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Cloud summit set to transform Africa’s IT industry

 

The anticipated 3rd annual Cloud and Virtualisation Summit Africa is taking place at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg, from 10 to 11 October 2012. The event is hosted by international business-to-business conferencing company, Kinetic Events. The must-attend event is aimed at business and technology leaders who need to understand how cloud computing and virtualisation is fundamentally transforming the way in which we think about, acquire and use computing resources.

 

South Africa, Republic of, Oct, 2012 – The 3rd annual Cloud and Virtualisation Summit Africa launched well into day one with positive feedback from all attendees. The summit is gearing the industry forward with a focus on enterprise virtualisation for the enterprise. The summit was officially opened yesterday morning by Derrick Plank, the Director of ClearSpace Consulting and summit moderator, prompting interesting debate among attendees on the increasing impact of cloud computing on business technology.

 

Hrusostomos Vicatos, Managing Director of Victree launched attendees into day two of the anticipated summit, presenting an interesting keynote topic focusing on securing cloud computing environments, private and public. Vicatos discussed next-generation security infrastructure and strategies to address the challenges of securing private and public cloud computing environments.

Attendees were able to visualise and discover the impact of innovation in a topical keynote presented by Kim Andersen, the Principal Advisor at CXO Advisor. Kim presented a 30 minute keynote, placing the spotlight on how the cloud is supporting radical innovation. Dr Happy Sithole, the Director for the Centre of High Performance Computing South Africa presented an anticipated keynote at the summit this year, shedding light on the realities of cloud computing for the enterprise, and how this radical new technology has tremendous potential and promise to the enterprise.

 

Cloud Computing is reforming the IT marketplace offering a much cheaper way for businesses to acquire and use IT. The Summit focuses on how traditional enterprises can adopt Cloud Computing and will feature thought leaders, industry experts and end-user experiences of cloud technologies. The Cloud and Virtualisation Summit Africa comes at a critical time within the industry as enterprises are increasingly becoming more aware of the potential benefits and more importantly, the cost effective notion of cloud computing and virtualisation.

Andre Joubert, General Manager of MWEB Business sheds light on the concept of cloud computing and the direct benefits to the enterprise by ‘demystifying’ the cloud. Technology Service Leader of industry giant Deloitte and Touche, Kamal Ramsingh is set to present an anticipated keynote session focusing on observations and implications of cloud computing.

Expert-led interactive panel discussion sessions feature topical industry discussion points with an innovative questions and answers session. Day two of the summit will feature the much anticipated panel discussion set to address how the enterprise can evolve into the cloud while leveraging existing technology investments with an overall approach to guide your strategy. This panel will feature industry thought leaders including Nardus Breitenbach, Independent Cloud Expert; Seaparo Phala, the CIO at the Department of Arts and Culture; and Terry White, Research Director at CXO Advisor.

Warren Olivier, vExpert and Territory Manager for Veeam Software will provide insight into realising the full promise of virtualisation with Veeam Software, paving the way to effective cloud computing.

 

Industry leaders will head a topical panel discussion focusing on the impact of cloud computing on enterprise architecture, investigate the implications of cloud computing on application delivery within the enterprise and outlines best practices for a successful foundation to cloud computing. This panel will feature Rocky Gwewera, Senior Manager: Enterprise Architecture Development at Sasol; Pat Williams, Group IT Infrastructure Manager for Aspen Pharmacare; Dr Happy Sithole, Director at the Centre of High Performance Computing South Africa; and Stephan Terblanche, IT Infrastructure Services Manager and Architect, ADT South Africa.

Rohan Isaacs, the Director of Norton Rose will lead summit attendees into the future of virtualisation with a topical debate in understanding the legal issues pertaining to cloud computing, what the privacy implications are, who owns the intellectual property and getting off the cloud.

The summit is a true success for the industry and proved to be an insightful, informative and comprehensive industry event. Attendees were impressed with the agenda and provided positive feedback.

 

The successes of the summit were widely shared with positive feedback and satisfaction from all attendees, summit partners and sponsors. Summit producers, Kinetic Events, have achieved a global industry initiative success this year; proving that next year’s event will be even more impactful.

The success of the summit is attributed to its professionalism, organisation and expert presentation. Event organisers; Kinetic Events would like to thank all sponsors, partners, participants and attendees for an outstanding event and look forward to hosting you all again next year!

The 3rd annual Cloud and Virtualisation Summit Africa took place from 10 to 11 October 2012 at the Hilton Hotel Sandton in Johannesburg.. The summit provided a unique and exclusive business-to-business platform for IT executives and industry leaders to share experiences, network among peers and engage in interactive discussions with fellow senior executives, government officials, senior decision makers and international industry guest speakers.

For more information, comment or photographs, visit www.cloudsummit.co.za or contact Shaunei Meintjes on +27 21 555 0866 or shaunei@kineticevents.net. Follow @ITLeadersAfrica and @KineticEventsSA on Twitter for daily updates and news feeds.

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