The Ethernet Alliance has released the agenda for its February 16 Technology Exploration Forum (TEF). Entitled, “TEF 2012 - The End Users Speak!” the event will feature 14 speakers and will focus on the future needs of Ethernet as information technology evolves over the next decade. The TEF will be held at Techmart in Santa Clara, CA, and will run from 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
The TEFs are an ongoing series of forums the Ethernet Alliance sponsors to enable discussion and consensus building on various Ethernet-related topics. The February 16 TEF will acknowledge that a great deal of Ethernet technology has reached the field over the last 10years. The full-day is designed to provide a forum for end user representatives to offer their opinions about that technology and what they would like to see in the future.
The agenda combines panel discussions with keynote presentations:
- The first panel will discuss “Ethernet in Future Data Centers.” Speakers will include Ramanujam Rao of Nationwide Insurance, Fred Hartley of Chevron, and Matt Estes of the Open Data Center Alliance.
- The second panel will focus on “Ethernet and the Heart of the Internet.” The panel will include Martin Pels of Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), Shamim Akhtar of Comcast, and Jay Behrens of Frontier Communications.
- Keynoters will include Jeremy Stinson of myYearbook and Parantap Lahiri of Microsoft. They will share their views on the future of Ethernet and its ability to address the demands of their respective networks.
- The last panel will address “The Role of Power in Networks,” with Mike Bennett of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), Bruce Nordman of LBNL, Una Song of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Bob Felderman of Google.
- Two talks provide a capstone to the event. Todd Roth of Harris will discuss Ethernet’s role in entertainment and broadcast. Paul Nikolich, of YAS Broadband Ventures and chair of IEEE 802 LAN MAN Sponsor Committee, will present his views on the IEEE and Ethernet’s Future.
“This is going to be an exciting and informative event,” said John D’Ambrosia, chair, Ethernet Alliance board of directors. “TEF 2012 - The End Users Speak! is designed to allow the end user community to share their Ethernet experiences with the Ethernet developer community. We are looking forward to lively discussions about Ethernet network architectures and application requirements to help determine what end-users need from Ethernet for their networks.”
Registration information is available at http://www.ethernetalliance.org/event/tef-2012-the-end-users-speak-2/.