*** First Call for Papers, Tutorial and Workshop Proposals *** 8th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC 2015) December 07-10, 2015, St. Raphael Resort, Limassol, Cyprus http://cyprusconferences.org/ucc2015 CONTEXT AND SCOPE Cloud Computing delivers computational resources on-demand as services that are commoditized and delivered 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, and 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 2015, to be held in Cyprus, will happen as Cloud providers worldwide add new services and increase Cloud utility at an accelerated pace, and Cloud service users explore new usage modes. This will be the 8th UCC in a successful conference series. 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 (UCC2013), and London, UK (UCC 2014). CALL FOR PAPERS Authors are invited to submit original unpublished research manuscripts that demonstrate current research in all areas of Cloud and Utility computing including design and analysis of distributed and centralized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, engineering, and commercial deployment. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: · Big Data and Analytics · Principles and theoretical foundations of Utility Computing, including pricing and service models · Policy languages and Programming models · Utility driven model and mechanisms for Cloud federations · Autonomic techniques for Clouds and Cloud applications · Utility-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 · 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 One or more best paper awards will be given for outstanding contributed papers. Further details as well as submission guidelines are available at the conference website and below. MANUSCRIPT GUIDELINES Submitted manuscripts should be structured as technical papers 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. Electronic submissions must be in the form of a readable PDF file. Manuscripts must be received by July 03, 2015. All manuscripts will be reviewed by the Program Committee and evaluated on originality, relevance of the problem to the conference theme, technical strength, rigor 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 and sponsors of the conference. Submissions received after the due date, exceeding length limit, or not appropriately structured may also not be considered. Authors may contact the Program Chairs at the email addressed below for further information or clarification. Notification of review decisions will be mailed by August 21, 2015. Camera -ready papers are due by September 21, 2015. Published proceedings will be available at the conference. At least one author of each paper must be registered for the conference in order for the paper to be published in the proceedings. 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. SPECIAL ISSUES Selected papers from the conference will be invited to submit an extended version to the a number of top quality journals. Papers will be selected based on their reviewers' scores and appropriateness to a 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. TUTORIAL PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS Each tutorial proposal must contain the following: · Title. · Name and Affiliation of the Speaker(s). · Abstract (one paragraph, 200 words max., including previous experience with such tutorials). · Intended Audience (one paragraph) and prerequisites: Describe the background assumed of tutorial attendees (i.e. beginner, intermediate, advanced), and any requirements needed (e.g. bring own laptop). · Learning Outcome (one paragraph): Describe the benefit, knowledge or skill that will be gained by attendees. · Description (no more than 2 pages): A statement giving clear motivation /justification for the topic to be presented at UCC 2015 and a comprehensive outline of the proposed content. · Statement on if this tutorial has been given before and if so how this presentation will be different. · Materials (one paragraph): A description of materials to be provided to attendees on the conference website - course slides, annotated bibliography, code snippets, etc. NOTE: the materials themselves do not need to be provided in the proposal. · Bio-sketch: A single paragraph bio-sketch per tutorial presenter. · Requested tutorial length (preferably half-a-day). · Tutorial proposals should be submitted in PDF format by email to the tutorial chairs by the 3rd of July, 2015. RESPONSIBILITIES Materials for the tutorial must be emailed by the 13th of November 2015 at the latest. The UCC 2015 Conference Organizing Committee will be responsible for the following: · Providing logistics support and a meeting place for the tutorial. · In conjunction with the organizers, determining the tutorial date and time. · Providing copies of the tutorial materials to attendees. WORKSHOP PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS Proposals for workshops should be no more than 2 pages in length and should contain the following information: · Title and brief technical description of the workshop, specifying the goals and the technical issues that will be the focus of the workshop. · A brief description of why and to whom the workshop is of interest. · A list of related workshops or similar events