back later was banned).
The winners were:
- 1st prize: 32” HD LCD TV - Heidi Fraser-Krauss, of the University of St. Andrews
- 2nd prize: Tomtom Start - Gareth McAleese, of the University of Ulster
- 3rd prize: Digital photo frame - Hugh Lavery, of Leeds Metropolitan University
Congratulations to all our lucky winners!
UCISA 2012 will be held between 14th March 2012 and 16th March 2012 at the Celtic Manor, Newport. The IP Performance events team look forward to seeing you there!
