Digital transformation isn't optional; it's imperative. One key to a successful transformation is an effective API roadmap--coupled with AI--that enables the data integration that drives deeper insights.

Technology such as Generative AI, coupled with community-led strategies, can boost sustainability while powering business growth and innovation.

Industry clouds are modular cloud computing solutions that are designed to meet particular, industry-specific needs. Can they live up to the hype? Yes.

The future of cloud is here, and it's compelling organizations to reshape their IT culture and redesign their operating model, as well as account for the explosion of Generative AI.

Blocking the use of Generative AI can lead to AI chaos. Instead, to harness its power, organizations should embrace it and develop policies to govern it.

With the explosion of AI technologies, shadow AI can wreak havoc. SRE can calm the chaos.

W. Edwards Deming revolutionized management theory. His philosophy and core principles can also be applied to software engineering to enhance the process and produce better apps.

Quantum computing is the next frontier for IT. And, although it's not quite ready for prime time, it's essential for organizations to understand its power and potential.

Generative AI is hot, but it's also a bit of an enigma. However, if you can define it and understand how it works and how to use it, it can help you revolutionize how you do business.

Generative AI is revolutionizing software development. It's gone beyond code generation to copiloting. The result? Improved productivity and faster innovation.

At Google Cloud Next 2024, Google announced enhancements to Gemini and Model Builder, as well as efforts to reduce hallucinations and improve model accuracy.

AI is coming to edge computing, and it's bringing productivity increases, new business models, and revenue streams to drive growth and innovation.

Although Generative AI has the potential to be revolutionary, companies still have to go through proven decision-making processes to get the implementation right. And, as with other IT initiatives, it's (almost) all about the value.

Generative AI and cybersecurity are becoming closely linked. Generative AI can boost security, but its LLMs need to be secured in a race against time and bad actors.

Culture is a big component of software engineering success. A commitment to excellence and employee satisfaction is crucial. Success begins at the top with strong, passionate leadership.

Cybersecurity is a critical issue for nearly every company. Deloitte's global cyber leader, Emily Mossburg, discusses what's new, and what's next, in cyber.

In this LinkedIn Live episode of the On Cloud Podcast, Deloitte's David Linthicum and Mike Kavis make their predictions on what's next for cloud in 2024.

What happened in cloud in 2023? Generative AI was the biggest event, but there were other trends, too, like resiliency, FinOps, talent, and repatriation.

Organizations can optimize cloud value by building a hybrid, open, sustainable cloud architecture--augmented by Generative AI--that can scale as needed.

Use cases for edge computing are growing, and more companies are figuring out how to return value to the business by going to the edge.

To return more value from cloud, it's essential to optimize its infrastructure. Intel's Josh Hilliker has thoughts on how you can do that with optimization—and policy-as-code, as well as effective governance.

Generative AI is revolutionizing how we work and live, but it can be complex to navigate. VMware's Alexander Romero gives advice on how to succeed with this technology.

AWS re:Invent 2023 was focused on Generative AI. AWS announced many new tools to help organizations leverage Generative AI now, and in the future.

Implementing Generative AI requires re-evaluating all aspects of cloud architecture to ensure that it is optimized to return value to the business.

Airports are leveraging cloud and AI to transform operations and provide their customers with enriched experiences, which can boost revenue.

If the results of Deloitte's 2023 Midmarket Technology Report are any indication, midmarket companies are making big bets on tech trends related to AI, cybersecurity, and modernization--and they're thriving.

Ruben Falk of AWS thinks generative AI will be transformative for FSI, but he warns that the regulatory environment for generative AI is tightening, and ethical concerns should be effectively addressed. 

Forrest Brazeal, Google's head of developer media, discusses the ongoing tech talent shortage, how to address it, and how companies can use gen AI to help new talent learn the process of software development.

Cloud complexity is growing for banks. Reining it in requires managing risk, becoming more agile, and adapting the enterprise culture to cloud.

Turn cloud challenges into opportunities to boost cloud value by preparing for cloud, controlling costs, prioritizing security, and maintaining flexibility. 

Edge computing is growing in power. Its capabilities are almost limitless. Companies can leverage it now to prepare for an edge-based future.

To optimize cloud costs, leverage FinOps, develop a sound cloud cost optimization strategy, and build a culture of optimization and accountability.

Companies are changing the way they use cloud. Hybrid and multi-cloud are growing. So is AI and modernization of on-prem architectures  for more seamless data flow. All this returns higher value to the business.

Google Cloud Next 2023 was all about innovation. Generative AI was the star of the show, with over a dozen AI tools introduced. Google also showcased its partnership with NVIDIA to leverage the power of generative AI.

Space is a new frontier for cloud and edge computing. It's a booming business with almost unlimited possibilities and the potential to advance R&D capabilities.

The space race is on, again, and it’s creating tremendous business opportunities on Earth. In this episode, Deloitte’s David Linthicum, Kelly Raskovich, and Raquel Buscaino discuss how deploying cloud platforms in space can provide advantages to businesses that leverage them. Reduced launch costs have already sent more satellites to space, which has led to an explosion in data and insights, especially for companies that put cloud infrastructure in space to analyze it at the point of origin.

Generative AI is here, it's powerful, and it's growing. It holds the promise to disrupt everything and play a significant role in our daily lives. Now's the time to harness its amazing power.

Each company is unique, with its own set of cybersecurity risks. So, it's essential that risk management be customized to the risk profile, culture, and vision of the organization. AI has emerged as a powerful aid.

Increased customer retention can drive increased revenue and return value to the business. Companies who leverage cloud to enhance their customer experience can significantly boost their retention efforts. 

AI, especially generative AI, is the future, but how can we manage the disruption that comes with it? One way is to ensure that AI is implemented with effective governance, moderation, and balance.

Cloud adoption continues to grow among banking institutions, but their reasons for implementing cloud are evolving. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with AWS’s Charith Mendis about how many banks now view cloud—and cloud-enabled technologies such as machine learning—as drivers of innovation, enhanced customer experiences, and increased business value. They are also making investments in initiatives that return the most value. Read more from AWS here:

What's happening with cloud in 2023?  AI, a focus on ROI and optimization are all 2023 trends that will almost certainly carry into the second half of the year and beyond. 

There are many paths to cloud career success. One solutions architect has found a unique one--building and growing a YouTube channel with over 100,000 subscribers. 

CME Group, the world's largest operator of financial derivatives exchanges, is in the midst of a successful digital transformation journey. So far, their keys to success have been rigorous change management and a focus on innovation to provide deeper customer insights.

Cloud is a tremendous force multiplier, but managing your cloud environment can introduce new challenges. Fortunately, automation, reducing multi-cloud complexity, and industry clouds can all help boost your efforts.

Achieving anticipated ROI is a key measure of cloud success. Three factors that can drive cloud ROI include tech maturity, how well technologies work together, and how technology can drive or detract from value.

Many companies find themselves looking for more tech talent, and one company has been focusing on a skills-based hiring model for our veterans transitioning to civilian life. It's a win-win. Companies find exceptional talent, and veterans learn life-long transferable skills. 

Cloud powers AI, and it enables enterprises to innovate more quickly and effectively. It's no different for the US government, which is leveraging AI to better meet the demands of its rapidly changing constituency.

Different cloud roles have unique perspectives on cloud and its challenges. From a solution architect's point of view, the challenges lie in meeting customer expectations, and the future of cloud is very bright.

What's ten years down the road for cloud? It's going to be about multi-cloud, supercloud, AI, and skills specialization. Also, cloud will become so ubiquitous that we just call it computing.

Digital transformation is absolutely necessary for most organizations, but it’s also probably the most challenging journey many of them will ever undertake. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with author Thomas Erl about some key elements and strategies that are critical to a successful journey. For Thomas, success results from good leadership that intuits the right pace for transformation, understanding the customer, making data-driven decisions, and continually communicating.

FinOps adoption is growing because it can help optimize cloud spend, but it can be tricky to implement. Collaboration and making business and cultural changes, along with deploying the right technology, can be keys to success.

Cloud migration has been a success for mortgage lender Ginnie Mae, driven in large part by constant communication and sound strategy. Advanced planning, a collaborative culture, and cloud governance also helped them reach their goals.

Many organizations wrestle with cloud performance and ROI issues. Data clouds can help. So can better data strategy, lower latency, collaboration, and giving developers the support they need.

Starting with a mandate to become more agile and optimize IT costs, Geisinger Health has written an amazing cloud success story with a cloud-first culture and a highly-trained workforce to help them build a cloud-native future.

Cloud costs are soaring for many companies, without any real insight as to why. For answers, many organizations are turning to FinOps—a collaborative, cross-functional approach to cost transparency, accountability, and optimization.

Repatriation of cloud apps to on-prem is a hot topic these days. But it comes with its own, often costly, issues. Instead, many organizations are choosing to optimize their cloud apps in place—which might be the better choice.

Multi-cloud complexity is growing, and it's hobbling cloud performance and shrinking value. Enter superclouds--a layer of automation and abstraction that spans the cloud ecosystem and can help manage multi-cloud complexity.

The use cases for blockchain are growing. One new disruptive use will be to change the relationship between employers and employees, as they utilize the technology to innovate and  reshape the workplace. 

Cloud is a mature technology, but there are still growing pains--especially around multi-cloud complexity and costs. Cross-cloud strategy and supercloud might be ways to ease the pain. 

Industry clouds are trending right now, and rightly so. Their composable nature helps companies develop industry-specific solutions that enable them to get a competitive edge, and possibly get higher ROI on cloud investments. 

How do you overcome challenges to achieve your cloud goals? Elevance Health, has done it by making the right combination of technical and operational decisions and building a supportive cloud culture.

The future of cloud and AI are inextricably linked, but their relationship holds both promise and peril. Companies that can manage the complexity AI adds to cloud will reap the benefit of the power of AI and cloud together.

Cloud has strong potential to improve business outcomes and foster innovation. However, to realize that potential, organizations must build an effective governance structure around their cloud ecosystem. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Meredith Stein, co-author of Cloud Governance Basics and Practice, about how enterprises can establish effective governance for cloud, the benefits of good governance, and how cloud governance can affect sustainability efforts.

The coming year looks bright for cloud, but only if companies can take better control of their cloud ecosystems. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s chief futurist, Mike Bechtel, about trends on the horizon that can help organizations brighten their cloud future. Mike’s perspective is that taming cloud complexity via abstraction, leveraging observability, and taking control of data can result in better cloud operational efficiency and better returns on cloud investments.

The past year has been a mixed bag for cloud. Certainly, there have been positives like the rise of supercloud and metacloud to help reduce complexity, the growth of observability to provide deeper operational insights, and an increase in cloud native development. However, cloud has also been beset by rising costs, complexity, and other challenges. David Linthicum provides his insight and analysis on all these topics—and more—in his review of 2022.

AWS re:Invent 2022 was better than ever, and there’s lots of buzz around cloud's future. In this episode, David Linthicum sits down with Deloitte’s AWS alliance technical lead, Tony Witherspoon, to discuss all that was new at AWS re:Invent 2022. This year's key themes were sustainability, diversity and inclusion, efficiency, and data as a corporate asset. David and Tony also discuss two big product announcements—AWS DataZone and AWS Supply Chain—that they think will really impact cloud in 2023.

Small, cloud-native companies can profoundly disrupt their larger, less-flexible competitors via agility and innovation, but cloud complexity still looms for both large and small enterprises. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with cloud influencer Ian Moyse about how any company—no matter its size—can leverage cloud to move quickly and innovate faster. However, it’s essential to reduce cloud complexity and sprawl to achieve a lean cloud ecosystem that drives innovation.Small, cloud-native companies can profoundly disrupt their larger, less-flexible competitors via agility and innovation, but cloud complexity still looms for both large and small enterprises. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with cloud influencer Ian Moyse about how any company—no matter its size—can leverage cloud to move quickly and innovate faster. However, it’s essential to reduce cloud complexity and sprawl to achieve a lean cloud ecosystem that drives innovation.

Many of the problems organizations have with realizing cloud ROI and value stem from an architecture that isn’t optimized for the overall business strategy, but instead for particular solutions or narrow business goals. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Red Hat’s E.G. Nadhan about how companies can take a collaborative approach to ensure that their architecture is built and optimized to reflect the strategy of the business as a whole, not just a sum of its parts.

Cloud is undergoing a philosophical and technical renaissance. Innovation and disruption have become driving goals for cloud implementation. Sustainability isn’t just a buzzword anymore, and the idea of super or metacloud, fueled by open source, is gaining force across the cloud universe. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with IBM’s Roger Premo about this paradigm shift in cloud and how it’s driving companies to change the way they think about cloud now and in the future.

AI is reshaping the future of business, and cloud is helping make that future more affordable. The result will be greater automation, the ability to focus more on strategy, and a reimagining of how business is done.

Though the concept of a “product mindset” isn’t new, over the past decade—with the ascendance of cloud—it has really started to gain traction as a better way to build cloud apps, or any app or system. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Twilio’s Anthony Lazaro about what a product mindset is, how companies can leverage it to build apps that generate high ROI for the organization, and how to develop a product mindset and culture to build apps at the pace of cloud.

Observability is a huge help to organizations in solving systems performance issues, but some still see it as a bolt-on. In this episode David Linthicum talks with Dynatrace’s Michael Allen and Deloitte’s Jay McDonald about why that isn’t so. The trio also discusses why companies should view Observability as a holistic process that can be built as code into every facet of their cloud ecosystem—from infrastructure, to apps, to security, to governance, to compliance, and more.

