RSA 2011, What's in Store?

Tray tables are up and locked, devices are (almost) turned off, and we're about to be wheels-up for the trip to SFO for this year's RSA conference at the Moscone Cetner. 

RSA is invaluable for IANS as it lets us do a number of things:

• Validate the trends that we've been tracking in our research, as well as identify new ones that we've begun to see emerge on the horizon.
• Get to know those new and unknown solutions that our end user clients look to us for, and figure out which ones are for real.
• Interface with our clients and our Faculty; both groups that span the miles and we rarely get a chance to see all in one place. This is perhaps the most gratifying of the three. 

What do we expect this year? Plenty more cloud hype, but hopefully it will be outshone by discussions of its serious uses and thoughtful, secure implementations inside organizations. We also hope to see users grasping a firmer definition of what the topic actually means. 

We expect we'll hear more on the results of mergers that abounded both large/major and smaller, less headline grabbing, but no less formative. It'll be interesting to see who is ready and willing to talk about how their pick-ups over the course of 2010 will play into and form strategies. 

Advanced threats (and an endless parade of "solutions" to "combat" them) are sure to be hot topics, too. Here's hoping we see some things that are new and innovative to manage these and not so much snake oil for a problem that's been around for some time. 

Looking forward to interacting with all of you that are attending. I'll be posting tweets via our @IANS_Security handle during my time there. Stay tuned here for our post-RSA thoughts from our CEO.