T1R Senior Analyst Antiono Piriano takes on three of the hottest services on the frontiers of hosting - virtual hosting, utility storage and platform-as-a-service. Which are the top players, and what are their strategies? Which products will be remembered as early flameouts, and which will have long-term staying power?

T1R has rounded up a group of the most demanding enterprise colocation and managed hosting customers to discuss their vendor choices, top requirements, pain points and wish lists for the industry. These top enterprise IT decision-makers have a message (possibly more than one) for the datacenter and hosting industry about how service should be provided, what it should cost and how we can do it better. Key topics for discussion will include services mix, the importance (or not) of eco-efficiency, billing issues, customer service and industry perceptions.

One of the hottest topics at HTS EU will be the discussion of green datacenters. While many conferences talk about this subject, HTS will examine the special issues faced by hosting and colocation providers, specifically lack of server ownership and control. The panel participants will talk about real power savings they have achieved or enabled, concentrating on the double meaning of 'green' as both environmentally friendly and economically advantageous.

Description: "Cloud Computing - What is it? Who can do it? Should you do it? Can enterprises pull it off? What the heck is a 'cloud,' anyway? William Fellows of The 451 Group and Daniel Golding of Tier1 Research come together to debate these very contentious issues. Don't expect any easy answers or hand-waving joint solutions - the audience will have to make the call after these two analysts present their cases. Rachel Chalmers will moderate, referee and, if necessary, hand out penalties.

Virtualization is a game-changing technology for the hosting sector. Enterprises need help in pursuing their colocation strategies, while managed hosting providers struggle to understand what services they should provide. This wide-ranging discussion will cover virtualization platforms for hosting, appropriate products and services, and enterprise requirements for both today and tomorrow.