Next week I’ll be speaking at Cloud Expo in New York City, one of the premier cloud industry events in the U.S. Of the 150+ sessions that will take place over the four-day conference, a handful appears to address an essential element of the cloud: the network.

The importance of an enterprise-grade network at the center of cloud services cannot be overstated. Without it, private clouds are closed systems, and public clouds are subject to unpredictable performance and potential security breaches. The optimum cloud is one that is network-based, where cloud services are actually embedded in the network. A network-based, or “virtual private cloud”, allows cloud workloads and applications to be managed and delivered as part of a total solution to any device, just like voice and data.

In my session, I will discuss how this approach can offer businesses the scale and flexibility of the cloud  without sacrificing performance, reliability, or security.

What role do you think the network plays in the cloud? And if you’ll be at the conference, be sure to say hello. You can find me at @caniano on Twitter. You can also follow the conversation via the hashtag #cloudexpo.