SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 04/25/12 -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the creation of CloudOpen, a technical conference that will bring together in a vendor-neutral environment the open source projects, products and companies that are driving cloud and big data ecosystems.

The inaugural CloudOpen event will take place in parallel with LinuxCon North America on August 29-31, 2012 in San Diego, Calif. Designed for software developers and IT managers responsible for deploying and developing cloud solutions, CloudOpen will feature technical content that includes, but is not limited to Chef, Gluster, Hadoop, KVM, Linux, oVirt, Puppet, and Xen, as well as big data strategies and open cloud platforms and tools. This conference will also cover open source best practices and how they relate to topics such as company data and APIs.

The Call for Proposals (CFP) is open now and closes June 1, 2012, along with the CFP for LinuxCon North America: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/cloudopen/cfp

What is generally referred to as "cloud computing" is made up of a variety of open source projects and technologies. Usage of the cloud by enterprise users has been steadily climbing. In a recent survey of enterprise end users for instance, The Linux Foundation and Yeoman Technologies found a 34 percent increase over the previous year in organizations migrating applications to cloud-based computing. Of users in the cloud, 66 percent reported that they are using Linux as their primary platform.

Much-hyped for some time, it is clear that cloud computing this year is becoming a reality for businesses large and small, prompting The Linux Foundation and its members to debut this event designed to provide a collaboration and education space that educates users about open cloud technologies and open source best practices as they apply to the cloud.

"This conference is built on one belief: open works. We know this from experience and know that the cloud demands it in order to be successful for the long term," said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services at The Linux Foundation. "Because Linux, open source software and collaborative development are the foundations of the cloud, it's important to provide a vendor-neutral forum where those who are committed to openness can advance this work and users and industry can learn about 'open' as it is related to the cloud."

The CloudOpen program committee includes:

• Greg DeKoenigsberg, vice president of community, Eucalyptus Systems
• Mark Hinkle, director of cloud computing community, Citrix
• Gerrit Huzienga, cloud architect, IBM
• Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services, The Linux Foundation
• Stefano Maffulli, community manager, OpenStack
• Stephen Spector, cloud evangelist, Dell
• John Mark Walker, director of communities, Red Hat

Founding sponsors of CloudOpen include Canonical, Citrix, Dell, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, NEC, Puppet Labs and SUSE.

Keynote presenters, program and special event information will be available shortly. Early bird registration is $400 and is open through April 29, 2012. Registration thereafter will be $500. Attendees can also attend LinuxCon with their CloudOpen registration at no additional cost. For more information or to register for CloudOpen, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/cloudopen/

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2000, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research, Linux videos and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community's leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, Tizen and Yocto are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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