Songnian Zhou: Clouds Moving Into the Enterprise.

Cloud Computing Conference - Cloud Slam 2009.
Songnian Zhou, CEO of Platform.
Songnian received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987, and subsequently took a faculty position at the University of Toronto as a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Songnian's Ph.D. thesis established the field of distributed resource management, which provides the foundation for grid computing, hailed by industry experts as the next evolution of IT.

This research was the catalyst for the creation of Platform Computing, which he co-founded with two partners in 1992. Under Songnian's leadership, Platform has grown from a company of three employees to 500-strong, with 15 offices around the globe.

Songnian has been recognized for his excellence in leadership and innovation with the Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2002. In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and received the Innovation Award for Leadership in Product Development from the Information Technology Research Centre (ITRC) of Ontario for Platform LSF in 1995.

Keynote Abstract: Clouds Moving Into the Enterprise

The relevance of cloud computing to enterprise IT is not well understood. Like the Internet, cloud computing did not come out of blue. Dr. Zhou’s keynote will discuss the historical evolution of cloud computing including the adoption of grid computing to share IT resources in large enterprises. This presentation will focus on internal/private clouds suitable for most business applications utilized in an enterprise environment. Dr. Zhou will also describe the evolutionary steps required to adopt cloud computing and the potential hurdles to be overcome. Using production cases, he will discuss how cloud computing is not only saving costs but also driving competitive advantage.

Video of the session: