SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today the Open Data Center Alliance℠ announced the “Conquering the Cloud Challenge,” a competition to find best practices for cloud and data center solutions with a $10,000 grand prize. The competition is open to corporations, universities and non-profits which are in the planning stages, developing solutions, or have already implemented cloud-based solutions. Entrants will submit their organization’s best practice in one of four categories: Secure Cloud On-Boarding of Enterprise Applications; Application Resiliency in the Cloud; Identity Management in the New Hybrid Cloud World; and Interoperability of Applications and Workloads Across Many Clouds and Platforms. One grand prize winner and four category winners will be selected by an expert panel of judges.
“Our members are among the leading edge in cloud implementation; a competition like this opens the door for them to share their best practices and share them with corporations and institutions across the globe,” said Marvin Wheeler, chief strategy officer, Terremark and ODCA steering committee chairman. “We are excited to see what members and other leading institutions have been working on internally as well as what groundbreaking methods to deploy and measure cloud success have been developed and implemented.”
The “Conquering the Cloud Challenge” was created to draw attention to the need for uniformity and transparency in the cloud by finding the best big ideas companies, universities and non-profits are using to get to the cloud. The grand prize package includes a $10,000 cash award and leader recognition prize, and the four category prize packages including a $1,000 cash award and team recognition prize will be awarded to the entrants that submit the most innovative and relevant cloud best practices.
“With cloud being the next frontier in data center computing, many are defining processes as they deploy initial cloud implementations whether in their own data centers or through a service provider. The ‘Conquering the Cloud Challenge’ will push companies to share their best insights while helping the ODCA accelerate cloud adoption for everyone,” said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC, one of four judges. “Being asked to judge is an honor and I am excited to see what the entrants have developed to push the cloud forward.”
Entries will be judged by a panel of cloud experts which includes ODCA members and influencers in the cloud industry.
- Jan Drake is Principal Cloud Architect for Disney Corporation.
- Frank Gens is Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst at IDC and writes extensively about the cloud.
- Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser and is recognized as one of the leading social experts on the cloud.
- Jeff Perdue is Senior Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and Co-director of the Cloud Service Measurement Initiative Consortium
- Ravi Subramaniam is a Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation.
Entrants will describe their cloud best practice in a Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat document, in English, no longer than five standard single-spaced pages and email it to contest@opendatacenteralliance.org. The competition is open to organizations managing data center resources in all geographies including Alliance members and non-members. Up to five team contributors (18 and older) may sign on to each entry and prizes will be shared by teams. For complete rules see www.opendatacenteralliance.org/contest prior to entry. Questions about the competition can be sent to contest@opendatacenteralliance.org.
Contest timeline, all dates 2011, all times Pacific Daylight Time (PDT):
- September 6, 11:00 am: Contest opens
- September 6 to September 26: Registration of intent to participate
- September 26, 7:00 pm: Deadline for registration
- September 6 to October 26: Entries accepted
- October 26, 7:00 pm: Deadline for entries, contest closes
- Q4: Winners announced and prizes awarded
About The Open Data Center Alliance
The Open Data Center Alliance℠ is an independent IT consortium comprised of global IT leaders who have come together to provide a unified customer vision for long-term data center requirements. The Alliance is led by a twelve member steering committee which includes IT leaders BMW, Capgemini, China Life, China Unicom, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Inc., National Australia Bank, Terremark, Disney Technology Solutions and Services and UBS. Intel serves as technical advisor to the Alliance.
In support of its mission, the Alliance has delivered the first customer requirements for cloud computing documented in eight Open Data Center Usage Models which identify member prioritized requirements to resolve the most pressing challenges facing cloud adoption. Find out more at www.opendatacenteralliance.org.