OVERVIEW
HotCloud brings together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry working on cloud computing technologies to share their perspectives, report on recent developments, discuss research in progress, and identify new/emerging "hot" trends in this important area. While cloud computing has gained traction over the past few years, many challenges remain in the design, implementation, and deployment of cloud computing.

HotCloud is open to examining all models of cloud computing including the scalable and reliable management of on premise private clusters, remotely hosted servers in datacenters (either as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)), or a "hybrid" model jointly using resources in datacenters, private clusters and "edge" clusters.

We solicit original papers on a wide range of cloud computing topics for HotCloud. We particularly encourage the submission of position papers that describe novel research directions, debunk state-of-the-art practices, and work that is in its formative stages. Interesting issues show up at all levels of the software stack. HotCloud takes a broad view of cloud computing research including (but not restricted to) ideas in cloud software stacks, operating systems, networking, security and privacy, mobility, virtualization, resource management and scheduling, measurement, cloud economics & pricing, and other related areas.

We encourage early-stage ideas. The workshop’s key role is to provide a place where novel ideas at their nascent stages can see the light of day long before they are ready for publication at the various "conferences of record." Hence, we will be looking for papers that generate discussion and debate. A good way to think about this is that if you are only a few months away from submitting to OSDI, SOSP, SOCC, VLDB, NSDI, FAST, (or similar other high profile conferences), etc., you are probably already past the sweet spot for HotCloud.

TOPICS
Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

* Improving elasticity and availability in cloud infrastructure and cloud services
* Cloud support for new hardware technologies (e.g. accelerators and GPUs)
* Cloud data management and analytics
* Multi-tenancy and related issues such as performance isolation
* Micro-datacenter, Cloudlet, Edge, or Fog Computing infrastructure
* Charging models and economics
* Power-efficient ("green") computing for clouds
* Monitoring, troubleshooting, and failure recovery
* Debugging and performance analysis of cloud applications
* Cloud management and configuration
* Machine learning techniques applied to systems design for cloud systems
* Virtual appliance management and composition
* Storage architectures for cloud computing
* Novel networking approaches for cloud computing
* Programming models
* Security and privacy in clouds including secure compute enclaves
* New applications for clouds
* Machine learning infrastructure over distributed clusters and accelerators
* Mobility
* Cloud workload management including migration to disparate clouds

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Please submit your papers (no extended abstracts) in PDF format via the submission form. Do not email submissions.

The complete submission must be no longer than five (5) pages not including references. It should be typeset in two-column format in 10-point type on 12-point (single-spaced) leading, with the text block being no more than 6.5" wide by 9" deep. Submissions that violate any of these restrictions may not be reviewed. The limits will be interpreted fairly strictly, and no extensions will be given for reformatting. If you wish, you may use the LaTeX template and style files available on the USENIX templates page.

There are no formal restrictions on the use of color in graphs or charts, but please use them sparingly—not everybody has access to a color printer.

The names of authors and their affiliations should be included on the first page of the submission.

Simultaneous submission of the same work to multiple venues, submission of previously published work, or plagiarism constitutes dishonesty or fraud. USENIX, like other scientific and technical conferences and journals, prohibits these practices and may take action against authors who have committed them. See the USENIX Conference Submissions Policy for details. Papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement forms will not be considered. If you are uncertain whether your submission meets USENIX's guidelines, please contact the program co-chairs, hotcloud18chairs@usenix.org, or the USENIX office, submissionspolicy@usenix.org.

Reviewing of papers will be done by the program committee, potentially assisted by outside referees in limited cases. Accepted papers may be shepherded through an editorial review process by a member of the program committee. All papers will be available online to registered attendees before the workshop. If your accepted paper should not be published prior to the event, please notify production@usenix.org. The papers will be available online to everyone beginning on the first day of the workshop. Accepted submissions will be treated as confidential prior to publication on the USENIX website; rejected submissions will be permanently treated as confidential.

By submitting a paper, you agree that at least one of the authors will attend the workshop to present it. If the workshop registration will pose a hardship for the presenter of the accepted paper, please contact conference@usenix.org.