A webcast, co-sponsored by XO Communications and 451 Research, will provide a roadmap and best practices for integrating private data networking technologies with cloud computing resources. Plus, submit your own questions when you register and we will address the top ten questions during the event.

Register now for this free webcast to learn how to maximize the benefits of cloud computing for your enterprise and for your bottom line.

Date: Tuesday, May 14, 2013  |  Time: 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET  |  Duration: 60 minutes

———————-

Presenters:

Eric Hanselman – Chief Analyst, 451 Research

Tom Schlatter – Executive Director of Network Engineering, XO Communications

Moderator:

Steve Wylie – General Manager, Cloud Connect

Please find information below to guide you through the submission process. Deadline is April 29, 2013

Cloud Connect Chicago Call for Submissions Guidelines

When suggesting a topic, please make sure:

• Your content is interesting, nonpartisan and product agnostic. Cloud Connect Chicago conference sessions are meant to educate attendees on cloud computing innovation, challenges and trends only, and we do not accept product related submissions. If you would like to publicize a product, please contact our sales team for information on exhibiting and other vendor opportunities, including sponsored sessions.
• Contact info for the original author of the submission is included. We require direct contact with presenters to expedite questions during the submission review process and will not consider submissions where we are unable to do this.

Criteria

What our track chairs are looking for when they review the submissions:

• Is the presenter someone who can credibly address the subject in-depth?
• Will attendees receive information by attending the session that would be unique, fresh, germane to their interests and challenges, and could not be located easily in some other fashion.
• Does it sound like it is actually a useful vision or best practices versus a vendor pitch?
• High-level intros that address key pain points.
• Panel discussions with end-users.
• Real-world case studies.
• Actionable sessions that dive into a specific and common pain point.
• Relevancy. Does the talk answer a question the market is struggling with?
• Controversy. Is the answer interesting or counterintuitive or does it just address conventional wisdom?
• Real world. Does the talk show that people are really doing this, or is it just in-theory?

Speaker Expectations

If your proposal is selected, we expect you to:

• Commit to presenting at Cloud Connect Chicago– no last minute switch outs. This is an opportunity for the individual, not for the company.
• Share your presence at the event with your social networks. If you blog about speaking, let us know and we will tweet about it from the Cloud Connect Chicago account.
• Meet the deadlines outlined in the online speaker center for hotel booking, slides, abstracts, etc.

Presentation Formats

Single & 2+ Speaker Presentation:
Issue-oriented, provides concrete examples, and contains both practical and theoretical information. Postmortems and case studies are included in this category. In multiple speaker presentations each speaker should present with unique points of view.

Panel:
Panels take many different viewpoints on a topic or issue and combine them in one debate session with a moderator. Debate among panelists (with very different opinions) is welcome and audience participation time should be accounted for.

SUBMIT HERE

We’ve had time to collect all of the evaluation data and now have a conclusive top 10 ranked speakers from Cloud Connect Silicon Valley 2013.

We had loads of great content this year and want to say thanks again to all you who presented and contributed to a great event.

Join us in congratulating these speakers by giving them a tweet—don’t forget to include #ccevent!

1. Jeremy Edberg, Reliability Architect, Netflix

Congratulate Jeremy @jedberg

2.  Adrian Cockcroft, Director, Architecture, Netflix

Congratulate Adrian @adrianco

3. Jinesh Varia, Amazon Web Services

Congratulate Jinesh @jinma

4. Barb Goldworm, President and Chief Analyst, FOCUS

Congratulate Barb @barbgoldworm

5. Thomas Barton, Global Enterprise Architect, Novartis Pharmaceuticals

Congratulate Thomas @tsbarton

6. Toby Owen, Product Leader, Rackspace

Congratulate Toby @TobyDOwen

7. William Forrest, Principal, McKinsey and Company

Congratulate William @ayewill

8. Alistair Croll, Founder, CloudOps Research

Congratulate Alistair @acroll

9. Bernard Golden, VP, Enterprise Solutions, Enstratius

Congratulate Bernard @bernardgolden

10. Neal Sample, SVP, Technology, American Express

Congratulate Neal @nsample

If you’re interested in speaking at our Chicago event held from October 21-24 at McCormick Place we’re still accepting submissions through April 29.

Submit today!

We’ve organized a VIP tour of the new San Francisco 49ers football stadium that is being constructed next to the Santa Clara Convention Center on April 3rd at 3:30 PM. Invite a colleague to Cloud Connect and you’ll both be entered to win spots on the tour!

Here are four easy steps on how to enter:

Step 1: Send this blog post to your friends to get them excited.

Step 2: Highly encourage them to register for any Cloud Connect pass with priority code “49ers” by April 1, 2013

Step 3: Start tossing the football around and pretend you are Colin Kaepernick.

Step 4: Attend Cloud Connect next week, learn about cloud computing and wait to be notified if you won.

Good luck

49ERS SWEEPSTAKESOFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE OR PARTICIPATION OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.
A PURCHASE OR PARTICIPATION WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.
GENERAL CONDITIONS:
The 49ERS SWEEPSTAKES(the “Sweepstakes”) is sponsored by UBM TECH, a division of United Business Media LLC, 600 Community Drive, Manhasset, NY 11030 (“UBM” or “Sponsor“). The Sweepstakes is governed by these Official Rules, as well as by the laws of the State of New York and applicable United States federal law, without regard to any conflicts of laws principles. The Sweepstakes is void where prohibited or restricted by law. By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant agrees to abide by the terms of these Official Rules and by the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding on all matters pertaining to the Sweepstakes. The Sweepstakes is being run in connection with Cloud Connect Silicon Valley (the “WEBSITE“/”EVENT“) and is therefore also governed by UBM’s Terms of Service and Privacy Statement, as well as other policies pertaining to the UBM Web Site. These Official Rules will govern any conflict between any of the Web Site policies and these Official Rules. The Web Site policies may be viewed on the Web Site.
HOW TO ENTER:
Sweepstakes begins March 29, 2013 and ends April 3, 2013. All attendees of Cloud Connect are eligible to enter by registering for a Free Expo Pass, Workshop, Conference, Expo Plus or All Access Pass with code “49ers”. Alternatively, persons can enter for free by sending their name, address, email address and telephone number to: Paul Suway, UBM Tech, 303 Second Street, Suite 900 South, San Francisco, CA 94107
NOTIFICATION:
Five (5) winners will be selected, in total, during the drawing from all eligible entries received up to and including the date of each drawing which are scheduled to occur on or about April 2, 2013. The potential winners will be notified by mail, email and/or telephone on or about April 2, 2013. The odds of winning are determined by the total number of eligible entries received.
Winners will be required to respond to the prize notification within the time specified in the notification and may be required to: (1) provide his or her full mailing address for the purpose of receiving the prize(s), which address must be within the 50 United States (excluding Puerto Rico) or Canada (excluding Quebec); (2) sign and return a release of liability, declaration of eligibility, and, where lawful, a publicity release, upon Sponsor’s request; (3) verify his or her social security number or other taxpayer identification number; and (4) take possession of the prize(s) in the manner specified by Sponsor. In addition, selected Canadian entrants must first correctly answer a time-limited mathematical skill testing question administered by telephone in order to claim a prize. If the above requirements are not met, the prize(s) may be awarded to a replacement winner or winners drawn at random from the pool of remaining eligible entries. The replacement winner(s) will need to satisfy all of the requirements of these Official Rules. This process will be repeated until the prize(s) are awarded in full.
PRIZE(S):
Five (5) Tickets to a tour of the 49ers Stadium

EACH PRIZE IS GIVEN AWAY BY SPONSOR “AS-IS”. SPONSOR DOES NOT MAKE, AND HEREBY DISCLAIM, ANY WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, REGARDING ANY PRIZE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

ELIGIBILITY:
This promotion is offered and open only to legal residents of the United States of America (excluding Puerto Rico), and Canada, who: are 18 years or older at the time of entry, have access to the Internet on or before April 3, 2013. Employees, officers and directors of Sponsor, and its parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising, public relations, and promotion agencies, Webmasters/suppliers and members of the immediate family (spouse, children, siblings, parents), and persons living in the same household (whether or not related) of any said employee, officer or director are ineligible to enter or win. By participating, entrants agree to these Official Rules and the decisions of the Sponsor which are final and binding in all respects. Void where prohibited.
Only one (1) entry via any means of entry per person, e-mail address, or household is permitted. Late, incomplete, computer-generated script, or other automated entries are not eligible and are void. In addition, entries that have been tampered with or altered are not eligible and are void. Entries made on the internet will be deemed made by the authorized account holder of the e-mail address submitted at the time of entry. In the event of a dispute, a potential winner may be required to provide proof that the potential winner is the authorized account holder of the e-mail address associated with the potentially winning entry. It is the sole responsibility of each entrant to notify Sponsor in the event of a change in e-mail address or other contact information. Sponsor is not responsible for network, modem, or other equipment failures or for incomplete, garbled, or delayed entries, however caused.
DISQUALIFICATION:
Sponsor reserves the right, in their sole discretion, to disqualify any entrant that Sponsor determines: (1) has tampered with the entry process or the operation of the Sweepstakes or the Web Site; (2) has acted in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner or with the intent to annoy or harass Sponsor or any other person or entity; (3) has not satisfied all of the requirements for entry in the Sweepstakes; or (4) to be otherwise ineligible under, or otherwise in violation of, these Official Rules. Any attempt by an entrant to commit any of the above acts of misconduct may be a violation of civil or criminal law and Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from such entrant to the fullest extent permitted by law.
LIABILITY/TERMS AND CONDITIONS:
By entering, each entrant releases and holds harmless Sponsor, any manufacturer or supplier of any prize, any other persons or entities involved in the Sweepstakes, each of its and their respective parents, subsidiaries, and affiliates, and each of its and their respective officers, directors, employees, and agents, from any responsibility or liability whatsoever arising out of or resulting from: (1) entry or participation in the Sweepstakes; (2) the acceptance, possession, or use of any prize; (3) any violation by such entrant of these Official Rules or applicable laws; (4) any incorrect or inaccurate entry of information including, but not limited to as a result of technical malfunctions, human error, lost/delayed data transmission, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, line failures of any telephone network, computer equipment, software or any combination thereof; (5) entry materials that have been tampered with, or entries that are illegible, late, lost, damaged, postage due or misdirected; (6) any injury or damage to participants or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participation or downloading any material in connection with the Sweepstakes; and (7) any conditions arising from events beyond Sponsor’s reasonable control.
WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, NEITHER SPONSOR NOR ANY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED PARTIES SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE SWEPSTAKES, HOWSOEVER CAUSED, WHETHER ARISING IN STATUTE, TORT, CONTRACT, OR OTHER LEGAL THEORY, AND REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SUCH PARTY WAS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, AND ALL SUCH DAMAGES ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED AND EXCLUDED.
PUBLICITY:
By entering, each entrant grants to Sponsor the right to use and publish such entrant’s name, state of residence, and any other information in any winning entry both online and in print, in connection with the Sweepstakes, without additional compensation, except to the extent prohibited by law. In addition, by entering, each entrant consents to the use of their names and likeness for advertising and/or promotional and/or marketing purposes without additional compensation. (A Tennessee resident consents to the use of his name and likeness only if such Tennessee resident expressly consents to such use.) Sponsor reserves the right to use any information provided by entrants in connection with the Sweepstakes in any manner permitted by these Official Rules or the Web Site policies.
TERMINATION:
Sponsor reserves the right, in their sole discretion, to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the Sweepstakes at any time for any reason, including but not limited to any reason that affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Sweepstakes. Such reasons included but are not limited to fraud, tampering, unauthorized access, infections by computer virus, bugs, technical failures, or any other causes beyond the control of Sponsor. Should the Sweepstakes ever be terminated prior to awarding of the prize(s), Sponsor will announce an alternate means of awarding the prize(s) on the Web Site.
NO ENDORSEMENT:
Nothing contained in these Official Rules or in any of the Sweepstakes materials should be construed as an endorsement by Sponsor of any prize manufacturers or suppliers or other third party, product, or service.
WINNERS LIST:
For the name of the prize winner(s), available after April 10, 2013, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to:
UBM Tech
303 Second Street, Suite 900 South
San Francisco, CA 94107
Attn: Paul Suway
Requests must be received by April 30, 2013. Questions regarding the Sweepstakes may be directed to Paul Suway at UBM at paul.suway@ubm.com.

