Cloud Computing offers significant benefits over traditional solutions for deploying production systems as well as for conducting development and testing activities, says Dr Thorsten von Eicken, CTO of RightScale, Inc.. Dr von Eicken will be giving a technical session at SYS-CON's "Cloud Computing Expo" (November 19-21, 2008) - a groundbreaking adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA - in which he will distill the unique characteristics of clouds and describe how to best think about deployments in the clouds.

Before joining RightScale Inc., von Eicken was Chief Architect at Expertcity.com and Citrix Online, makers of GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and GoToAssist. He was responsible for the overall architecture of these online services and also managed the 24/7 datacenter operations where he acquired a deep knowledge in deploying and running secure scalable online services.

von Eicken received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and was a professor of computer science at Cornell University. Case studies and real experiences from his two years of cloud computing experience will illustrate the pros and cons of today's cloud offerings. His technical discussion will cover:

• Layers of cloud computing
• Cost breakdown versus traditional solutions
• IT management and development, testing benefits/examples
• Extreme, fast scalability at low cost – case study

Forrester Research analyst James Staten calls cloud computing "classic disruptive innovation - where the mainstream dismisses the product and small companies have time to create a real differentiated value." But there are so many offerings just now that what infrastructure architects are looking for above all is a set of organizing principles they can use to guide them in choosing between them all.

Such principles. and a host of associated topics, will be addressed in San Jose by:

• Dr Werner Vogels - VP & CTO, Amazon.com (Keynote)
• Reuven Cohen - Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly
• Mike Eaton - CEO, Cloudworks
• Jonathan Bryce - Founder at Mosso (Rackspace)
• Nati Shalom - CTO, GigaSpaces
• Don MacAskill - CEO & Chief Geek, SmugMug
• Mike Feinberg - Senior Vice President, Cloud Infrastructure Group, EMC
• Billy Marshall - Founder & CEO, rPath
• Dr Thorsten von Eicken - CTO & Founder, RightScale
• Songnian Zhou - Co-Founder & CEO, Platform Computing
• Patrick Harr, CEO - Nirvanix
• David Young - Co-Founder & CEO, Joyent
  
• Dave Durkee - CEO, ENKI
• John Janakiraman - CTO, Skytap
• Stuart Charlton - Chief Software Architect, Elastra
• Lars Leckie, Principal, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
• Dr Rich Wolski - Professor, U.C. Santa Barbara
• Javier Soltero - Co-Founder & CEO of Hyperic
• Omer Trajman - Director of Field Engineering, Vertica Systems
• Alan Williamson, Founder at Blog-City.com, Creator of BlueDragon
  
• Rachel Chalmers - Senior Analyst, Enterprise Software, The 451 Group

The sessions are all listed here.

• What is Cloud Computing?
• The Three Levels of Cloud Computing
• SYS-CON's 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo Call For Papers Now Open
• Cloud Computing: The Business of Building Clouds
• Clouds Mating!
• Cloud Computing: It's the Future of Enterprise IT
• Understanding "Clouded" Terms of Cloud Computing
• Do You Really Want Your Data in the Cloud?
• Cloud Computing: I Want To Have My Cake and Eat It Too
• Cloud Computing: Making Analytics in the Cloud a Reality
• Nirvanix CEO to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo
• Cloud Computing - Morgan Stanley is Banking on the Cloud
• "Cloud Computing Expo" Call for Papers Now Open
• Elastic Computing vs. Cloud Computing
• SYS-CON Launches Another Worldwide First: "Cloud Computing Journal"
• Cloud Computing Expo: Introducing the Cloud Pyramid
• Does Yahoo Risk Missing the Window of Cloud Computing Opportunity?
• Opinion: Cloud Computing in 2008 - Not For the Faint-Hearted
• Virtualization & Cloud Computing: Perfect Together
• Merrill Lynch Estimates "Cloud Computing" To Be $100 Billion Market
• Amazon Backs Cloud Server Start-up Elastra
• Cost-Benefit Analysis for SMEs of Cloud Computing
• Clouds Should Be Open, Not Proprietary
• Six Benefits of Cloud Computing
• Virtualization, SOA, and the Rise of Social Media
• On-Demand Resource Provisioning - The Fundamental Principle that Defines Cloud Computing
• President & CTO of 3Tera to Speak at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo
• Chief Software Architect for Elastra to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo
• Microsoft's Cloud Platform Vision is Coming Together
• How Do PaaS Solutions Enable Better Use of Enterprise IT Dollars?
• Hummer Winblad to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Conference & Expo
• Is Cloud Computing the Wave of the Future?
• Google Chrome and Business Intelligence in the Cloud
• Citrix Cloud Center + 3Tera AppLogic Platform = Enterprise-Level Cloud Computing
• Oracle Supports Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud
• Jetty and the Cost-Effective Cloud
• Is Nick Carr Right About Cloud Computing?
• Google, Akamai, and VMware: Cloud Computing's Top Three?
• Who Has the Industry Lead in Cloud Computing?
• Cloud CEOs, CTOs & SVPs to Speak at 4th International Cloud Computing Expo
• Cloud Computing Keynote at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo November 19-21 in Silicon Valley
• The Cloud Comes This Week to San Jose