PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 11 – The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) today announced that ODCA Forecast 2013 will take place June 17-18 in San Francisco. This is the Alliance’s second-annual conference for global IT managers and services and solutions providers to come together to discuss cloud adoption based on ODCA requirements. According to a recent survey, 12 percent of ODCA members have already deployed cloud solutions based on usage model requirements published by the Alliance. ODCA Forecast 2013 will focus on sharing best practices based on these initiatives with an agenda uniquely built around leading IT voices and devoid of sales pitches. The conference will be held adjacent to GigaOM's Structure conference. GigaOM is partnering with the Alliance as a premier media sponsor of ODCA Forecast 2013.

“With the tremendous progress toward solutions adoption, we expect Forecast 2013 attendees to experience real-world best practice sharing and networking opportunities that can translate directly to the acceleration of cloud services,” said Mario Müller, Open Data Center Alliance chairman and vice president of IT infrastructure at BMW. “If our inaugural event presented an opportunity for ODCA members, along with global IT leaders and industry providers, to deepen their understanding of the Alliance’s requirements for the cloud, Forecast 2013 will offer the chance to discuss the benefits our members are already achieving.”

ODCA Forecast 2013 will feature sessions focused on top of mind issues associated with cloud deployment, including compute infrastructure as a service (CIaaS), software defined networks (SDN), and cloud security. The Alliance has also announced a Call for Papers seeking presentations on best practices for cloud adoption, with a specific interest in best practice sharing from cloud deployments featuring ODCA requirements, which can be shared with attendees at ODCA Forecast 2013.

Forecast attendees will receive a promotional registration rate for Structure, which will be held in San Francisco on June 19-20, directly following ODCA Forecast 2013. Structure will be open to Alliance members, partner organizations and any companies and organizations interested in addressing the most pressing challenges associated with transitioning to cloud computing.

“With its focus on enterprise adoption of cloud services, ODCA’s Forecast event is a natural complement to Structure,” said Surj Patel, VP of Events for GigaOM. “IT professionals and providers who are eager to keep pace with the rapid evolution of cloud solutions and services can do no better than attend these two leading conferences.”

The event will also provide a unique opportunity for participants to meet and interact with the leadership of the ODCA, made up of senior executives from some of the world’s leading IT organizations. The Forecast agenda has been uniquely cast to maximize engagement opportunities among attendees including attendee driven meet-ups, sponsor NDA executive engagements, and a series of networking receptions.

Details on ODCA Forecast 2013, including event registration, sponsorship opportunities and call for papers submission can be found at www.opendatacenteralliance.org.

About The Open Data Center Alliance

The Open Data Center Alliance is an independent IT consortium comprised of global IT leaders who have come together to provide a unified customer vision for long-term data center requirements. The Alliance is led by a twelve member steering committee which includes IT leaders BMW, Capgemini, China Unicom, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Inc., National Australia Bank, T-Systems, Terremark, Disney Technology Solutions and Services, and UBS. Intel serves as technical advisor to the Alliance.

In support of its mission, the Alliance has delivered the first customer requirements for cloud computing documented in Open Data Center Usage Models which identify member prioritized requirements to resolve the most pressing challenges facing cloud adoption.

About Structure

Structure is GigaOM’s flagship conference on cloud computing and internet infrastructure, bringing together the most influential thinkers for two days. At Structure, GigaOM editors and analysts make sense of where cloud services are headed and how they’ll affect everything from application development to data center design.

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Source: The Open Data Center Alliance