From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.


Application Virtualization - Bob Lozano, Chief Strategist for Appistry, is giving a session on Application Virtualization with particular focus on achieving Web-scale. He'll be comparing and contrasting external cloud deployment to internal deployment on commodity infrastructure.

Beyond Server Virtualization - see Virtualization 2.0

Business Drivers for Virtualization - Who does virtualization really benefit? How can enterprises adopt virtualization technologies to address real business problems? Is virtualization just another consolidation technology? How are other businesses using virtualization? This session by Andi Mann, senior analyst from Enterprise Management Associates, will help you to understand what are the key business drivers for virtualization, where to expect significant benefits and how to make sure that virtualization delivers strategic advantages.

Cloud Computing - see Middleware Virtualization

Corporate Social Responsibility - see Green Data Center

CSR - see Green Data Center

Delivery - see New Delivery Models for Virtualization

DFS - see Microsoft Distributed File System

Embedded Hypervisors - see New Delivery Models for Virtualization

Embedded Virtualization - see Real-Time Virualization

File Virtualization - see Microsoft Distributed File System

Green Data Center- Rich Lechner, the VP responsible for IBM's virtualization, grid and platform management offerings, is giving a session on improving data center energy efficiency. "To think green will help keep their companies operating in the black," Lechner notes. Virtualization - server consolidation and containment - can help companies place multiple workloads on the same server, allowing for fewer physical servers and thus lowering the electricity and cooling requirements. 

High-End Computing - Shai Fultheim, Founder & CEO of ScaleMP, will be giving a session on the use of system aggregation, a revolutionary virtualization technology that allows end-users to get access to a large shared memory system built using multiple off-the-shelf x86 systems.

High Intensity Virtualization - Harry Petty, Director of Server Virtualization at Brocade Communications Systems, is giving a session on how virtual servers and physical servers can stand on an equal footing. "I will show you how to take your virtualization strategy to the next level," says Petty.

Hypervisor Breaches -Hezi Moore, CTO & Co-Founder of Reflex Security, is giving a session on one identified vulnerability in virtualized environments, the “hypervisor” threat in which a hacker can break out of a guest OS and onto the host OS of a server.

I/O Virtualization - "Without I/O virtualization, the amount, type, and physical connectivity of server I/O are all fixed. In order to achieve true flexibility in server usage, these fixed resources must become dynamic." Ariel Cohen, CTO of Xsigo Systems, to whom these words belong, is giving a session in which he will will compare different approaches to I/O virtualization and discuss the applications of the technology.

Infrastructure Virtualization - The next generation of infrastructure virtualization and management is the focus of the session being given by Kevin Epstein of Scalent Systems.

IT Automation - BMC Software CTO, Tom Bishop, is giving a session explaining how IT organizations can realize the full value of virtualization through aligning IT with business priorities and automating IT processes.

Managing End Points - see Virtualizing End Points

Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) - In this session, Matt George & Ursula Sinkewicz of Fidelity Investments will be reviewing file virtualization as a migration and administration solution and discussing the role of DFS and its value in environments where file virtualization is present. They will consider the practical and the promise of file virtualization with and without DFS in the environment.

Middleware Virtualization - This session by Geva Perry of GigaSpaces will explore the challenges of achieving the full potential of "cloud computing." According to Perry, we need a broader definition of virtualization, and that is the complete de-coupling of the logical components of an application (represented by the software stack) and the physical resources. "In the case of middleware, whether it is data access, messaging or the business logic," says Perry, "the physical location of the resources should not matter to the developer and to the end user."

Network-Based Storage Virtualization - see Storage Virtualization

New Delivery Models for Virtualization - XenSource Founder Simon Crosby, now CTO of Citrix XenSource, is giving a session aimed at providing IT organizations with a short- and long-term roadmap by focusing on the new delivery models for virtualization (including embedded hypervisors and managed services), what's available today and what can be expected in the future, and best practices for deployment.

Power and Cooling - Data centers are faced with increasing operational costs, as well as power and cooling limitations. Streamlining the legacy power and cooling systems that support virtualized environments can reduce costs, and Domenic Alcaro - Director of Enterprise Segment Northeast for APC-MGE - will discuss in his session how new power and cooling technologies and effective data center planning and design are saving additional electrical costs, sometimes even more than the original savings from virtualization.

Real-Time Virtualization - The next wave of virtualization is already happening: in connected devices - through embedded technologies. As a new frontier in virtualization, real-time virtualization brings benefits to the embedded space that include high performance with a small memory footprint. Mark Milligan from VirtualLogix will be giving a session on the similarities and distinct differences of real-time virtualization for connected devices and traditional virtualization.

SRM - see Storage Resource Management

Storage Resource Management (SRM) -  SRM technology can enable IT organizations to manage storage in the virtual enterprise, and Symantec's Sean Derrington will be giving a session on how SRM technology can address the demands and management complexities that virtualization presents.

Storage Virtualization - Storage virtualization introduces a level of abstraction that sits between application servers and physical storage resources to provide centralized volume management and non-disruptive data mobility. This session by Doc D’Errico, VP of the Infrastructure Software Group at EMC Corporation, will review the benefits of virtualization and discuss how second generation, network based storage virtualization can be used to meet the demands imposed by its central position in the I/O stack.

System Aggregation - a revolutionary virtualization technology that allows end-users to get access to a large shared memory system built using multiple off-the-shelf x86 systems. Shai Fultheim, Founder & CEO of ScaleMP, will be giving a session on its use for high-end computing takes advantage of the traditional SMP operating model such as ease of installation and management, as well as large memory, while maintaining the cost structure of x86 clusters.

Virtual Lab Automation (VLA) - Ravi Gururaj, Founder & CTO of VMLogix, will be leading a session on this innovative solution for streamlining software development and automating the entire development and test environment setup while utilizing existing server virtualization infrastructure. "VLA improves resource utilization and efficiency while pushing products to market faster," he says. His presentation will review the virtual test and development infrastructure and provide best practice recommendations.
 
Virtual Security - see Hypervisor Breaches

Virtualization 2.0 - The first wave of virtualization only addressed the server: but what's next? According to this session given by Egenera's CTO, Pete Manca, the next wave of virtualization virtualizes beyond the server, encompassing data center infrastructure (storage, networking and processing) to unbind applications from servers and create a fully agile data center.

Virtualizing End Points - Etay Bogner, co-founder and CTO of Neocleus, is giving a session on how virtualization technologies offer a breakthrough approach to reduce the complexities of managing end points. His will discuss the distinct differences between how organizations are approaching virtualizing end points and the benefits each implementation offers.

VLA - see Virtual Lab Automation

Xen - Xen (www.xen.org) originated as a University of Cambridge research project and is an open source reference hypervisor. "The Xen project is independent of Citrix, just as it was of XenSource, Red Hat, Novell, Sun and the other vendors that contribute and/or distribute the Xen hypervisor to market," notes one of the founders of XenSource, Inc., Simon Crosby - now CTO of Citrix XenSource. Crosby is giving a session at the conference.