Cloud.com, an open source cloud computing softwarecompany, will host a “Build a Cloud Day”workshopon February 25, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport Hotel. The free event will be in conjunction with SCALE 9x, taking place February 25-27, and will be dedicated to teaching attendees how to build and manage their own cloud computing environment using free and open source software. The workshop will feature presentations from Cloud.com as well as from the company’s partners including Rackspace, Zenossand Opscode.

“We are very thrilled to have Cloud.com as a sponsor for SCALE 9x and welcome their willingness to provide timely and interesting training as part of the event’s educational program,” said SCALE founder and conference chair, Ilan Rabinovitch. “In this fragile economy, it’s vital for enterprise software users to understand the advantages and capabilities of free and open source software.”

The main focus of “Build a Cloud Day” is to educate users about the options for using open source software to build and manage virtualized infrastructure. Cloud.com will show users how to use their open source cloud computing software, CloudStack, to deploy a cloud computing environment to deliver Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Opscode will discuss how to deploy infrastructure within the cloud automatically using Opscode Chef. The company will cover the basics of installing Chef clients and working with a Chef server. To round out the day, Zenoss will train participants on how to monitor a cloud computing environment and provide an overview of the Zenoss Core management platform and how to install Zenoss Core.

“The cloud greatly expands the possibilities to automate and scale infrastructure at a rate unequalled in the legacy data center,” said John M. Willis, VP of services at Opscode. “We believe it’s important to strategically partner with projects like Zenoss Core and CloudStack to not only build infrastructure but to automate and empower operations to use IT to better meet the needs of their businesses.”

Additionally, Rick Clark, of the OpenStack project, will be present at the event to give a brief overview of the complimentary Rackspace-sponsored open source initiative.

“As the cloud continues to gain momentum and is implemented by more enterprises, education is extremely important to ensure companies build the best cloud for their particular environments. Cloud.com is pleased to host our first ‘’Build a Cloud Day’ event with the support of Zenoss and Opscode to teach users how to reap the greatest benefits from utilizing open source in cloud computing environments,” said Mark Hinkle, vice president of community. “Participants can expect a day of training that will showcase tools that can be used to handle the dynamics of a cloud computing environment, including automatic provisioning and configuration and monitoring.”

For more information and to register for “Build a Cloud Day,” visit https://labuildacloud.eventbrite.com/.