• John Boyd – Boyd was an instructor at the USAF Fighter Weapons school. He had some of the best natural instincts of any fighter pilot anywhere, and found that he was extremely effective in the air. He spent the rest of his life trying to understand the general principles that underpinned that effectiveness, and in the process he developed revolutionary frameworks to reason about adversarial contests, whether war or business competition. I have covered some of Boyd’s thinking about business agility before at Leverhawk.
• Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek — Mises and Hayek were economists from the Austrian school of economics. Hayek, Mises’s student, is probably most famous for his book, The Road to Serfdom (a must-read when you get the chance). Both worked on something called the “Economic Calculation Problem.” In brief, the Economic Calculation Problem is one of the fundamental reasons that socialism (and communism) fail — economies are too complex to plan centrally. I’ll be writing more about Mises and Hayek in future Leverhawk articles.
• William Stanley Jevons — Jevons was an economist working in Britain in the mid-1800s. He noticed an odd relationship between the efficiency of coal burning machines and the aggregate coal usage across the British Empire. As individual machines got more efficient, aggregate coal usage increased. This phenomenon has been named the Jevons Paradox. I wrote an article about the Jevons Paradox a while ago at GigaOm.

Here’s an overview of what we have planned this year and the excellent speakers we have lined up.  I hope to see you there!

Opportunities in the Mobile Cloud

• Presented by Avery Lyford, VP of Business Development, LEAP Commerce

What’s the Big Data Deal: Market Insights and Opportunities

• Presented by Seth Robinson, Director, Technology Analysis, CompTIA

How Software Defined Networks Change Everything

• Presented by Andre Kindness, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

How to Get Your Cloud Startup Funded

• Presented by Glenn Solomon, partner, GGV Capital

Understanding Enterprise Requirements for the Cloud – A CIO Interview

• Presented by John O’Farrell, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
• Presented by Mark Settle, CIO, BMC Software

Are you Being a Good Cloud Broker for your Business?

• Presented by Ray Richardson, Master Cloud Strategist, Hewlett-Packard
• Presented by Christian Teeft, Vice President Engineering, Latisys

Finding the Next Cloud Opportunity – VC Panel

• Moderator: Ben Kepes, Blogger, Diversity Limited
• Ryan Floyd, Founding General Partner, Storm Ventures
• John O’Farrell, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
• Salil Deshpande, Managing Director, Bain Capital Ventures
• Reuven Cohen, Techstars Mentor, Contributing Author at Forbes Magazine and SVP at Virtustream

Have Business Buyers Driven us to the Tipping Point for Cloud Adoption?

• Presented by Scott Bils, Partner, Everest Group

We look forward to seeing you at Cloud Connect next week.

Here is an inside peek at his sessions at Cloud Connect:

• An Opportunity for Continuous Security with Cloud Computing
  • It is clear that companies need to re-evaluate their security strategy with cyber attacks on the rise – even against large corporations with advanced IT security programs in place. Network perimeters are changing all the time with mobile devices and cloud services, and the problem grows more complex. The goal we all must strive for is to effectively protect information at the data level itself and streamline patching and mitigation processes. With cloud computing, we have an opportunity to automate key processes and provide continuous, better and invisible protection, while reducing the cost of securing such an infrastructure and applications as the costs can be distributed across thousands, even millions, of users. This session will discuss ways to proactively protect against cyberthreats leveraging a newer, more scalable security model that builds security into the fabric of cloud computing, while providing a continuous view of the security and compliance posture of current infrastructures and applications.

