Zones Keynote: Understanding the Cloud Journey

There has been a substantial amount of migration to the cloud in the business world in just the last 10 years. But before they take that full-on leap into cloud technology, organizations must first stop and make sure they have a complete understanding of the full cloud journey, which begins with an initial assessment and then continues into design, implementation and management. This keynote address will feature an in-depth look at that journey, led by a team of Zones technology experts.

Sean Hobday

Senior Vice President of Global Business Development, Zones

Sean Hobday was named Senior Vice President of Global Business Development in January 2012 to lead the company's global expansion efforts in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, India, and Canada. Since then, he has architected a global footprint to serve Zones clients around the world. Hobday has held multiple leadership positions at Zones, including Director of Client Development, Vice President of Enterprise Sales, and President of Zones Corporate Solutions. Hobday has specialized in developing global sales and operational units to serve global clients in the enterprise and mid-market space.

Before his time at Zones, Hobday served as managing director of Blue Ice Leisure in Sydney, Australia, an Austral-Asian division of First Team Sports.

Martin Palmer

Director, Center of Excellence for Cloud and Security, Zones

From a technology perspective, Martin has nearly 20 years of applied architectural, consultative and development experience in the Microsoft M365, Azure, SharePoint on-premises/online spaces. In these roles, his only goal is to ensure that his customers business needs and outcomes are met by creating the most business impactful and cost-effective solutions possible.

As the Director of a fantastic team of Cloud and Security Engineers, Cloud Project managers as well as a fantastic Cloud Solution Provider team. His teams strive to never be “one and done”, rather they continually strive to become their Clients' “trusted advisor” in both Cloud and Security across multiple platforms.

Optimizing your Data Center for Success

The number of workers in remote positions is increasing exponentially in 2020. For any organization that wants to survive and thrive moving forward, it's absolutely essential to have a robust plan that enables remote workers to be successful. Unfortunately, though, most organizations have never had to plan for such a large remote workforce before, and they often lack the necessary technology to do it. What they need now is an agile, scalable way to move their digital transformation forward - which is what virtualization can deliver.

Justin Brown

Solution Architect, Zones

Justin has tackled client projects relating to Data Center Transformation and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for over 10 years. He has undertaken numerous challenges in his career, including a 24,000-user VDI solution for one of the nation's largest department stores and the implementation of two remote data centers for a large national sporting goods distributor. In his role at Zones as a Solutions Architect, he adeptly handles a wide range of IT initiatives, including large undertakings that require years of work across many disparate locations.

Sonya Harley

Senior Partner Solutions Architect, VMware

She has 15+ years of experience in systems engineering and architecture.  At VMware, she specializes in SDDC for private and hybrid cloud infrastructures.

Drew Peterson

Technical Specialist, Intel

As a Technical Specialist in Intel’s Data Platforms Group, Drew is responsible for helping enterprise customers, partners and OEMs utilize Intel Optane Technology to solve business problems. Optane Technology is revolutionizing virtualized infrastructure, in-memory databases and high performance computing. Drew has been at Intel for 23 years, holding a variety of technical roles including microprocessor design, software engineering, solution architecture, and enterprise technologist. He has a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois.

The Power of the Software-Defined Data Center

A key part of any organization's cloud journey is the process of finding the right infrastructure to house their data in a reliable and cost-effective manner. Using a software-defined data center is often the way to go, as it enables you to manage and run a wide range of applications and software across a wide range of environments - cloud, data center, devices, and more. Adopting a software-defined approach via VXRail will help you move beyond just compute to network and storage as well, giving you seamless integration throughout your ecosystem and truly driving your digital transformation.

Alan Maddox

Chief Architect – Cloud & Datacenter, Office of the CTO

Alan comes to us with 34 years of experience in the Information Systems/Datacenter and Managed Services spaces. He has held senior positions in the Manufacturing, Financial, Healthcare, and Non-profit verticals. In these roles with the American Cancer Society, Lowen Corporation, Gregory Graphics, as well as Network Management Group, Alan has developed expertise in many Service Delivery areas critical to the success of our Cloud & Datacenter growth mission at Zones.

