SANS is the most trusted and by far the largest source for information security training and certification in the world. It also develops, maintains, and makes available at no cost, the largest collection of research documents about various aspects of information security. SANS also operates the Internet's early warning system - Internet Storm Center. SANS (which stands for SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Its programs now reach more than 350,000 security professionals, auditors, system administrators, network administrators, chief information security officers, and CIOs who share the lessons they are learning and jointly find solutions to the challenges they face. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners in government agencies, corporations, and universities around the world who invest hundreds of hours each year in research and teaching to help the entire information security community.

Students at SANS attend intense (often hands-on) classes during the day taught by some of the best instructors in their respective fields. Students expect the same quality throughout all of our events. SANS presents an audience where over two thirds have personally arranged for a vendor product demo within the last six months. Our goal is to help you understand a SANS exposition, provide a profile of the audience, and help you to effectively target our attendees.

About SANS

• Leader in Information Security Training
• 52,000 alumni
• 12,085 certifications (GIAC)
• Instructors and students are the top guns in information security
• Information Warfare Officer - Ballistic Missile Defense Org
• Chief Info Security Mgr - Naval Surface Warfare Center
• Technical Director, JTF-CFO (now GNO)
• Director of Communications Infrastructure Protection, NSC
• System Manager, Business Networks Inc.
• System Administrator, University At Albany
• Information Security Analyst, IBM
• Strong policy and community focus
• Internet Storm Center
• Top 20 Internet Vulnerabilities
• Press/Media Voice
• Research and Analysts
• SCADA and Other Technical Summits
• Free Resources: Reading Room, Newsletters
• Vendor neutral
• Deep rooted trust position

What to Expect from Participating in a SANS Expo

SANS holds intense multi-day 8-hour classes with special technical and hospitality events at night. Here is just a sampling of what our training and certification covers:

As a vendor neutral organization our SANS attendees seek out your products and tools in our vendor events. To maximize the student's time with the vendors we host an evening reception on the expo floor with food and drinks. The expo is also open for several hours during the lunch break - and is where the attendees get a free lunch. However, since students are in class during the day we close the expo floor twice so our vendors can effectively use their time elsewhere. Students have plenty of time, over a 2-day period, to see demonstrations of the very latest technology.

Types of Audience

• SANS attendees know they are going to attend an intense day's worth of class. Our attendees search out technical solutions to take back to the office and want to see live demos to continue the learning process. Consider the pre-qualifiers: attending a 6 day track at SANS costs an attendee's employer over $3,000 for tuition alone. Factor in the cost of time away from the office, travel and hotel and you have a sizeable investment in security education.
• SANS attendees are expected to have a certain amount of knowledge in IS before attending class. We recommend that our vendors send technical personnel since the majority of our attendees have already been in the industry for years.

How to Effectively Target our Attendees

The attendees don't want sleek brochures and fancy displays. They want to touch the product and see a demo of how to use it. The number one fear of attendees is realizing they don't have the knowledge to use your tools and products. This is why we are moving towards larger booths beginning in 2007.

Since SANS is vendor neutral our students are hungry to learn the details of potential products from the material they have learned throughout the day. SANS prides itself in teaching the practical knowledge (not theory). We hope that this outline will help you to more effectively reach out to our students.

We assure you that the exposure from the SANS vendor exposition will be well worth the investment. Please let us know if we can be of any assistance or you have any suggestions of how to improve the quality of SANS Vendor Programs.