Very few business strategies today can be successfully executed without information technology (IT) to support them. In fact, market leaders acknowledge that IT is not really so much a separate function within their companies, as it is an integral and strategic part of their operating infrastructure. Yet, with traditional IT systems requiring large capital outlays and technical staffs, and taking too much time to implement and change, many businesses - large and small alike - have been severely limited in their ability to use IT to innovate, compete and grow. All of that is about to change. This session will share latest research and perspectives on new "cloudenabled" IT models - that leverage software-as-a-service, "mashup" application models, next-generation on-premise systems, and very large, global solution marketplaces - to "democratize" IT access, and finally allow organizations to out-innovate and out execute their competitors, not based on the size of their IT budgets or skills, but on the power of their ideas.

Today’s economic conditions are exerting strong pressure on overall .business spending. For organizations eager to delay, reduce or eliminate capital spending, the pay-as-you go cloud computing model is proving to be attractive. As with other earlier technological advances, cloud computing brings major challenges as well as big opportunities to IT organizations and businesses. In this session, organizations will gain a prescriptive understanding of incremental steps they can take in this new environment so they can reap early benefits for applicable business situations and learn how to deal with the associated risks - from security and data integration challenges to service level guarantees and legacy systems.

Sign up for complimentary one-to-one meetings with select analysts at event registration and gain strategic advice on your company's most pressing business challenges.

Many companies are working to define cloud computing and its benefits, and many are unclear about whether and how to successfully enter the cloud computing arena. Despite the fact that many believe the benefits of cloud computing are not yet tangible, we can already point to successes in the cloud computing community. During this panel session, industry experts will define cloud computing and explore how cloud computing helps companies advance capacity and capabilities without significantly increasing investments. Cloud users will share their share their first hand experiences, best practices and lessons learned around their computing deployment, helping you determine what areas of the cloud are right for you.
Special Feature:Exciting Town Hall with invited industry publications asking pressing questions and getting to the forefront of the challenges impacting evaluators and adopters of cloud computing. What follows is a list of confirmed press participating:

• Charlie Babcock, Editor at Large, Tech Web
• Jason Brooks, Technology Senior Analyst, eWeek
• Alan Zeichick, Editorial Director, SD Times

The Internet economy depends on a reliable computing infrastructure. While earlier reports of information technology using vast amounts of electricity were grossly exaggerated, these facilities still use electricity, and this use is growing rapidly. Recent analysis indicates that data center electricity use in both the US and the world roughly doubled from 2000 to 2005, and this growth is expected to slow only modestly over the following five years. This session will address results of recent work analyzing trends in total data center power use. It will also explore the perverse incentives and institutional failures that impede data center efficiency investments on a large scale. Finally, it will describe business, government, and research efforts to improve efficiency in these mission critical facilities, focusing mainly on institutional changes that can make a substantial difference in reducing the total cost of delivering computing services.

We are pleased to offer two roundtable discussions hosted by Cleversafe and Surgient. Please visit the IDC Registration table to sign up and see specific details around topics and roundtable leaders.

• Roundtable 1: Considerations for Successful Cloud Storage hosted by Cleversafe
• Roundtable 2: hosted by Surgient

Developing a cloud computing infrastructure, whether for internal or service use, demands extreme efficiency in every aspect of the deployment. Using first hand experiences of a cloud user, this session will highlight why optimization is critical to unlock the economic benefits of the cloud. We will address how companies are evaluating what to deploy in the cloud as well as emerging technologies for optimizing large-scale infrastructure deployments, creating and managing highly efficient.

This session will discuss how open source software development, high performance virtualization, and modern system management technologies are coalescing to provide customers with flexible and cost effective cloud computing environments. Today, customers are looking to use cloud-style computing inside their IT departments and also from external cloud suppliers. Increasingly these separate deployments will develop into hybrid environments - which will demand sophisticated provisioning, security and management capabilities. Using best practice case studies, we will outline how open source technologies and partnerships already lead this rapidly growing market and are uniquely positioned to meet the challenges of the future.

Specializing in acquiring, managing and liquidating defaulted mortgages, Dreambuilder Investments relies solely on an on-demand model via cloud services for their business platform, application and exchange servers, backups and PBX - allowing them to focus on their business rather than their infrastructure. This session will focus on their use of SaaS in the cloud for their business platform for all aspects of their business. We will explore how this model has enabled them to rapidly develop new modules, make changes in extremely short time-frames and scale up as required.

Not yet ready to migrate everything to the public Cloud but looking to gain the benefits of cloud computing? Skanska USA Building implemented a hybrid solution utilizing the public cloud as well as building their own internal enterprise cloud. Attendees will learn about the key elements required to build an internal enterprise cloud. We will explore best practices implemented by Skanska Building for converting existing resources into a private cloud, as well as learn about the strategies for blending together a hybrid solution of public and private clouds.

The reach and scope that's required of enterprise IT has been greatly expanding, with IT systems having to engage with customers, partners, and key stakeholders coming in from all across the web. Businesses are also increasingly interested in federating between enterprise and cloud services, and in composing applications while preserving an integrated and coherent IT infrastructure. This session will explore how cloud services enables customers to scale based on changes in business needs, reduce IT management effort and costs, and derive value by extending on-premises resources to the cloud. We will provide you a framework on how to consider cloud computing solutions in your organization both as an independent solutions and through the lens of your on-premises investments.

Cloud computing promises tremendous growth, innovation scalability and cost reduction opportunities for enterprises which is critical given today’s economic state. However, it also requires users to relinquish a certain level of control which can be a scary concept -- especially given that corporate data is in now outside of your four walls. Security, privacy and compliance are major issues facing IT executives who are evaluating and implementing cloud services. This interactive panel discussion brings together senior IT and security executives to share their experiences around software monitoring, security patches, data leakages and privacy and disaster recovery in the cloud. We will explore the benefits provided by cloud providers in their ability to provide a higher level of security and redundancy thank what is currently available in most enterprises.

Moderator to be announced