Dear OGF groups, We have been encouraged to hold another in the series of Cloud Plugfests at the Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC 2016) conference, for which the Call for Papers has just been extended - see announcement below - and at which a number of related workshops will also be held Please see the information on this important conference at the web site, and let me or other OGF officers know if you would like to propose any related OGF group meetings at this or other upcoming conferences. Thanks, Alan Sill President Open Grid Forum ------------ 9th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC 2016) December 6-9, 2016 - Tongji University - Shanghai, China - Call for Papers Website: http://computing.derby.ac.uk/ucc2016/ Context and Scope: Cloud Computing delivers computational resources ondemand as services that are commoditized and delivered comfortably analogous to traditional utilities such as electricity, gas, water and telephony. Cloud service offerings for compute, storage and communication resources as well as for hosted software and data are growing at a tremendous rate. It is essential to understand how to effectively transform these services into Utilities that provide value to both users and providers. There is also increasing interest from commercial providers to offer business and revenue models around the services they offer. Understanding how these models could be used to provide utility for users, intermediary brokers (aggregators) and providers is also an area of active research. UCC is the premier IEEE/ACM conference covering all areas related to Cloud Computing as a Utility and provides an international forum for leading researchers and practitioners in this important and growing field. UCC 2016, to be held in Shanghai, reflects the need to bring academics and industrial researchers together to discuss how to improve existing services and how to bring new applications into the cloud. This will be the 9th UCC in a successful conference series of community-driven events. Previous events were held in Shanghai, China (Cloud 2009), Melbourne, Australia (Cloud 2010 & UCC 2011), Chennai, India (UCC 2010), Chicago, USA (UCC 2012), Dresden, Germany (UCC 2013), London, UK (UCC 2014), and Limassol, Cyprus (UCC 2015). UCC 2016 will have a co-located 3rd International Conference on Big Data Computing Applications and Technologies (BDCAT 2016). Website: http://computing.derby.ac.uk/bdcat2016/ CALL FOR PAPERS Authors are invited to submit original unpublished research manuscripts that demonstrate current research in all areas of Cloud and Utility computing including design and analysis of distributed and centralized Cloud systems, data centre design and engineering, economic and market models for cloud systems, revenue and business models and their applications in scientific and commercial deployments. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: • Principles and theoretical foundations of Utility Computing, including pricing and service models • Policy languages and programming models, such as cloud-native and cloud-enabled applications • Utility-driven models and mechanisms for Cloud federations • Autonomic techniques for Cloud applications • Utility-/comfort-driven platforms for Clouds • Architectural models to achieve Utility in Clouds • Designs and deployment models for Clouds: private, public, hybrid, federated, aggregated • Cloud Computing middleware, stacks, tools, delivery networks and services at all layers (XaaS) • Virtualization technologies and other enablers • Economic models and scenarios of use • Scalability and resource management: brokering, scheduling, capacity planning, parallelism and elasticity, as well as marketplaces • Cloud management: autonomic, adaptive, self-*, SLAs, performance models and monitoring • Applications: games, social networks, scientific computing (e-science) and business, as well as large- scale foundations for Big Data and analytics • Mobile and energy-efficient use of Clouds • Beyond technology: Cloud business and legal implications, such as security, privacy, trust and jurisdiction especially in Utility contexts Important Dates: Workshop proposals due: 08 May, 2016 Tutorial proposals due: 03 July, 2016 (see separate calls for workshops, tutorials and other tracks) Paper submissions due: 20 July, 2016 ** extended ** Notification of acceptance: 21 August, 2016 Camera ready papers due: 21 September, 2016 Early registration deadline: 21 September, 2016 Paper Submission: Submitted manuscripts should be structured of high technical quality and may not exceed ten (10) single-spaced double-column pages using 10-point size font on 8.5x11 inch pages (IEEE conference style), including figures, tables, and references. Borderline papers may be accepted as short papers but all submissions must be full papers. The proceedings will be published by the IEEE Computer Society, USA, and will be made available online through the IEEE Digital Library, as well as through the ACM Digital Library. Electronic submissions must be in the form of a readable PDF file. Manuscripts must be received in EasyChair by July 03, 