Jared Wray is founder and CTO of Tier 3. Jared founded Tier 3 in 2006 and today is the visionary architect of the company’s enterprise-class cloud management platform. To enable customers moving to IT as a Service, Jared has architected Tier 3’s cloud with advanced automation, orchestration, and fabric services. As the originator of the Iron Foundry open source PaaS project, Wray is a thought leader in the evolution of enterprise cloud services. A serial entrepreneur, Wray previously founded Dual, an interactive development firm with clients such as Microsoft and Nintendo.

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

• New Tools and Techniques for Managing Hybrid Cloud Environments
  • Adopting public and private cloud resources is becoming imperative for enterprises across nearly every industry in order to keep pace with escalating customer and end-user demands and intensifying competition. However, adding these Cloud resources to existing systems and software compounds the challenge of managing these complex operations and optimizing their performance while controlling their costs. This session will examine these challenges and discuss exciting new technologies and management best practices that can help IT professionals overcome these challenges.
• Hybrid Cloud – Can You Get the Best of Both Cloud Worlds
  • There are strong pros and cons to both Public and Private Clouds. Many enterprises like the idea of either one or both, but the realities have not lived up to the ideal. This session will explore the pros and cons of private and public clouds, including the best use cases and scenarios for private, public and hybrid cloud initiatives, the financial implications, and whether/how hybrid clouds might give the best of both clouds.

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

Tags: cloud cloud adoption cloud computing cloud connect CTO hybrid clouds private clouds Tier 3

IT professionals today are dealing with a lot of challenges to make sure that their department is running in an efficient and productive manner. Staying up with the latest releases of products, putting out small fires within their organization, keeping their data centers cool and of course the cloud, which is constantly hanging overhead. LOB executives want to make sure their organization is prepared for the future in terms of IT productivity and the words they keep hearing are: The Cloud! I’m pretty sure Sys Admins cringe every time those words are mentioned, but they do know it is an important aspect to their IT framework.  However there are so many types of cloud computing deployment models to consider, that it can make your head feel like a cloud. Here are a few examples of cloud computing deployment models that are out there right now: Continue Reading »

Tags: adoption Architecture cloud cloud adoption cloud computing cloud connect IaaS PaaS private clouds utility computing

Matt Quinn has been with TIBCO for 14 years. During this time he has had several worldwide roles. As CTO, Quinn works with all product groups to create a common, corporate-wide vision for all of TIBCO’s products and technologies; ensures interoperability between TIBCO’s various products families, as well as consistent architectural approaches across all groups; and provides overall leadership and coordination of TIBCO’s product plans and technology direction. Up until his new role as CTO, Quinn has been responsible for the Composite Application Group (CAG). This group encompasses TIBCO’s SOA, BPM, Infrastructure, Monitoring and Management, Governance and User Experience technologies. This group is responsible end-to-end for the engineering, quality, delivery of product, product vision, and customer enablement. Earlier in his TIBCO career, Quinn was a global architect, responsible for the delivery of some of TIBCO’s largest implementations in diverse areas such as transportation and logistics, energy and finance. This was a hands-on role, building real systems architecture for production customers.

Here is an inside peek at his session at Cloud Connect – Creating Self-Service, Actionable Context in a World of Massive Unstructured Data Sources

• With the rise of social and more recently, the Internet of Things, the opportunity to take advantage of unstructured and imperfect data has never been greater…or more challenging. Adding to the mix, the need to allow business to self-serve their data needs is key to keeping the enterprise agile and efficient. We’ll look at how self-service, actionable context, understanding and action can be achieved in today’s environment of unthinkably large, diverse and often messy data.

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

Tags: big data cloud cloud computing cloud connect Tibco

Our editors at Network Computing recently published an interesting Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service Providers. This extremely helpful buyer’s guide includes information on 17 of the top IaaS vendors in the market and includes a features matrix of more than 60 decision points to help you make the right decision for your business.

Our own Cloud Connect and Everest Group Research shows that companies are increasingly looking at public IaaS options with 31% of our survey respondents indicating they already use public IaaS and an additional 49% indicating near and long-term plans for adoption.  So what’s driving the move to public IaaS?

