Cloud Files Update: New API-Only And Control Panel Features
Rackspace Cloud Files users now has finer control over how to manage objects and containers with several exciting new API and Control Panel features that we rolled out this week. Check out our new features, which are now available in both the U.S. and U.K. regions.

What Mad Men’s Peggy Olson Could Do On The Cloud
Marketing as a sales strategy has changed in so many ways over the last 50 years. With the advent of social media, there are now millions – and even billions – of new voices clamoring to be heard. Check out how the cloud can help you – and Mad Men’s Peggy Olson – power your campaign with technology that’s smart, affordable, scalable and flexible.

Business Email 101 – Step 1: In-House Or Hosted Email?
Last week, we released the free Business Email 101 Guide to help you think through the decisions involved in choosing the right business email strategy. The first decision you need to make is where to run it – on-premise or hosted. Check out our blog post on how evaluating the different features, value and support options can help you make the smartest business decision.

Why I Joined Rackspace Part II – The Products And The Strategy
Earlier this month, we published the first half of a two-part series from Alan Perkins, Rackspace’s new Director of Product and Technology, Asia Pacific, on why he decided to become a Racker. (Hint: it’s because of our company’s core values and culture.) In the second part of the series, Alan discusses the products and strategy that drove him to continue his journey to the cloud with Rackspace.

Get Mailgun Now, Directly Through The Cloud Control Panel
Rackspace customers, we’ve got good news for you. You can now use Mailgun, the email automation engine we acquired in August, directly within the Cloud Control Panel. There’s no separate account to sign up for or manage, and all Rackspace Cloud customers receive 50,000 emails per month absolutely free. Here’s more information on how you can sign up for Mailgun.

Webinar Recap: C-Suite Disruption: Reinventing The Executive Ranks In A Cloud World
There’s no question that technology is key to accelerating market growth in the cloud industry. Changes in the IT landscape are forcing C-level executives to evaluate even the most basic business practices that they’ve held sacred. If you missed our webinar with Rackspace executives earlier this week, you can take a look here to learn how these changes have helped drive game-changing innovation at Rackspace.

How The New Patent Abuse Reduction Act Levels The Playing Field
The tech community’s fight against abusive patent trolls is gaining momentum. On Wednesday, Senator John Cornyn introduced the Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013 (the “PAR” Act) to help deter patent litigation abusers from filing flimsy lawsuit pleadings. Take a look at this blog post to learn how the PAR Act is a major step toward solving the patent troll epidemic.

There’s no question that technology is key to accelerating market growth in the cloud industry. If you want to increase consumer spend and game-changing innovation, you’ll need to adopt different thought processes that will help technology drive your business to its greatest potential.

One of those strategies is by forging new and collaborative relationships with users. As the consumer base for cloud services grows, more and more CIOs are rethinking IT architecture and controls to help ease the pressure of making tough IT decisions for even the most non-technical users.

Executives are also reexamining how their organizations work best together and how to prioritize initiatives that will provide the strongest competitive advantage for the business.

Recently, a team of Rackspace experts explained how they overcame challenges to drive new, innovative initiatives for Rackspace. Speakers included Rackspace CIO Steve Mills, Rackspace CMO Suaad Sait, Rackspace CFO Karl Pichler and Rackspace Vice President of Enterprise Cloud Lisa Larson. In case you missed it, you can check out the full webinar here:.

Be sure to tune into other upcoming webinars where we’ll discuss topics including resiliency, Hybrid Cloud and Cloud Block Storage.

If you don’t have the answers to these questions, then mark your calendars.

Over the next few weeks, we’re bringing you a series of free webinars to help you drive innovation and improve your business’ cloud strategy. Join us in lively and engaged discussions with our best from Rackspace and your peers in the industry, including Rackspace CIO Steve Mills and Rackspace CFO Karl Pichler.

