Cloud Computing Revealed (Session Four)

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Event Details
We start early this time!
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What: Cloud Computing Revealed (Session Four)
When: Wed, Feb 15th, 2012 5:30pm -- 9:00pm
Where: Bellevue City Hall
Event style: Talks, Q&A and interactive discussion
Admission: Registration required
RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/Sea-Tech-Forum/events/36852262/
Parking: Free (but limited)
Food: Light snacks/drink provided at hallway (no food/drink allowed in the conference room)
Gifts: Swags from our sponsors are available, including major door prize(s)

We are expecting 130+ people from local companies, organizations and start-ups, not necessarily technical people, but also marketing professionals, PM, recruiters, investors...

Besides the senior speakers, there may be 30+ VIP guests from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Boeing, Facebook, Zynga, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, HTC, Hulu, Oracle, SAP, CA, UW, EMC, Expedia, Zillow, SEOmoz, Bungie, Nintendo, Intel, Dice, IBM, Salesforce, SGI, VMWare, Citrix...

Come on time and print out the confirmation page to guarantee a seat.

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Tentative Event Agenda, Speakers and Topics
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5:30pm - 6:30pm, Snack & social (come early and meet interesting tech guru and investors, besides food)

6:30pm - 6:40pm, Introduction

6:40pm - 7:00pm, Talk
Clearing the Sky’s: What are the different kind of cloud platforms out there?
Speaker: Chris E. Avis, Sr. IT Evangelist, Microsoft
Abstract: Cloud Computing is all the rage these days. But many people still don’t have a firm grasp on what cloud computing really is. Little do they know they are likely using cloud computing and services and have been for a decade or more. In fact, there are different kinds of cloud computing and they serve different business segments and customers. In this talk we will try to clearly define the primary cloud computing environments and who will make sue of them and why.
Bio: Chris started his career with Microsoft during the Windows 95 launch as a contractor. In 1997, Chris became a full time employee with Microsoft and performed client-server networking connectivity support. In 2001, Chris took on the role of IT Evangelist and began speaking to IT Professionals about the products, technology, and solutions that Microsoft has to offer. Though Chris prefers to speak to live audiences, he has embraced social networking and blogging as a means of connecting with IT professionals around the world.

7:00pm - 7:20pm, Talk
Build, manage, and deliver highly scalable and reliable clouds using Citrix CloudStack
Speaker: Geralyn Miller, Principal Product Owner, Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix
Abstract: Build clouds the way some of the world’s biggest public and private clouds are built. Citrix CloudStack is a secure, multi-tenant, open source cloud orchestration platform for delivering turnkey IaaS clouds. Get an overview of the CloudStack architecture, then shift gears and learn how some of the world’s leading providers have built profitable businesses on CloudStack.
Bio: Geralyn Miller is a Principal Product Owner/Evangelist in the Cloud Platforms Group at Citrix. Prior to Citrix, Geralyn was the Technical Strategist for a subsidiary of Seagate that focuses on cloud-connected storage solutions. A passionate advocate of bleeding-edge technologies, Geralyn worked for Microsoft for many years as an Evangelist for Microsoft Surface, the .NET Framework, and various Windows technologies.  Geralyn started her career as a software developer and IT administrator at a number of Fortune 500 companies. Her diverse background as a software developer on platforms including Windows, web, Unix, and mainframe using many software languages and tools gives her a broad perspective on the software industry.

7:20pm - 7:40pm, Talk
How IBM Watson works
Speaker: Torsten Bittner, Senior Software Engineer, IBM
Abstract: In 2011 IBM entered a computer system, Watson, into the TV game show "Jeopardy!" where it could compete in a cryptic quiz show against the show's best human contestants. Watson won the match by combining data analysis and retrieval algorithms with highly scalable processing power. This presentation will provide insights into how Watson works.
Bio: Torsten Bittner is a Senior Software Engineer working at IBM in the Emerging Technologies Group. His focus is architecting natural language processing solutions for Watson and researching the adaptation of Watson technology to new domains for commercialization. In his current role Torsten leads the data ingestion backend design and development. Prior to his engagement with Watson Torsten has designed data management, mining and discovery technology solutions for IBM InfoSphere products.

7:40pm - 8:00pm, Talk
Introducing the Oracle Public Cloud
Speaker: Mark Nelson, Software Architect, Oracle
Abstract: In October 2011 Oracle announced the Oracle Public Cloud offering.  This product will be Oracle's entry into the public cloud arena providing Oracle's industry leading enterprise software in a variety of SaaS and PaaS product offerings.  Oracle Public Cloud will offer SaaS offerings based on Oracle's Fusion Applications suite of products and PaaS offerings based on the industry leading WebLogic Java EE container and Oracle database server.  This talk will give an overview of Oracle's Public Cloud offering, its standards based strategy and its relationship to Oracle overall public and private cloud strategy.
Bio: Mark Nelson is a software architect for in Oracle's Fusion Middleware development organization.  Among his current roles, he is responsible for driving consistency in life cycle operations such as Install, Upgrade, Patching, High Availability, and Virtualization across the Fusion Middleware and Fusion Applications suite of products.  He is also responsible for the design of the infrastructure for Oracle's upcoming Oracle Public Cloud offering.  In the last 20 years he has help design and build distributed systems ranging from middleware and distributed databases to high performance computing simulation environments.

8:00pm - 8:20pm, Talk
Windows Azure Services – Building Blocks for Modern Cloud Applications
Speaker: Metodi "Toddy" Mladenov, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Windows Azure
Abstract: In this talk Toddy Mladenov will walk through the services offered by Microsoft's Windows Azure platform that will enable you to build highly scalable applications in the cloud. He will give an overview of Windows Azure's Compute, Blob and Queue services as well as the relational SQLAzure and no-SQL Table services. He will also briefly cover other Windows Azure services like ServiceBus, Azure Connect and CDN, which make it easy to build loosely coupled applications, hybrid applications or content applications with worldwide access.
Bio: Toddy Mladenov is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft working on the Windows Azure SDK and development experience. He joined Windows Azure team more than two years ago and was doing program management for areas like the platform APIs, the management UI and the enablement of Open Source runtimes like Java and PHP. During his career in Microsoft Toddy spent few years managing a team of Program Managers in Windows Client and MSN/Windows Live and working on payment, support and publishing services in Windows and Microsoft Services divisions. Toddy is originally from Bulgaria where he used to develop software in C/C++, Java and Visual Basic for various local ISVs as well as being Technical Manager for the Balkan Region in 3Com. Before moving to the US he also spent several years in Germany where he worked for a startup on developing bank portals for the regional banks as well as working for the enterprise software giant SAP on their software deployment technology using the Netweaver stack. Toddy Mladenov has a Master of Science degree in Electronics and Automation from the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria.

8:20pm - 8:40pm, Talk
Technical Insights: Security, Liability and Legal Issues in Cloud Computing
Speaker: Vivek Bhatnagar, President, Greater Seattle Chapter at Cloud Security Alliance
Abstract: As the usage of cloud computing increases, IT organizations are attempting to host more critical applications in the public cloud. Although cloud computing has issues with regard to security, availability and management, those issues are only half the battle to successfully host applications in the cloud. IT organizations must also wade through providers’ terms and conditions, negotiate service levels and contend for outages and legal ramifications. These can be just as big as the technical issues.
Bio: Vivek is a senior technical and solutions Strategy Leader with successful track record of building and operating world-class solutions, programs, and product sales teams.During his 7 years at Microsoft Vivek has held a variety of technical and business roles spanning several part of the Microsoft business from field sales, technology evangelism, partner business development, product marketing to worldwide enterprise sales in Redmond. Prior to Microsoft, Vivek was country manager for enterprise software architects in IBM focused on solution sales to enterprises. Prior to IBM, Vivek was enterprise architect in Suzuki motors. Prior to Suzuki Motors, Vivek was ERP consultant in Oracle. Vivek enjoys traveling and learning new cultures.

8:40pm - 9:00pm, Q&A to all speakers, and interactive free discussion

9:00pm, Door prize draw

9:00pm - 9:30pm, Social

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Intro of Sea-Tech Forum
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Seattle Technical Forum is a loosely coupled Seattle-wide discussion forum for technology (esp. IT, web, mobile, game, telecom ...). The forum is a platform for professionals to:
· Collaborate with other professionals
· Share ideas
· Foster creative brainstorming
· Promote your company, products, and technical events
Its members cover all major IT companies in the Seattle area and many start-ups and organizations.

Please join our discussion group at: http://groups.google.com/group/seattle-tech-forum & meetup at: http://www.meetup.com/Sea-Tech-Forum/ for event updates and, of course, lively discussion.
We also allow members to pre-register for events with a lowered registration fee.

Also feel free to join our Facebook group and Linkedin group too:
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Intro of Cloud Fair
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Cloud Fair will be debuting this April 17th – 19th  in Seattle, WA, as the premiere “go to” cloud computing conference and exposition for the entire Northwest.

Business owners, directors, managers, and developers can attend presentations, participate in workshops, and visit with vendors focusing on real world solutions for cloud services and applications, helping develop a roadmap into the future.  This high-profile event brings together users, partners, and businesses to share their ideas, solutions, and passion for the vast opportunities provided by low-cost cloud computing.  Held at the Seattle Sheraton, Cloud Fair will host sponsor companies like: Google, Box, Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Terremark, Red Hat, Symform, Redapt, and numerous other organizations, providing a true forum to learn and discuss security, performance, applications, benefits, and pit falls to avoid.  Everyday thousands of organizations are moving to the cloud and looking to streamline their IT infrastructure, add layers of redundancy, maximize scalability, and successfully leverage the outsourcing of services.  Cloud Fair will provide the roadmap to success in each of these areas.  Industry leading vendors and attendees from the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Rim, Europe, and all across the United States will be participating in all that Cloud Fair has to offer.  Mark your calendars and register online at www.cloudfairconference.com for what is the premier cloud computing conference for the entire Northwest!  This is one event you do not want to miss.
One thing further, Cloud Fair is offering a special 50% discount to the first 100 registrations ($495 price).