Cloud Computing and Virtualization both take center stage this March in New York City, as SYS-CON Events brings two of its most popular industry-leading Enterprise IT events to the Big Apple: 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo and 5th International Virtualization Conference & Expo.

What, aside from a professional passion for the Enterprise IT possibilities of cloud computing, do IBM's Cloud CTO Dr Kristof Kloeckner, Amazon's VP & CTO Dr Werner Vogels and Sun's Cloud SVP David Douglas have in common? The answer is that all three are giving a major keynote address at SYS-CON' 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo being held next month in New York City (March 30-April).

Cloud Computing Expo 2009 Europe, the first event outside the USA in the industry-leading International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series produced by SYS-CON Events, is to be held May 18-19, 2009, in Prague in the Czech Republic. The conference theme is "Deploying Cloud Computing in the Enterprise" and it is the perfect event for anyone looking for a jump-start on delivering and/or using massively scalable Enterprise IT as a service using Internet technologies.

The theme of the 6th International Virtualization Conference & Expo, to be held in Prague, Czech Republic, on May 18-19, 2009, is 'Deploying Virtualization in the Enterprise.' The Call for Papers, which is now open, welcomes submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT in Europe and worldwide. The event is co-located with Cloud Computing Expo Europe, the third in SYS-CON's industry-leading International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series.

iPhone Developer Summit (www.iphonedevsummit.com) today announced Ian Thain as the Tech Chair of the Conference. In a Letter from the Tech Chair at the conference Website, Thain writes: "With the iPhone more than earning its place in the consumer market, it is now being adopted by enterprises. In fact, many believe that the iPhone will be the most adopted enterprise device in 2009."

SYS-CON's 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, held on Nov. 19-21, 2008, in San Jose, CA, attracted more than 40 sponsors with over 1,200 delegates. Cloud Computing, through which massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided as a service using Internet technologies, has many interpreters just now - and many interpretations. The next event, 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo will take place, March 30-April 1, 2009, in New York City, with more than 60 sponsors and exhibitors and over 1,500 estimated delegeates from 27 different countries.

Overall, very exciting times, and a great event put together by the folks at SYS-CON! There was a lot of excitement and optimism throughout the event. As someone put it: cloud computing is about 700 days old. That means that there are a lot of arguments about definitions, and where things are going, and so on. And that also gives a lot of vibe and a lot of fresh community spirit.

"Virtualization will help our customers be more agile and efficient," noted Mike Neil at SYS-CON’s Virtualization Conference & Expo, in San Jose, CA, "and there are three areas these companies are focused on." These areas are to drive costs down, increase efficiency, and using virtualization to provide new capabilities.

SYS-CON Events announced today that the leading global virtualization technology provider IBM named "Platinum Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 5th International Virtualization Conference & Expo, (www.virtualizationconference.com) which will take place on March 30-April 1, 2009, in New York City. The event is expected to attract over 1,200 developers, engineers, architects, IT managers, and hardware and software professionals of every stripe.

Companies today have more choices than ever to support endpoint productivity, from laptops and desktops, to terminal servers, blade PCs, and virtual desktops. With an ever-increasing variety of physical and virtual endpoints, companies are rapidly facing the next big challenge - manageability. With streaming, virtualization, and vPro technologies, Symantec and Intel provide a set of technologies to effectively manage these hybrid environments while maximizing end-user productivity. In this session at Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 West, Brian Duckering and Charles Brown discussed how to select the right endpoints and how a new approach to managing them makes it practical and cost-effective.

Successful virtual desktop rollouts can only be realized if user acceptance is equivalent to that of a local PC. Standardized virtual desktops must be ‘personalized' on-demand by treating the user as another ‘layer' of the desktop...this is user environment management.

Despite the many instances of SOA that are emerging within the global 2000 today, the ability to leverage common services and a common metadata layer in a secure and scalable manner is paramount, but rarely addressed. While many attempt to approach this problem only at the project levels, the issues around service and information sharing quickly becomes something that spans the entire business. This can include thousands of services under management, tens of thousands of database attributes, and other information that must be secured.

The industry is buzzing about the promise of Rich Internet Applications and cloud computing. Although these new applications and methods for implementing technology offer many advantages, they also compound underlying complexity, presenting new challenges for Web and application developers as well as IT professionals who are charged with developing, testing and delivering high-performing, highly-available applications.