Universiti Sains Malaysia Hosts the Country's First National Workshop on Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is one of the hottest topics in ICT today and is having a big impact on the current ICT eco-system and landscape. Most of the well-known IT vendors provide cloud solutions that are actively adopted by companies and agencies, and recently the US government has allocated almost 25% of the total 2012 IT budget (USD20 billion) for cloud computing; according to statistics from a Gartner study: $46.41 billion in 2008, $56.30 billion in 2009 and $150.1 billion (projected) in 2013.

The academic community is also actively involved by doing research into this emerging area and it has become an important topic at conferences and in journals. One definition of cloud computing is “a model for enabling convenient, on–demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” It incorporates features such as agility, cost reduction (especially capital expenditure and total cost of ownership), speed, device and location independence, multi-tenancy, reliability, scalability, security, maintenance and metering.

In Malaysia, the National Grid Computing Initiative (NGCI) has been actively involved in supporting the emerging technology of grid computing and its members have organized a series of the workshops and forums. Grid computing is one of the key enablers for cloud computing besides other technologies such as virtualization and service-oriented architecture.

Against this background, USM have organised the first national workshop on cloud computing with the aims of:

1. Increasing awareness of cloud computing – roles, benefits and solutions;

2. Showcasing cloud computing research – platforms and applications from industry & academic;

3. Discussing the future direction of cloud & grid computing in Malaysia.

The keynote speaker at the workshop is Professor Rajkumar Buyya, Director of Cloud Computing and Distributed Systems Laboratory, University of Melbourne, a well-known international researcher in this area. He has authored over 350 publications and has presented over 250 talks on his vision of IT future and advanced computing technologies. Well-known industry players in cloud computing such as Microsoft, Red Hat, and BT Frontline will also share their cutting edge solutions and technologies. Other researchers from the NGCI community have been invited to present their research work and discuss important aspects of cloud computing.

The conference started today in the Gurney Hotel in Penang and will end on the 12th April.

For further information, contact:

Cloud2011 Secretariat,
School of Computer Sciences,
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Tel: +60 4 6533263/3612/4388
Fax: +60 4 656 3244
Email: cloud2011(at)cs.usm.my
Mohamad Abdullah,
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Tel: +60 4 653 2193/3105
Fax: +60 4 658 8444
Email: pro(at)notes.usm.my