Here’s a schedule of what’s to come:

Tuesday, May 21, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CST
C-Suite Disruption: Reinventing the Executive Ranks in a Cloud World     
Speakers: Rackspace CMO Suaad Sait, Rackspace CIO Steve Mills, Rackspace CFO Karl Pichler and Rackspace Vice President of Enterprise Cloud Solutions Lisa Larson

Wednesday, May 22, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CST
Be Resilient and Ready with Rackspace
Speaker: Rackspace Enterprise Cloud Strategist Paul Croteau

Tuesday, June 4, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CST
Building Bridges with Hybrid Cloud
Speaker: Rackspace Cloud Strategist Wayne Walls

Wednesday, June 5, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CST
Understanding Cloud Block Storage: Performance, Options and Use Cases
Speaker: Rackspace Product Director J. R. Arredondo

Register now, because spots fill up quickly. We hope to see you there.

According to UTSA President Dr. Ricardo Romo, cloud computing is a crucial component of UTSA’s strategic plan to help the school become recognized as a Tier 1 university. The initiative, called “A Shared Vision UTSA 2016,” aims to propel UTSA into a select group of nationally competitive research universities. The open cloud and open technologies are helping UTSA achieve Tier 1 status, which relies heavily on the quality of a school’s academic research.

There’s no doubt the cloud is revolutionizing the way researchers and scholars use technology to accelerate their research efforts. By offering increased computational capacities, the cloud allows you to process data in real-time while removing dependency on physical infrastructure. It also frees scientists from managing IT equipment, leaving scholars more time to focus on their research initiatives.

Rackspace and the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) recently showcased an advanced OpenStack-powered platform designed to fuel academic research and solve complex scientific and engineering problems. Traditionally, these intensive models were implemented on high maintenance computing infrastructures.

UTSA’s hybrid cloud computing platform features Rackspace Private Cloud and public open cloud solutions and provides scientists with massive scale, flexibility and speed in its world-class research efforts.

“As an increasing number of the society’s current and future challenges require integration of ubiquitous and distributed sensing,  smart data extraction and fusion, and redundant and flexible communications among computational and mobile platforms, open cloud is the natural enabling technology for us to implement integrated solutions to these challenging problems,” said Dr. Daniel J. Pack, chair of the school’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Rajendra V. Boppana, chair of the Department of Computer Science, says a hybrid cloud platform is a key tool for faculty conducting high-impact research in computer architecture, cyber security, big data applications and high performance computing.

“The computer science faculty will use this hybrid cloud to…develop new technologies such as high performance computing as a service and to explore and solve large-scale bioinformatics problems,” he says. “The UTSA hybrid cloud is also an important pedagogical tool that facilitates hand-on experiments and learning activities in computer systems, parallel computing and cloud security.”

And Dr. Romo says he is confident that the power of the open cloud will extend beyond UTSA’s campus. Earlier this week, he told dozens of local movers-and-shakers at a Chamber of Commerce event that he is set on making San Antonio a true hub for the open cloud and innovation.

Rackspace Chairman Graham Weston’s non-profit, the 80/20 Foundation, is also working to make San Antonio an open cloud innovation center. The foundation helped kick-start UTSA’s cloud initiative through a recent donation.

“We collaborate closely with academia and industry to create economic value and help shape San Antonio’s future workforce,” said Lorenzo Gomez, the 80/20 Foundation’s executive director. “The idea of an open cloud enabling research that creates economic value for San Antonio and improves the velocity of scientific research is very compelling.”

Check out this video for a more in-depth look at how UTSA leverages the open cloud and Rackspace Private Cloud for scientific research.

Senator Charles Schumer Shows Leadership On Patent Abuse
Senator Charles Schumer of New York is helping the tech community and Rackspace in the fight against patent trolls. Next week, he’ll introduce a congressional bill that would create a new vetting process for future patent cases to help snuff out bogus lawsuits.

Rackspace At EMC World: Transforming Into The Cloud
We’re heading to EMC World next week in Las Vegas to talk about how Rackspace is helping IT leaders meet the changing needs of their internal business units. Be sure to join us for an engaging breakout session and swing by our booth (No. 527) to learn more about how Rackspace and EMC can help you transform your business into the cloud.

Rackspace Startup Program Global Startup Event Guide: May 2013
The Rackspace Startup Program is here to keep you up to date with valuable information on events and happenings inside the global startup community. Check out our list of global startup events complied by the contributors of StartupDigest.

Autoscale Survey – Tell Us What You Want
One of the ways we improve our services is by asking for your feedback. We will soon add an autoscaling service that allows you to automatically add or remove resources in response to server load. If you have an automated infrastructure, and need it to scale according to demand, we want to hear from you — cast your vote now by filling out the survey!

ObjectRocket MongoDB Now In Our Chicago Data Center
ObjectRocket, the industrial strength MongoDB database-as-a-service company that we acquired in February, is now available in our Chicago data center. You can read a detailed example of how to connect your Rackspace and ObjectRocket infrastructure over on our DevOps blog. If you aren’t already using ObjectRocket in your deployment, you can try it for free.

Rackspace On Startups: Sean Kane
Rackspace On Startups is a video series that explores insights from tech evangelists and founders – from Woz to Graham Weston. Here, Springboard co-founder Sean Kane shares his thoughts on the startup movement and how the Internet is helping entrepreneurs go global.

Here’s more good news: we have yet to show any signs of slowing down. Don’t worry if you missed out because we’re talking technology and going green in this week’s edition of the Rackspace Weekly Digest.

Cloud Monitoring Adds Server Monitoring, Graphs And More
Last fall Rackspace announced the unlimited availability of Cloud Monitoring, our highly available API-driven monitoring system that is changing how we deliver Fanatical Support. Since then, we’ve been quietly adding features and we’re continuing to unveil even more. Check out our blog post on how you can get server monitoring, graphs and more.

Rackspace Is Named A Leader In Gartner Magic Quadrant For Managed Hosting For North America
For the second consecutive year, Rackspace has been recognized as a market leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting. We had a great run in 2012: we launched a suite of new open cloud products on tight deadlines, and we migrated many customers to our new platform. This year, we’ll continue to shape the future of the open cloud by expanding our hybrid cloud portfolio.

Go From A Cloud Beginner To A Cloud Big Timer
Are you just getting started with the cloud, system administration or software development? We have a number of tools to help you go from a cloud beginner to a cloud expert. Here we explain how the Rackspace Knowledge Center, the Open Cloud Community and the Open Cloud Academy can help you become a cloud computing pro. And the accompanying video is pretty funny too.

Top Cloud Computing Myths Of 2013 [Infographic]
All of the information and misinformation around the real benefits of cloud computing is enough to make your head spin. To stop the spinning, we’ve created an infographic that will help debunk the top cloud myths still prevalent in 2013.

Rackspace On Startups: Lew Moorman
Rackspace On Startups is a video series that explores insights from tech evangelists and founders – from Woz to Graham Weston. Here, Rackspace President Lew Moorman shares his thoughts on startups and why they’re so important to Rackspace.

Let’s Build A Better Planet
To celebrate Earth Day, we launched responsibility.rackspace.com to show how we think about the three Ps: people, pocket and planet. We want to make sure that we’re building world-class practices across our business, so we publicly released our Global Energy Policy earlier this week.

OpenStack Summit Recap
OpenStack Summit Portland kicked off this week, and nearly 200 rackers made the journey to Oregon. There, they gave tech talks and discussed all things cloud with an estimated 2,400-plus attendees. Tickets to the summit sold out weeks in advance, so if you missed out, here’s a brief recap of the week:

• Day 1: The first day of the summit saw big news from some of OpenStack’s main players. Rackspace announced that we have plans to build and launch an interoperable Global Cloud Network for large service providers and telcos.
• Day 2: We kicked off the morning by showcasing how HubSpot is using an open hybrid cloud infrastructure to power its marketing software.
• Day 3: Where will OpenStack be in 2023? Tune into our video to hear about the future of the open source cloud operating system.
• Day 4: Open Compute, a computing infrastructure that we co-founded with Intel and Facebook, is gaining momentum. Check out our blog post on how this innovative project is helping to make computing more efficient.

OpenStack Summit Portland Keynote: Rackspace, HubSpot Take The Stage [Video]
OpenStack Summit Portland has been all about the users. In this keynote presentation, Rackspace Senior Vice President of Private Cloud and OpenStack Co-Founder Jim Curry outlines how OpenStack has evolved and how the numbers show that it’s making an impact with users.

Solving The OpenStack Talent Gap
There’s an overwhelming shortage of IT talent in cloud and within OpenStack. The good news is that OpenStack-focused positions pay an average of 13 percent more than their industry equivalents. And even better: we’re hiring! You’ll want to check out this blog post if you’re looking to get hired into an IT career, or if you’re a recruiter looking for ways to find the right candidates for technical positions.

Getting More Women Involved In OpenStack
Studies show that just 12 percent of the professionals in engineering are women. At OpenStack Summit Portland, Rackspace Videographer Jacob Forbis caught up with some of the women who are making OpenStack great and who are working to get more women involved.

UTSA Uses Open Hybrid Cloud For Research and Academic
Speaking of studies, Rackspace and the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) have designed an advanced OpenStack powered platform to fuel academic research, computational power and big data that will revolutionize how scientists and scholars leverage the cloud. Check out this video for a more in-depth look at how UTSA leverages the open cloud and Rackspace Private Cloud for scientific research.

Rackspace changed the technology game when we co-founded OpenStack in July 2010. Come “Up Your Game” to the next level with us at OpenStack Summit in Portland, which runs from Monday, April 15 to Thursday, April 18.

This page will be updated throughout the Summit with new info and details. Stay tuned. And be sure to follow the action on Twitter with the hashtag #rackstack2013.

Here’s what we’ve got going on at OpenStack Summit Portland:

OpenStack: The Next 10 Years [Video]

We’re just three years into the OpenStack revolution. Where will it go in the next 10? In this video, we explore that question with representatives from Rackspace, Sony and Dell.

Solving The OpenStack Talent Gap

We’re in trouble. We’re facing an unprecedented shortage of IT talent in cloud, and in this case, specifically within OpenStack. Here, we highlight ways the community can solve the OpenStack talent gap.

Rackspace, HubSpot Keynote [Video]

Check out the full video of Rackspace and HubSpot taking the keynote stage at OpenStack Summit Portland.

Day Two Recap

The second day of OpenStack Summit Portland put the spotlight on the users. It was also another big day for news. Here’s a recap of the second day of the Summit.

Users Take The Spotlight

The second day of OpenStack Summit Portland was all about the users, as several high profile OpenStack users shared their stories.

The Year Of The User

Users are now building businesses and doing great things on OpenStack. At OpenStack Summit Portland this week, we’re seeing that 2013 is clearly the year of the user.

HubSpot And The Open Hybrid Cloud

Rackspace customer and OpenStack contributor HubSpot highlights how it uses Rackspace’s open hybrid cloud powered by OpenStack.

The Heat Is On For Autoscaling

One challenge at OpenStack Summit Portland was for the various contributing partners to come to an agreement about how to integrate autoscaling into OpenStack. Should autoscaling stay part of the Heat project, which encompasses all of orchestration, or spin off as a separate project?

OpenStack Powering The Cloud’s Future [Video]

In this video, we hear from Rackspace, Dell, Scalr and the OpenStack Foundation about the importance of OpenStack, the growth of OpenStack Summit and how the OpenStack project is powering the future of cloud computing.

Day One Recap

Day one of OpenStack Summit Portland is in the books. Here’s a recap of some of the big news to come out of the first day of the Summit, including news from Rackspace, NetApp, Red Hat and more.

Twitter Photo Party Contest

New this year at the OpenStack Summit, we’re having a Twitter Photo Party! Simply Tweet a photo or Instagram shot of yourself wearing one of the Rackspace t-shirts from our booth. Be sure to include @Rackspace in your Tweet and the hashtag #rackstack2013  for a chance to win a pair of QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones. All entries must be submitted between  April 15, 2013 and April 18, 2013. Tweet away – we love seeing our fans in Rackspace gear. *See contest rules below.

Rackspace Presentations And Panels

Rackspace will have a huge presence at the Summit. More than 30 Fanatical Rackers will give demonstrations and tech talks and sit on panels throughout the week; and Jim Curry, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Private Cloud at Rackspace, will deliver a keynote presentation with special guest HubSpot on Tuesday morning. Check out the full lineup here.

Free Swag At The Rackspace Booth

We’re also giving away tons of FREE swag at the Rackspace booth (booth A5), including t-shirts. Swing on by.

Contribute Code To OpenStack, Get Free Hosting

If you’ve contributed code to the OpenStack project, we want to offer you free hosting. Go over to iopenedthecloud.com during the Summit, or stop by the Rackspace booth (booth A5) for more info. You made the code free; we’ll make your cloud free – up to $500 per month for two years. You can verify contributions at http://www.ohloh.net/.

