The Cloudcast

Does any technology make sense if the organization surrounding it is misaligned? Let’s look at some examples of the right and wrong ways to align the technology organization with business results. SHOW: 687CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Solve your IAM mess with Strata's Identity Orchestration platformHave an identity challenge you thought was too big, too complicated, or too expensive to fix? Let us solve it for you! Visit strata.io/cloudcast to share your toughest IAM challenge and receive a set of AirPods Pro.Section is the fastest, easiest and most cost-effective way to run applications across multiple clouds.Cloudcast listeners can experience the benefits of unparalleled performance and uptime, plus the ability to scale as needed. There’s no risk to try it out – run one project for free with no credit card required!CloudZero – Cloud Cost Visibility and Savings​​CloudZero provides immediate and ongoing savings with 100% visibility into your total cloud spendSHOW NOTES:On Organizational Structures and the Developer Experience (Redmonk) GREAT SLIDES AND DEMOS DON’T ALWAYS WORK IN THE REAL WORLDPlatforms vs. Services. Centers of Excellence vs. Centralized Services vs. Distributed ServicesWho makes the initial investment? Incremental investments? Who owns maintenance? Business Goals? Technical Goals? THINGS THAT WORK AND THINGS THAT OFTEN BREAKWhat problem is trying to be solved? Does the consumer understand how to measure value received? How are things funded? How does expansion happen? How do changes happen?How are things measured? How well are measurements aligned?Self-Service vs. APIs vs SLA’d Services (fixed services vs. reusable services)Are platforms centralized vs. group-by-group? Short-term goals vs. long-term goals?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Aneel Lakhani (@aneel, Investor, @crane_vc Crane Venture Partners) talks about life as a VC, upcoming trends to look out for, and what to expect with rising interest rates in 2023.SHOW: 686CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwNEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Eaton HomepageEaton and Tripp Lite have joined forces to bring more sanity to IT pros days, every day. Visit www.eaton.com/audio to learn more!Datadog Monitoring: Modern Monitoring and AnalyticsStart monitoring your infrastructure, applications, logs and security in one place with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.SHOW NOTES:Crane VC homepageAneel’s 2022 Look Ahead ShowHow Interest Rates Impact Cloud ValuationsGoogle Issues a “Code Red” on OpenAI threats"Sea Change"Topic 1 - Welcome back. You’re almost in the 5 timers club at this point and a returning guest from our look ahead shows in 2022. For our new listeners, tell everyone a little bit about yourselfTopic 2 - We covered a lot of VC basics in last year's show, link above for those that missed it. We still get a lot of questions around VC funding and VC’s in general. What’s the elevator pitch version of what you do day to day as a VC? Also, how is Crane different from say some of the traditional Sand Hill Road VC’sTopic 3 - Since we spoke last year, what’s changed? What market patterns have you noticed? Have investment and “exit” strategies changed?Topic 4 - Investment advisors always tell clients to take a long view of markets, because their horizon for things like retirement or college savings, are long term. Do VCs tend to take round–to-round viewpoints of customers, or longer-term (like 5-7yrs) of their investments?Topic 5 -  Last year we talked about the cost of investments (expectations of valuations) being high (cheap money, lots of competition). Given the changes in the economy, do you expect that we’ll see big changes in investments, valuations, etc..? Topic 6 - At a macro level, what is interesting to you in 2023? What are you researching these days?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

VMware was one of the great IT successes, but their journey from start-up to behemoth was fraught with decisions that led to the Broadcom acquisition. How did they get here?SHOW: 685CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:CloudZero -- Cloud Cost Visibility and SavingsSection is the fastest, easiest and most cost-effective way to run applications across multiple clouds.Cloudcast listeners can experience the benefits of unparalleled performance and uptime, plus the ability to scale as needed. There’s no risk to try it out – run one project for free with no credit card required!SHOW NOTES:EMC acquires VMware for $625M (2004)VMware’s 1st IPO (2007)History of VMware acquisitionsDiane Greene replaced by Paul Maritz as CEO (2008)VMware revenue history (2005-2022)VMware acquires Nicira (2012)Pat Gelsinger named CEO (2012)VMware launches VMware vCloud Hybrid Service (2013)VMware launches vSAN hyper converged (2013)VMware acquires Airwatch (2014)VMware on AWS cloud service announced at AWS re:Invent (2016) HOW MUCH VMWARE COULD CONTROL MAKE NEVER TRULY BE KNOWNVMware was acquired by EMC in 2004, and operated as an “independent” entity, but how independent was it really?What might VMware have become if they weren’t owned by an infrastructure company?HOW TO FOCUS ON CHANGES, ADDITIONS, AND SUBTRACTIONSWhat happens if VMware is allowed to be spun out from EMC? How much did it impact growth? How much did it impact innovation?What happens if Paul Maritz doesn’t acquire all the companies that tried to become Microsoft? What happens if VMware didn’t spinout Pivotal, and instead delivered a more vertical software stack?What happens if Pat Gelsinger doesn’t buy Nicira, and instead focuses on the public cloud offerings 4 years earlier? (AWS revenues by year)Why didn’t VMware define the integrated computing model (e.g. Cisco UCS)? What happens if VMware (or Pivotal) had adopted Kubernetes in 2015 instead of 2019? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Sam Charrington (@samcharrington, host @twimlai podcast) talks about the evolution of AI & ML in 2023, and the possibilities of ChatGPT.SHOW: 684CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwNEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OTHER NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Datadog Synthetic Monitoring: Frontend and Backend Modern MonitoringEnsure frontend issues don’t impair user experience by detecting user-facing issues with API and browser tests with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt. Eaton HomepageEaton and Tripp Lite have joined forces to bring more sanity to IT pros days, every day. Visit www.eaton.com/audio to learn more!SHOW NOTES:This Week in AI & ML (podcast, homepage)Sam talks to ChatGPT to create a podcast(2017) - Sam on Eps.321(2019) - Sam on Eps.382(2020) - Sam on Eps.437Topic 1 - Hi Sam. Welcome back to the show. Before we get into today’s discussions, tell us a little bit about the breadth of things you’re doing over at TWIMLAI and how people can get involved?Topic 2 - Let’s start with the recent headlines - Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT. For those of us that aren’t around this everyday, it feels like some big leaps in useability. Did we see a big jump in AI at the end of 2022, or was this just good UI design, or something else?Topic 3 - ChatGPT - Give us the basics, and then what are some of the more interesting things you’re hearing people start to talk about with technology like this.Topic 4 - The last time you were on, we talked about how “the goal posts tend to shift” about what we think of as powerful AI. Do you see any areas of AI getting close to becoming a big shift in terms of ease-of-use, or being hidden/embedded in other technologies?Topic 5 - There are various reports about GPUs being harder to get these days. There is also speculation that the cost of AI processing has been going up. What are you seeing in terms of cost of processing vs. useful outcomes lately? Topic 6 - What’s the “getting started” curve look like for companies that want/need to add or integrate AI & ML into their applications? What’s the barrier to entry and has it changed in the last few years? What are some numbers you hear about cost of engineers, sizes of datasets, number of experiments and models needed to run, etc.? Topic 7 - What are some of the things you’re really looking forward to in 2023, whether it’s technology or trends or something else?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

The evolution of Microsoft under Satya Nadella provides a blueprint for how to transition companies from one focus to another.  SHOW: 683CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Section is the fastest, easiest and most cost-effective way to run applications across multiple clouds.Cloudcast listeners can experience the benefits of unparalleled performance and uptime, plus the ability to scale as needed. There’s no risk to try it out – run one project for free with no credit card required!CloudZero -- Cloud Cost Visibility and SavingsSHOW NOTES:Bill Gates write about “Internet Tidal Wave” (1995)Microsoft Revenues (since 2000)How Microsoft Shifted from Software to the Cloud (2014)Microsoft Revenue Breakdown by Products (2022)CAPEX spending by the leading cloud vendors (2001-2021)Microsoft acquisitions History of Microsoft Azure How the Windows team transitioned to cross-platform HOW MICROSOFT EVOLVED FROM A CLOSED SW COMPANY TO CLOUD COMPANY2001: $31B, 2007: $62B, 2014: $88B, 2019: $153B, 2022: $198B90+ acquisitions since 2014Office 365, Gaming (XBox), GitHub, LinkedInHOW TO FOCUS