Gartner analysts head to Australia for Security Summit

Gartner security analysts from around the world are arriving in Australia in preparation for next month’s Gartner Security Summit in Sydney.

In the lead up the annual two-day Summit, the analysts will visit major Australian cities to meet end-users and draw attention to burning issues.

According to Gartner’s local security analyst Andrew Walls, workshops will be held around Australia and in Singapore.

“Our analysts are coming in a little head of time. It's part of the standard approach we take, getting people out and speaking to clients,” said Walls.

At present, VP Distinguished Analyst, Kathy Harris who specialises in application strategy and management, is in the country. Also currently visiting is Partha Iyengar VP Distinguished Analyst.

Iyengar, leads the India research team and covers the areas of application development and offshore application outsourcing.

The Gartner Security Summit, now in its fourth year, is an opportunity for security professionals to come face-to-face with the analyst firm’s best of breed security experts in the one venue.

Speakers at the event include, Tom Scholtz, a UK based research VP at Gartner and an acknowledged authority on information security policy design, security organisational dynamics, and security management processes.

As well as, Eric Ouellet – Canadian based research VP responsible for research activities and content delivery relating to encryption, biometrics and risk management.

This year, the two-day event is broken up into three tracks: Security, Compliance and Risk; Secure Business Enablement; Infrastructure Protection.

Each track draws a different sort of group, but the timetable is structured to encourage new delegates to mix and merge and spend time across all.

“If it’s the first time someone comes to the Summit we provide them with a recommended set of talks to go to.

“We’ll give them a broad overview that doesn’t stick them in a single track so they move across all the tracks and get a good appraisal of the entire field, said Walls.

However, other more experienced security professionals such as a Risk Manager should stick to that particular track.

Attendees can attend special roundtables and set up one-on-one talks with analysts via the Gartner website.

The Gartner Security Summit will be held at the Sydney Exhibition Centre on 23-24 September 2008.