Following the success of its 2011 event, ISC Events has announced a third Cloud Computing conference in 2012, highlighting the use of clouds for HPC and big data in research and industrial environments.
More than 150 IT managers representing industrial and research organisations from 21 countries convened at the Dorint Hotel, Mannheim on September 26-27 to hear from leading HPC and cloud experts about their experience with designing, building, managing and using clouds. The attendees found it valuable to have been part of a crowd that is closely interested in this increasingly visible segment of HPC.
A survey conducted during the conference revealed that 66 per cent of the participants were motivated to attend due to the extensive conference programme and 45 per cent were encouraged by the networking opportunities offered by the event. The overall satisfaction increased compared to 2010, mainly due to the more profound focus on HPC topics and the increasing practical approach. The evening reception in the vineyard of Dr Bürklin-Wolf in the Pfalz offered a further opportunity to network with other participants and to continue the thematic discussions, also with the experts.
According to conference chairman, Dr Wolfgang Gentzsch, unlike last year’s event, this year’s focus was on the HPC community’s unique challenges, experiences and future concerns as it looks to cloud computing to solve computational challenges.
'ISC Cloud’11 has demonstrated that the hype around clouds is diminishing. All the involved IT vendors reported concrete cloud deployments, and we saw a strongly increasing user interest which was demonstrated during the various interactions among the participants especially during the very lively Vendor Showdown and these discussions continued over the coffee and lunch breaks,' said Gentzsch. 'Therefore, we, as organisers expect an increasing interest in next year’s ISC Cloud Conference.'
In the Vendor Showdown, ISC Cloud sponsors faced off against each other in a game-show format, answering questions posed by HPC analyst Addison Snell of Intersect360 Research. The judges panel consisting of three people awarded points to the vendor teams based on the quality and usefulness of the provided answers.
