Join Tier1 Research's Head of Research, Daniel Golding, for a glimpse into the future of hosting and colocation from 2009 to 2015, with specific emphasis on the applications, technologies and customers that we will be concentrating on over the next several – pivotal – years.

The emergence of the Web as a critical platform for business and consumers presents new opportunities for the hosting industry, as well as a new set of challenges. Proliferation of social networking, rich media and emerging trends such as deployment of mission critical applications in the cloud are influencing the way hosted services are built, delivered and managed. Virtualization is an important technology that will enable scale and profitability. John Zanni, General Manager Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft, will discuss these trends and the impact a virtualized hosting platform can have on the datacenter and the hosting industry.

Construction and operation of datacenters is a huge portion of the budget of the typical Internet infrastructure provider. We know how to build datacenters – but can we do it economically and still provide what our customers demand? Can we instrument our datacenters properly without it driving us into the red? Two infrastructure providers at the extremes of datacenter environments join two top equipment vendors.

Virtualization has received much attention lately, but many people have misconceptions around the limitations of the technology. Join Toby Ford, a thought leader in virtualization, as he discusses how virtualization is more than computing, the security aspects that should be considered, and how it differs from cloud computing.

While many IT firms follow a path of receiving venture capital until they’re cash-flow positive, the datacenter side of the Internet infrastructure industry requires infusions of debt – credit financing – to make the construction of $100m+ datacenters a reality. The current credit crunch, a massive externality, has thrown a wrench into the plans of numerous providers. How does the industry overcome the crunch? How long will it last? What are alternative strategies? And what can we do to convince skeptical banks that a shiny new datacenter is in their future?

Join VMware as they explore what the enterprise customer is looking for and how hosting businesses can deliver on those needs. Uncover VMware’s vision on cloud computing, how hoster’s will play in this new category and what VMware is doing to change the cloud model.

One of the most neglected areas of the datacenter sector is the impact of real estate and realty trends. Join executives from four top real estate firms as they discuss their datacenter practices. How much does a datacenter cost today? What do you get for your money? Where is the market headed? And what are the top pitfalls for hosting executives looking at a big real estate transaction?

Virtualization is transforming the way we sell, provision and deliver managed hosting and utility computing services. Join four of the industry's top virtualization executives as they talk about the real issues at the intersection of hosting and virtualization technology.

General discussion of trends and market perceptions of internet infrastructure companies. Evolution of the sector from a private and public equity standpoint. Update on recent internet infrastructure related initial public offerings, as well as the impact of the credit markets on the space.

Tier1 Research is proud to invite HTS delegates to our third annual Hosting Poker Tournament. Fabulous prizes and even more fabulous networking opportunities await.