Going to data center events are difficult to figure out for a newbie. There is so much specialized knowledge and there are many sub groups that exist within the ecosystem. I met a company with lots of mechanical engineering expertise in cooling systems, but they are newbies to the data center industry. The following are events that I suggest they look at attending.
7x24 Exchange Conferences are a nice mix of data center mechanical types, interesting presentations, and plenty of time to socialize. http://www.7x24exchange.org/conferences.html
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Data Center Dynamics are good for one day events that reach out to the locals from an area. Here are the USA events. http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/conference
North America
Atlanta23 Feb 201215 Feb 2013
New York13 Mar 201212 Mar 2013
Montréal16 Apr 201219 Mar 2013
Washington DC12 Sep 20122 May 2013
San Francisco17 Jul 201212 Jul 2013
Seattle9 May 201212 Sep 2013
Chicago16 Oct 20121 Oct 2013
Phoenix24 Apr 201229 Oct 2013
Toronto27 Nov 2012November
Dallas11 Dec 2012December
Data Center World can be useful to understand the vendor ecosystem. http://www.datacenterworld.com/spring2013/
Uptime Institute Institute is another event, but if you go to 7x24 Exchange and DCD regional events, there is not really a pressing need to go to Uptime Symposium. I plan on skipping Uptime again. http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com
Gartner Data Center Conference is oriented towards the users who subscribe to Gartner reports which in general is not a Mechanical systems crowd and is more oriented to the IT decision maker who runs data centers. http://www.gartner.com/technology/summits/apac/data-center/ I went to Gartner for a couple of years, but no longer go as few of my friends are subscribers of Gartner reports. Well, actually I can't think of any of the thought leaders I know who aren't vendors who go to Gartner.
Another conference which I have never attended is the Green Data Center Conference. http://www.greendatacenterconference.com I haven't heard from any friends with glowing reviews to get me to go, so I skip this one as well.
For thought leadership and more entrepreneurial companies i go to GigaOm Events. http://event.gigaom.com which are convenient given I do some work for GigaOm Pro. There are some data center vendors who are sponsors Dell, Terremark, Rackspace, Softlayer, Amazon Web Services, Dupont Fabros, Equinix