Welcome back after a long holiday. I certainly hope that some of my regular readers are back to work as well!It is certainly no secret that I have an interest in virtualization and its applications to Grid and distributed computing.In the past I’ve blogged on virtualization and its applications to Systems management, the common ground, common direction and common challenges for virtualization and Grid, and even data virtualization being a catalyst for Grid adoption. I credit my interest in virtualization to Kate Keahey a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and in particular this paper she authored.I’ve featured the work that she and her group have done both in this blog and in the Globus Consortium Journal.However, one of the things that has always bugged me is that the topic of virtualization is somewhat loosely defined and everything from virtual workspaces to virtual machines to data virtualization seems to get dropped into this bucket. This is certainly reflected in the diverse topics of my various blogs. But where is the unifying factor for all this? Apparently I was not the only one wondering.The First International Workshop on Virtualization Technology in Distributed Computing will be held in conjunction with SC06. The call for papers is now out for what I’m sure will be the definitive line in the sand for what is meant when the term virtualization is used.When you hear “call for papers” one naturally thinks of research and academics. But remember, that’s how this whole Grid thing started. And take a look at who is represented in the program committee, a great mix of folks from commercial industry as well. Enterprise players in this space would be well advised to make sure they have their foot in the door by attending and actively participating. I’m looking forward to hearing about what comes out of this workshop and you can be sure I’ll be contacting Kate for a detailed report. Technology Industry