Register with priority code SMCCBlog and save up to $300* on your Cloud Connect All Access or Conference Pass.

*Discount calculated based on the on-site price and not combinable with other offers. Offer good on new registrations only. Prices after discount applied: All Access: $2,099.00 Conference: $1,699.00, Workshop: 799.00, Expo Plus: $150.00, Expo Only: Free

This isn’t a simple question to answer.

First of all, cloud computing is hidden behind a fog of abstraction. Whereas IT could once instrument every element of an application, today applications are like Descartes’ brain in a jar—never quite sure if they’re real, or virtual.

Second, on the surface many service providers’ goals aren’t aligned with those of their customers’. Service providers want to maximize revenues, and want the freedom to do with the underlying infrastructure what they will. That’s how they stay in business and make the most of what they have. Without that freedom, they lose economies of scale and skill. By contrast, customers want special treatment, and instrumentation all the way down the stack.

Third, people don’t really understand metrics well. Despite decades of criticism, we still use averages, even though they hide important fluctuations in service quality that can warn of bigger problems before they become disasters.

There’s a bigger problem here, however. For half a century, IT has been about protecting precious resources. The reason you put up with carrying a stack of punched cards to the basement of the computing building at 3AM was because the mainframe was scarce, and the humans abundant. No more: each of us has three screens, one of which is seldom more than a meter from our bodies at any time.

That means we’re less concerned about the consumption of resources and more concerned about the completion of tasks. We shouldn’t really care if the CPU is idle or maxed out, provided that the user accomplish what they set out to do. Proponents of Service Level Agreements have long known this, but cloud monitoring, hiding behind the fog of virtualization, drives it home hard.

Application Performance Management and Real User Monitoring have long been thought of as “advanced” forms of measurement*. These go beyond up/down metrics or numbers related to utilization, and instead look at the success of the application from the user’s point of view. They’ve often languished somewhere between web analytics (which show you what users did) and synthetic monitoring (which shows you whether the site is working.)

Today, however, the real question is: could they do it, well? There’s great evidence that slow applications undermine productivity, cost money, and cut into revenues. Slow clouds need fixing. To do this, I think we need to go beyond APM, and start with the business problem. Too often, IT professionals start at the bottom and work up. “Server 10 is down, which means the support site isn’t working, which means the phone queue is too long, which impacts our customer satisfaction rating.” They begin with the means, and work back to the end.

Instead, I think we need to step back and look at the business model. From that, we can derive the relevant metrics, and what’s considered an acceptable threshold. Then we can measure against those thresholds, and report on violations. That’s a much more palpable approach to measurement for executives. Starting at the model and working down says we say, “7% of visits need to result in an enrollment for us to meet our monthly target.” From that, we can measure the steps of an enrollment, and their performance against the past or response targets.

When we owned the infrastructure, this was considered progressive. But the fog of cloud monitoring means it’s often the only way we can measure. It lets us size cloud consumption, which in turn lets us define budgets—since with the right architecture, you can have any performance you can pay for. And it leads to good metrics, since it’s focused on rates and exceptions rather than averages.

We’ll be talking about how to measure cloud-based applications at this spring’s Cloud Connect event in Santa Clara. In fact, we have a whole track of content dedicated to it, including sessions on WAN, application delivery networks, load-balancing, and choosing the right metrics. Clouds are the IT of abundance, and they fundamentally change how we measure applications. Let’s figure out how.

Ashesh Badani @asheshbadani

General Manager, Cloud BU and OpenShift, Red

Ben Kepes @benkepes

Blogger, Diversity Limited

Andre Kindness @AndreKindness

Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

Lisa Larson @rackerLLarson

VP of Enterprise Cloud Solutions, Rackspace

Avery Lyford @averylyford

Managing Director, Propell Solutions

John O’Farrell @johnofa

General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

Neal Sample @nsample

Senior Vice President of Technology, American Express

Mark Settle @BMCSoftware

Chief Information Officer, BMC

Ann L. Winblad @Humwin

Co-Founder and Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

Check out the full speaker list for Cloud Connect here. Attendee favorites Barb Goldworm, Alistair Croll, and Jeremy Edberg will be returning and addressing new insights on the state of cloud computing, hybrid cloud environments and big data.

There is still time to reserve your Conference Pass to Cloud Connect Silicon Valley, taking place April 2-5 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Register with priority code SMCCBlog and save up to $300* on your Cloud Connect All Access or Conference Pass.

Our speakers look forward to seeing you in a few weeks!

*Discount calculated based on the on-site price and not combinable with other offers. Offer good on new registrations only. Prices after discount applied: All Access: $2,099.00 Conference: $1,699.00, Workshop: 799.00, Expo Plus: $150.00,
Expo Only: Free

Each year at Cloud Connect, we try to look ahead to what the next twelve months hold. To many of us, the future was really the removal of the word “cloud.” Just as “web applications” are now just “applications”, so technologies like “cloud storage” are just “storage.” Similarly, cloud computing will soon just be “computing.”

Does that mean the future of something like Cloud Connect is simply “connect”? Sort of. New technologies are seldom interesting in their own right. Rather, they’re interesting for what they make possible.

Y-Combinator founder Paul Graham describes a startup as an organization designed for rapid growth—and he means rapid. He wants to see a 5-10% increase in users or revenues every week for companies within his accelerator. While he says that startups aren’t necessarily technology, it’s very likely that they are. That’s because technology does two things:

• It disrupts a market. There’s not much new about Uber driving people around. We’ve had taxis for centuries. But the ubiquity of mobile applications with location awareness is new, and that’s disrupting a big market quickly. So technology can trigger a rapid change in an existing market. Growth.
• It makes a new market. The online search industry didn’t exist twenty years ago. Today, it’s worth billions. Technology creates entirely new businesses even as it leaves old ones crumbling. 3D printing might usher in an era of manufacturing at the edge, even as it destroys traditional just-in-time logistics.

And this is why clouds are interesting. Not in their own right—they’re rapidly becoming another tool in the IT toolbox, albeit an extremely flexible one. Clouds are interesting because they make computing frictionless. They allow organizations of any size to achieve the kinds of scale and growth Graham demands of the companies he helps launch.

A couple of years ago, we joked that “big data gives clouds something to do.” There’s a lot of truth to this. Big Data itself isn’t new—and it isn’t mounting the peak of a hype curve, despite what Gartner says. Big Data has been around for ages, as anyone from a company like Teradata, IBM, Oracle, or Microsoft will tell you. What’s new about big data is the democratization of analysis. Anyone who runs a Facebook Graph Search today has more power, and more access, than any three-letter-agency in Washington dared dream of a decade ago.

And powerful, democratized analysis is a game-changer for society. It’ll alter how we work and play; how we learn and love; and how we make decisions. All because of cloud computing, which provides the elastic, on-demand undercarriage for vast analysis.

In the Futures and Disruptions track at Cloud Connect this spring, Cascade Insights’ Sean Campbell will lay out four possible futures for cloud computing in the next few years, encouraging IT professionals to hedge their bets. Allan Leinwand, whose career spans executive technology roles at Cisco, Digital Island, Zynga, and Servicenow, predicts where cloud platforms are headed. And serial entrepreneur Margaret Dawson joins Savvis’ Ed Saipetch to speculate on the future of data—and whether it’s headed for anarchy or trust.

It promises to be a fascinating look at where technology is headed, even as clouds themselves quietly blend into the fabric of everyday computing.