ON CHANGES, ADDITIONS, AND SUBTRACTIONS2001: XBox, Office 3652008: Azure2017: Microsoft Teams2018: GitHubBe patient: Many of Microsoft’s investments required 10+ years to growBuy new capabilities: AcquisitionsBreak the limitations to expand markets: Move to cross-platform support (Office on MacOS, SQL on Linux, Linux in Aure, Bing with Google) - see Red Hat with RHEL, IBM with IBM Cloud or Mainframe, Cisco with SW+HardwareEmbrace new business models: SaaS services, pay-as-you-go Cloud servicesInvest for the Future: Microsoft has caught up to Google in CAPEX spendingFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Rob Hirschfeld (@zehicle Founder & CEO @rackngo) talks about how Platform Engineering has evolved from DevOps and SRE and how it aligns to Cloud Platforms. SHOW: 682CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Eaton HomepageEaton and Tripp Lite have joined forces to bring more sanity to IT pros days, every day. Visit www.eaton.com/audio to learn more!Datadog Application Monitoring: Modern Application Performance MonitoringGet started monitoring service dependencies to eliminate latency and errors and enhance your users app experience with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.SHOW NOTES:RackN websiteWhat is Platform Engineering? - GartnerPlatform Engineering: What is it and Who Does it? - NewstackSpotify BackstageTopic 1 - Welcome back to the show, it was great to see you in person at events recently. What have you been focusing on the last couple of years?Topic 2 - There’s been a lot of discussion about Platform Engineering over the last 6+ months. You’ve been around this space for a while. We’re trying to understand if PE is different from DevOps or SRE or Cloud Platform in the past, or an evolution. Is PE just a common platform maintained with reusable tools, regardless of the infrastructure? Topic 3 - I’ve heard people say that Cloud Platform and Platform Engineering are colleagues. where one owns/operates the platform, and the other is the “product manager” to the application teams. Is this realistic? Topic 4 - What does “good” look like for Platform Engineering? Is the goal a frictionless developer experience? Are developer consistency and efficiency valid goals? Are there KPIs or Metrics that “good” teams are striving towards? Topic 5 -  Any interesting technologies that you’re seeing that make Platform Engineering easier, or more manageable? Topic 6 - Any team dynamics that you’re seeing that make Platform Engineering easier, or more manageable? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

You asked, we answered. A year-end mailbag of the best of the questions we received from our community in 2022.SHOW: 681CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:AWS Insiders is an edgy, entertaining podcast about the services and future of cloud computing at AWS. Listen to AWS Insiders in your favorite podcast player. Cloudfix HomepageEaton HomepageEaton and Tripp Lite have joined forces to bring more sanity to IT pros days, every day. Visit www.eaton.com/audio to learn more!FujiFilm. Your archival and backup data strategy, built on tape. Fujifilm tape is helping businesses get a handle on their vast amounts of data in the most secure, scalable and efficient way. Find out more at builtontape.fujifilmusa.comSHOW NOTES:Q1: The cloud has created a lot of big shifts over the last 10 years. Are there any “big winners” over the last 10 years that you see being disrupted anytime soon?Q2: Why do you think so many people got crypto/Web3 wrong in 2022?Q3: Why don’t you guys cover more about application modernizations and migrations? Isn’t that a huge part of IT groups portfolio and budgets?Q4: Has the shift to wide-spread remote work been a good thing or a bad thing? Q5: What advice would you give to someone in their 20s, 30s or 40s that would help them for the next 5yrs or 10yrs?Q6: These economic shifts are freaking me out a little bit. How should I think about them?Q7: I got to thinking about some of the new AI news (OpenAI, ChatGPT, etc.) that’s been coming out and it seems like a big deal. Will it be as big as it potentially seems?Q8; Why do you think Andy Jassy took the Amazon CEO job, which seems like a lot of headaches, when the AWS job was going so well?Q9: What do you wish you had done with your careers, assuming you could go back and change something(s)?Q10: What are you thankful for this year? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Last Sunday Perspective of the year, so let’s look at how we put together the perspectives, and why it can be a valuable framework for evaluation and decision-making.SHOW: 680CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Datadog Monitoring: Modern Monitoring and AnalyticsStart monitoring your infrastructure, applications, logs and security in one place with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsEaton HomepageEaton and Tripp Lite have joined forces to bring more sanity to IT pros days, every day. Visit www.eaton.com/audio to learn more!SHOW NOTES:HOW TO CREATE A PERSPECTIVEWhy did we create the Sunday Perspective shows?CAN YOU USE THE SUNDAY PERSPECTIVE FRAMEWORK FOR WORK DECISIONS?Understand things from different perspectivesUnderstand both the technologies and the economicsUnderstand how people will impact the decisionsFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Aaron and Brian discuss the 2022 Year in Review, highlighting the biggest trends, as well as making 2023 predictions. SHOW: 679CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwSHOW SPONSORS:Eaton HomepageEaton and Tripp Lite have joined forces to bring more sanity to IT pros days, every day. Visit www.eaton.com/audio to learn more!FujiFilm. Your archival and backup data strategy, built on tape. Fujifilm tape is helping businesses get a handle on their vast amounts of data in the most secure, scalable and efficient way. Find out more at builtontape.fujifilmusa.comAWS Insiders is an edgy, entertaining podcast about the services and future of cloud computing at AWS. Listen to AWS Insiders in your favorite podcast player. Cloudfix HomepageSHOW NOTES:THE BASICS:The show grew nearly 20% YoY (2nd year in a row), with our first 2M listen year.The Cloudcast named to Top 20 Kubernetes resources of 2022The Cloudcast hosts named to “Who’s Who of Cloud (2022)” listThank you to all our sponsors throughout the year (Datadog, CloudZero, JumpCloud, Mergify, BMC, Teleport, NewRelic, StrongDM, Polyscale, LoadForge, NetApp, Revelo, Lightstep, Granulate, CDN77, Jetbrains, Eaton, Cloudfix)THE BIG NEWS AREAS:Tech layoffs in 2HCY22VMware got acquired by Broadcom (will be part of CA+others)The US made a big investment in CHIPSNVIDIA’s acquisition of ARM fell throughAWS - $60B>$85B (+28%), Azure - $35B>$50B (+42%), GCP - $15B>$27B (+38%)Microsoft is now 50/50 in Software and Cloud revenuesAWS re:Invent is different under Adam SelipskyBetween Texts and Images, AI seemed to make a big leap WebAssembly (WASM) is starting to make noise in new ways (PaaS 2.0?)Is Platform Engineering replacing DevOps and SRE?Docker 2.0 is making money2023 PREDICTIONS: Our 2020 PredictionsOur 2021 PredictionsOur 2022 Predictions Aaron’s Predictions:We’ll see a Twitter clone founded by folks that leftAzure will become #1 public cloud (pulled from 2022 predictions)Docker will become a unicorn again and prove everyone wrong2023 will be the year of the down rounds:Worldwide: 450 unicorn and 24 decacornA unicorn will go underApple will  finally give everyone a peek at their EV car in development, just to mess with Elon a bit.Brian’s Predictions:We’ll start seeing some of the 2020-2022 unicorns acquired as sub-unicorn pricesServerless makes a comeback as a cheaper computer alternativeFinOps conferences become a must-attend eventGCP makes a huge hail-mary acquisitionFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Let’s look at the differences between when technology is in a boom-cycle vs. a bust-cycle, and what happens as things transition between cycles. SHOW: 678CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsDatadog Security Solution: Modern Monitoring and SecurityStart investigating security threats before it affects your customers with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.Eaton HomepageEaton and Tripp Lite have joined forces to bring more sanity to IT pros days, every day. Visit www.eaton.com/audio to learn more! SHOW NOTES:HOW CAN WE TELL WHAT CYCLE WE’RE IN? Right now, it feels like we’re in a bust cycle, or at least a correction-cycle, but how do we know what cycle we’re currently in - and more importantly - how do we know when the next cycle will begin?THE GOOD TIMES, THE UNCERTAIN TIMES, AND THE BAD TIMESHistory repeats itself, hence why it’s good to study history. Follow the money. Is money cheap? Is money highly leveraged? What is motivating the money?Does it make sense to a layperson? Can the technology create a sustainable business model? Does it create an expanding ecosystem, or winner-takes-all?Do the stories highlight the people, or the excesses of the people, or do they highlight value-creation? Stories are bolder in a boom. Booms will start slow, will gain word of mouth, will sustain for a while, will begin to reach, and then crash hard. People are never quite sure when to jump into a boom. Reactions are faster in a crash. Crashes happen quickly, as they are usually highly leveraged. The winners in a crash are the ones with money to buy low, or are capitalized after a crash. FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet