Submission Deadline:  September 30, 2008

FutureNet: MPLS, Ethernet and Beyond addresses the future of communications services from enterprise, service provider, and vendor prospectives.  Now in its ninth year, FutureNet continues as the premier forum for discussion of enterprise and consumer communications services including MPLS and Ethernet, voice and SIP trunking, 3G/4G wireless, and network and application performance management.  In addition, FutureNet explores issues such as network neutrality, service-provider/enterprise demarcation, international challenges, and new triple and quadruple play offerings. FutureNet will continue its focus on both technical and business issues in all of these areas with a target audience of enterprises, service providers, and vendors in the communications services arena.

FutureNet invites qualified individuals to submit speaking proposals in the topic areas described bellow.  Past conference speakers typically include those responsible for the development of IP communications and transport technologies, in implementing WAN technologies including MPLS, Ethernet/VPLS/PBB/PBB-TE/T-MPLS, SIP, IPv6, WiMax, and optical transport services, those responsible for network management and application performance management, and those taking a leading role in developing best practices for contract negotiation, network architecture, provider evaluation, and network design.  Conference speakers are intended to be a mix of enterprise, service provider, vendor, integrator and independent analysts and consultants.

Speakers are expected to have detailed expertise in the areas that they will discuss.  Participating exhibitor companies are encouraged to submit proposals, which will be considered for acceptance along with other proposals.  Vendors, Service Providers, and enterprises are strongly encouraged to submit end-user case studies or joint customer/vendor presentation proposals as these will be given the highest level of consideration for inclusion in the conference program.  Presentations that serve as advertisements for a particular company’s products or services will be rejected.

Call For Presentation Session Descriptions:
FutureNet seeks presentations and panel discussion participants for sessions covering the following topics (categories listed in alphabetical order):

Transport Architecture & Service Evolution - Enterprise
n Design and architecture best practices
n Deployment scenarios/case studies for multi-vendor MPLS and IP-VPN services
n How to manage service provider relationships including SLA development and setting lines of demarcation
n Contract negotiation and vendor selection
n MPLS vs. IPSec vs. SSL for Enterprise site-to-site connectivity
n Resiliency strategies for enterprise WAN design including best practices for multi-carrier network services
n Ethernet MAN/WAN services
n Use of carrier hosting and hotel services
n SIP Trunking
n Impact of P2P and VoIP on enterprise WAN design
n Architectures and management strategies for interactive video
n Virtualization and network design – considerations and trends

Transport Architecture and Service Evolution - Service Providers
n Design and architecture best practices
n Enterprise justifications for the use of MPLS/VPLS/Ethernet services
n Example case studies for MPLS/VPLS deployment within enterprise networks
n Management strategies for multi-vendor VPNs
n Strategies/requirements for specific vertical markets (e.g. financial services, manufacturing, etc.)
n Last mile strategies (DSL, Cable, Wireless)
n Impact of P2P on SP network architectures
n PBB / T-MPLS – considerations and best practices for evaluation
n Inter-provider connectivity – opportunities and challenges
n SIP Trunking and VOIP Peering services
n IP Multimedia Subsystem – architecture, services and technologies
n Fixed-Mobile Convergence strategies and best practices

Internet Futures
n IPv6
n Network Neutrality
n Application management for ISPs

Operations and Management - Enterprises
n Enterprise network management for WAN and VPN services
n SLA development and management
n Enterprise routing protocol & address management
n Enterprise management strategies for real-time services
n DNS/DHCP/IPAM resiliency strategies
n WAN optimization (compression, rate shaping, application acceleration and QoS strategies)
n Wide area file systems (WAFS) and impact on WAN architecture and design
n Network and performance management in support of service oriented architecture (SOA)

Operations and Management – Service Providers
n SLA management for MPLS and VPLS services
n Managing service-provider interconnection of MPLS/VPLS services
n Provisioning MPLS/VPLS services
n Emerging trends in traffic engineering management

Real-Time Voice/Video Services
n Strategies for implementing multicast in an MPLS/VPLS environments (service provider/enterprise perspectives)
n Service provider infrastructure for delivery of triple and quadruple-play services
n Infrastructure considerations and enterprise opportunities for SIP trunking services

Security Approaches
n Security considerations for L1 vs. L2 vs. L3 services (enterprise and service provider perspectives)
n Identifying and mitigating security risks of deploying MPLS/VPLS/Ethernet services
n Securing the DNS and managing IP address resources
n Securing SIP trunking and peering services (enterprise and service provider perspectives)

Service Provider Resiliency Strategies
n MPLS/VPLS/Ethernet resiliency approaches
n Strategies for fault-detection in service provider networks
n Building a highly available WAN/MAN service
n Wireless resiliency strategies

Wireless Services:
n WiMax as a last-mile technology
n IMS, FMC and integration with MPLS/VPLS/Ethernet services
n MPLS/VPLS integration with regional area networks (RANs)
n Mobile backhaul solutions

Data Centers and Green Computing:
n Emerging options for co-location and hotels
n Green data center trends
n Data center resiliency and replication across geographies

IMPORTANT NOTES:
n You may submit more than one proposal
n Please focus on technology applications, implementations, deployments, migration paths, strategy, and trials and avoid “sales,” “marketing”, and “hype” pitches with your presentation
n End-user case studies will be given highest priority in session selection

In order not to jeopardize review of your abstract(s), please make sure to include all information below.  If you have questions or need clarification, do not hesitate to contact us.

Presenter’s Name and Title:
Company Name:
Mailing Address:
City, State/Country, Zip/Postal Zone:
Telephone Number:
E-mail Address:

Presenter Contact (If different from above):
Company Name:
Mailing Address:
City, State/Country, Zip/Postal Zone:
Telephone Number:
E-mail Address:

Category: (from above categories) that your presentation(s) will cover
Presentation Title
Target Audience:  Who should attend this presentation (Enterprise, Service Provider, both) Description:  Provide a 150 word or less description of your presentation and what the audience will learn.  Brevity is appreciated.
A 50-word biography of the presenter detailing his or her qualifications and background.

TIMELINE:
Abstracts are due via e-mail by September 30, 2008.  Speakers will be notified approximately October 31st, 2008.