OpenStack Conference Heads for San Francisco This Month

At the end of last year, Computerworld's Eric Knoor had this to say about the state of cloud computing: "If I had to sum up in one word the most exciting thing that happened to cloud computing in 2011, I'd have to say it's OpenStack. This open source project, launched by Rackspace and NASA in late 2010, is assembling a private cloud 'operating system' for the data center that promises vast increases in operational efficiency."

OpenStack, of course, has been gaining partners and supporters--including big and powerful ones--at a fast clip. In fact, OpenStack has the support of more than 150 companies, and, from April 16-20, many of OpenStack's backers will convene in San Francisco for the fifth annual OpenStack® Design Summit & Conference organized by Rackspace®.

Developers from all around the world are leveraging OpenStack as an open cloud platfrom to manage compute, storage and networking resources. The OpenStack Design Summit & Conference will feature many developers who are helping to plan for OpenStack's sixth software release, currently scheduled for Fall of this year.

According to the event announcement, the following items are scheduled:

-- Keynotes sessions from Zorawar ‘Biri’ Singh, SVP and GM, HP Cloud Services, Chris C. Kemp, co-founder of OpenStack and CEO of Nebula; John Engates, CTO and Mark Interrante, VP of Products at Rackspace; and Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu;

-- User story presentations including Deutsche Telekom, X.commerce, Department of Energy Magellan, San Diego Supercomputer Center and NeCTAR Cloud;

-- Panels about community strategy and vision, technical debates, cloud standards and investing in the OpenStack community; and,

-- Hands-on workshops, networking, social events and more.

You can view the full agenda for the conference here. Conference passes are currently listed at $500 USD, but there are various terms for developers and others.

For more on OpenStack and cloud computing, see our recent roundup.