CloudFest 2023 Recap: The Resilient Cloud
Key takeaways from CloudFest 2023.
If you’re familiar with CloudFest, you’ve seen and heard it all before – there are rollercoasters, there’s a strangely endearing theme park mascot, and there are parties. It’s all been synonymous with CloudFest for years. As always, CloudFest in March this year in Germany was a blast, says Carlos Rego, vice president of strategic development at Virtuozzo, and shares key takeaways from the event.
The history of the event and what we cloud providers do was amazing to ponder, too. For instance, it was inspiring to see the ‘history of data centers’ exhibit and how far we have come. It was crazy seeing NVMe hardware next to giant 32mb units from the 80s and 90s.
I know we say this all of the time, but it’s true: there’s nothing like meeting with friends, and partners, as well as new and genuinely interesting people that you haven’t interacted with before – there’s always something to learn from everyone.
I’ve been in this industry for a long time. One observation that never changes is that in-person interactions at places like CloudFest can be just as influential on the final outcomes of cloud technology choice as a planned, strategic meeting. What was different this year was how attendees described the ways they are embracing the conference themes. They’ve found they are already deploying these ideas and best practices in their own unique ways.
I’d like to discuss the leading themes of this year’s CloudFest because they’re thought-provoking and because the organizers deserve credit for creating meaningful conversations around these ideas.
Overarching Theme: The Resilient cloud
When we saw that this year’s theme was the resilient cloud, we decided to take it as a direct challenge. The cloud isn’t resilient – it may seem strong, but it needs saving. What can we do? Hyperscalers are making the cloud expensive, impersonal, and inaccessible to new entities wanting to enter the industry. And the pipeline of newcomers and their intellectual property are key to the sector’s resiliency, development, and growth.
It’s important that we cloud providers come together and think of the ways we can positively shape the cloud’s future and take it back from these huge entities who do not have the user’s best interests in mind.
Protectors of the Internet
Lots of enterprise and private customers are now in the cloud. It’s a trend we’ve seen continue since last year. But the honeymoon period is over. Those who have migrated to the cloud realize they need to keep their data secure and protected. Resiliency, of course, isn’t just on the conceptual and market level. It’s also important physically in terms of data and backup.
There were many presentations and talks at CloudFest about backup and cybersecurity. Many related companies at the expo, like BitNinja and Monarx, were security providers discussing their role in keeping cloud deployments safe and secure.
As Joe Morgan, Virtuozzo’s vice president of cloud, observed: “Backups used to be seen simply as boring. Just a copy of some data. But a company must consider the full life cycle of its data. If it’s recovering compromised data to begin with, it’s not good. Organizations must ensure that data’s reliable when it is needed, so technology like backup scanning is being showcased more at events like CloudFest. A company does not want to be in a situation where it has to rebuild everything, because that means extra downtime. By making sure data is end-to-end protected, and not just backed up, a company can be back up and running quickly and easily in the case of a disaster.”
See More: Security on the Network: Protecting Non-sensitive Data
The Digital Supply Chain
Another notable change at this year’s CloudFest was the prevalence of workshops. In years past, workshops have always been heavily attended by the technical audience, but this year we saw people from all departments attending them, from server technicians and CTOs to social media managers and CROs.
The popularity of workshops makes sense, as more people are taking a step back and looking at the digital supply chain as a whole. They want to understand all levels of those interlinking steps – containers, compute, etc.
Notably, many companies now openly share and publicly discuss their tech partnerships. At CloudFest, Virtuozzo hosted our friends from every sector, welcoming them to the booth for happy hour or simply just to chat.
The more intimate setting of a workshop also means there’s no room for tall tales. We’ve all seen our fair share of tech keynotes where you really want to stop the speaker and call them out on a generalization or a point where you disagree. At workshops, you can. Attendees are respectful, but there’s room for discussion after the presentation.
See More: Digitalization of the Supply Chain During a Pandemic
Retention Is the New Acquisition
Retention was the strangest theme of this year’s CloudFest. That’s not a bad thing – it’s just that I saw many different companies understanding this statement in many different ways.
The first interpretation that comes to mind is by Petter Lund, CTO of Miss Group and his discussion of the company’s strategy of growth by acquisition. It would seem at first that it goes against this subtheme. But Miss Group has taken the time to come up with a proper customer retention policy. It does not hide and consolidate the brands it acquires. Instead, they let these businesses individually prosper by retaining (and growing) their customer base with these existing companies. In a sense, by applying genuinely positive processes to their acquisitions, they retain staff and business by acquisition.
One especially interesting element of 2023’s CloudFest was the start-up zone. There were lots of young people there sharing great ideas. Hopefully, their passion was noticed by the bigger entities at the conference. Even the highest-level executives could learn a real lesson or two by just having a chat with these new people disrupting the industry.
When you talked with these startups about retention, they shared a completely different viewpoint. Retention meant the acquisition of customers. By growing their customer bases, these startups said they could more easily retain their existing customers. The growing number of users is key to securing funding to increase their service offerings or expand their R&D efforts.
To More Conversations and Collaborations on the Cloud
Overall, CloudFest 2023 might have been the best yet. It was the busiest CloudFest I’ve ever attended, and I’ve been to the conference numerous times. There were many first-time attendees, along with a healthy contingent of industry veterans. What was so interesting to me was the number of students and industry-adjacent people in attendance, enthusiastically engaged and interested in learning.
Because of our collective positive experience at CloudFest Germany, it would be great to attend the next event later this year at CloudFest USA. We’re all looking forward to what’s in store. Kudos on a successful and informative CloudFest filled with interesting conversations around the cloud and great opportunities for collaboration.
What were your key takeaways from CloudFest 2023? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear all about it!
Image Source: Shutterstock
MORE ON THE FUTURE OF CLOUD
