I've been checking the CA World website on a daily basis, watching as the countdown draws closer to 0 - we're now 44 days out from the main event, taking place November 13-16 at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas! CA World brings together 6000 attendees to share best practices on how to deliver IT services and applications when and how you need them.

For our CA Cloud Storm Chasers blog readers, following is a quick preview of the Cloud Choice Focus Area - highlights of the main theme and tracks.

If you haven't yet registered, you can here. Then make sure to use the Agenda Builder to customize your schedule, selecting the "Cloud Choice" focus area from the pull down menu for the list of cloud-related sessions.

So, what's the "Cloud Choice: Your Cloud, Your Way" focus area going to cover?

In these sessions, attendees will learn how to make sense of the rapidly accelerating set of cloud choices. With tracks covering Our Solutions for Your Cloud, Your Cloud Future, Today, and Your Peers Talk Cloud, you will gain important insights on when, where, and how to incorporate cloud computing into your IT portfolio and how to tailor it to your needs.

Visit the Cloud Choice Focus Area page for complete details, but here's a short overview of each track:

Our Solutions for Your Cloud: How, when and why should you decide to move to the cloud? CA Technologies can help you make the right cloud choice among the growing public, private and hybrid options. Sample session topics include:

• Evolutionary and revolutionary approaches to cloud computing
• Strategies for providing secure access to the cloud
• How to manage service levels in the cloud

Your Cloud Future, Today: Cut through the cloud hype with pragmatic sessions to help you plan and execute your cloud strategy. This track will also explore other trends impacting IT, such as devops and the consumerization of IT. Sessions will cover:

• The Cloud Computing Debate: Cutting Through the Cloud Clutter
• Cloud financials 101
• Consumer driven IT: Can users love IT as much as they love their iPad?
• DevOps: where agile development meets agile infrastructure

Your Peers Talk Cloud: Hear directly from IT pros about their experiences and lessons learned with cloud computing. This track will also explore how participating in a cloud ecosystem can help you expedite the creation and delivery of cloud services. Samples sessions will cover:

• Cloud contract essentials
• Cloud adoption best practices: a panel discussion
• Building a European cloud with Belgacom and CA: challenges and solutions
• Zen and the Office of the C-I-No: How to address the hardest part of cloud computing: culture, skill-sets and organizational challenges

There is a wealth of information available at the event website. For example, you can read up on the General Sessions or check out the Week at a Glance schedule for an overview of the show schedule.

Not able to attend? Follow the #CAWorld hashtag on Twitter, or #cloudchoice for updates on Cloud Choice Focus Area sessions and activities as we get closer to the event.

And of course, watch the blog for additional details and updates on the event over the coming weeks.