As of August 15th, community voting began for talks at the upcoming November OpenStack Summit in Hong Kong.  The OpenStack Foundation announced that over 600 talks were submitted this year, more than double the number of submissions from the recent April Summit.  The Foundation will make the final decision on which talks will be accepted but will consider the community voting results in its decision process.

There are some great talks been proposed and I would encourage everyone to vote for the talks that they believe should be presented at the Summit.  Voting will be open until Sunday, August 25th, at 22:00 UTC.  Please note that you do need to be a OpenStack Community member in order to vote; If you are not currently a member, you can easily register for membership via the OpenStack website.

I am happy to announce that I have 4 talks submitted for the Summit, including 2 in collaboration with IT luminaries, Niki Acosta and Scott Lowe.  Details on my proposed talks are below and I would ask everyone reading this post to consider voting for some or all of the talks.

Title:  Bridging the Gap: Explaining OpenStack to VMware Administrators
Abstract:  As OpenStack expands its footprint into the enterprise, more and more people who are familiar with VMware vSphere concepts and terminology will be exposed to OpenStack. In order for OpenStack to be successful in enterprise environments, these people who are familiar with VMware concepts and terminology will need to understand the concepts and terminology in OpenStack. In this session, VMware experts who have moved into the OpenStack space will talk about how to bridge the gap between vSphere concepts and terminology and OpenStack concepts and terminology, showing the value in OpenStack for VMware environments and the value of OpenStack to VMware administrators. Please note that this session does not an attempt to give attendees a detailed understanding of how vSphere-related integrations work or are configured, but instead focuses on educating VMware-savvy administrators and users on OpenStack. This session will be valuable for anyone who needs a better grasp of how to talk about both VMware and OpenStack within an enterprise context.
Speakers:  Kenneth Hui, Scott Lowe
Related Blog Post:  OpenStack Compute For vSphere Admins, Part 1: Architectural Overview
URL to Vote:  http://www.openstack.org/rate/Presentation/bridging-the-gap-explaining-openstack-to-vmware-administrators

Title:  Cattle Wrangling For Pet Whisperers: Building A Multi-Hypervisor OpenStack Cloud
Abstract:  Can cattle and pets live in harmony on the same ranch?  Can an OpenStack Cloud be deployed using Open Source hypervisors such as KVM alongside proprietary hypervisors such as Hyper-V and vSphere?  Currently, ~70% of all OpenStack Clouds are deployed using KVM, in many cases as the lone hypervisor.  However, both Microsoft and VMware have made significant efforts to try to make their hypervisors viable options for OpenStack deployments.  In this session, we will talk though how to design a multi-hypervior OpenStack Cloud that supports both KVM and vSphere.  Topics will include designing for HA, redundancy, and scalability.
Speakers:  Kenneth Hui
Related Blog Post: OpenStack Compute For vSphere Admins, Part 5: Designing A Multi-hypervisor Cloud
URL to Vote:  http://www.openstack.org/rate/Presentation/cattle-wrangling-for-pet-whispherers-building-a-multi-hypervisor-openstack-cloud

Title:  Getting Started With OpenStack
Abstract:  OpenStack is quickly becoming the defacto standard for Open Cloud platforms.  What makes OpenStack the future of Cloud Computing and how can someone get started with learning this new technology?  This presentation will walk participants though the reasons for choosing OpenStack, provide an overview of the OpenStack projects, and offer practical suggestions and resources for learning the foundation of the new Open Cloud.  The session will include a demonstration on how to spin up a test OpenStack infrastructure and begin to provision Cloud resources. A must for new participants!
Speakers:  Kenneth Hui, Nike Acosta
Related Blog Post: Getting Started With OpenStack
URL to Vote:  http://www.openstack.org/rate/Presentation/getting-started-with-openstack

Title:  The Cloud Doesn’t Answer The Why Or The How
Abstract:  “The role of IT is not primarily to deliver technology but to help the Business to drive customer and revenue growth.”

“Cloud Computing is only ~30% technology and ~70% people and processes.”

Rather you agree or disagree with the above statements, come and discusses how OpenStack can be utilized as tools for delivering business value by focusing first on the Why and the How of IT Operations.  How did Apple get it right and become company they are today and what can they teach IT about Cloud Computing and DevOps?  This session will attempt to answer that question by applying Simon Sinek’s “The Golden Circle” to Cloud Computing and IT Operations.
Speakers:  Kenneth Hui
Related Blog Post: The Cloud Doesn’t Answer The Why Or The How
URL to Vote:  http://www.openstack.org/rate/Presentation/the-cloud-doesn-t-answer-the-why-or-the-how

Thank you for you support and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in November.  Happy Voting!

Related articles

• OpenStack Compute For vSphere Admins, Part 3: HA And VM Migration (cloudarchitectmusings.com)
• VMware CEO: OpenStack Is Not For the Enterprise (news.slashdot.org)
• OpenStack Compute For vSphere Admins, Part 4: Resource Overcommitment in Nova Compute (cloudarchitectmusings.com)
• VMware: OpenStack an opportunity for us (zdnet.com)
• Openstack Summit :: Nov 2013 :: Hong Kong (jaddog.org)
• Gelsinger Opens Up about OpenStack (emcplus.emc.com)
• Architecting OpenStack for High Availability (rightscale.com)