Alan has been a Senior Systems Engineer at Zones since May of 2018 and has specialized in the Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and Datacenter spaces. Prior to joining Zones, Alan was a Senior Systems Engineer/Integrator for Network Management Group, Inc. In this role, he was responsible for many facets of pre-sales, physical delivery, and Managed Services for predominantly CPA firms and banks. For almost four years, Alan was also an integral force in driving pre-sales growth initiatives and supporting an internal Managed Services team with 24/7 clients. The company saw a close rate of nearly 70% of deals, where they were averaging 20-25% close rate prior.

Alan, his wife, and adult daughter live a beach life, only minutes from the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida. He has five daughters, a son, and two grandsons. He is eager to share his knowledge, real-world experiences, and technical expertise to help Zones create partnerships with our clients and to create managed services engagements!

Jeremy Merrill

VxRail Engineering Technologist, Dell 

Jeremy has over 20 years of experience working at Dell EMC and NetApp. For the past five  years, he’s been a part of the Global Outreach Engineering Specialist team within the CI/HCI Business Unit at Dell EMC. Prior to joining the CI/HCI business unit, he held roles at EMC in DPS business unit, as well as a Mid-Tier SE (supporting Isilon and VNX). In addition, he was part of the Data Protection Technical Marketing team at NetApp, focusing on replication technologies.  

Preparing Your Data Management for the Future

As companies plan their digital transformation journeys to stay ahead of the evolving new norm, the exponential growth of data puts increasing pressure on IT teams to keep up. This means companies must be able to not only keep pace with a large volume of data, but more importantly safeguard that data against corruption, unauthorized access, and loss. Now, more than ever, companies need centralized and consolidated data that can move seamlessly between on-prem and cloud environments. Learn more about how Zones and Veritas can guide your data management strategy into the future.

Anjali Fields

Lead Solutions Architect, Data Center & Cloud, Zones

Tom Simerson

Data Protection Specialiist, Veritas

Tom has been with Veritas for almost 5 years as a pre-sales engineer and data protection specialist. His career has been focused on UNIX and backup administration. Prior to joining Veritas, Tom worked at a regional reseller for 6 years as an implementation engineer for various backup products. He first started working with NetBackup 19 years ago when he worked for a retail company and implemented NetBackup 3.4

Empowering your Workforce with WVD using NetApp Virtual Desktop Services

As your organization moves toward a future in which more employees are working remotely than ever before, it's important to have a data center that's well equipped to handle this new way of doing business. This breakout will examine the best practices in the industry today for streamlining your data center to increase efficiency without incurring rising costs or security vulnerabilities. An optimized data center is the first step toward an effective digital transformation, and applying the strategies learned here will put you on the fast track to success.

John Meeks

Solutions Architect I, Zones

John Meeks is a Solution Architect at Zones. In this role, he uses his 15+ years of IT experience to develop best-fit solutions for our clients, with a focus on M365 and Azure. Before joining the team at Zones, John worked several technology companies where he was able to utilize his M365 experience. He has earned recognition by Microsoft through the following certifications:

Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert
Microsoft 365 Certified: Security CIE Facilitator
Microsoft Certified Solution Expert: Productivity
Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate: O365

He’s had the pleasure of sharing success with major clients throughout his career, including The Results Companies,  EZCorp, Hydradyne and many more. Even before John decided to pursue an IT career, he knew his dream job was in the M365 Collaboration space. Now that John is doing just that at Zones, he looks forward to applying his expertise to your workplace challenges.

Frank Pulliam

Senior Solutions Engineer, NetApp Modern Workplace

Frank Pulliam is the Senior Solutions Engineer supporting NetApp Cloud customers focused on Windows Virtual Desktop and other VDI solutions, as well as related technologies including cloud storage, data security, and compute optimization. Frank joined NetApp with their acquisition of CloudJumper, where he was a Senior Presales Engineer and Channel Manager.

Pulliam’s career with NetApp and CloudJumper follows a successful 15-year history in managed services, most recently as Partner and Vice President for ComSys, a successful managed technology services provider of Managed IT and VoIP services. While there, Pulliam managed IT operations and VoIP managed services for the company, leading several teams and providing sales and account management oversight of new and existing clients. A key area of focus was leading projects to replace traditional on-premise systems with various cloud and hosted solutions, including Cloud Workspace® services powered by CloudJumper. Prior to ComSys, Pulliam was the Owner and Lead Engineer of Florida-based MSP Vantage Networks for nearly 10 years.

