In conjunction with its flagship event, Forecast 2014, the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) has announced a new organizational charter, formation of a Cloud Expert Network and new workgroup structure. The new charter provides focus on driving widespread adoption of enterprise cloud computing through best practice sharing and collaboration with the industry on availability of solution choice based on ODCA requirements. With IT leaders pressured to drive new levels of organizational agility through cloud service delivery and private cloud expected to grow to a $130 billion industry by 2016, the demand for collaboration across enterprises accelerating cloud adoption is acute. ODCA President and UBS Infrastructure CTO Correy Voo made the announcement in his opening keynote address where he also welcomed CenturyLink and Intel as members of the organization's board of directors. Forecast 2014 runs through September 24 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

Composed of more than 300 member companies across the globe, the ODCA represents enterprise IT leaders across industries. Since 2010, the ODCA has worked to document more than 30 requirements for cloud computing adoption in the enterprise. The organization's new charter will shift its focus to enabling broad scale adoption of the cloud, delivery of solutions and services aligned with ODCA requirements, and deeper collaboration with industry standards and regulatory bodies.

"It's time to move the ODCA and the industry toward broad scale enterprise adoption of cloud services and solutions," explained Voo. "Today we introduced ODCA 2.0, driving adoption of interoperable solutions for secure cloud federation, cloud automation, common management and transparent cloud service delivery based on our unified cloud requirements."

Voo also announced the creation of the Cloud Expert Network (CEN), a cadre of ODCA Contributor and Solution Provider members who will form the core of contributors for work supporting the Alliance's new charter and will benefit through collaboration with peer experts in a variety of data center domains. CEN members will provide expertise to projects undertaken by the ODCA's technical workgroups and provide their expertise to IT organizations seeking to accelerate their cloud strategies. Within ODCA workgroups, CEN members will drive member proof-of-concept testing of cloud solutions, engage with standards bodies to align ODCA requirements with industry standards and regulations, and identify requirements gaps for evolution of ODCA usage models.

With emergence of ODCA 2.0 and the organization's shifting focus toward adoption and solutions alignment, Voo announced that Intel Corporation will transition its existing role within the ODCA from technical advisor to a member of the Board of Directors at the beginning of 2015. "The ODCA has delivered incredible insight into enterprise requirements for adoption of cloud computing through over 1,000 pages of requirements publications," said Shannon Poulin, Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Enterprise IT Solutions Group. "Intel has benefitted from our role as technical advisor to the ODCA, and remains deeply committed to this unique organization as we transition into a board role to support the new organizational charter."

ODCA leaders share deployment insights, detail enterprise requirements at Forecast
ODCA leaders BMW, SAP, T-Systems and UBS also shared organizational insights on cloud deployments at Forecast. As ODCA's charter evolves to drive acceleration of broad scale adoption of cloud computing across the enterprise, key learnings from leading adopters of cloud will help other organizations accelerate their own adoption plans.

ODCA presents inaugural Distinguished Engineer Award

Voo also presented Pankaj Fichadia and Ryan Skipp with the first-ever ODCA Distinguished Engineer Award today in recognition of their technical contributions, leadership and commitment to the ODCA's vision. Fichadia is part of the Managed Cloud Services Team at National Australia Bank and has held various leadership positions within the ODCA, including Chair of the Standards and Regulatory Work Group and Co-Chair of the Business Transformation Work Group. Skipp works in Global Portfolio and Solution Development for T-Systems and has contributed to numerous usage models and technical papers through his involvement with ODCA working groups. He is Chair of the Business Transformation Workgroup and a past Chair of the Manageability and Services Workgroup.

"Pankaj and Ryan's commitment to the ODCA, in both time and expertise, has been substantial and critical to the growth of the organization," remarked Catherine Spence, Principal Engineer for Intel and Chair of the Technical Coordination Committee for the ODCA. "They are both tireless advocates for the ODCA, for cloud computing, and for their colleagues. This is a well-deserved honor."

The third-annual Forecast 2014 runs through September 24 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. On-site registration is available. Visit the Forecast website for more details on speakers and sessions.