Most organizations that have moved to a multi-cloud architecture have experienced cloud complexity. In this podcast, David Linthicum tackles the complexity issue and gives advice to mediate it. According to David, abstraction and automation are essential. First, deploy an abstraction layer above and across cloud platforms for tasks like operations, security, governance, and configuration management.. Then, automate as many of those processes—especially operations—as you can.

Multi-cloud is here to stay, but for all its benefits there are hefty challenges too, such as complexity, heterogeneity, and inconsistent operations. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with VMware’s Richard Munro about the many challenges of multi-cloud and how to solve them – now and in the future. Richard’s take is that right now, companies need to use cross-cloud services for more consistency. The future will be about edge computing, better data management, and decentralization.

Multi-cloud security is one of the most difficult pieces of the cloud complexity puzzle to solve for. It’s also one of the most critical. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Ramesh Menon about how shifting security left—i.e., implementing appropriate security during application development to solve issues before systems go live—can help companies move from a reactive to a more proactive security posture and increase the effectiveness of their security program.

Despite a cooling job market in some sectors, many companies are still experiencing a shortage of cloud talent. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Josh Haims about how companies can fill that gap. Josh’s take is that education must catch up with technology, companies should build a culture that attracts employees and builds tech fluency throughout the organization, and HR and the business need to build a closer relationship with a shared set of goals and outcomes.

Why do some companies glean more value from their cloud investments than others? According to the recent Deloitte US Cloud Survey, cloud leaders spend purposefully to innovate and they use technology as a force multiplier. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Chris Thomas and Diana Kerns-Manolatos about that survey, and about what sets cloud leaders apart. Bottom line: leaders innovate, they build a strong software engineering culture, and they have confidence in cloud.

Why do some digital transformation initiatives flounder while others succeed? One answer might lie with the C-suite leadership. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with StarCIO’s founder Isaac Sacolick about his latest book, Digital Trailblazer: Essential Lessons to Jumpstart Transformation and Accelerate Your Technology Leadership. According to Isaac, good leadership is about understanding how technology can serve the business, adapting to innovation, and building high-performance teams.

Blockchain is evolving, and use cases for it may be almost limitless if the technology is harnessed effectively. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Edgevana’s Mark Thiele about how blockchain has evolved and how it can help solve pressing problems ranging from protecting intellectual property and personal data, to boosting IT security, to detangling global supply-chains, to democratizing computing in general. Mark also believes blockchain may someday underpin the emerging metaverse.

As cloud adoption increases and multi and hybrid clouds become the norm, operations become more complex and monitoring performance becomes more difficult. In this Knowledge Short podcast, David Linthicum talks about how the concept and practice of Observability goes beyond traditional systems monitoring to help IT teams observe, gain insight into, and maybe even predict what’s happening in their cloud ecosystem to better manage increasing complexity.

Manufacturers continue to respond to an increasing demand for products amid a volatile supply chain, labor shortages, and a fluctuating global economy. Improving production processes in the factory can help, but it’s not the only answer. In this podcast, David Linthicum and Deloitte’s Stephen Laaper talk about how companies can use AI and other cognitive tools to harness the vast streams of data collected from manufacturing operations to automate and increase safety, productivity, and quality and build the smart factory of the future.

Every so often, a technology comes along that has the power to change how we view and perform in the world. One of those just might be wearable cognitive assistance (WCA) devices. In this episode, David talks with Carnegie Mellon University professor Mahadev Satyanarayanan and Deloitte’s Arpan Tiwari about how WCA, via leveraging the edge and AI to augment human capabilities, will transform the way we work and live, and open up worlds of knowledge and ability to anyone who wears a device. Wearable Cognitive Assistance | Deloitte US

As cloud moves into its second decade, there are still growing pains. In this episode, David Linthicum and Mike Kavis discuss cloud’s most pressing issues and offer solutions. Leveraging cloud for innovation, multi-cloud complexity, a talent shortage, and slowing cloud migration are the top challenges. The solutions? Focusing on value delivery, aligning business needs with technology, changing organizational culture, and realizing that slowing down isn’t necessarily such a bad thing.

For companies that operate across geographies, IT architectures and regulatory requirements can make it difficult to access widely distributed data for analysis. Extended enterprise clouds (EEC) can help provide access to disparate data via augmenting the enterprise multi-cloud with third-party services such as vertical clouds, AI clouds, or data clouds—all with a common control plane. Building an EEC takes planning and a cultural change around data ownership, but it’s well worth the effort.

There’s little doubt that sustainability has become a global imperative. In this Knowledge Short, David Linthicum discusses the vital role cloud computing can play in sustainability initiatives. He makes the case that cloud computing is more sustainable because resource use is optimized, and cloud providers typically employ green operations practices. He also talks about other ways organizations can practice sustainability in their everyday operations.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion aren’t just words; they’re a key component of success for nearly any endeavor, cloud computing included. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte's Josh Walker, co-founder of Black Orlando Tech, about his efforts to bring diversity to the tech workforce. They also discuss ways companies can change their culture to hire more minorities by creating a culturally diverse, friendly workspace and ensuring that minorities feel more welcome.

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.

Military personnel serve our country in countless ways, but sometimes the transition to private life can be difficult. To help ease that transition, Deloitte participates in Hiring Our Heroes—a collaboration with American businesses to create job opportunities for veterans post-service. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with three veterans who are participating in the program with Deloitte to find out how they’re faring during their transition and what lessons they’ve learned.

Music and IT may seem to be at opposite ends of a spectrum, but in reality, they have much in common if you know where to look. In this episode, Mike Kavis talks with Matt Davis, staff infrastructure engineer at Blameless, about how practice methods in music can aid in building great SRE teams and site reliability in general. According to Matt, it’s all about how you practice for the real thing: If your practices are good, and you can improvise, your SRE performance will top the charts.

Cloud can be a force multiplier for most companies. However, cloud is a general solution, and many organizations need industry-specific capabilities built for their particular vertical market. In this Knowledge Short, David Linthicum discusses how industry clouds can meet those needs by providing composable, industry-specific bundles of digital services that enable organizations to pick the services they need to meet their transformation needs and achieve better outcomes.

The impetus these days for most organizations is to transform their business to achieve competitive advantage. It’s a good imperative, but the reason for change matters, too. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with consultant and author John Hagel on how to build a future based on seeing opportunity rather than fear. John’s view is that it takes building a strong corporate narrative for the future, cultivating a shared passion, and building learning platforms to bring people together.

Global market forces, coupled with the pandemic, have spurred most organizations to accelerate their digital transformation to keep their competitive edge—but that’s often easier said than done. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Diana Kearns-Manolatos about why strategy is central to accelerating the transformation journey. Diana lays out five “digital imperatives” for speeding transformation. She also explains the role industry clouds play in that process.

