Wednesday, April 18, 2012 | 8:00 am PT/11:00am ET

There is a lot of talk about "the cloud" today - and most of it makes it sound as simple as buying a ticket to a concert. Buy your ticket, then sit back and enjoy the show. The truth is that it is much more like assembling an orchestra one instrument and one player at a time - with you playing the role of conductor. Your future is in the cloud - there is no avoiding it. This means that you will be managing a complex ecosystem of providers that you must turn into an orchestra. This brings both great risk and great opportunity. In this panel discussion we will bring together some of the world's foremost experts on the cloud to discuss how to avoid the risks and seize the opportunities that will present themselves as you build and manage your cloud ecosystem. With presenters Charles Araujo, itSMF USA and The IT Transformation Institute and Tim Crawford of Data Center Pulse.

Click this link to register today!

Charles Araujo is the Founder and CEO of The IT Transformation Institute, which is dedicated to helping IT leaders transform their teams into customer-focused, value-driven learning organizations. He is a recognized leader and expert in the areas of IT transformation and IT organizational change. He serves on the boards of itSMF USA and The Executive Next Practices Institute and his articles have been published and referenced by ZDNet, IT Business Edge, ITSM Portal, TechRepublic and itSMF USA’s Forum. He is the creator of “The Quantum Age of IT,” a vision for the immediate future of IT organizations. He is presently at work on two new books and speaks across a wide range of subjects related to this vision of the future of IT.

Register at http://www.brighttalk.com/r/mLD

Join us on Thurs., Nov. 18, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. PDT (2:00-3:00 p.m. EDT) as the Open Data Center Alliance Technical Coordination Committee provides an overview of the Alliance Technical Workgroups, Usage Models and Roadmap.

Register at: http://opendatacenteralliance.webex.com

The Open Data Center Alliance is an independent consortium comprised of leading global IT managers who have come together to resolve key IT challenges and fulfill cloud infrastructure needs into the future by creating an open, vendor-agnostic Usage Model Roadmap.

Engage with us at: www.opendatacenteralliance.org