held in the last 3 years, or to be held in 2015. · The names and contact information (web page, email address) of the proposed technical program committee. This committee should consist of at least 10 people knowledgeable about the technical issues to be addressed and preferably not more than two members of the same institution. · A description of the qualifications of the organizers (who would be the Workshop Chairs) with respect to organizing this workshop. This can include papers published in the proposed topic area, previous workshop organization, and other relevant information. · Workshop proposals should be submitted in PDF format by email to the workshop chairs by the 8th of May, 2015. RESPONSIBILITIES Workshop chair(s) will be responsible for the following: · Producing a web page and a "Call for Papers/Participation" for their workshop. The URL should be sent to the UCC Workshops chairs. The call must make it clear that the workshop is open to all members of the Cloud, Big Data, Grid and Cluster Computing community. It should mention that at least one author of each accepted submission must attend the workshop and that all workshop participants must pay the UCC 2015 workshop day or conference registration fee. The CfP should make it clear that the registration of at least one author requires the full (non-student, non- workshop) rate. · Ensure that all workshop papers are a maximum of 6 pages in length (in IEEE format). It is the responsibility of the workshop organizers to ensure that this page limit has been adhered to. Additional pages may be purchased (in some circumstances) subject to approval by the proceedings chairs. · Provide a brief description of the workshop for the conference web page and program. · Selecting the participants and the format of the workshop. The publication of proceedings will be by the IEEE in the same volume as the main conference. The acceptance notification (by workshop chairs) therefore should be the same as the conference paper acceptance notification (i.e. the dates should be the same). All other details can be up to workshop organizers to set. · Advertising the workshop beyond the conference web page. · Assistance in producing a camera-ready version of the workshop proceedings. IMPORTANT NOTE If the workshop is too small (i.e. does not attract enough submissions) the UCC 2015 Organizing Committee may decide to merge that workshop with another. So we encourage workshop organizers to attract a large community. In extreme situations we may also cancel workshops if there are not enough submissions. Workshop organizers must ensure that suitable quality measures have been taken to ensure that the accepted papers are of high quality. All papers must be reviewed by an International Technical Program Committee with a minimum of 3 reviews per paper. The workshop organizers should also try to observe an acceptance rate that is no higher than 50%. Unless indicated on the UCC website, there will be no travel support and no registration discounts for authors and organizers. Workshops are not automatically endorsed by IEEE or ACM and should not use the names of these organisations in their titles. The UCC 2015 Conference Organizing Committee will be responsible for the following: · Providing a link to a workshop's local page. · Providing logistics support and a meeting place for the workshop. · In conjunction with the organizers, determining the workshop date and time. · Providing copies of the workshop proceedings to attendees. IMPORTANT DATES · Tutorial proposals due: 03 July, 2015 · Notification of tutorial proposals: 14 August, 2015 · Final description of accepted proposals: 14 September, 2015 · Tutorial slides due: 13 November, 2015 · Workshop proposals due: 08 May, 2015 · Notification of workshop proposals: 22 May 2015 · Paper submissions due: 03 July, 2015 · Notification of acceptance: 21 August, 2015 · Camera ready papers due: 21 September, 2015 · Early and author registration deadline: 21 September, 2015 COMMITTEES General Chairs · Ashiq Anjum, University of Derby, UK · George Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus Program Committee Chairs · Manish Parashar, Rutgers University, USA (parashar AT rutgers.edu) · Omer Rana, Cardiff University, UK (ranaof AT cardiff.ac.uk) Standards/Plug-fest Chair · Alan Sill, Texas Tech, USA & Open Grid Forum Workshops Chairs · Ilkay Altintas, SDSC, USA (altintas AT sdsc.edu) · Josef Spillner, TU Dresden, Germany (josef.spillner AT tu-dresden.de) Tutorials Chairs · Ewa Deelman, USC, USA (deelman AT isi.edu) · Rafael Tolosana, Univ. of Zaragoza, Spain (rafaelt AT unizar.es) Posters Chair · Khalid Elgazzar, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada PhD Symposium Chair · Kenneth Johnson, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Cloud Challenge 2015 Chair · Ian Taylor, Cardiff University, UK Industry Chair · Achilleas Achilleos, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Proceedings Chairs · Nick Antonopoulos, University of Derby, UK · George Palis, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Publicity Chair · Georgia Kapitsaki, University of Cyprus, Cyprus -------------------------------------------------------------------- This is not SPAM. 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