True digital transformation requires a hyper-connected ecosystem where information flows freely between those who need it and those who provide it. However, that level of connectivity has often proven elusive. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with MuleSoft’s Matt McLarty and Deloitte’s Kurt Anderson about how new thinking on application and technology integration holds promise to help organizations achieve their connectivity goals and enable faster digital transformation.

To be sure, cloud is a boon to organizations that make the leap, but, as with any technology, there are bumps along the road to implementation. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Techstrong Group’s Mike Vizard about how companies can address three particularly vexing issues: multicloud complexity, cloud cost management, and cloud security. Mike’s advice is to develop a sound multicloud cloud strategy, treat cloud as a strategic investment, and view security as a process, not a problem.

The 2021 “Accelerate State of DevOps” report from Google is out! In this episode, Mike Kavis talks with Google’s Nathen Harvey and Deloitte’s Manoj Mishra about the report’s most compelling findings. Among them: DevOps and SRE are complementary; successful SRE equals knowing your customer; documentation is critical, but it should be organic; and there’s a newly-announced “Reliability” metric. The group also discusses customer satisfaction and the new “Release Management” role in DevOps/SRE.

Despite—or maybe because of—growing adoption across all industries, cloud is still experiencing growing pains, but the future is bright. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Converge Technology’s Steve Worthington about cloud trends for 2022 and beyond. Steve’s take is that technologies such as AIOps will bolster cloud success, but the trend toward multicloud and hybrid cloud architectures has introduced serious cloud complexity issues that will require a human touch to solve.

Smartphones are ubiquitous; they're also a prime target for fraud. However, governments and companies with innovative ideas are using technology to fight that fraud, and cloud is at the core of the fight.

Semiconductors aren’t normally hot news. However, the recent chip shortage has them front and center—especially since they power the machines that power cloud. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Brandon Kulik about the state of the semiconductor industry—how it’s leveraging cloud to move faster, and how hyperscalers are beginning to manufacture their own chips to meet demand. Brandon also discusses new players in the market and what the future holds for the industry.

What’s in store for cloud in 2022? A distributed, edge-based cloudscape that’s more cost effective, and growing at such pace that talent is at a precious premium. In this episode, David Linthicum and Mike Kavis look ahead at cloud’s 2022. Their insights? More cloud architectures will include federated containers, companies will compete ferociously over top talent, movement to the edge will continue, and FinOps will enable organizations to understand and govern their cloud spend more effectively.

 The past year has been pivotal for cloud. Adoption is growing, but many organizations have growing pains. In this episode, David Linthicum and Mike Kavis look back at 2021 and spotlight four prevalent trends that are shaping cloud today—and tomorrow. According to David and Mike, they are: greater multicloud adoption, an increased focus on CloudOps, enhanced cost-consciousness, and the realization that cloud deployments require the right people and processes to succeed.

AWS re:Invent was spectacular this year, focusing on making cloud simpler, better leveraging technology for more cloud impact, moving older apps to cloud, and building cloud sustainability programs. In this episode, Deloitte’s David Linthicum and Tony Witherspoon talk all things re:Invent, from how AWS is helping organizations get to cloud faster—and integrate and operate better once they get there—to new product and service announcements that will make cloud better, starting now

Ever wonder how software developers get those lucrative partnerships with cloud hyperscalers? In this episode, David Linthicum talks with 13three founder Jeff Aden about how 13three helps cloud software vendors begin, or accelerate, their partnerships with major hyperscalers such as AWS to take their software global. Jeff’s view is that success takes the right tools and culture, but it also takes a cloud-native mindset and an understanding that change is the only constant in the market.

Migrating mainframe apps to cloud is a daunting journey, but there’s a growing need to modernize. In this episode, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Bjoern Langmack and AWS’s Hemant Ahire about how companies can successfully transition from mainframe to cloud. The challenges are myriad, but not insurmountable. The group’s advice: Automate as much as you can in the migration process, use the right tools, and try to disrupt the business as little as possible during the migration

Cloud architecture is more art than science. Building a solid architecture takes a broad understanding of both IT in general and cloud specifically, and it also takes lots of up-front work. In this podcast, David Linthicum shares four key tips for building a sound cloud architecture: Focus on the business value, build in security and governance from the get go, have a solid plan for ops and tech, and test as you go to ensure the final product meets your needs from day one.

Subscription-based billing methods for SaaS products aren’t flexible, and they’re often not fair. Drop-in metered billing solutions change that dynamic by enabling consumption-based billing—with customer-chosen metrics—for SaaS. The result? For customers, a more equitable billing structure with improved cost control. For software vendors (or any company looking to monetize home-grown software), the ability to build a more flexible, customer-driven product and get it to market faster.

Containers power cloud flexibility and portability, but over time container technology has become complex and expensive to deploy. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Portainer.io CEO Neil Cresswell about how Portainer enables Containers-as-a-Service (CaaS) to democratize access to container technology by centralizing container configuration, management, and security. With CaaS, companies can gain the benefits of container technology without having to navigate all of its complexity.

It’s cliché, but true: Cloud is different than traditional, on-prem IT operations, and it requires fundamental changes to how IT is done. In this podcast, David Linthicum discusses the emerging discipline of CloudOps and how it can help companies get more value from their cloud journey. With CloudOps, savvy companies can rethink and reinvent their operating model and talent and skills mix—and implement the tools (such as AIOps) they need to operate more effectively in cloud.

Cloud security issues are a serious—and growing—problem. Most companies don't have the resources or expertise in-house to effectively manage security in a constantly-changing cloud ecosystem. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Ntirety’s President and CEO, Emil Sayegh, about how cloud managed services providers (MSPs) can help. For Emil, it’s simple: MSPs provide companies with the security expertise and resiliency they need—24/7/365—to reduce their cloud security risk.

Cloud isn’t just cloud. It’s multi, hybrid, edge, and everything in between. The complexity can be mind-numbing. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with RackN’s Rob Hirschfeld about how companies can use infrastructure pipelines to better standardize and manage their infrastructure ecosystems—which can significantly reduce complexity. Rob’s take is that automation is key, but it has to be standardized. Of course, infrastructure as code plays a critical role.

Multicloud is now the norm, but multicloud environments are incredibly complex and can be maddeningly difficult to manage in a way that provides strategic value to the business long-term. In this podcast, David Linthicum shares tips to help organizations successfully migrate to, deploy, and manage multicloud environments. Long-term success lies in monitoring the middle, thinking long-term, staying app and security focused, building a solid business case, and following best practices.

What’s the future of cloud? No one really knows, but it’s the job of futurists to try to predict it. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Chief Futurist, Mike Bechtel, about where cloud may be headed. Mike’s take is that, over the next five to ten years, decentralized cloud and quantum computing will make a huge impact on cloud and how companies use cloud as a force multiplier for innovation. The catch? Companies must be bold and take calculated risks to get there.

Working with Deloitte, the Utah Department of Government Operations recently completed the first part of an effort to migrate its mainframe applications to cloud. It was a mammoth undertaking, but an overall successful effort. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with project leaders from both the state and Deloitte teams. The trio discuss the project's challenges, successes, and lessons learned. They also share what’s up next—an app modernization plan to help realize cloud's full potential.

Cloud app delivery runs on tight timelines. Unfortunately, other organizational processes, like procurement or legal, often create workflow bottlenecks that hobble the software delivery process. In this podcast, Mike Kavis and guests, Chris Young and Mattia Battiston, discuss teams, workflow, and value delivery. Their advice: IT and business must work collaboratively to manage change, identify and clear bottlenecks, and understand where value lies to optimize workflow.

AI/ML has been around for decades, but cloud has made it possible for companies to leverage AI/ML in new ways, and on a scale never before possible. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte’s Brijesh Singh about why AI/ML is easier to implement with cloud. The pair also discuss new uses for AI/ML—especially vis-à-vis customer service applications—and what’s in store for the future of AI/ML. Finally, Brijesh gives advice to practitioners who want to acquire AI/ML skills.

Although edge computing is growing, it lacks the maturity of cloud. That’s changing. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Deloitte's Lisa Noon and Clarify360's Jo Peterson about how research organizations are bringing standards to the edge and how companies are building on that to apply edge computing to more and more real-world situations. The consensus? Edge is a wide-open space with lots of potential, and companies that leverage edge effectively will have a competitive advantage.

AIOps is being embraced by savvy companies to help them build—and operate—better apps, faster. In this podcast, Mike Kavis and Constellation Research's Andy Thurai discuss how companies can use AIOps to reduce IT complexity and deliver better products. Andy cautions that the onus is on the enterprise to assuage employees' fears and get management buy-in for a successful AIOps implementation.

Post-pandemic, savvy companies are applying the lessons they learned from it—especially vis-à-vis their workforce. In this podcast, David Linthicum talks with Workday’s Greg Pryor about how companies can use data and machine learning technology to improve their employees' experience. They also discuss the future of work. The upshot? Employees will need to ramp up their social agility and build strong connections, and leaders will need to develop empathy as a primary management skill.

Cloud adoption rates differ across geographies and industries, but one thing is certain--even the most reluctant companies are starting to migrate to cloud, though hurdles remain. In this podcast, David Linthicum and Hystax's Edwin Kuss discuss cloud migration strategies and how cloud providers are overcoming migration barriers. Edwin also explains how the emerging discipline of FinOps has the potential to mitigate one of the most worrisome issues—rising cloud costs and wasted spend.

Healthcare has often lagged behind the digital revolution. That's changing. Powered by cloud, new technologies have emerged to enable healthcare providers to offer more, and improved, digital experiences to patients. These first steps will pave the path to a future where personalized digital interactions—perhaps augmented by virtual reality technology—become the norm. However, privacy and building patient trust are critical challenges that providers must continually address.

Cloud is a great place to be, and its future can be even better. How? Start by reducing cloud complexity, automating what you can, and balancing governance with autonomous, empowered DevOps teams.

Digital transformation requires more than technology. To be successful long term, companies must focus on improving their customers' experience, adding value, and making sure that their digital ecosystem is secure and compliant.

Is there such a thing as failing forward? Absolutely, with incident management and chaos engineering, which help companies learn from failures and stress-test their production systems to improve performance.

Today's CTOs are caught between two worlds. They must capable of hands-on work, but they must also be keen decision-makers guided by how much business value their decisions will create. It's a delicate dance that's often hard to perform.

Slow delivery and underperforming cloud apps bedevil many organizations. The issues are often the result of poor team design. Building autonomous, effectively aligned teams can help speed workflow and deliver better products.

Multicloud is a fact of life for most organizations, but it's also incredibly complex to manage a multicloud ecosystem. However, there are key strategies that can help reduce that complexity and deliver more business value.

Multicloud issues can bedevil even the most experienced organizations. So, it's critical to have a sound management strategy to realize your goals while controlling costs and achieving speed to market.

There are many misconceptions about what edge computing is, how it’s connected with cloud, and how organizations can leverage edge computing to create new products and services that delight their customers. In this episode, David Linthicum sits down with Deloitte’s Myke Miller and Carnegie Mellon Professor Mahadev Satyanarayanan (Satya) to discuss all things edge and how organizations across all industries will build an edge-native future that’s brighter than we can imagine.

How do cloud-tech companies make the journey from hot startup to hot growth? For a growing number, it’s through a SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, because SPACs may be more willing to make investments that more traditional investors see as risky. In this episode, David Linthicum and Deloitte & Touche LLP’s Barrett Daniels discuss how a SPAC works and how some companies leverage SPACs to help them raise capital to grow.

It may seem counterintuitive, but to reduce cloud complexity, it's sometimes necessary to slow down to speed up. Why? Because planning and balancing standards with flexibility before you migrate can save time, resources, and pain in the long run.

Old software paradigm: Update every five years and bear the cost and the pain. New paradigm: Move to SaaS and get continuous updates with less complexity--all in a secure environment that fuels agility, insight, and innovation.

Companies are always looking for ways to boost their cloud success. Freddie Mac may have found one. Effective leadership with a solid support structure, modern delivery methods, and partnership between the business and IT seems to be their winning formula.

Traditional software delivery methods don't work well at the speed of cloud, so many companies are turning to agile, pod-based development teams to speed their journey to cloud—and to help them continue to innovate at scale once they get there.

The pandemic forced many companies to cloud, even though some were hesitant. Now, many are making the move to cloud permanent because it lets them offer better products, services, and customer experiences--and it lets them leverage new tech like 5G and intelligent edge.

As cloud adoption has gained steam over the past half-decade, the education sector has often lagged behind. However, that’s changing—in part due to the shift to remote learning brought on by COVID-19, but also due to a desire to enhance the student experience.

DevOps is well known for increasing collaboration between application development and operations. Savvy organizations are now leveraging the ethos behind DevOps to foster teamwork, train employees on new processes, and implement change throughout the enterprise.

Cloud isn't simply someone else's datacenter. It's no less than a revolution in the very foundations of IT. Cloud has completely transformed the way software is designed, and it helps companies build IT ecosystems that are secure, safe, available, reliable, and resilient.

Cloud migrations require both a paradigm shift and a cultural sea change. Companies that see flexibility as a key component of success, and that leverage a team approach to navigate the changes cloud brings, will be well equipped for their cloud journey.

Cloud gaming is coming into its own via 5G, but the tech behind it can also bolster remote learning and working. And, it can fuel new ways of working and learning through augmented reality, immersive experiences, and spatial computing. It's a game-changer!  

As cloud adoption soars, so does the complexity of the accounting treatment for cloud. And with the adage that, "Now every company is a tech company" now a near reality, accounting for cloud has never been more important to the bottom line.

Doing DevOps right involves more than technology. It requires changing the organizational culture to build a joint-responsibility model based on outcomes and value. How companies implement that culture change will be critical in determining DevOps success.

Post-pandemic, companies will be looking to chart a new path to success. Key to that success will be overcoming barriers to cloud, finding the right partner for the journey, and embracing new ways of working. Building robust ecosystems will play a large role as well.

AI has the promise to transform business, but only if it's implemented correctly and used effectively—and kept as bias free as possible. So, to keep projects on track, it's critical to keep humans in control and practice good governance.

Still hesitant about a cloud-first strategy? Don't be. A cloud-first orientation gives organizations the scalability, resiliency, and  business continuity capabilities they need to optimize their operations and realize greater business value.

Cloud adoption has wildly accelerated in 2020, and that trend will continue into 2021. However, to fuel continued acceleration, companies will need to bolster Ops, focus on using cloud strategically, and use cloud to get to market faster. Edge computing will also be a key 2021 theme.

Digital transformation is often hobbled by bureaucracy. According to AWS's Mark Schwartz, the quickest way to break through the bureaucracy is to wade straight into the quagmire using monkeys, razors, and sumo wrestlers.

Cloud and COVID-19 have combined to magnify the need for effective cybersecurity. Companies that focus on data, automation, and risk assessment will have a better chance at cybersecurity success.

Like many companies, global tech leader Broadcom shifted to remote work when COVID-19 hit. However, with the help of a cloud-based, mobile technology solution, Broadcom is able to safely bring its workforce back to the office.

Innovation is key to cloud success. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation has made it their mission to fuel innovation through leveraging the power of open source to make cloud ubiquitous.

There's often tension between security and DevOps. That tension is magnified in a cloud environment. To relieve that tension and implement effective security in cloud, it's essential to foster understanding and cooperation. How? With DevSecOps.

Cloud security is as complex as cloud itself. SaaS-based, data-driven security-automation platforms can help companies automate much of their cloud security process, enabling them to reduce complexity and focus more on their business.

AI/ML can help transform how companies glean insights into their business, but it's often difficult to put AI/ML models into wide-scale production. Enter MLOps, which takes a disciplined approach to scaling AI/ML to the enterprise.

Serverless computing definitely has its advantages, such as the ability to scale quickly and manage costs effectively, but there are also latency and complexity concerns. However, there are open source projects in the works to address these issues and make serverless more attractive. 

Before cloud, system architects lived by rigid system requirements—receive them, build to spec, and move on. That was their world. However, with the ascendance of cloud, that world has changed. Architects are now expected to be just as smart and agile as the applications they build. In this episode, David Linthicum and guest, Deloitte’s Vasa Vishveshwara, discuss the ever-changing, ever-expanding role of the system architect in the world built by cloud.

Traditionally, software testing has been firmly planted in the staging process, so as not to disrupt in-production systems and functionality. However, by testing in staging only, developers may miss issues that only occur with live systems. In this episode, Mike Kavis and Split.io’s Talia Nassi discuss how savvy software companies are breaking tradition and moving their testing process from staging to production.

Companies are retrenching their operations in the face of unprecedented headwinds, and HR is no exception. Cloud-based HR can improve connections between employees and management and help companies build the workforce of the future.

Value-stream mapping isn’t just about eliminating work, it’s about looking at processes across the organization, finding bottlenecks, and then using a team approach to understand and remove them—in other words, it’s about finding the value in workstreams. In this episode of the podcast Mike Kavis and guest, Visible Value Stream Consulting’s Steve Pereira, talk value-stream mapping—why it works, how to get started, and what it should look like long term.

When most people think about SRE, they think numbers, percentages, SLIs, and SLOs. That stew of acronyms is important, but, really, what drives site reliability engineering is the goal of building systems that truly satisfy customers and keep them coming back.

Cloud is revolutionary, but at some companies, cloud deployments don’t revolutionize their IT outcomes. Why? Because they don’t change their IT culture. To realize more success with cloud, it’s essential to change culture along with technology. In this episode of the podcast, Mike Kavis and guest, Deloitte’s Jon Smart, discuss how companies can change their IT culture to achieve more success with cloud. Jon’s take is that companies can build, “better value, sooner, safer, happier,” by discovering anti-patterns that provide headwinds to cloud success, fixing those, and building a culture of psychological safety that reduces fear and focuses on outcomes, communication, and teamwork.

Ever wonder how all that software that helps you get what you need out of the cloud gets to market? It starts with getting the feel of the market, establishing relationships with cloud providers, and partnering with them to meet their customers' critical needs.

What's the latest from Google Cloud Next 2020? It's this: organizations that effectively leverage technology as a strategic enabler to accelerate their digital transformation journey will have a better chance of not just surviving but thriving.

When systems fail, the blame game often begins, and, surprisingly, it begins with a simple question: "Why?" Instead, to build more resilient systems, as well as more trust among team members, ask what happened and how.

Cloud—especially when paired with AI—is proving its value, even to conservative disciplines such as audit and tax, where it's helping people work smarter and fueling collaboration and innovation. One key to success: Leadership should set the tone from the top.

In a fast-moving cloud environment, companies must be ready to change course quickly to meet an uncertain future. Two keys to success are flexibility to deploy multiple tools to meet specific needs and democratized information to gain critical insights.

DevOps and SRE are critical to software delivery--especially in cloud. A focus on people and collaboration, as well as shifting from a project to a product mentality, are strategies that can increase the chances of a successful implementation.  

DevOps can accelerate software delivery, but many organizations still struggle with it because of ineffective processes and resistance to change. Organizations that "do DevOps right" are those that eliminate silos, automate, embrace change, and communicate effectively.

When digital transformation initiatives struggle, the blame often gets assigned to the technology implementation. However, in many cases, it’s actually more of a people than a technology issue. Fear of change often plays a critical role in project failures. In this episode of the podcast, Mike Kavis and guests, Jeffrey Fredrick and Douglas Squirrel, discuss barriers to digital transformation success and how fear of change can hobble success and set the project team—and company—up for failure. Their solution is to reduce fear—and promote collaboration—by understanding what motivates people, embracing differences, building trust, and modeling behavior that produces positive changes.  

Edge computing has the potential to revolutionize IT—especially the way organizations interact with customers. But the edge space is still somewhat of a wild west, and there are competing theories of where it should go and how it can be utilized most effectively. There are even competing definitions of what “edge” truly is. In this episode of the podcast, David Linthicum and Edgevana CEO Mark Thiele break down edge computing—what it is, and isn’t, and ways companies can leverage it to help create better value for customers. Mark also gives his take on what an edge-enabled future would look like, and he gives some pointers on how organizations can build a path to get there.

With a shift to cloud, it’s crucial for organizations to re-evaluate how they approach security—specifically how they evaluate risk. It’s always been critical to take a proactive, predictive approach, but with cloud that criticality is magnified because of the distributed nature of cloud computing. In this episode of the podcast, Mike Kavis and guest, Trend Micro’s Mark Nunnikhoven, discuss evaluating risk in the cloud. Mark’s take is that, while cloud is more secure because of its shared-responsibility model, predicting the likelihood and type of security events is still incredibly difficult. He also argues that, even with the application of AIOps to bolster predictive capabilities, humans still need to interpret model results and make final decisions on which actions to take.    

This special episode of Deloitte’s "On Cloud" podcast focuses on the role an integrated core plays in recovery and lasting resilience, with examples of how companies are integrating AI, cloud and cyber today.

Once considered to be an unusual development methodology, open source has come into its own. Companies now understand that they can take advantage of different perspectives and collaboration in the open source community to drive cloud innovation and deliver better products faster than ever.

We already live in a connected world, but technologies like cloud, edge computing, ML, and 5G will profoundly reshape the way people and technology connect and interact with each other, and they will usher in a future that is scarcely imaginable now.

There are a bevy of new technologies in the market to help with IT ops in the cloud--AIOps for example. However, to get the most out of AIOps (or any tech), match the tool to the needs and define the needs--and success metrics--based on your service-level objectives.  

Software testing isn't glamourous, but it's critical. It's also often misunderstood or siloed. However, DevOps has highlighted the importance of testing and the cloud has transformed the testing process, making it faster and easier and freeing up resources to focus on human-centric testing.

Using FinOps to more effectively govern cloud usage and match cost to need to value can help organizations avoid potentially costly reactions, such as overprovisioning.

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn have most likely accelerated a shift to cloud for some companies. Why? Because cloud provides the agility and scalability that can help companies weather this, and other crises, more effectively.  

The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged many companies to accelerate their journey to cloud. The impetus? Improved security and business continuity, as well as the scalability to handle this disruption--and the new normal it will create--more effectively.

The world is in crisis, and many businesses are too. However, with the elasticity to enable organizations to scale to need, cloud can help beat back some of that disruption by helping maintain business continuity, which--aside from keeping safe right now--is a top priority.

Intelligent automation can change the way companies automate much of the software production and management process. That's a good thing, but some companies are hesitant. However, in this new "normal" organizations should welcome tools that can help them manage disruption and stay competitive.

The current environment is unprecedented--at least in modern times, and organizations need a strategy for continuity. With its ability to scale to need, cloud can help. Also key will be rethinking operational and IT strategies in the new normal when things settle down.

Cloud adoption is growing, but one obstacle organizations face is a lack of cloud skills within their IT ranks. One solution is to build a cloud learning center to give workers the skills they need to help their companies more effectively realize the potential of the cloud.  

Cloud is transforming the way business is done, but many companies are reluctant to fully automate business processes--especially where data security is a concern. To overcome that reluctance, and gain efficiency, it's crucial to implement effective cloud-governance policies.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation are the future. Companies that invest in new technologies can use it as a force multiplier and reap enormous benefits, but they must retrain their manual workforce to focus on value-added activities.

There's a growing need for top talent in the cloud space and not enough people to fill it. One possible solution? Get more women into the cloud talent pool, mentor them, promote them, and help them become the next generation of great cloud leaders and innovators.

Workflow management is designed to make IT operations flow more smoothly. However, that's not always the case, as the management process often becomes the issue to manage. One solution: effective tools, along with a common language to implement the workflow management process.

New changes in accounting rules may provide more beneficial accounting treatment for cloud costs. However, there will be challenges in implementation. To more easily navigate the changes, companies may need to put new controls in place and invest in more process automation.

Once relegated to IT infrastructure and middleware, open-source software has gone commercial. Cloud providers are taking notice, and the push to leverage open source at the application layer holds tremendous potential to power the future of cloud and drive innovation.

2020 promises to be a breakout year for cloud. But to take advantage of the cloud's potential, companies will need to focus on leveraging AI advances and edge computing, as well as investing in enhanced security to build and keep user trust.

Struggling with delivering apps on time and in budget? Many companies do. Often, the reason is invisible work that robs time from the development process. To fix it requires identifying, and remediating, pain points caused by invisible work, i.e., catching the "thieves" that steal your time.

Even with firm resolution to move to the cloud, many companies struggle with complexity management. Having a thorough understanding of your application environment and a solid strategy to get to the cloud can help. So can putting development guardrails in place and focusing on security.

As the cloud matures, many companies aren't reaping the value they expected. For some, it's because they haven't transformed their IT operations as they've digitally transformed. To maximize the cloud's advantages, however, it's essential to match IT Ops transformation with cloud adoption.

It's not too much to say cloud has changed the way the world works. However, challenges such as data issues, economic concerns, and cloud complexity still remain--and are imperative for companies to solve. Those that do will be well poised to define the future of cloud.

The cloud space is ever-changing, and 2019 was no exception. Top trends included AI, Kubernetes, and cloud-complexity. 2020 promises more complexity, exploding AI/ML use, and business taking the lead on driving cloud expansion.

Despite being a relatively new practice, DevOps is already experiencing big changes. New disciplines, consolidation among vendors, and competition to introduce new, better technologies are making DevOps an exciting place to be right now--and in the future.

IoT has revolutionized the capabilities of countless consumer products. Now, Deloitte has introduced Smart Factory Fabric powered by AWS, a suite of services designed to revolutionize IoT and help manufacturers reimagine their business.  

Machine learning has revolutionized analytics, yet it still has untapped potential. This year at AWS re:Invent 2019, AWS introduced new ML offerings, as well as a collaboration with Deloitte, to help companies enhance their ML capabilities, make them more secure, and speed up implementation.

At AWS re:Invent 2019, AWS introduced new, exciting, and evolutionary products and services in the cloud space. There's lots of buzz around IoT, machine learning, and 5G, making companies smarter—and helping developers move more operations to the cloud.

Despite the strong imperative to digitally transform, many companies still struggle with it. One strategy is to adopt a cloud-native mindset that leverages AIOps and shifts DevOps bottlenecks left to re-think software development, delivery, and deployment in a cloud-native world.

As the panoply of cloud vendors and products grows ever larger, so does the configuration and management complexity of the cloud. For many companies, this complexity can reduce the value of their cloud-computing investments. In this episode of the podcast, David Linthicum and guests, Intel’s Lisa Davis and Deloitte’s Doug Bourgeois, discuss ways companies can tackle cloud complexity and leverage multi-cloud architectures to help optimize cloud deployments in terms of performance, cost, and agility. Lisa and Doug also argue that companies need to realize that hardware isn’t a commodity and that cloud architectures—and talent acquisition decisions—must be driven by mission-critical business needs and workloads.

