Cloud and virtualization are the Power Couple of enterprise computing: the cloud offers potentially unlimited scalability (both up and down) while the virtualization of resources ensures that system management issues are hidden from the end-user. It is a marriage made in heaven.

As enterprises in ever-increasing numbers start to to evaluate cloud computing, many are assessing which applications can run in public clouds, which should run in a private cloud, and how to ensure that applications will be portable from one to another. Since there will be many different kinds of clouds, another issue is what kind of cloud resources should you use?

How easy will it be to migrate to a public or private cloud, and how easy will it be to move between them? If you entrust your data to a Cloud Computing vendor, how will the vendor secure your data and segregate it from that of other customers? Will they encrypt the data both in motion and at rest? What key management policies will they employ? What access control will they enforce for the application and physical security? What third-party groups will audit their security? What compliance or other certifications do they possess? What is their disaster recovery plan and how does data security figure into those plans? What visibility do you have into the process? What is their network topology? Are they consistent with best practice tiered networking?

7th Cloud Expo | Santa Clara, CA | 1 - 4 November, 2010 | Submit Your Speaking Proposal Today !

In short, questions abound. But so do answers, which is why we had a record level of submission to 7th Cloud Expo, being held November 1-4, 2010, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Submissions came from all over the globe, and from companies representing every level of the Cloud ecosystem. They came from Cloud vendors and from from Cloud users alike.

The Call for Papers for 7th Cloud Expo closes today, May 31, 2010. So if you have not submitted your speaking proposal, and were hoping to speak in Santa Clara, do please hurry and get your submission to us. The submissions link is here.

Some of the fascinating topics already submitted are listed below, by way of indicating just what a haul of great submissions we have had:

• Cloud Foresnics
• Public Sector Cloud Computing
• Cloudonomics
• Research & Development / GovIT
• Cloud Computing & Voice Applications
• The Transactional Cloud
• Java in the Cloud
• Cloud Databases
• Cloud Enablement
• Consumption-Based Billing
• Cloud-based Compliance
  
• Cloud Federation and Intercloud
  
• Virtual Private SaaS (VPS)
• Cloud Optimized Storage Systems (COSS) 
  
• Hardware as a Service
• BI in the Cloud
• HaaS (Hadoop as a Service)
• Scientific Computing in the Cloud
• Content Delivery Networks Using Storage Clouds
• Cloud Performance Monitoring & Testing
• Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs)
  
• Private, Public & Hybrid Clouds
  
• In-Cloud Data Encryption
  
• Cloudsourcing
• Virtual Data Centers
• Cloud Serviceability and Architecture
• Cloud Management
• Cloud Analytics
• Enterprise Cloud Orchestration
  
• HPC in the Cloud
• Cloud Computing & SMBs
• Private Cloud Management
• Secure Private Clouds
• API Analytics
• Cloud Backup and Recovery
  
• Cloud Acceleration
• Public WAN/Internet and Data Transfers
  

If you are late on parade, especially if yours is a topic you don't see mentioned above, then don't delay - submit today: we look forward to hearing from you very shortly!