Post 'Cloud Matters'..!!!

It's been a while but everything still lay afresh. Whenever I look-back to those two wonderful days am filled with wonderfulness of being a part of something beyond the horizons of my dreams.
Well, how many times people dream about being at conferences so big?!..neither did I, but in a week it's veered magically!
As if a hidden trait in me that appeared out of the blue.

So what really was Cloud Matters?!
A city filled with white fluffy wonders to glide onto..! :D
Next steps to Technologies!
A lot about handling big data tactfully- Open source, government involvement, energetic people and good food- all at one place!!

It was 11th March, 2013- Monday- that wan't at all blue!
Two strange days awaited since long finally were here!
Strange because- I had too little clue about what the conferences are like.
And awesome- because it was at Banff (Rimrock Resort)

A day before the evil things- camry broke. 'Early morning taking off for the ride to Banff' plan was transformed into 'lets go with someone else'.
The event was to start at 9am, and I was lil'saddened of the fact that I might miss it a bit and the brain functions will have a little misery build up in understanding what's going on..
Getting away with all that around 11:30am reached Rimrock and straight to salon C down the hall landed into the corner of the conference room..and all we heard what the panel was talking about was business and social network!
Is it the right place we are into?!
Yeah!
Undoubtedly!
Just missed a little chunk of 'Business gets Social'. They talked about the planning it takes behind the social initiatives to work smooth. To not just be social but to DO social!

A big space filled with people in business formals, with infectious energy filled in the room!

The tweets from all around the world and every corner of the conference room mined-n-crafted on three screens that just can't let anyone go out without grabbing their attention..creating a temptation to tweet with #cloudmatters and wait for the name to pop up on the blue screen!

The lunch- a buffet full of deliciousness!
Veggie rolls, salad, soup with exotic aromas, dessert and a big appetite!

Again starts the flow of information from one speaker to other, keynote speeches, another panel discussion!
Around the later part of the evening came the most awaited closing remarks by Chris C. Kemp!
he came and played with brains, mesmerized the thoughts of each person..the shining star of the whole conference.
Chrish Kemp- @Kemp - (NASA, Nebula, Rackspace, OpenStack- he's everywhere!!)
It started with Mars mission of NASA, the pictures from the neighboring planet that go viral over the internet but at the same time require a lot of space, hence needed to rebuild the maps..!
Then emerged the concept of cloud. The 5 basic features that has to be there in order to keep the cloud usable-- On Demand, Elastic, Shared (resource pool), Metered by use (high level of granularity), Accessible (anywhere over the internet). Even if one is missing the cloud doesn't remain usable.
About the NASA and US govt.initiative USASpending.gov, the database that keeps track of all the government spending on the resources in the country. A breakthrough idea- of making everything open sourced. Rackspace, one of the biggest open source cloud project initiated by him. The slide- 'Thin New Ocean', talking about the cloud age, enterprise private computing, mobile computing.
And transformation that world is adopting, for instance, Facebook, open sourced the designs and asked for only those parts for servers that they require that inturn saved cost and made the servers more efficient. Not just the services but the open hardware!
(for more: Open Compute Project)
Nonetheless, Chris Kemp, inspirational, energetic, with wowwsome persona..!

Later at 4:30pm, started the most awaited event- Cloud Showdown!
With 8 startups, pitching for investment.
Started with 4castplus, getq'd, katipult, Kidoodle.Tv, Kiind.me, Mover, Parley, Procurify- unique brilliant ideas on stage, with hints of nervousness, panel of critics and the idea that has to sail through the minds to grab an investment, some cool office space and other cool perks!
Closed for the night, off to dinner and drinks, in midst when Lloyed came up with  a n n o u n c e m e n t s!
The three startups that sailed through- Kidoodle.tv (creating safe content for children); Mover and PARLEY (performance management application)!!!

Later through the night network and fun times.
and Off to sleep, in midst of dark forest and snow covered mountains around.

Waking up witnessing the white serene morning through the window.
Day 2, a lot of talks coming up- overwhelming flow of data-- super big data for the human brain to digest at once.
This was the day to bring the government into the picture and take away the fear build up towards the data safety in cloud environment.
Started with David Morhart from the Govt. of Alberta- briefing about the cybera, supernet and Alberta cloud ecosystem. The City of Calgary presentation, the steps into cloud infrastructure- scalability, balancing act, collaboration channels, use of open source software (LDAP, Content Management System, IaaS, Paas)
The catalysts for the cloud adoption- standards, procurement, Service Management, Privacy by Design.
(For more info: cloudcomputing@calgary.ca)
Next, Tom Ruff- from Akamai Public Sector.
Talked about saving billions, enhancing security and the future that's fast approaching laden with IPv6 and a need of multiple factor authentication..!

Then came Ms.Jan Jackman from IBM, the case studies about simplifying life by data analysis- creating smarter cities. City of South Bend, Indiana- who monitored and controlled the sewage overflow using IBM Smart Cloud.

Next, The Rainmaker panel on the stage- starting with the history where the citizen participation with govt.was minimal, then came the social policy framework into being and citizens and govt.started working together..
Timothy Grayson came up with interesting story about making rains by combining- Ritual, Belief, Visions!

Vaughn Ravenscroft- CIO, U of C- talked about the importance of cloud in researcha dn education environment..

Dan Galortha nd Steven Woodward- cloud matrix measuring- based on effort, cost, schedule, staffing, risk and reliability..

Robin Winsor- CEO, Cybera- the guy who invented first digital xRay system..
CyberaNet- that's not metered and have  low cost of cloud utility, unlike Supernet..
He also has 17 patents in his name already!

Tim Gong, Accenture- >> mobility+Social tech+Data Analytics+Cloud Computing.
speed, innovation for everyone,the ability to use resources no longer depend on the ownership of that resource..

Wayne Walls- Rackspace- powered by OpenStack and talked about hte cloud based products of Rackspace- Austin, Bexar, Cactus, Diablo, Essex, Folsons, Grizzly, Horizon, Keystone, Quantum...


Jeff Brar, Chief Web Services Evangelist, Amazon
AWS Platoform usability..
3.7 million Clusters since May 2010
The BANRO mine site, using Infrastrcture in cloud..in Congo!

Then comes the later part of the Conference, and the most important- the LAWS governing the cloud storage and things to care about!
Talks by-
Jonathan King- Savvis; Martin P. J. Kartz; Mathew Snell -  IBM; William Harmer- SAP Success factor; Tim McCreight -CISSP -IT Security- Canadian Security Magazne CISO for Gov. of Alberta!




We still had a while to leave for the journey back home, to Calgary.
Later the evening, spent in the corner looking at the mountains- and the thick Microsoft book for SQL server, the class I have been missing.
There came the person we talk ed with last night for a while from the City of Calgary- talks for a long while- for how many times there comes the moment when someone having a position you dream about talks like your friend- about life lessons and past..along with words of wisdom....

The dinner of Quinuoa burger
Reaching home 12 at night...!
Slept with a life event ..an accomplishment..and dreams of the days of wonder rolled in eyes..........



Here's the link to a little presentation summarizing the event as i saw it....
http://prezi.com/yz0fnrugkzik/been-to-cloud-matters/
Inspired by Tim McCreight!
Thanks for the Awesome presentation idea..!