Free Certification Exams

Want to beef up your resume and show the world that you’re on top of your OpenStack game? Want to do it for free? At OpenStack Summit Portland we’ll offer free Rackspace Certified Technician for OpenStack exams – a $200 value. We’ll host the exam each night of the OpenStack Summit (Monday, April 15 through Thursday, April 18) in the Director’s Suite on the third floor of the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower. The exam will run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and an OpenStack Summit Portland badge must be presented prior to taking the test. Space is limited, so arrive early to guarantee a spot.

Become A Racker

Rackspace will have members of its Talent Acquisition team onsite throughout the Summit. If you think you’ve got what it takes to become a Racker, come talk to us. We’re hiring!

OpenStack Summit Victory Party

On Wednesday night, Rackspace and RightScale will take over Castaway for a private party open to all OpenStack attendees. You can RSVP here for a VIP guest ticket, which includes transportation to and from the convention center, food, specialty cocktails and an Avatar artist.

*ABBREVIATED RULES FOR RACKSPACE UP YOUR GAME PROMOTION

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void outside the 50 U.S. and D.C., and where prohibited. Open only to legal residents of the 50 U.S. and D.C. at least age of majority at time of entry. Begins at 12:00 p.m. PT on April 15, 2013; ends at 11:59 p.m.  PT on April 18, 2013. T-shirt giveaway is available while supplies last. One (1) Sweepstakes Prize: QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones; ARV of prize: $ 349.95.  Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. For complete eligibility details and full rules, visit http://www.rackspace.com/information/legal/socialcontestrules.  Sponsor: Rackspace US, Inc.  Copyright © 2013. Rackspace US, Inc.  All rights reserved. 

Abolish The Patent, Vanquish The Troll
Rackspace is just one of many companies dealing with endless lawsuits over dubious patents. Last week, we decided to break the silence and shine a bright light on the most notorious patent troll in America by suing them in Federal Court. Today, we filed a separate challenge to a patent against a different troll. Check here to learn how we’re sticking up for ourselves, the open source community, app developers and every other company in the mobile application world.

Ramping Up Our OpenStack Investment, Involvement
Our commitment to OpenStack is stronger than ever. As we head into OpenStack Summit Portland, we wanted to update everyone on our progress. From merging Cells into the Grizzly release of Nova to engaging a couple of teams in the Heat project, we’re ramping up both our involvement and investment in OpenStack.

OpenStack Summit Portland: Up Your Game With Rackspace
OpenStack Summit Portland kicks off Monday at the Portland Convention Center, and more than 30 rackers will be there to give tech talks and demonstrations. Jim Curry, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Private Cloud at Rackspace, will also deliver a keynote presentation with special guest HubSpot on Tuesday morning. Rackspace has a lot going on at OpenStack Portland. We’ll be giving away free certification exams and free swag, and don’t forget to join us on Wednesday night for a toast to the open cloud at Rackspace and RightScale’s private party. Check out the full OpenStack lineup here.

How to Install Airbrake In Your Rails App
Rackspace recently acquired Exceptional Cloud Services, the team behind Airbrake, an error reporting and monitoring tool. This tool lets you get into the guts of your application’s errors to see what is going on. Here’s a screencast that walks you through a step-by-step guide on installing Airbrake to your Rails app

Develop Mobile Apps Quickly On The Rackspace Cloud
Earlier this week, we launched mobile-ready cloud stacks. We’re also beefing up our mobile partner ecosystem and adding some well-known names in the mobile app world. By working with our partners, you can create more agile mobile applications built for the cloud. Check out our blog post on how Rackspace is changing the game for mobile developers.

Maximize ROI In The Cloud
Return on Investment (ROI) in the cloud is now more complex than IT leadership traditionally experienced. Join Stacy Williams, Rackspace Director of IT Production Support, and Rafat Shaheen, Enterprise Strategist, for a webinar on the costs, risks and benefits associated with cloud adoption. They will also be discussing a framework for measuring its return. The webinar is scheduled for 11 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, April 17.

This is Rackspace’s largest-ever presence at the annual conference, which runs Monday, April 15 through Thursday, April 18. Here’s a glimpse of where to find Rackspace experts at the OpenStack Summit next week. You can also follow our presenters on Twitter for the most up-to-date schedule.

OpenStack Summit 2013

Keynote

Tuesday, April 16

9:45 a.m. – Keynote (Jim Curry, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Rackspace Private Cloud, @jimcurry & HubSpot)
In this keynote presentation, OpenStack user and Rackspace customer HubSpot will showcase how it uses OpenStack.

Rackspace Sessions

Monday, April 15

1:50 p.m. – Cloud Keep: OpenStack Key Management as a Service (Matt Tesauro, Lead Software Security Engineer)
This presentation will cover Cloud Keep, an open source project sponsored by Rackspace to build a secure, cloud-ready key management solution. We hope to solve a need for our customers as well as other OpenStack projects, several of which have published blueprints around encryption recently. We will walk through our plans for the system, its technical architecture and demonstrate our current proof of concept implementation.

1:50 p.m. – Designing Your OpenStack Private Cloud: Folsom Edition (Ryan Richard, OpenStack Architect, @rackninja)
There is no easy answer or magic solution when architecting your private cloud. OpenStack is flexible and can be designed in many ways, which can be a blessing or a curse. The goal of this talk is to provide guidance on how to start thinking about your private cloud architecture.

1:50 p.m. – Panel Discussion: Enterprise Vendors in the OpenStack Ecosystem (Cody Bunch, Principal Architect, @cody_bunch)
In this panel, members from AMD, Arista, Brocade, EMC, HortonWorks, NetApp, OpenCompute, and Rackspace will discuss the enterprise OpenStack ecosystem and speak about benefits and motives for making OpenStack a core part of their product offering. 

2:40 p.m. – After the Install: Operational Tooling for OpenStack (Jason Cannavale, Director of Software Development, @jcannava)
OpenStack is installed. Now how do you operate it? How do you perform upgrades? Cannavale will demonstrate and discuss the Rackspace Private Cloud approach to operating an OpenStack-powered cloud and simplifying the operator experience.

2:40 p.m. – Update on Project Reddwarf: DBaaS for OpenStack Clouds (Tim Simpson, Software Developer)
Join Rackspace and HP as we discuss the value Reddwarf brings to OpenStack, the progress we’ve made, the challenges we have faced and our vision for the future. In this session, you will get a chance to hear how Reddwarf simplifies the management and maintenance of database systems in the cloud, understand how you can begin to leverage it, and learn how you can become active in the community.

3:40 p.m. – Solving the OpenStack Talent Gap (Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista, @nikiacosta)
As a follow-up to last year’s successful OpenStack Careers Panel, come join Rackspace Cloud Evangelista Niki Acosta as she shares her thoughts on the OpenStack talent gap and what the community must do–short term and long term–to accelerate adoption and usage of OpenStack-powered public and private clouds.

Tuesday, April 16

11:00 a.m. – Apache Hadoop on OpenStack (Sudarshan Acharya, Software Developer)
In this session, we will briefly look at the Hadoop’s design decisions; come up with the best practices for deploying and running Hadoop on OpenStack and some of the challenges around it. We’ll also look at the ongoing work in the Hadoop and OpenStack communities, and explore how we can make OpenStack a better platform for Hadoop and big data.

11:50 a.m. – Panel: What Everyone Ought to Know about OpenStack Internships (Anne Gentle, Community Documentation Coordinator, @annegentle)
In this session, we will share information on our current OpenStack internships and our future plans for such programs. We will talk about the projects that previous interns have worked on, the struggles they faced while learning about OpenStack and where they want to go from here. If you are an organization looking to hire OpenStack interns, or a potential intern seeking an internship, this session is for you.

11:50 a.m. – nova-network: The Dirty Details (Ryan Richard, OpenStack Architect, @rackninja)
Even with Quantum lingering right around the corner, nova-network still has its place in existing OpenStack clouds and will be used in the immediate future for many deployments. The goal of this talk is to provide in depth information about nova-network and items to consider when architecting your cloud.

1:50 p.m. – Getting Started with OpenStack Development (Michael Still, Senior Software Developer @mikal)
People frequently ask how they can get started with OpenStack development. There’s a process that needs to be followed, from setting up a launchpad account, to signing the CLA, to sending off you first patch with adequate testing. In this session Michael Still, a Nova core reviewer, will guide the audience through this process and send off a patch to a real bug in the Nova codebase, stopping to answer questions along the way.

1:50 p.m. – DevOps Panel (Kevin Jackson, Senior Solutions Architect, @itarchitectkev)
Join Kevin Jackson and panelists from organizations including HP and Big Switch Networks as they field questions on DevOps and Continuous Development/Integration.

1:50 p.m. – Images for Private Cloud: Automating Image Builds for OpenStack (Jordan Callicoat, OpenStack Private Cloud Engineer, @jcallic & Ryan Yard, Sales Engineering Senior Manager, @rackeryard)
This discussion will cover how to use existing tool chains (oz, boxgrinder, veewee) to automate building homogenous, patched OS images for cloud consumers, as well as functionally testing and deploying your images using continuous integration.

1:50 p.m. – Deploying OpenStack Trunk into a Production Environment (Rick Lopez, Director of QE for Cloud Infrastructure, @rklpz)
When someone hears that Rackspace deploys from OpenStack trunk into a production cloud environment, there are generally lots of questions (and sideways glances at the perceived insanity). In this session, we’ll address both the business strategy behind this approach and begin a deeper conversation with the OpenStack Community.

2:40 p.m. – Building “Cloudy” Apps (Tony Campbell, Director of Training and Certification, @cloudtrainme & John McKenzie, Technical Training Manager, @jmckind)
During this session we will walk through some of the considerations for building applications on OpenStack. We will show you how to leverage OpenStack to scale up and scale down your application infrastructure. We’ll also walk through architecture considerations for a “cloudy” application and provide you with plenty of tips for getting the most out of OpenStack.

2:40 p.m. – Network Virtualization and OpenStack Quantum User Panel (Mike Aeschliman, Private Cloud Engineering and Product Head, @bostonmikea)
Moderated by independent industry analyst Brad Casemore of IDC, the panel will be asked to discuss specific networking challenges faced before and after deploying Quantum and network virtualization; the impact it’s had on their production cloud deployments and their sense of where the technology is at today and where it needs to evolve in the short and long term.

3:40 p.m. – OpenStack:  The Next Ten Years (Jim Curry, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Rackspace Private Cloud, @jimcurry)
Tremendous strides have been made since Rackspace and NASA launched OpenStack three years ago, but was does the long-term future hold? Where will OpenStack be in 2023? Join OpenStack Co-Founder Jim Curry to discuss where our project might be headed and the potential pitfalls and innovations that may await.

5:20 p.m. – Panel: Writing the OpenStack Operations Guide in 5 Days (Anne Gentle, Community Documentation Coordinator, @annegentle & Everett Toews, Developer Advocate, @everett_toews)
The authors of the OpenStack Operations Guide will discuss the trials and tribulations of writing their book in just five short days, from the conception and proposal to the process and publication. This panel will highlight the efforts that go into producing the documentation necessary for a successful OpenStack ecosystem. The first 60 attendees will get a printed copy of the OpenStack Operations Guide courtesy of Rackspace.

5:20 p.m. – Panel: Interoperability (Wayne Walls, Cloud Strategist, @waynewalls)
Interoperability allows OpenStack users to transfer workloads between providers; however, even minor differences between deployments can create significant interop challenges. By solving these problems, we can create a clouds that provide fault tolerance at the technical, geographic and commercial level. Join us for a lively discussion about the opportunities and challenges facing us in our quest for workload portability. This panel includes a broad range of representatives on both the infrastructure, client and system side.

5:20 p.m. – Unified Event Notifications (Sandy Walsh, Software Engineer, @TheSandyWalsh)
Join Sandy Walsh as he explains how we can clean up the code by unifying AMQP notifications, the DB InstanceFault table, decorators, conductor mechanisms and logging.

Wednesday, April 17

11:00 a.m. – Hands-On Configurations Workshop with Cinder and Quantum (Cody Bunch, Principal Architect, @cody_bunch)
In this session, end users will be walked through installing and configuring OpenStack Cinder and Quantum to work with a variety of Enterprise vendors. This interactive configuration session will provide detail in setting up Quantum and Cinder, as well as Enterprise Software Defined Networking and Storage architectures.

1:50 p.m. – Panel: Building an OpenStack Business (Scott Sanchez, Director of Strategy, @scottsanchez)
In this panel discussion, Scott Sanchez, OpenStack Foundation Director Jonathan Bryce and others will discuss how to build a business around OpenStack.

2:40 p.m. – Rackspace Testing Engine Case Study/Overview (Sam Danes, Quality Engineering Manager)
Rackspace is open sourcing its internal testing framework, which is used to test our deployed OpenStack instances. In this session, we will host a demonstration and discuss our approach and how it can be used in the community.

4:30 p.m. – Learning to Scale OpenStack: A Case Study in Rackspace’s Open Cloud Deployment (Rainya Mosher, Software Development Manager, @rainyamosher)
In this case study, we will talk about the various open cloud deployment strategies that Rackspace has used, our experiences with them and how the strategies that worked for 200 nodes didn’t always work for 1,000 nodes. We’ll end by looking at how we will get to the first 10,000-plus-node deployment and stay continuous.

Thursday, April 18

9:00 a.m. – Project Overview: OpenStack Queuing and Notification Service (“Marconi”) (Kurt Griffiths, Principal Architect, @kgriffs & Allan Metts, Software Development Director, @ametts)
Join Kurt Griffiths and Allan Metts to learn about the work that has been done on Marconi, an OpenStack queuing and notification service, and the path ahead — including a description of the project, milestones, how it works and an early demo. Users will be able to customize Marconi to achieve a wide range of performance, durability, availability, and efficiency goals.

9:50 a.m. – Double Entry Auditing of Collected Metrics in CM (Sandy Walsh, Software Engineer, @TheSandyWalsh)
In order to offer SEC-Compliant billing we need to validate collected metrics from two sources. The needs to be an audit trail for important metrics such as instance lifecycle, bandwidth and storage usage. Join Sandy Walsh as he explains how this might be accomplished with CM.

11:00 a.m. – The Zen of Eventlet (Chuck Thier, Software Developer, @creiht)
Eventlet is a core library that OpenStack depends on for network communications. Eventlet is not magic, though often it is treated as such. In this talk, Chuck will dispel the magic, and discuss best practices for using Eventlet.

3:20 p.m. – Bare Metal to OpenStack with Razor and Chef (Egle Sigler, DevOps Architect, @eglute & Matt Ray, Opscode Senior Technical Evangelist, @mattray)
In this workshop attendees will learn to use the Razor Provisioning Engine along with Opscode Chef to deploy OpenStack to bare metal in an easy to do, easy to maintain, easy to scale fashion. You’ll become familiar with the concepts and tools needed to build and maintain an OpenStack Cloud.

4:10 p.m. – Practical OpenStack Cloud Hardening and PCI-DSS Readiness (Cody Bunch, Principal Architect, @cody_bunch)
This session will cover some basic cloud security concepts and then dive into the practicalities of securing your OpenStack deployment and the steps necessary to design your OpenStack Private Cloud in preparation to undergo a PCI-DSS Audit.

5:00 p.m. – Project Meniscus: A Better Focusing Lens for System and Application Events (John Hopper, Software Developer, @zinic)
In highly diverse, clustered environments like those seen in many OpenStack deployments, the system event landscape can become complex, difficult to manage and over time become opaque to the point where events generated no longer provide value. In this session, we will identify how to capture the business value of these events in a standardized and scalable manner.

5:00 p.m. – Fine-Grained Access Control (Joe Savak, Product Manager)
In a large implementation, there can be many users each having some level of access to a shared pool of resources. Not all users need that much access though, and there are cases where access must be restricted further. V3 introduces policies and that works for restricting access to certain capabilities (only a user with the role “admin” or group “foo” can create server in nova, etc). Policies bloat up though if they need to get down the resource level (only joe can delete server “ABC”). This session will discuss possible solutions to provide fine-grained access control to OpenStack services.

5:00 p.m. – Supporting Rich Data Types and Aggregation (Sandy Walsh, Software Engineer, @TheSandyWalsh)
Sandy Walsh will review some of the real-world metrics collected at Rackspace and discuss how this data might be stored in Ceilometer. He will also explain the potential ramifications on the query interface and multi-publisher.