There's little doubt of the value of agile and DevOps, but many companies still struggle to innovate with IT. It's often because they're stuck in a project management paradigm. One solution is to focus on product value streams and measure the business value delivered by software.

DevOps is a boon to software development and delivery, but companies sometimes struggle to get DevOps right. Most often, it's a people, rather than a tooling issue. Successful DevOps takes the right people and leadership, and a view from a product, rather than a project, lens.

Many companies struggle with technology in general, and cloud migration in particular. What’s needed is a fresh perspective—a new look at how to accelerate what’s possible. Savvy companies understand that to be able to drive increased value, they should increase diversity in the tech workforce. They also recognize the need to better understand and navigate the massive disruptions and cultural changes that come with their cloud computing journey. In this episode, David Linthicum and guest, industry thought leader Rashim Mogha, discuss ways companies can build a more inclusive, diverse workforce and manage the disruption that comes with digital transformation. Mogha’s recipe for success: give everyone a seat at the table, automate, manage disruption, and focus relentlessly on building an adaptive culture from the top down.

Cloud architectures are incredibly complex and, often, it's all but impossible to predict and prevent failure scenarios. Enter the ascendant discipline of chaos engineering, which aims to discover cloud failure points, in in-production systems, before they become disasters.

Increasingly, companies are realizing that their cloud migration journey is defined as much by their culture as by their technology choices. Indeed, effectively managing the seismic changes that come with cloud computing is key to enabling a successful cloud adoption strategy.

Companies often struggle to develop efficient cloud-native application environments. Frequently, it's because they haven't implemented product-oriented, enterprise-ready application delivery methods. Those that can make the shift, however, can reap enormous benefits.

As DevOps matures, and the “shift-everything-left” philosophy gains ascendancy, there’s a movement to automate all—or most—phases of testing. However, there are some critical functions that may resist automation. In fact, contrary to the “automate-everything” impetus, human testers won’t ever go away. Indeed, human testers need to be more involved, and earlier in the development process. In this podcast, Mike Kavis and guest, Angie Jones, discuss the human aspect of testing and how humans add significant value by assessing the system as a whole, helping developers design better code, and determining the level of testing automation that should occur. Angie also shares the testing automation matrix she has developed. Finally, they cover testing of machine learning algorithms—ways to help prevent or reduce bias and make algorithms more effective, and the emerging field of visual testing, which uses humans to ensure that graphics-heavy apps function and appear as designed.

The current hype cycle is all about 5G and its tremendous promise. That promise may be fulfilled someday, but right now the IoT and edge technologies are helping organizations across all industries revolutionize their business and view most technologies through an as-a-service lens.

Yes, there's complexity in the cloud journey, but that doesn't mean that the cloud isn't the place to be now, and in the future. As cloud adoption rises, it's important to understand which apps are right for the cloud and to manage complexity to make cloud adoption easier.

Because of its flexibility, Kubernetes is delivering on the promise of PaaS for cloud app deployment. However, container management is complex, and there are often gaps with orchestration engines. Companies that manage Kubernetes effectively, though, can reap the benefits--especially at the edge.

Many organizations are wowed by new cloud tecnologies and deploy them to solve specific issues. Instead of getting the magic bullet they hope for, sometimes they only add to their cloud complexity. However, one key to cloud success is a sound strategy that drives business value.

The tax function has historically been reluctant to fully embrace the cloud. However, regulatory demands, coupled with the need to gain more information security and deeper insight into performance, is pushing them to adopt the cloud. The payoff for companies that make the leap can be huge.

Developing scalable, efficient cloud architectures requires fresh thinking. Infrastructure as Code, along with other tools like Kubernetes--when properly managed--can help companies create robust cloud architectures that produce more value from their cloud journey.

The cloud's value proposition is almost limitless, but as deployments become more complex, cloud complexity can degrade that value. To manage cloud complexity effectively, leading practices include increasing agility while focusing on improved governance, automation, and data architecture.

Where DevOps meets security you get DevSecOps, but are companies doing it right? If not, how can they avoid the seven deadly diseases of DevOps?

Despite rapidly growing cloud adoption, mainframes remain at the core of IT for many large companies. Migration from mainframe to the cloud can be challenging, but the right strategy and tools can ease the transition and bring tremendous benefit.

When applications fail to live up to their promise, technology isn't always the culprit. Often, the failure is a result of ineffective teamwork. To combat the problem, successful companies are building better teams and improving communication throughout the DevOps process.

The future of work is changing, and cloud adoption is accelerating that change. Smart companies will reconfigure their workforce and reevaluate their relationships with workers. By doing so, they can take advantage of the inevitable shift in workforce culture.

Implementing DevOps can boost cloud deployment, but some organizations still struggle to get it right. Those that do find that DevOps success takes transformational leadership, improved communication, and fostering trust between IT and the business.

Deloitte's 2019 Global Cost Survey reveals that companies are no longer simply reducing costs to fund necessary growth. Instead, they are using smart cost-cutting strategies to invest in technologies like cloud, AI/ML, and RPA to help transform their business for the future.

Many organizations want the power and flexibility of the cloud but can't refactor all their apps to be cloud-ready. With several new solutions in the market today, a hybrid cloud model can enable benefits of the cloud without a complete cloud conversion.

Some organizations are using primarily lift and shift for cloud migration. However, in doing so, they may miss out on potential benefits like increased performance, scalability, flexibility, and security. They also may not be able to completely leverage machine learning and AI technologies.

Moving SAP deployments to the cloud can be challenging. MSPs can help. By handling cloud management and strategy, MSPs can free up organizations to focus on running the business, not cloud management.

Most organizations now realize that migrating to the cloud is a crucial decision but significant technical and cost barriers often make for a difficult move. However, with the right strategies and tools, those barriers can be overcome to enable migration success.

Once reluctant to fully embrace the cloud, banks are now finding big benefits to cloud computing. Among them are typically scalability, agility, and improved compliance. For many banks, Google Cloud and Hadoop play a critical role in their transition.

Cloud security myths are persistent, but often based more in anxiety than fact. In reality, companies that take a risk-based approach to cloud migration and address security risks head on often find a great deal of success.

After three exciting days in San Francisco, the cloud world is abuzz with talk about the latest innovations in cloud computing. Learn how the announcements made this week add up to new opportunities for organizations to maximize the value of cloud.

Hosted by David Linthicum and designed for cloud professionals, this podcast gives you the straight talk on cloud computing. From what’s going on in the industry, the impact of cloud in the enterprise to how it can enable business transformation – it’s all covered here.

Get real about cloud technology with Mike Kavis on the Architecting the Cloud podcast. We’re talking about what’s new in cloud, how to use it, and why with people in the field who have done the work.