ISC Cloud'14, ISC Big Data'14 Preview

Hello <<Salutation>> Reader,

Welcome to the first joint-issue of the ISC Cloud’14 and ISC Big Data’14 newsletter.

This year’s ISC Cloud conference will be the fifth in the series and will continue the tradition of bringing experts and users from industry and academia to foster collaboration and innovation in the field of cloud computing.

Immediately following that event, we will introduce you to some emerging trends and encourage discussions in our two-day Big Data Conference. This conference was organized for the first time last year and it brought together a very interesting mixture of users and vendors from the enterprise and HPC communities. This year we expect key technical experts and IT decision-makers in the big data domain.

Both conferences will be held in Heidelberg at the Marriott Hotel. ISC Cloud’14 will take place from September 29 – 30 followed by ISC Big Data, from October 1 – 2.

If you are interested in being a part of any of the conferences, we are open for sponsoring. Please get in touch with our customer relations manager, Ms. Anna Schachoff at anna.schachoff@isc-events.com to find out about the various sponsoring categories and packages.

Registration for both conferences will be available from early June.

As for now, here are the program highlights of both conferences.

ISC Cloud’14 at a Glance

Hands-on Tutorial: Accessing and Using HPC Clouds for Science and Engineering

The number of cloud providers is growing steadily, and it’s challenging for users to identify the best-suited providers for their application and business requirements. We shall invite different providers to the tutorial to introduce and guide users through the process of accessing and using their cloud resources, and teach them how this can benefit their work and organization as a whole. Previous cloud experiment clients will also join this tutorial to share their lessons learned and offer valuable recommendations for new users.

Industry and Research Case Studies

With new technologies and paradigms appearing over the horizon, nothing is more valuable than the personal experiences of users who are working on similar applications and challenges as you. Therefore, we have invited expert end users from engineering and life sciences research and industry who – as early adopters – will report on their experience with accessing and using private and public cloud resources. They look forward to presenting their successful use of scientific and engineering computing in the cloud and sharing their implementations.

Digital Manufacturing and Life Sciences

According to IDC, digital manufacturing and life sciences form the largest HPC markets. However less than 10 percent of engineers and scientists are actively using HPC servers to simulate and analyze data. More than 90 percent are still exclusively dependent on workstations. Cloud computing enables engineers and scientists to use HPC as a service, complementing the desktop workstation environment. We have invited expert speakers from the engineering and life science community to present their experience with such heterogeneous in-house/cloud infrastructure.

Hot Topics: Security, Data Transfer, Federated Clouds, and Performance

Despite the benefits of cloud computing and the decade-plus of research that supports its use, we still face some critical challenges in deploying this technology. Users are still worried about security and privacy issues; gigabytes of resulting data can easily take several hours to transfer to cloud environments; and not all cloud architectures deliver the performance the user’s applications need. Expert speakers will address these issues and discuss possible solutions.

Expert Panel on Application Software in the Cloud

Application software is the single most important component of the cloud environment. Users are demanding that their applications are able to run in the cloud but many software providers are concerned about losing customers and existing business if they support such a model. We have invited experts from independent software vendors (ISVs) to discuss with end- users and cloud providers the challenges and solutions of providing flexible and dynamic licensing schemes for the cloud, resulting in a win-win situation for all parties.

In addition, the conference will provide a compelling keynote address, an HPC Meets Cloud panel featuring our software and hardware cloud sponsors, and an evening get-together at the Neckar River. There will also be ample time for meetings and discussions.

Facebook ISC Cloud

Facebook ISC Big Data

Twitter ISC Cloud

Twitter ISC Big Data

The second ISC Big Data Conference Returns with the Theme “Big Data: Bringing High Performance to the Enterprise"

Big Data: Realistic Use Cases, Innovative Vendor Offerings

The interest in big data remains unabated.
A growing number of enterprises and institutes realize that there is a substantial value to be obtained by harnessing data with proven technologies and methodologies. But given the abundance of hardware and software offerings, it is extremely important to gather the experiences of users who have successfully developed and deployed big data applications, In many cases, they have exploited the latest software and hardware products from vendors.

The Hadoop Ecosystem

Hadoop is evolving rapidly, but there are many additional software offerings from a number of companies, both from well-established ones and start-ups. We will dive into the various software components available to reveal similarities and differences in the approaches offered.

Visual Analytics

Advanced analytics often employs sophisticated data visualization since this is acknowledged to be a key element in extracting value from large and complex datasets. New methods and insights are being developed to assist enterprises and academic institutions to harness their ever-increasing data stores.

Big Data and the Internet-of-Things (IoT)

Manufacturers and enterprises are at the point of deploying sensors by the millions – probably billions within a few years – and this will swell the world’s output of data by a massive amount. It goes without saying that such data volumes must be accompanied by appropriate organizational structures and many enterprises are beginning to reorganize themselves in order to be prepared. The topic will be address by a collection of industry professionals with expertise in this area.

Data Privacy and Security

As corporations harvest enough data from each person to create an alarmingly complete “image” of the individual, an increasing number of people are raising privacy concerns. Not a single week goes by without stories of surveillance activities (by national security agencies on one hand and commercial conglomerates on the other) that were largely unknown to the public. We believe that this topic merits a thorough discussion, regarding both Europe and the rest of the world.

The conference will also feature several keynotes with the goal of informing decision of emerging big data issues. In addition, we will host an evening get-together in the charming city of Heidelberg.