Enterprise IT Watch Blog » IT Conferences

VMworld, Gartner top list of IT events for August 2012

Michael Tidmarsh — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:24:46 +0000

Who says everyone’s on vacation in August? There are a number of IT events going down this month, and we’re on top of them. Check out the calendar for the next few weeks; there may still be time to convince your boss to send you on a trip.

1. 21st USENIX Security Symposium (August 8-10, Bellevue, Washington)

2. Agile 2012 (August 13-17, Dallas, Texas)

3. Gartner Catalyst Conference (August 20-23, San Diego, California)

4. Gartner Business Process Management Summit (August 20-21, Sydney, Australia)

5. Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration (August 22-23, Sydney, Australia)

6. VMworld 2012 (August 26-30, San Francisco, California)

7. MapReduce for Programmers (August 27-29, Jessup, Maryland)

We’ll be sharing IT events each month here on the Enterprise IT Watch blog. Got an event to add to our list? Let us know via Twitter (@ITKE) or email. Going to one of these events? Share your takeaways (and photos) with us!

What are your can’t-miss IT conferences, real or virtual?

Michael Morisy — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:11:10 +0000

Each year, the legions of IT professionals fan out to hit up the conference circuit to learn more about their craft, whether it’s at a pricey Gartner Summit or an easy going, free-to-attend Security BSides event. One thing we haven’t seen, however, is a good breakdown of when these conferences are happening, and which are the best in their category. We’re trying to change that: Take our quick survey below, and in return we’ll compile a list of the best IT conferences out there, complete with dates, coupon codes, tips and news coverage, all available in a convenient Google Calendar format (if you’d prefer some other way to access the data we compile, just let us know in the comments).

If we use your suggestion, we’ll even throw an extra 50 free knowledge points your way … for each suggestion!

Michael Morisy is the editorial director for ITKnowledgeExchange. He can be followed on Twitter or you can reach him at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

USENIX ATC 2010: Microsoft Research On Cloud Nine

MelanieYarbrough — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:30:57 +0000

It’s another big week here in Boston with the approach of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference 2010, and buzz around Microsoft Research’s upcoming announcements all include the word “cloud.” So what exactly do they have up their sleeves?

CloudCmp

With the increase of players in the cloud market, including Microsoft’s own Windows Azure Platform, Microsoft Research has come to the rescue with this framework to aid customers select a cloud provider [PDF]. Their benchmarking tools help predict application cost and performance once deployed, allowing for more detailed comparison among cloud services.

Stout

The purpose of this technology is to eliminate the disparity between how applications perform under light workloads versus high workloads by utilizing smarter request sends. Rather than immediately sending all requests as they occur, Stout [PDF] will “[treat] scalable key-value storage as a shared resource requiring congestion control.” In the case of lighter workloads, requests will be sent immediately while Stout will auto-batch requests for heavier workloads to prevent queuing delays.

Utility Coprocessor, or Ucop

The purpose of this middleware is to economize “dramatic speedups of parallelizable, CPU-bound desktop applications using utility computing clusters in the cloud.” They’ve created a prototype, based in Linux, that allows a single cluster to serve everyone, requiring only that the users and cluster use the same major kernel version. Learn more about how they manipulated client configurations in their white paper [PDF].

Seawall

This—performance isolation for cloud datacenter networks [PDF]—is the answer to the lack of control over how networks are shared, which opens cloud applications to interference and unpredictable performance: an “edge-based solution that achieves max-min fairness across tenant VMs by sending traffic through congestion-controlled, hypervisor-to-hypervisor tunnels.”

Check out the USENIX ATC 2010 website for further information on the conference, speakers and announcements to come. Are you planning to attend the conference? Give us updates and opinions in the comments section or email me directly.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

What recession? Interop: Las Vegas sees paid conference attendance spike 30%

Michael Morisy — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:32:53 +0000

When I spoke with Lenny Heymann, general manager of Interop, he was very conservative in predicting event turnout, saying Interop 2010 was “going to be a little smaller than last year’s” conference. Maybe he was just being modest, because once the crowds swelled in, the show was plenty busy.

Several analysts, journalists and attendees all told me that numbers seemed as high or higher than last year’s Interop (I didn’t attend), but press relations for the show said final numbers would not be available until after they closed up shop, sensibly enough. They would, however, part with one statistic: Paid conference attendance was up 30% over last year, which would (as best I can tell) put conference attendance at around 1,900 people. Keep in mind, conference attendance is a fraction of total attendance since a lot of people just browse the show floor or are exhibiting at the show themselves.

According to the EEIAC (an independent event attendance auditor), last year’s event saw a total of 1,478 conference attendees (not including who just visited the expo floor, which is free), which just over half the previous year’s attendance at 2,846 (Source PDF ).

This year, Interop Las Vegas is for the hungry

Michael Morisy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:08:58 +0000

With a few exceptions, conferences are growing smaller: Travel budgets are slashed, work loads are up, and companies are trying to “go green,” with or without a pricey Cisco telepresence get up (although I secretly think that last is still less about Mother Earth and more about Father Dollar). Interop is no exception, a fact Lenny Heymann, general manager of Interop, addressed head on when I asked him about it, admitting the “event is going to be a little smaller than last years’,” which itself was a smaller event.

But he said that, in a way, that’s OK. “We’re tracking really well in terms of the key vendors,” he said. “The people who still come are the ones … who are going to be buying things, the ones who want to get something done.”

Show attendees I spoke with yesterday echoed Heymann’s sentiment: This year’s Interop isn’t about ogling booth babes while getting your booklet stamped to win a Wii; it’s shaping up to be a more focused, get-what-you-need show where attendees are coming to learn, to meet potential partners, and to get things done.

“It used to be companies just sent people because everybody sent people,” an attendee told me yesterday as we were registering. “Now, you really have to justify it, but a lot of people are still coming, and they’re coming with a clear agenda.”

And as another attendee pointed out, it might be leaner but it’s still a much more happening event than SUPERCOMM, which is now as lean as it can get: Cancelled.

Whether you’re trekking out into the Las Vegas sands or watching safely from your home base, IT Knowledge Exchange has you covered: The Enterprise IT Watch Blog is teaming up with SearchNetworking.com to bring you the most comprehensive Interop coverage. Follow Interop coverage on the IT Watch Blog or check out SearchNetworking’s coverage on the Network Hub. If you’re in Las Vegas yourself, shoot me an e-mail at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com: I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, seen or heard, and we have plenty of free swag to give away to IT Knowledge Exchange members!

Interop 2010: Is there an IT guy in the house?

Michael Morisy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:20:31 +0000

Maybe it was the equivalent of having a heart attack at a cardiology trade show, but a number of Interop’s early bird registrants found themselves on the receiving end of an IT snafu: Attendees were told to “Wait just 10 more minutes” as they were left to stare at an endlessly looping registration screen.

One bemused attendee quipped, “Is there an IT guy in the house?” 10 minutes later, there was still no sign of advancement as the self-service terminals, and the line continued to grow.

Eventually the aforementioned smart aleck begged off: He was on duty in a exhibitor support role to quietly show off his wares, and he had meetings to attend. Things proceeded relatively smoothly thereafter, with at least one more outage but few vocal complaints. Early birds might get the worms, but they also get the bugs, too.

Whether you’re trekking out into the Las Vegas sands or watching safely from your home base, IT Knowledge Exchange has you covered: The Enterprise IT Watch Blog is teaming up with SearchNetworking.com to bring you the most comprehensive Interop coverage. Follow Interop coverage on the IT Watch Blog or check out SearchNetworking’s coverage on the Network Hub. If you’re in Las Vegas yourself, shoot me an e-mail at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com: I’d love to hear what you’ve learned, seen or heard, and we have plenty of free swag to give away to IT Knowledge Exchange members!

Going to Interop? Get ready to do your homework

Michael Morisy — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:00:13 +0000

I spoke with Interop’s general manager Lenny Heymann yesterday, and asked him straightforward what he recommend attendees do to make sure they get the most of the upcoming conference. His answer would send shivers down school boys’ spines everywhere: “Do your homework.” And while I was hoping for some secret path to networking enlightenment in Las Vegas next week (maybe a smoke-filled hotel backroom where Cisco, HP and ProCurve join hands to provide the be all, end all?) I suppose it’s solid advice, even if it’s not too inspiring. But I’d love to hear how you do your pre-conference homework, and what you’d like IT Knowledge Exchange to bring back when we venture forth with the SearchNetworking team next week to Las Vegas’ shiny sands and networking enlightenment.

Join in the discussion below, in the IT Knowledge Exchange member forums (and get your points!) or e-mail me directly at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com. I’d love to hear from you, particularly if you’re going and would like me to throw some free swag your way in return for your own conference wisdom.