Network Computing writes:

The IaaS product category has taken off because moving computing capacity to the cloud allows companies to focus on their core competencies rather than worry about buying, deploying and maintaining hardware. IaaS is why Instagram sold at a $1 billion valuation with only 13 employees, and why Pinterest served nearly 12 million monthly unique visitors with only 16 employees. For many companies, IaaS — and public cloud services overall — can yield significant benefits, but with an ever-growing number of providers, it can be difficult to know which will be the best choice. This comparison will help IT professionals make a more informed decision about which IaaS vendor to select. –Joe Masters Emison

This is also a topic we’ll explore in-depth at the upcoming Cloud Connect Conference in Silicon Valley including this newly added workshop on Amazon Web Services:

Amazon Web Services Training: Jumpstart Your Cloud Computing Knowledge Base

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the pioneer of cloud computing and its unstoppable growth dominates the industry. If you want – or are under pressure — to begin using AWS, this workshop is for you. Both fundamental and advanced AWS services are discussed during the workshop, ensuring that you gain a complete overview of the AWS service. The instructor will provide a live demonstration of the AWS system and management console during the workshop to allow you to see the power of AWS. The workshop is presented in a highly interactive fashion to address any questions you have about AWS.

Be sure to download the guide and we’ll see you at Cloud Connect Silicon Valley!

Tags: Buyer's Guide cloud cloud computing IaaS Network Computing

One of the great things about Cloud Connect Silicon Valley is the number of relationships that get rekindled at the conference. You can grab breakfast, lunch or a beer with old acquaintances and make new connections that will help you throughout the year. But Cloud Connect also provides the opportunity to connect with the leading cloud computing vendors and to get up to speed on all they have to offer.  This year’s conference welcomes a plethora of new exhibiting companies for you to meet. Continue Reading »

Tags: cloud cloud computing cloud connect Expo Mitel Oracle SecureAuth

Chris Taylor, the Big Data Processing and Parallel Computing Track Chair at Cloud Connect, posted an informative and thought provoking piece on Wired’s Innovation Insights Blog called: Cloud Underpins Rapid Tech Change.

He’ll cover that topic much more in depth at Cloud Connect Santa Clara 2013. In addition, Big Data will be fully examined at the event as well.

Big Data is so much more than a buzz word. With the maturing of cloud and map reduce technology; the question has changed from simply, “What is it?” to a more complex, “How do we connect, store and process vast amounts of data using the most cost effective and secure ways and as close to real-time as possible?”. There are many infrastructure and connectivity choices to wade through to find the right combinations of technologies and architectures to make it all work together. In this track, you’ll hear industry leaders and visionaries tackle the issues on the forefront of the big data and cloud marketplace.

Register with priority code SMCCBlog by March 2 and save up to $500* 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: $1,899.00 Conference: $1,499.00, Workshop: 699.00, Expo Plus: $100.00, Expo Only: Free

Tags: CIO cloud cloud adoption cloud computing cloud connect

Adrian Cockcroft is the director of architecture for the Cloud Systems team at Netflix. He is focused on availability, resilience,performance, and measurement of the Netflix cloud platform, and has presented at many conferences, including the Cassandra Summit, QCon/GOTO, Cloud Connect, Velocity, Gluecon and Structure.Adrian is also well known as the author of several books while a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems: Sun Performance and Tuning; Resource Management; and Capacity Planning for Web Services. From 2004-2007 he was a founding member of eBay Research Labs. He graduated with a BSc in Applied Physics from The City University, London.

Here is an inside peek at his session at Cloud Connect – Netflix and Amazon Web Services Case Study: Strategy and Economics of the Cloud

• Perhaps the best well known case study for cloud use is Netflix’ use of Amazon for transcoding and streaming. Jinesh Varia, Amazon’s leading expert in Cloud Economics will review cloud cost justification approaches and financial models. Adrian Cockcroft will delve into Netflix’ rationale for using AWS.

Register with priority code SMCCBlog by March 2 and save up to $500* 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: $1,899.00 Conference: $1,499.00, Workshop: 699.00, Expo Plus: $100.00, Expo Only: Free

Tags: Adrian Cockcroft amazon web services cloud cloud computing cloud connect Netflix ROI TCO

Troy Angrignon is a sales and marketing executive with sixteen years experience in the IT arena, spanning network consulting services, enterprise software, software as a service, web 2.0 software, and cloud computing. As VP Sales & Marketing, Troy is responsible for working with the team to ensure that Cloudscaling is building market focused solutions that serve our client’s business needs.
Continue Reading »

Tags: CIO cloud cloud computing cloud connect hybrid clouds private clouds

A post by Scott Bils Partner, Everest Group & Organizational Readiness and Business Cases Track Chair.

Cloud Connect Silicon Valley is just around the corner. Once again we’re assembling a group of enterprise IT leaders and top thinkers in cloud to deliver current, unvarnished and useful information for companies mapping their strategies for organizational transformation through agile business models empowered by cloud computing.

And speaking of maps, this year’s theme for the Organizational Readiness and Business Cases track is “Time to pull over and check the map.” On our road to the cloud, enterprises have taken wrong turns, one-way streets and paid some hefty tolls. After all this exhausting traveling, where are we? So, we’re going to safely pull off to the service plaza and check the map.

The first session (Wednesday, April 3 at 9:00 am) will feature a keynote address from the IT leadership at a Fortune 500 enterprise that has made aggressive moves to push much of its workload portfolio to cloud infrastructure. Participants will learn how this enterprise made the business case for organizational transformation to cloud; what assumptions it made in building its strategy for migration; and where the organization is seeing early successes — and warning signs.

Session two (Wednesday at 3:45 pm) is called the “Cloud Witness Protection Program.” We’ll hear entertaining but serious insights from an enterprise IT executive whose identity we’re concealing. He (or she) will share with the audience hard-learned lessons and strategies for avoiding the same mistakes. A quiz session from a panel of experts will follow, digging deeper for keys as to what to look for in a cloud vendor; tough questions to ask before the contract is signed; and what terms to insist on — or walk.

The third session (Thursday at 2:30) is titled, “Disruptive Innovation in Cloud Technology and Tools.” Experts from technology providers, open source projects and enterprises will give participants a tour of new cloud technologies and tools that are available, proven in production environments and ready to deploy. Participants will leave the session armed with an understanding of which tools are the best choices for their enterprise cloud deployments.

The final session (Friday at 10:15) looks at disruption from a business models standpoint. I’ll lead a discussion with two enterprise executives who have used cloud to fundamentally disrupt organizational business models. Participants will hear how these leaders helped their organizations first understand and then embrace the agility, flexibility and dramatic time-to-market compression that cloud enables. Building sustainable competitive advantage through a transformation in business model assumptions is the goal of cloud, and this session will give participants new insights on how to help their organizations get there.

At last year’s Cloud Connect Chicago, we unveiled the results of the inaugural Enterprise Cloud Adoption Survey. Building on the success of that effort, we have launched the 2^nd Annual Cloud Adoption Survey. The survey will help us track year-to-year adoption trends and drivers. Tell us about your journey to the cloud, and you could win a complimentary conference pass to Cloud Connect Silicon Valley. Take the survey now.

Register with priority code SMTB to take advantage of the Early Bird pricing.

Tags: adoption CIO cloud cloud adoption cloud computing cloud connect

What do names like VMware, Oracle, Cisco, and IBM all have in common? They are participating in Cloud Connect Silicon Valley 2013. The Conference and Expo program is filling up with leading industry players making Cloud Connect Silicon Valley the must attend cloud event for 2013!

Industry heavy hitters SoftLayer, Red Hat, VMware, Oracle, Rackspace and Citrix will be taking center stage at this year’s Conference and Expo. With all the news recently surrounding these key players the Expo will be nothing short of exciting. Issues including hybrid cloud management, security, and open cloud will be pushed front and center.

The Cloud Connect Conference also boasts some notable sessions including speakers from Netflix, Amazon Web Services, and Citrix to name a few. Here’s our list of the top 5 must attend sessions:

1. Netflix and Amazon Web Services Case Study: Strategy and Economics of the Cloud

• Jinesh Varia, Technology Evangelist, Amazon Web Services
• Adrian Cockcroft, Director, Architecture, Netflix

2. Delivering Enterprise Applications and User Access in the Cloud

• Lori MacVittie, Senior Technical Marketing Manager, F5 Networks

3. Managing Data in the Mobile Cloud

• Jesse Lipson, VP of Data Sharing, Citix

4. Juicing the Cloud: Getting the Most Out of Your Application

• Wayne Walls, Developer Advocate, Rackspace

5. Softening the Network: Virtualization, the Final Frontier

• Steve Riley, Technical Leader, Riverbed Technology

That is just a snapshot of the topics and speakers that will be covered. Preview the full Conference lineup here. Early Bird registration ends in two weeks, register now and save yourself $500 on Conference Passes.

We look forward to seeing you in April!

Tags: amazon web services Citrix cloud cloud computing cloud connect F5 mobile Netflix private clouds Rackspace