Simplifying Modern Device Management with Apple

With a growing number of employees in the modern enterprise working remotely, it’s becoming more challenging to deploy new devices for your users as well as manage existing ones. From deployment to configuration to handling policies and updates, IT administrators face a tall order given the significant amount of work they’re forced to tackle remotely. With Apple, though, everything becomes a little simpler. In this breakout, you’ll learn how deploying Apple devices for your remote workers doesn’t need to be challenging or costly.

Dustin Dembrosky

Chief Architect - Mobility, Office of the CTO, Zones

Dustin has been with Zones for over 10 years. As a Chief Architect, he is responsible for leading Zones' Mobility strategy in an ever-changing technology centric workplace. Dustin has been integral in architecting the biggest Apple enterprise deployments at Zones and is key to providing the right leadership to ensure success.

A Secure, Productive Apple User Experience 

As the demand for Apple devices in the enterprise continues to grow, so does the need for IT administrators who understand the tools and technologies needed to keep them secure. With employees today working from anywhere, the risk of attack is an ever-growing threat. Often, administrators employ overly aggressive security tactics that greatly diminish the end user’s ability to be productive. This breakout will show you how to secure your Apple devices while still delivering the best possible user experience for your remote workers.

Chad Fleming 

Solutions Architect II, Zones

Chad Fleming is a Solution Architect at Zones. In this role, he uses his 15+ years of IT experience to develop best-fit solutions for our clients, with a focus on mobility and workplace modernization. Before joining the team at Zones, Fleming received a BS in electronic engineering from ITT Technical Institute and worked for several manufacturers and systems integration companies. He’s a certified technician with Microsoft Intune, SOTI MobiControl, Zebra Technologies, Printronix Automation ID, Ivanti Supply Chain, Veeam, Datalogic Sensor and Automation, Honeywell AIDC Solutions, and Unified Endpoint Management. He’s had the pleasure of sharing success with major clients throughout his career, including J. C. Penney, Tyson, Target, Walmart, Exxon, EZCorp, and many more.

Even before Fleming decided to pursue an IT career, he knew his dream job was in the modernization and optimization of workplace environments. Now that Fleming is doing just that at Zones, he looks forward to applying his expertise to your workplace challenges.

Garrett Denney

Senior Manager, Product Marketing Research & Operations, Jamf

Garrett Denney is a Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Jamf. He is an experienced product marketing manager with more than a decade of experience in the B2B SaaS technology industry. Outside of work, he has held leadership roles on several nonprofit boards. Garrett earned his BA at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of St. Thomas - Opus College of Business.

Zones Keynote: Can You Build A Secure Foundation On A Cloud? 

As you move the corporate crown jewels from the bunker to the cloud, the basics of security best practices are more important than ever.  Given the rise of remote work in 2020, and the fact that today's users are employing so many devices, it's important to have a game plan for identity protection, mobile device management (MDM) as well as data loss prevention. Finally, compliance should be top of mind for every organization.  This keynote address will explore essential strategies for storage and data protection in leading cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure.

Chris Ward

Chief Information Security Officer, Zones

Christopher Ward is Zones’ new Chief Information Security Officer. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Certified Chief Information Security Officer (C|CISO) combining a master’s degree in cryptography with decades of experience with leading-edge information security systems as well as secure IT infrastructure design, analysis and implementation.

He started his security career as a teenager doing Top Secret development for the Department of Defense and has directed security efforts at a number of three letter agencies as well as Fortune 500 companies like Texas Instruments, MGM Mirage, Bank of America, BG Group and HP. Chris is the founder and past president of the Houston Chapter of the (ISC)2 security professionals group, a member of the FBI InfraGard since the late 90's, and now sits on the Houston FBI InfraGard Board of Directors. Chris was the recipient of the regional InfraGard Meet the Challenge Award in 2018.

Martin Palmer

Director, Center of Excellence for Cloud and Security, Zones

From a technology perspective, Martin has nearly 20 years of applied architectural, consultative and development experience in the Microsoft M365, Azure, SharePoint on-premises/online spaces. In these roles, his only goal is to ensure that his customers business needs and outcomes are met by creating the most business impactful and cost-effective solutions possible.

As the Director of a fantastic team of Cloud and Security Engineers, Cloud Project managers as well as a fantastic Cloud Solution Provider team. His teams strive to never be “one and done”, rather they continually strive to become their Clients' “trusted advisor” in both Cloud and Security across multiple platforms.

Unlocking the True Value of IT as a Service

HPE GreenLake is an IT as a Service solution that offers a scalable and consumption-based infrastructure model. Greenlake delivers on-demand capacity, HPE Proactive Care, enterprise support, capacity monitoring, and system management. Combining the agility and economics of the cloud model with the security and performance of on-premises IT, HPE GreenLake's capacity model allows customers to grow and shrink resources on demand. Additionally, HPE GreenLake's unique metering allows customers to keep costs under control while protecting their business with remote monitoring and support. In this breakout, HPE will show the value of having a flexible pay-per-use financial model that frees up capital and accelerates business.

Thomas Currey

Solutions Architect, Zones

In the Information Technology world, my specialty is observing process, people, systems and applications. Design better options to improve company productivity, and make people's work life easier. Technology professional with an 30 years in-depth technology background in tailoring solutions to enterprise clients.

Personally, oversees customer focused custom operational and technology solutions. Possess extensive training, knowledge, and certifications in multiple areas including virtualization, storage, backup, and infrastructure. Mentors Systems Engineers/Architects and Sales Executives to integrate technology or alternative operational methods to improve line of business requirements.

Dominc Santo

Southeast Technical Architect, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

As a lead Technical Architect at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dominic helps organizations in architecting Infrastructure Technology Solutions to achieve business outcomes. With over 20 years IT experience, he has won numerous Customer Experience Awards as well as Tech Support and Product Marketing Employee of the Quarter awards. Dominic currently holds both HPE Server and Storage MASE Certifications as well as many industry and HPE technical certifications.

Enable Teamwork from Anywhere

Zones Collaboration services are designed to enhance the digital collaboration capabilities of all businesses. We offer centralized support for the ongoing operation of your collaboration environment, including 24/7 service desk and expert technical resources to troubleshoot and resolve issues and ensure reliable system operation. Learn more about advancing into the future with unified collaboration systems that will help build a culture of cooperation that empowers your employees.

Whitney Church

Solutions Architect II, Zones

Whitney has over 15 years of experience working on planning, developing, migrating, supporting and governing enterprise collaboration solutions for organizations of all sizes and verticals. With a deep background in SharePoint, business process automation and operational governance, she has lead multiple large-scale initiatives on on-premises environments, enterprise cloud environments and the Microsoft Government Community Cloud (GCC). In her role at Zones, Whitney engages and coordinates directly with organizations who are looking to implement, optimize, or improve their ROI for their Microsoft Cloud technology stack.

Digital Transformation in the Cloud

Today many organizations often only focus on technology in their digital transformations. At Zones, we have taken a holistic approach that also includes organizational realignment and process re-engineering to transform our entire business operating model. In this breakout we explore the impact our digital transformation has had on the customer experience and employee effectiveness. We will share our strategy, journey, lessons learned, and then demo one of our projects, myZones, a centralized digital platform for customers’ relationship with Zones.

Steve Maskell

VP of Customer Experience, Zones

Steven Maskell is Zones' Vice President of Customer Experience. Steven has spent over 20 years in the Customer Experience arena and has researched, designed and implemented Customer Experience strategies for a significant number of Fortune 500 companies. These include refining the sales processes for B2C companies, improving the experience delivered by professional services organizations and benchmarking competitive markets as brands reinvigorate themselves.

Most recently Steven worked in the Ad Tech space for a PaaS provider, developing customer engagement best practices as well as building out the self-help portal used by new and existing customers. He has also served as an advisor to Nascent Technology companies including voice-based conversational AI agents as well as programmable robots.

Steven is responsible for delivering the new customer portal, myZones, and our enterprise data platform. In addition, he evaluates opportunities where we can develop solutions and refine processes to further improve our customer experience.

