On Cloud

As cloud matures, managing cloud costs has become a top priority for many organizations. That's where the new discipline of FinOps, or financial operations, can help. The goal of FinOps is to help companies manage and maintain accountability for cloud usage and costs. In this Knowledge Short podcast, David Linthicum explains what FinOps is, how it can help companies control cloud costs better, and how culture change and automation play a key role in FinOps implementation.

Cloud-native design principles make cloud apps scalable, flexible, and more quickly deployable. Those principles can be applied to situations other than cloud, as well. Take edge computing, for instance. Edge can be thought of as a point-of-presence cloud, so applying cloud-native principles to the edge can make app performance, speed, and scalability cloud-like. And it can help solve the "edge war" of the future: the battle to reduce latency to its vanishing point.

Look around at any cloud conference, and you'll see a lopsided ratio of men to women. Why aren't there more women in tech, and in cloud computing specifically? In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte's Lisa Noon and Appgate's Tamara Prazak about how to get more women into cloud. In the end, it comes down to bridging the STEM gap for girls early on, recruiting more women, and making their working lives more flexible. Cultural change also plays a big role in closing the gap.

Despite cloud's many benefits, organizations are often shocked at its operational costs. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Erik Peterson, co-founder and CTO of CloudZero, about how companies can leverage software engineering and focus on costs to optimize cloud spend and drive value. According to Erik, success lies in cooperation between finance and engineering to better understand the financial impact of cloud and close the feedback loop in terms of mapping costs to features.

Edge computing isn't a new concept, but pairing it with artificial intelligence holds new promise. However, there are significant challenges that companies must meet to realize the promise of Edge AI. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with ClearBlade's Aaron Allsbrook about how Edge computing, paired with AI, works, and how it can give companies that leverage it a competitive advantage. He also lays out some challenges they'll face to reach their Edge goals.

Cloud computing is a hot sector in IT right now, and many companies can't hire enough workers to fill cloud roles. In this Knowledge Short, David Linthicum gives advice to anyone seeking to move into cloud computing as a career. David's take is that no matter where you're starting from—a college student or recent graduate, a non-IT worker looking to change careers or an IT professional looking to shift gears—you can find your path to cloud and a successful, often lucrative, career.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for 40-plus years, but its future has never been brighter. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Professor Vasudeva Varma and Deloitte's Ponnu Kailasam about how AI, in the context of information retrieval, can wade through information overload in search results to deliver contextually-appropriate, actionable information. Vasu and Ponnu agree that AI powered by cloud, and cloud powered by AI, will be critical to the process.

Digital transformation (DT) is often easier said than done, but it's essential for organizations to transform to remain competitive. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Thomas Erl, author of the book A Field Guide to Digital Transformation, about putting DT concepts into practice. According to Erl, customer centricity is the driving force behind DT efforts, and to be successful, it's absolutely critical to have the right thought leadership at the helm of any DT initiative.

Observability is the new buzzword in cloud, and many people confuse it with monitoring, but it's so much more. In this episode, Mike Kavis talks with Erez Barak, VP of Product Development at Sumo Logic, about observability—what it is, how it helps organizations deal with cloud complexity, and how it's helped by (and helps) AI. To implement observability successfully, however, a new IT operating model that removes silos and fosters collaboration is absolutely essential.

Artificial intelligence (AI)—especially when it's cloud-enabled—can be a force multiplier and powerful tool for innovation. However, there's a crucial need to think about the ethical issues and implications of ubiquitous AI. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte's Beena Ammanath about the reasons to establish ethical guardrails around the use of AI, as well as who should be responsible for developing and maintaining those guardrails—now and in the future.