ApacheCon 2011 Announces “Open Source Enterprise Solutions, Cloud Computing, and Community Leadership”

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of nearly 170 Open Source projects and initiatives, today announced “Open Source Enterprise Solutions, Cloud Computing, and Community Leadership” as the theme for ApacheCon North America.

ApacheCon is the ASF’s official conference, trainings, and expo, created to explore key issues in using and developing Open Source solutions "The Apache Way". This year's event takes place 7-11 November 2011 at the Westin Bayshore Vancouver, Canada, with early registration incentives available through 2 September 2011.

Apache products power more than 225 million Websites (over half the Internet) and countless mission-critical applications worldwide (from financial services to publishing to radioastronomy to social networking to biomedicine research datastores to mobile medial applications). More than a dozen Apache projects form the foundation of today's Cloud computing. Five of the top 10 Open Source downloads are Apache projects: understanding their breadth and capabilities has never been more important in today's marketplace.

ApacheCon brings the global Apache community together to collaborate, promote innovation, reinforce and create new connections, launch breakout technologies, and leverage opportunities in using and developing Open Source solutions. ApacheCon's professionally-directed presentations detail specific industry challenges and real-world solutions, giving attendees the must-know tips, techniques, and trends needed to stay ahead in a rapidly changing landscape.

Presenters include noted members of the Apache community, as well as representatives from Adobe Systems, Akamai, Cloudera, CS Communication & Systemes, DLR (German Aerospace Center), FuseSource, Hippo, IBM, LinkedIn, Lucid Imagination, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Nokia, Nuxeo, Red Hat, Sakai Project, SpringSource/VMWare, Talend, Talis, WSO2, Yahoo, and more.

Through highly relevant sessions, attendees --Open Source developers, users, enthusiasts, software architects, administrators, executives, educators, evangelists, students, and community managers-- gain first-hand insight on successfully developing, deploying, and leveraging existing and emerging Apache solutions critical to their businesses.

The ApacheCon program spans “Apache 101” basics to rocket science (“Apache in Space!” track), and features countless Apache projects, from Abdera to Zookeeper. Highlights include:

Open Source Enterprise Solutions: Backbone of the Web; Foundation of the Cloud; Big Data, Bigger Deployments

Extending enterprise solutions to the Cloud is among the biggest strategic trends in Open Source today. The race to adoption poses its challenges across open/public, closed/private, and emerging community Clouds. The demand for reliable, highly-performant, standards-based solutions continues to grow, and Apache products are the continual “go-to” options in Cloud sourcing, particularly with large scale deployments that handle terrabytes of data. Customization, security, load balancing, performance, and privacy all feature prominently in Cloud adoption, and ApacheCon’s sessions address a bevy of Cloud systems, supporting data solutions, and best practices, from how to best prepare for the Cloud to ways to maximize your investment in its rapidly growing and complex ecosystem. Tracks and featured Apache projects include:

Content Technologies and Data Handling (Big Data and Analytics) tracks delve into Apache projects such as Archiva, Cassandra, Chemistry, Hadoop, HBase, Jackrabbit, Jena, Lucene, Mahout, Solr, Stambol, and Tika to demonstrate:

- content management at LinkedIn - managing and warehousing data repositories at the US Federal Government - developing tele-medicine solutions for smartphones - improving smart search performance up to 20,000% - relational database search solutions used by Netflix, Yelp, and StubHub - using metadata, data analysis, and semantic Web applications for machine learning - data analysis solutions as done at Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon, and eBay As Java is synonymous with the enterprise, the Enterprise and Modular Java tracks feature Apache ACE, ActiveMQ, Axis2, Camel, Celix, Karaf, ServiceMix, Zookeeper, developer-friendly Open Source Service-Oriented Applications and the pursuit of a universal OSGi.

The Servers track introduces the latest improvements to the ASF’s flagship HTTP Server project and its role in Cloud environments, scaling Apache’s award-winning Tomcat and Geronimo application servers, and developing feature-rich platform as a service (PaaS) solutions.

Incubating Innovation and Emerging Technologies Launched 12 years ago with the flagship Apache HTTP Server project, the ASF today develops and shepherds nearly 100 Top-Level Projects (TLPs) and 70 new initiatives in the Apache Incubator and Labs. More projects than ever have been submitted to become a part of the ASF to improve the quality of their code and participate in a larger, influential community. The ASF has successfully incubated emerging innovations such as Apache Cassandra, Apache OODT, and Apache Libcloud, as well as highly-established projects such as Apache SpamAssassin and Apache Subversion.

Projects featured in the Innovation & Emerging Technologies track include Rave, Wookie, Whirr, as well as many others to be showcased in the Fast Feather Track, the popular ApacheCon attraction where attendees get a 20-minute snapshot of an array of technologies currently undergoing incubation at Apache.

Opening Business, Community Leadership, and Keeping the Machine Running “Community Over Code” is an oft-repeated saying at Apache, and is reflected in ApacheCon’s Business, Community, and Infrastructure & DevOps sessions, where attendees learn best practices on enabling innovation, meritocratic leadership, managing distributed/virtual teams, driving consensus, releasing Open Source software, and community management “The Apache Way”.

These tracks expose the underbelly of day-to-day life in Open Source companies and communities. Technically-oriented presentations address tough questions on security and network optimization, agile vs. open development, systems integration, running data centers, and streamlining operations, and feature session topics such as Apache Maven, IPv6, performance, troubleshooting, load balancing, and more.

Special Events, Public Participation ApacheCon is widely recognized as an engaging, hands-on, and interactive event, with live demos, active audience participation, ample networking opportunities, and the chance to work alongside leading members and talent in the Open Source community.

Special activities during the week include BarCampApache (7-8 November), the hands-on, unstructured, ad-hoc, participant-driven unconference; Apache Hackathon (7-8 November), where project management committee members and committers collaborate on fixing bugs, addressing issues, and adding new features to Apache code; and ASF Project MeetUps, which brings together users and developers of a particular Apache project (or area of activity) after conference hours. Both BarCampApache and ASF Project MeetUps are open to the public free of charge.

ApacheCon Sponsors Cloudera (Platinum), HotWax Media and Red Hat (Gold), SpringSource (Silver), Facebook (Bronze), are joined by community partners and exhibitors that include The Apache Software Foundation, Crowdvine, Jahia, Ning, and WSO2. Official Event Media Partners are ADMIN magazine, The Bitsource, Conferencevault, DZone, FeatherCast, Linux Pro Magazine, OSCON, OSCON Data, OSCON Java, OStatic, and ReadWriteWeb. For sponsor, exhibitor, and community partnership opportunities, contact Delia Frees at delia@apachecon.com.

Registration Information ApacheCon is for everyone! Anyone interested in Apache products is welcome: ASF affiliation is not required to present at, attend, or otherwise participate in ApacheCon.

Early-bird incentives include savings of up to 25% when registering by 2 September 2011. To register, visit http://apachecon.com/ and keep up with program updates by following the @ApacheCon feed on Twitter.