Tuesday, 20 March 2012 at 9:30 AM - Wednesday, 21 March 2012 at 4:00 PM
Venue: Trinity College, OX13BH Oxford
Please note this event has now taken place. This page and its associated resources provide access to details of the event and the presentations that took place there. You may also like to read the Open Source Junction 3 event report.
OSS Watch was delighted to announce a new event in the Open Source Junction series, which brings together the best minds in industry and academia to explore how the two sectors can jointly innovate and exploit cutting edge technologies using open development. Find the details in one overview on Lanyrd and have a look at the OSJ blog that was live over the two days. Open Source Junction Tweets used the #osjmob3 hashtag.
Open Source Junction 3 was about mobile technologies and the cloud. This two-day workshop showcased a selection of successful academic and industry projects featuring mobile and cloud technologies, and provided delegates with the relevant knowledge and networking opportunities to help them build sustainable partnerships in this field.
Economies of scale and the potential for novel enhancements to core functions make cloud computing attractive to educational, public and private sector organisations alike. The opportunity to share expertise and applications via the various IaaS, PaaS and SaaS layers make the cloud an ideal environment for open innovation between organisations.
Cloud technologies can help institutions reduce environmental and financial costs and share the infrastructure load when collaborating with other organisations. Cloud computing can provide new teaching and research environments by allowing students and researchers to better manage projects and workloads, share digital workspaces with peers, store digital artefacts and research outputs, and access them from anywhere and at any time.
Cloud computing can also boost the geographic flexibility of organizations, and, when coupled with emerging mobile technologies, increase the mobility of staff. By using a combination of cloud and mobile technologies it becomes possible to remotely engage in and manage workflows and processes. It is therefore no longer necessary for collaborators to be co-located or restricted to a specific geographic location.
The event took place at Trinity College in Oxford. Lunch and refreshments were provided. A number of accommodation options were available for individual booking.
Attendees were able to have a look at the reading list for this event for background information on the issues that will be explored at the workshop.
There are various definitions of cloud computing, but for the purpose of this event we follow Gartner, who describe cloud computing as “a style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided 'as a service' to multiple external customers using Internet technologies”. Three categories of services are often mentioned in connection with cloud computing: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
SaaS is based on the concept of renting software from a service provider rather than buying it yourself. The software in question is hosted on a centralized network server to make functionality available over the web. Also known as 'software on demand', SaaS is probably the most popular type of cloud computing because of its high degree of flexibility, enhanced scalability and reduced maintenance. Yahoo mail, Google docs and SalesForce CRM are some popular examples of SaaS.
PaaS offers a cloud-based development platform for developers. This platform is often optimised for a specific type of application domain, such as mobile applications, big-data, or customer relationship management, and therefore include a suite of useful tools and services. Developers write applications that take advantage of platform services, while the PaaS provider manages the infrastructure for application delivery. PaaS provides services to develop, test, deploy, host and maintain applications, as well as some support for the creation of applications. PaaS is commonly charged for on a metering or subscription model. Some examples of PaaS include WSo2 Stratos and RedHat OpenShift.
IaaS is the delivery of computing infrastructure as a fully outsourced service. It provides capabilities such as processing, networking, security and other resources allowing users to deploy their applications and data. IaaS users enjoy access to enterprise grade infrastructure and resources on a 'pay as you go' basis. Also referred to as Hardware as a Service, IaaS is a very flexible solution because virtualization can provide almost unlimited instances of servers thus making the use of the hosting hardware extremely cost-effective. Some examples of IaaS are Amazon S3/EC2, Microsoft Windows Azure, and VMWare vCloud.
OSS Watch provides unbiased advice and guidance on the use, development, and licensing of free and open source software. OSS Watch is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and its services are available free-of-charge to UK higher and further education. TransferSummit, OSS Watch's annual conference, provides a forum for business executives and members of the academic and research community to address challenges and opportunities for the development and use of open source technology.
Trinity College, in the heart of Oxford, was founded in 1555 and its earliest buildings date from 1421, when an earlier monastic foundation, Durham College, occupied the site. Although one of the smallest colleges in terms of students, the site is large with extensive gardens. The Bodleian Library and other major University buildings are only a few yards from the front entrance on Broad Street. Danson Room, the workshop venue, has the look of an old library with leather-bound books lining the walls. Lunch will be served in the seventeenth-century hall with refectory-style tables and leather seated and backed chairs.
For info about getting to Trinity please see the college's dedicated page.
For accommodation at Trinity please contact the Conference Administrator.
Accommodation at other colleges may be booked online via Oxford Rooms.
Alternatively a number of nice hotels are available in Oxford, some of which are listed below:
If none of these is appropriate, you could look on Oxford's Daily Info site for more recommendations.
Alternatively, you can make use of Oxford's excellent visitor information services.
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Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales licence.
OSS Watch is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee.