CETIC is the Belgian applied research centre focused on Information and Communication Technologies. Its main mission is to act as the interface between Academic and Industry to quicken research and innovation in the Walloon region and beyond. Founded in 2001 by three key Belgian universities (UCL, FUNDP and UMONS), it has now grown into an independent research institution that has partnered with many research organizations through the world as well as relationships with European R&D organizations (e.g. CRPHT or INRIA) developed thanks to very intensive collaborations in more than 20 European research projects (IP, NOE, STReP, ERAnet, and InterReg). The three research departments at CETIC have developed an expertise in:

● Software and System Engineering with a focus on software processes and products quality, requirements engineering, formal methods, and IT systems reverse engineering.

● Embedded and Communication Systems notably in hardwaresoftware codesign, and methodologies related to programming electronic cards (FPGA).

● Software and Services Technologies, targeting high availability, mobility, semantic, security, privacy and trustworthy computing in cloud environments.

Furthermore, CETIC actively disseminates its knowledge at international conferences and to standardization bodies most importantly thanks to its involvement as an ISO Belgian representative in various committees on topics in Software and System Engineering (SC7), Security (SC27), Distributed Computing (SC38) and Health Informatics (TC215).

The Universidad Complutense de Madrid (http://www.ucm.es) is the largest and most renowned university in Spain, with over 700 hundred years of history. The research group involved in BEACON is the Distributed Systems Architecture Research Group (http://dsaresearch. org), which is part of the Computer Science Faculty. DSAResearch group conducts research in advanced distributed computing and virtualization technologies for largescale infrastructures and resource provisioning platforms, being involved in several research and development initiatives in grid and Cloud Computing.

Founded in March 2010, Open Nebula Systems is a high technology SME started by the authors of OpenNebula in order to provide enterprise grade solutions around this leading opensource technology for cloud computing. Open Nebula Systems was built on understanding the needs of its customers and partners and delivering the Cloud Management Software, Support and Services to make them successful. Open Nebula Systems manages the OpenNebula opensource project and community, and is the main contributor to the software. Open Nebula Systems offers a comprehensive set of support subscription services, through which customers and partners can get production level support or build a custom cloud infrastructure or solution. Open Nebula Systems customers include some of the world’s leading telecom operators like BlackBerry, hosting providers like LMD, supercomputing centers like LRZ, research institutions like ESA, and financial institutions like Produban – Santander Group. Open Nebula Systems is a company associated with the Scientific Park of Madrid.

IBM Israel Science and Technology Limited, better known as IBM Research Haifa, was first established in 1972. Since then, the lab has conducted decades of research vital to IBM’s success. The lab is one of 9 research laboratories located outside of the United States, and has close working relationships with IBM Israel and its twin research laboratory in Zurich. In Haifa, 25 percent of the technical staff have doctorate degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, or related fields. Employees are actively involved in teaching in Israeli higher education institutions and in supervising postgraduate theses. R&D Proposal projects are being executed today in areas such as storage systems, cloud computing, healthcare and life sciences, verification technologies, analytics, business optimization, information retrieval, programming environments, and more.

Flexiant provides cloud orchestration software focused solely to the global service provider market. Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator is a cloud management software suite that arms service providers with a customizable platform to help them turn innovative ideas into revenue generating services quickly and easily. With Flexiant, service providers can generate more revenue and accelerate growth, compete more effectively and lead the market through innovation. Vendor agnostic and supporting multiple hypervisors, Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator offers a customizable platform, a flexible interface, integrated metering and billing, reseller capabilities and application management. Flexiant gives service providers the ability to develop, launch and bill for new cloud services quickly. Flexiant has been named a Gartner Cool Vendor in Cloud Management, ranked as the most innovative product in the market by InfoTech Research Group for the second year in a row and called an industry double threat by 451 Research. Flexiant is now a Dell certified technology partner and Parallels partner.

The University of Messina (UME) was founded in 1548 and currently has about 40,000 students and 1,600 teachers. In particular, the Messina Distributed Systems Laboratory (MDSLab) group conducts advanced ICT research with a focus on studying distributed and parallel systems. In particular, UME runs at DICIEAMA one of the grid computing nodes in the south of Italy. In addition, it established two research labs: RFIDLab, jointly with ORACLE and INTEL on the study and application of of Internet of Things (IoT) technology; and the MobiLab, jointly with HP, on mobility and opensource.

Lufthansa Systems provides consulting and IT services for selected industries and has a leading position in the global aviation industry. The whollyowned subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group employs about 3,000 people. The comprehensive portfolio of Lufthansa Systems covers the entire range of IT services. It includes consulting, development and implementation of customized industry solutions as well as the operation of applications in the company’s own data centers. The platforms combine applications into a seamless solution and place information within the context of a particular business process. With this strategy, Lufthansa Systems has a leading role in the airline IT market. Due to the platforms’ modular design, their functionality can be customized to suit each airline’s individual requirements. All modules connect seamlessly with each other, while a standard user interface and a high level of standardization enhance usability and productivity. Lufthansa Systems’ infrastructure services offer innovative solutions that improve mobility, flexibility, reliability and security of IT while at the same time reducing costs. These solutions include virtualized IT workspace models, where systems and data are hosted and processed securely in our high availability data center.