3rd July – Johannesburg
4th July – Cape Town
Cloud computing models are well established and here to stay. Many organizations in South Africa face the challenge of needing to update legacy systems and practices to keep pace with customer and partner expectations, but have existing investments in technology and skillsets. How to remain agile and competitive in a world where barriers to market entry are low, whilst maximizing existing technology investment are key questions to be answered.
There is much discussion and ‘noise’ in the market place about cloud computing. Many players present ‘cloud services’ that often do not meet even fundamental principles of elasticity, pay-as-you go consumption models and massive scalability.
Based on real experience gained in the field from multiple cloud projects, and an international client base, ShapeBlue, Citrix and Trend Micro will share insights on what to look for, how to accelerate your cloud strategy and provide a practical starting points for the journey.
Register here
Who should attend?
This event is suitable for IT leaders, line of business executives and the technical community who need to understand what the next steps are in developing cloud strategies, or those who need a practical starting point to kick-off.
Agenda
| 09h00 | Arrival & registration |
| 09h30 | Hybrid Cloud – what is it and how to I get one? Dan Crowe, ShapeBlue Managing Consultant South Africa |
| 10h05 | Keynote – IaaS, the business use cases Giles Sirett, CEO ShapeBlue |
| 10h50 | Break |
| 11h15 | Citrix Systems and the Hybrid Cloud – the latest Mike Church, Enterprise Manager, Citrix Systems South Africa |
| 11h35 | Trend Micro – Deep Security in the cloud |
| 12h00 | Q&A on the challenges specific to South Africa |
| 12h15 | Networking lunch |
| 13h00 | Close |
Speakers
| Giles Sirett Giles is CEO of ShapeBlue, the leading independent global CloudStack advisor, chairman of the European CloudStack user group, and Project Management Commitee (PMC) member and committer on the Apache CloudStack project. As the founder of ShapeBlue, Giles has been at the forefront of some of the largest international cloud build projects. Giles brings a wealth of practical and commercial expertise on cloud adoption, and will share real-life customer experiences. His keynote talk will introduce the business use cases for cloud services, and address the organizational changes that are commonly faced. |
| Mike Church Mike is Enterprise Manager at Citrix Systems South Africa, and has experience working directly with some of the largest service provider and enterprise customers in South Africa as they develop mobility, virtualization and cloud orchestration strategies. Mike will discuss Citrix’s position in relation to cloud services, and up¬date on recent announcements as well as what can be expected from Citrix over the course of the coming months. |
| Dan Crowe Dan is Managing Consultant for ShapeBlue South Africa. Based from offices in Cape Town, Dan is responsible for establishing ShapeBlue’s sub-saharan African presence and building out local capability and customer awareness of the benefits of cloud computing models, and associated technologies, as well as the local go-to-market strategy. Dan will discuss the ‘hybrid cloud’ model, adoption trends in South Africa, and present a pragmatic starting point for South African organisations looking to start or develop their journey to the cloud. |
| Trend Micro Trend Micro will discuss their Deep Security and SecureCloud solutions in relation to CloudPlatform/CloudStack IaaS deployments, directly addressing important security considerations. |
Date: 3rd July ’14 – JHB
Time: 09h00 – 13h00
Venue: Westcon Comztek, 9 Cambridge Commercial Office Park, 22 Witkoppen Road, Paulshof, Johannesburg
Date: 4th July ’14 – CT
Time: 09h00 – 13h00
Venue: African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel, cnr Century Boulevard & Rialto Road, Century City, Cape Town
Read event PDF here
Steve is ShapeBlue’s COO and is responsible for all day-to-day administrative and operational functions of the business, including the consulting, programme management, and support functions.
Involved with CloudStack since 2012, Steve has led several large customer engagements including a number of major public and private cloud deployments; co-ordinated and developed worldwide teams and helped implement and deliver an enterprise grade support product.
Prior to ShapeBlue, Steve held senior technical, project and account management roles in enterprise IT outsourcing companies where he gained domain experience in the finance, professional services and defence markets.
Away from work, Steve is a father, keen guitarist, snowboarder and singer (not necessarily in that order).
Away from work, Steve is a music lover and semi-professional musician. Although he doesn’t speak at many technology conferences, he can sometimes be heard providing the evening entertainment.
