Cloudcamp (June 2016) – We’ve done cloud, what’s next ?

I finally made time to attend this event that has long been in my list of events to go to. If you haven’t heard of it before it’s a London based meetup chaired by Joe Baguley (VMware CTO) and Simon Wardley (Cloud computing officianado) revolving around all things cloud and future looking technology that will disrupt your way of thinking.

 

So what goes on at an event named after a fluffy white object inside a camp ?

Well……Simon opened the evening talking about the famous ‘Art of War’ referring to Chinese military strategist and how the Wardley mapping technique can be applied to companies and the way in which they operate – Link. It was an interesting conversation and very unlike the normal tech conferences that you’d normally attend such as VMUGs and other user groups. The focus was very much around tech, business and economics which opened my eyes to a different perspective on the inner workings of a business.

This led onto Lightning talks where various people had volunteered to talk about a topic that was close to their heart for a maximum of 5 mins. If you didn’t like any of the presenters you had the option to red card them but luckily all of them had some interesting stories to tell. A colleague of mine, Paul Mackay (VCE), talked about AI and how robots would come to dominate the future of technology. An interesting view of how we could be out of jobs in the future. Names such as IBM Watson and Deepblue featured. Some more reading for me I think….

 

This was followed by a Panel discussion compered by Joe Baguley and 1st time attendees were encouraged (forced !!) to come onto stage and take part including ME !!! Topics thrown out to us panelists ranged from serverless computing with its pros and cons along with how Enterprises adopt to cloud computing and what they fear the most.

Serverless computing, in particular AWS Lambda, was talked about and the audiences had varying views on how mature it is today. The key message here was that it was also referred to as ‘function-as-a-service‘, by the CTO of a startup specialising in cheaper mobile calls in foreign countries, and he explained how it was in use exclusively for many code functions for his company. The point here was that operationally it was very difficult to monitor and manage and when it breaks or doesn’t work how do you know who to blame be it the developer or AWS themselves. Of course the efficiencies gained here are that the costs are very low as billing is carried out based on the memory the code uses along with the execution time.

It was good talking about my opinions on how Enterprises are embracing cloud and relaying some of the fears that I see when talking to customers and reading articles on cloud consumption.

The evening culminated in an informal networking discussion with peers with some beer/pizza courtesy of the event sponsors on the night. A great way to talk to developers, CTO’s and other folk who may never get the chance to interact with in your day job.

Having the event start at 6.30pm means that most people can finish work and come along without sacrificing their day. A Plus point in my opinion !!

So would I attend again ?? OH YES. If I can make time to attend the next event I will be there for sure. Would love to see you too.