October 16, 2025
8 AM - 5 PM
The Baird Center - 405 W. Kilbourn Ave. , Milwaukee WI
Sessions spanning a variety of technology topics, including data analytics, cloud migration, zero trust, identity and access management, workload migration, and much more! See full event agenda below.
Event welcome and introduction to the days schedule.
As organizations face the growing threat of ransomware and data exfiltration, many are reevaluating their preparedness for a large-scale data loss event. The problem is that legacy backup systems, which were designed to protect against hardware failure or natural disasters, are now being targeted by cybercriminals as their first point of attack. In this session, we will discuss why traditional backup systems and cyber recovery solutions are fundamentally different capabilities. We will also explore the steps that organizations can take to prepare for and recover from a cyber-attack, including implementing a modern cyber recovery tool like Rubrik.
A.I. hype is fading fast - customers only invest when it gives them what they really want: time, money, and assurance. Let's look together at how secure, self-driving, ai-native networks are delivering these things today and how you can get your customers lining up for more!
AI is transforming cybersecurity - but it's also creating new attack surfaces. In this session, see how Palo Alto Networks uncovers real-world AI threat and delivers simple, scalable ways to stay ahead of adversaries.
Having immutable backups is only the first step in recovering from a ransomware event: you still need somewhere to restore those backups to. For a variety of reasons, restoring onto your normal production hardware may not be a possibility. Join us for a joint presentation from AE's Infrastructure and Security practices on designing and building isolated recovery environments that address this need.
This session is for engineers already familiar with traditional networking who want to dive into the world and nuances of cloud networking. We will cover cloud networking from the bottom up including some of the underlying architecture that drives the differences between Cloud and on-prem networking.
Presented By: John Moser - AE Business Solutions, Alex Holt - AE Business Solutions
Join AE's Security and AI teams to learn about getting started with governance and visibility strategies for workforce and developer AI use cases.
AI is moving from experimentation to execution. Join this keynote to learn how to architect an intelligent enterprise that achieves durable, measurable impact. The next edge will come from leaders who connect the enterprise with agents that act as teammates, an open platform strategy to avoid fragmentation, and a system of context that makes institutional knowledge usable in the flow of work. We'll codify the playbook: when to standardize vs. specialize, how to design for interoperability and model choice, and the guardrails that make autonomy safe.
Cloud spend continues to rise, yet most organizations struggle to capture the savings available through traditional, manual FinOps practices. ProsperOps has managed to find their clients $3 Billion in net-new public cloud savings through FinOps automation. This session will explore how ProsperOps delivers effortless, automated rate optimization that maximizes savings across AWS, GCP, and Azure. Drawing on data from the State of FinOps report and real-world customer examples, we'll show how automation reduces risk, improves cloud costs, and enables teams to achieve lasting financial outcomes without additional overhead.
In today's landscape, cyberattacks are no longer a matter of if but when. True leadership means preparing the business to withstand disruption and recover without compromise. This session highlights how organizations can build cyber resilience strategies - grounded in immutability, isolation, and automation - that protect revenue, safeguard reputation, and ensure continuity even in the face of ransomware.
Enterprises continue to invest in tools, but attackers adapt faster, using automation and identity abuse to slip past defenses. This session looks at the SOC from the attacker’s viewpoint, highlighting where blind spots remain and how telemetry pipelines, AI-driven detection, and stronger identity controls can close the gap. Attendees will walk away with a clear sense of what attackers exploit today and what a modern SOC must prioritize to stay ahead.
Operational efficiency often relies on repetitive scripts that manage infrastructure, monitor systems, and resolve common issues. In this session, we explore how Agentic AI can transform the way organizations create, maintain, and execute operational scripts. Attendees will learn how AI-driven agents can autonomously generate and optimize scripts across IT operations by reducing manual effort, minimizing human error, and acceleration time-to-resolution.
Are you a Security Engineer or Analyst who wants to do more with the security data your organization has? Join Phil Henrickson, AE's Senior Data Scientist, for an introduction to data science with a security focus.
Cloud transformation isn't just an IT project - it's the cornerstone of enterprise digital transformation, driving innovation, agility, and data-driven decisions. In this session, Zhen Li, Product Owner for Cloud Services at Alliant Energy, shares real-world lessons from leading a full-scale hybrid-cloud migration to Azure in his previous organization. Using Microsoft's Cloud Adoption Framework and Well-Architected Framework as guiding principles, Zhen emphasizes the critical roles of strong leadership, trusted partnerships such as Microsoft Unified Support, uncompromising talent development, and relentless automation. Attendees will gain practical insights to map, measure, and modernize their own cloud journey while building sustainable, future-ready platforms.
In this session, we will talk about how Application Control is finally ready for widescale adoption. We’ll explore why system hardening is essential, how to enhance EDR detection fidelity, and why a deny-by-default model is the best way to eliminate Shadow IT while putting security control back into the hands of your IT & Security team.
The Importance of OS Hardening
Improving Threat Detection Beyond EDR
Eliminating Shadow IT with a Deny-by-Default Model
Explore how to seamlessly migrate from VMware/Broadcom toa modern, more flexible infrastructure with Nutanix. Learn how Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) can enable your transition from virtual machines to containers on a modern, hybrid platform that is perfect for AI workloads. This session will provide practical insight to help you build a resilient, future ready IT environment.
Digital twins aim to streamline network testing by creating perfect virtual replicas of your production network, but how well do they actually work? We'll explore the current state of digital twin platforms and see how they compare
The role of the IT professional is undergoing rapid evolution. From the early days of mainframes and sysadmins keeping the lights on, to today's cloud-native, security-first, and AI-driven environments, survival in IT has always been about adaptation. In this session we'll explore the "evolutionary tree" of IT careers, examine how natural and artifical selection apply to technical skills, and predict how artificial intelligence will accelerate change in the industry. Most importantly, we'll discuss practical strategies IT professionals can use to not only avoid extinction, but thrive in the competitive landscape of tomorrow.
This talk will cover Cloud architecture from the ground up. Learn what Landing Zones are and how they are implemented in practice.
This presentation outlines a strategy for network automation by leveraging Nautobot as the authoritative Single Source of Truth and using n8n for intelligent, AI-enhanced workflow orchestration. It details how these components work together to provide centralized visibility, increase operational efficiency, and enable advanced, automated network management capabilities.
Rapid development of AI capabilities position Epic as a place for medical intelligence about care. In addition, with growth outside of the traditional hospital space, Epic is working with payers, labs, specialty diagnostics and more. These changes mean Epic is no longer just an EHR use by hospitals and clinics, but is rapidly becoming America's Electronic Healthcare Engine.