Simplify your Security with SecureX, Duo and Umbrella

Keeping your organization secure has never been more challenging. The number of threats on the horizon is growing at an exponential rate, as is the number of endpoints in your IT environment. Today's employees are using a combination of on-prem and cloud data, working in settings both in-office and remote, and using a motley mix of devices including desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones and more. You've got to protect them all. And with Cisco's security products in your toolbox, you can. Cisco SecureX, for instance, is a built-in, cloud-native platform that helps protect your entire infrastructure. In this breakout, you'll learn how Cisco security tools – including not only SecureX but Duo and Umbrella as well – can help you increase efficiency, visibility, and above all, simplicity with your security framework.

Stanley Leszczynski

Chief Architect - Networking, Office of the CTO, Zones

Stan Leszczynski is an information technology professional with extensive experience in diverse fields dating back to 1997. His work has centered on routing, switching, load balancing, and security. Stan has played a key role in directing major buildouts and upgrades for the NYISO, Onondaga County, New York Department of Tax and Finance, Office of Mental Health, Global Foundries, Key bank, Warner Media (Time Warner), Starbucks, Nike, and many others. A hardworking and dedicated team-player who designs, deploys, and troubleshoots complex network and security systems.

Dominic Middleton

US National Cybersecurity Partner Specialist, Cisco

Dom has been with Cisco's Global Security Sales Organization for almost 4 years. He has been in both technical and sales roles, including on-site partner business development and Security Operations, with a background in National Security. Dom is passionate about helping Cisco partners and customers understand the threat landscape, and how to strengthen their security posture against the latest cyber-attacks.

Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure: The New HCI

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is one of the fastest-growing data center technologies in the world today. Zones can help companies utilize their commodity or legacy hardware to build a software-centric architecture that tightly integrates compute, storage, and networking using hypervisor technology to virtualize their computing environment. As this breakout will demonstrate, software-designed storage and virtualized networking can help simplify your company's infrastructure, increase agility and scalability, improve application performance, and reduce IT spend.

Robert Laureano

Solutions Architect – Data Center, Zones

Robert Laureano has been in the IT industry for the past 25 years working for major companies like DirecTV, Toyota USA, Ameriquest Mortgage and Shopzilla.com. Robert currently works as a Zones Data Center Solutions Architect for the Southwest enterprise sales team. He is a subject matter expert in virtualization, enterprise storage, converged systems, and backup and disaster recovery.

His main goal is to solve customer business needs using modern architecture and digital transformational technologies. In addition, to help companies reduce infrastructure costs, increase operational efficiencies, and improve overall business continuity. He does this by collaborating closely with customers, OEMs, vendor partners, and internal teams to develop and deliver highly optimized and cost-effective solutions.

Alex Alvord

Senior Systems Engineer, Nutanix

Alex Alvord is a Senior Systems Engineer at Nutanix working with PNW clients in the commercial, healthcare, and financial verticals. Alex has over 20 years of experience and expertise in disruptive technologies including compute, network, optimization, automation, and orchestration, cloud enablement and invisible infrastructure. He helps clients adopt disruptive technologies to bridge information and bring transparency to data in a more meaningful and intellectual way.

Alex has a BBA from Pacific Lutheran University with a concentration in IT Management and holds several licenses and certifications in technical expertise. Early on in his career, Alex was a Solutions Architect here at Zones and we're happy to have him with us as a featured guest speaker for Zones Technology Forum.

Learn Windows Device Management Inside and Out

For millions of Americans, moving to a more remote lifestyle in 2020 has meant leaning more heavily on their mobile devices - and often, that means Windows devices in particular. Devices running Windows 10 - including desktops, laptops, Surface devices and more - have become ubiquitous among remote workers, and it's crucial that corporate IT offices have policies in place to manage both new and previously existing devices. This includes deploying them to end users, configuring them, coordinating updates, and more. This breakout will go into all the relevant best practices for managing Windows devices optimally.

Bradley Kerstetter

Solutions Architect III, Zones

Bradley Kerstetter brings a decade of experience in EUC technology including traditional PC computing, tablets, and smartphones. As a technology expert, his objective and passion are to help companies achieve their End User Computing goals. Brad’s experience encompasses consulting on the entire device lifecycle - choosing the right devices, software, and management solutions are paramount to the end user experience.

His experience includes working with and managing devices and software from OEMs including Apple, Citrix, Dell, Google, HP, IBM, JAMF, Lenovo, Microsoft, MobileIron, Samsung, and VMware. Brad has progressed through various Project Management, Customer Management, Consulting, and Professional Services Management roles throughout his career.