A Cloudy Time of Year

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

As the weather turns cold, the trees thin, and the rains come, the season brings a lot of interesting cloud activity. Just as that cloud activity can lead to captivating sunrises and sunsets, activity within the research and education (R&E) cloud community is also producing more than a few rays of sunshine.

Technology Exchange

Technology Exchange, or “TechEX” is Internet2’s annual geekfest. That is to say, it is the more deeply technical of our conferences. Read Strengthening Your Head, Heart, and Hands: The Big 3 Conferences in Higher Ed Cloud for a brilliantly written exposé on what differentiates TechEx from the other higher ed conferences with cloud content.

Cloud Track

In recent years, we have been blessed by great content in the Cloud track at Internet2 events. Technology Exchange has been particularly fruitful (despite being past harvest time) and this year is no exception. If you are registered for TechEX in Boston, I have a recommendation for you to get the most out of your time: All Cloud track, all the time.

Of course, the Advanced Networking, Identity & Access Management, and Information Security tracks all have excellent sessions, but the Cloud track will hit the spot like a mug of hot chocolate on a blustery Boston winter day (which it probably will be).

Cloud Tutorials

If the Cloud track content throughout the week is hot chocolate, the cloud tutorials preceding the conference on Monday, December 9, are the hot cup of Joe you need to get your week started.

There are some great sessions — particularly on cloud topics — that you and your colleagues should consider attending. They are timely, very affordable, include lunch, and might even be fun. Take a look.

I particularly want to call out two sessions: 

1. Google Cloud Admin Basic Training – We have heard from a lot of schools that are primarily AWS or Azure schools that they resist doing anything with GCP, either due to lack of any Org-admin-level skills on your team or you have a single person with the skills and no backup for them. This course was written specifically for our community, and the course author was advised by a group of higher ed GCP Org admins on the most relevant things to include. This is not about how to develop on GCP. This is about how to set up and manage the Google Cloud Org-level controls and issues.
2. AWS GameDay – OK, this is just a fun way to test your AWS knowledge in an unpredictable situation and do team building along the way. If you haven’t done a GameDay, you need to experience one. If you have, you’ll know why we have some people signing up for their second, third, or fourth GameDay. Get full details, including the scenario we are doing, the services and skills that will be used, the free training you will get access to, and the prizes and glory to be won all at the event page. Thanks to a generous donation from Four Points Technology, GameDay will only cost you $25, including lunch.

If you are interested in any of these sessions, register for them today. If you’ve already registered for TechEX, you can go back and add a tutorial to your agenda. 
If you haven’t registered for TechEX and don’t plan to, that’s OK. You don’t have to. There is no requirement to register for the full conference to register for a tutorial — just use this special tutorial-day-only link.

Cloud Forum

Start spreading the news; the 2025 Cloud Forum will be in New York, New York, May 20-22, hosted by the fantastic team at NYU! Your hard-working committee of peers has been planning since summer, and, as always, they are putting together a memorable event. 

Sure, there will be great food, big city charm, and beautiful views, but what really makes the Cloud Forum memorable are the presentations and the conversations they spur. From hard-won leadership lessons to bold new ideas, your peers at the Cloud Forum will challenge and delight you.

Cloud Forum Call for Proposals

Now, where does Cloud Forum content come from? Does it not fall from the trees like autumn leaves? No, it comes from each of you being willing to share the work you are doing, the challenges you have faced, the accomplishments you’ve made, big and small, and the ideas you bring. 

Presentations don’t have to be about massive projects you’ve built. They can be about a better way you’ve found to engage and support your users. They can be about a more efficient account request/automation process. They can be about some common tool you’ve found an uncommon way to use. They can be about how you’ve been tossed around by technical, fiscal, and political waves and how (or if) you’ve managed to keep standing.

The Cloud Forum Call for Proposals is open until December 20 and comes in two flavors – Cloud and Research.

Cloud

We will not learn all these great things and spark all these great conversations if you don’t submit topics to feed the discussion. If it’s a big idea, go for a full presentation. If it’s a challenging question, an intriguing idea, or a cool workaround, submit the topic as a lightning talk. If you are not sure if it is a topic worth sharing, or you want to soundboard to help weave your ideas into a presentation topic, contact me (bflynn@internet2.edu) to talk about it. My office hours are always open to the community.

Research

In addition to all of the great Cloud topics, each year the Cloud Forum solicits presentations from researchers doing their work in the cloud. We had some great ones in 2024 and ask for your help for 2025. Talk to the researchers at your institution. If they are leveraging hyperscale technology to supercharge their work — or just make it possible at all — then we’d love to have them submit a proposal. Please point them to the Cloud Forum Call for Proposals or direct them to me with any questions.

There will be a lot more Cloud Forum news to share in the new year when we post the schedule and open registration, but now it’s time to do your part in making this event amazing in 2025 by contributing your proposals.

Cloud Infrastructure Community Program (CICP)

The NET+ AWS and NET+ GCP programs have long provided an active convening space for important community conversations around those two cloud service platforms. Once or twice a year, an individual meeting may be opened to the entire community, but normally, access to those conversations has been restricted to program subscribers. 

After years of requests by those contracting AWS and GCP in other ways or not yet contracting cloud at all, we have developed a way for everyone to join those conversations and activities. On October 31, Internet2 launched the Cloud Infrastructure Community Program (CICP). CICP not only provides a way for institutions to join the activities of those programs, but there are a growing number of additional benefits, including free and discounted training from the CLASS program, no-fee cloud consulting, and campus and community insights into cloud usage via our data benchmarking service.

If your institution is looking for a way to become a part of the community tree of cloud computing knowledge, expand your available talent bench, and accelerate your cloud journey, I encourage you to consider joining CICP. Reach out to me (bflynn@internet2.edu) with any questions or ideas to increase the impact of this effort.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Each year at this time, there are so many opportunities to connect with your peers across our amazing community. 

I just returned from the Notre Dame AI Forum, where the superpowers of community collaboration, sharing of ideas, and personal connection were on full display to the great benefit of all who took part. It reminded me of the importance of events and activities like those listed above. This is an accelerant to our innovation, our productivity, and our contributions to the missions of our institutions. 

As I tuck into my Thanksgiving meal with friends and family, I will give thanks for all of you who contribute your ideas and hard work to your peers, and as I drift off in my post-meal torpor, I will open myself to visions of your cloud presentations dancing in my head.