2016. All manuscripts will be reviewed by the Program Committee and evaluated on originality, relevance of the problem to the conference theme, technical strength, rigour in analysis, quality of results, and organization and clarity of presentation of the paper. Submitted papers must represent original unpublished research that is not currently under review for any other conference or journal. Papers not following these guidelines will be rejected without review and further action may be taken, including (but not limited to) notifications sent to the heads of the institutions of the authors. Further details on the publication and registration regulations are published on the UCC website and need to be followed. At least one author of each paper must be registered for the conference in order for the paper to be published in the proceedings. There is NO student rate for the author who is responsible for registration for his/her published paper. If you have more than one accepted paper, you have to register for each one individually. There is no discount if you have two or more papers accepted. Presentation of an accepted paper at the conference is a requirement of publication. Any paper that is not presented at the conference will not be included in IEEE Xplore. Templates: http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html Submissions: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ucc2016 Awards and Special Issues: One or more best paper awards will be given for outstanding contributed papers. Selected papers from the conference will be invited to submit an extended version to reputable journals for special issues. Papers will be selected based on their reviewers’ scores and appropriateness to the journal’s theme. All extended versions will undergo reviews and must represent original unpublished research work. Further details will be made available at the conference webpage. Program Committee Chairs: • Josef Spillner, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland • Alan Sill, Texas Tech University, USA Technical Programme Committee: • Jemal Abawajy, Deakin University • Nasro Allah, Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences P. R. China • Ashiq Anjum, University of Derby, UK • Marcos Assuncao, Inria, LIP, ENS Lyon • Thomas Beach, Cardiff University • Siegfried Benkner, University of Vienna • Nik Bessis, Edge Hill University • Luiz F. Bittencourt, University of Campinas • Peter Bloodsworth, National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Pakistan • Ivona Brandic, TU Wien • Andrey Brito, UFCG • Kris Bubendorfer, Victoria University of Wellington • Rodrigo Calheiros, The University of Melbourne • Roy Campbell, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • Tim Cockerill, Texas Advanced Computing Center • Jean-Pierre Corriveau, School of Computer Science, Carleton University • Jörg Domaschka, Institute of Information Resource Management, Ulm University • Andrew Edmonds, ZHAW • Mohsen Farid, University of Derby • Flavio Frattini, RisLab • Lee Gillam, University of Surrey • Rob Gillen, Oak Ridge National Laboratory • Sebastian Götz, Technische Universät Dresden • Madhu Govindaraju, SUNY Binghamton • Neil Chue Hong, Software Sustainability Institute, EPCC, University of Edinburgh • Geir Horn, University of Oslo, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences • Marty Humphrey, University of Virginia • Jesús Omana Iglesias, Nokia Bell Labs • Bahman Javadi, University of Western Sydney • Samee Khan, North Dakota State University • Thilo Kielmann, Vrije Universiteit • Shinji Kikuchi, Fujitsu Laboratories • Kyong Hoon Kim, Gyeongsang National University • Ryan Ko, University of Waikato • Paul Krause, University of Surrey • Marc Lacoste, Orange Labs • Alex Sim Lawrence, Berkeley National Laboratory • Craig Lee, The Aerospace Corporation • Philipp Leitner, University Of Zurich • Jianxin Li, Beihang University • Zhangxi Lin, Texas Tech University • Raquel Lopes, Universidade Federal de Campina Grande • Fabio López-Pires, Itaipu Technological Park • Richard McClatchey, University of the West of England • Andrew Stephen Mcgough, Durham University • Maciej Malawski, AGH University of Science and Technology • Peter Membrey, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University • Kashif Munir, UOHB • Mukesh Chandra Negi, Tech Mahindra • Shrideep Pallickara, Department of Computer Science, Colorado State University • Sangmi Pallickara, Colorado State University • George Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus • Manish Parashar, Rutgers University • Siani Pearson, HP Labs • Radu Prodan, University of Innsbruck • Khaled Salah, Khalifa University of Science, Technology, and Research • Siraj A. Shaikh, Coventry University • Ruppa Thulasiram, University of Manitoba • Rafael Tolosana-Calasanz, Universidad de Zaragoza • Adel Toosi, The University of Melbourne • Carlos A. Varela, Rensselaer Polytecnic Institute • Massimo Villari, University of Messina • Daniel Waddington, Samsung Electronics • David Walker, Cardiff University • Ramin Yahyapour, GWDG - University of Göttingen • Muhammad Younas, Oxford Brookes University