Cloud Talk

Replay: Powering Developers at Every Level

January 4th, 2021  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 52 secs

low code, microsoft, no code

How can businesses drive digital transformation, reduce development costs and increase overall efficiency? We revisit this "best of" episode of Cloud Talk with Scott Guthrie, EVP of Cloud + AI at Microsoft this week. Jeff and Scott discuss the shift towards low-code technology and how it's enabling people everywhere to innovate in new ways.

Replay: Leading Through a Pandemic

December 30th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  32 mins 51 secs

covid-19, pandemic, remote work, replay

There's no way to fully prepare for a world-shattering event like a global pandemic, but there are ways to effectively manage the changes it brings. We revisit this "best of" episode of Cloud Talk with Rackspace Technology CEO Kevin Jones this week. Listen in for a look back on how Rackspace Technology adapted to, and accelerated out of, the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Best of Cloud Talk Season 1

December 23rd, 2020  |  Season 1  |  34 mins 19 secs

best of, cloud talk, season 1

Cloud Talk has covered a lot of ground over the last six months, with topics including recovering from a major cyberattack to leading through a pandemic. Here’s a special episode with a selection of the best bits from Season 1.

Building Ethical Products

December 17th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  27 mins 4 secs

ethics, it ethics

Ethical design has been one of the most discussed topics in IT this year. But how do you create well-rounded, successful and ethical products at the same time? Mike Rastiello and Heather Ferguson join Jeff DeVerter on the Cloud Talk podcast for an episode about ethics in product management.

How Service Outages Impact Organizations and How They Can Prepare

December 11th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  43 mins 40 secs

diaster recovery, system crash

Amazon Web Services, the industry-leading cloud services company was making a simple capacity upgrade to Kinesis the day before Thanksgiving when the event triggered an OS front-end capacity glitch, which created a ripple effect that crashed the system for almost one day. The result was thousands of companies down for several hours just before Black Friday, the busiest online shopping day of the year. In this Cloud Talk podcast episode, the host and two Rackspace Technology™ experts discuss why the outage happened, AWS’ unique operational structure and how to be prepared for outages in the future.

Automation and Security Are the Trends to Watch

December 3rd, 2020  |  Season 1  |  34 mins 2 secs

2021 predictions, technology trends

Which tech trends should you be exploring right now? Two CTOs discuss the most important tech trends for the end 2020 and early 2021, unwrapping the contents of The Rackspace Technology Trends Viewpoint e-book.

From Chatbots to Alexa: The Evolution of NLP

November 16th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  36 mins 55 secs

ai, artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing

Linguists have been analyzing language with computers for seventy years, but it’s only recently through deep learning that we are seeing the full potential of Natural Language Processing (NLP). In this episode of Cloud Talk, Jeff DeVerter is joined by three data science and AI experts to deep dive into NLP.

The Founder’s Dilemma

November 10th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  41 mins 4 secs

cloud native, cloudreach, founder, founder's series

When your company is a success, should you give up control so it can grow?
When’s the right time to sell or spin off a company? When should you embrace technology and when should you discard it? These are questions cloud-native pioneer and Cloudreach founder Pontus Noren has wrestled with during his more than 20 successful years in the industry. This latest Cloud Talk charts a journey from Swedish schooling and a love for the Commodore 64 home computer, through stints at Ericsson, Nokia and Cisco, to his defining work revolutionizing organizations by way of cloud-native tech.

Powering Developers at Every Level

November 4th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  38 mins 23 secs

low code, microsoft, no code

How can businesses drive digital transformation, reduce development costs and increase overall efficiency? Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of Microsoft Cloud + AI, joins Jeff DeVerter on Cloud Talk, discussing the shift towards low-code technology and how it's enabling people everywhere to innovate in new ways.

The scary cybersecurity risks keeping the pros up at night

October 29th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  37 mins 40 secs

cloud security, cyber security, cybersecurity

Today’s cyberthieves aren’t the same as yesterday’s. They’ve abandoned perimeter battering rams for email phishing and compromised IoT devices. Once inside, they take what they want — usually cold, hard cash, and lots of it. In this episode of Cloud Talk, our host Jeff DeVerter and a former FBI special agent Matthew Dunn discuss new and emerging security threats and share tales of real-world cybercrimes. Hear how a $1M corporate 401(k) heist began as a phishing expedition, and how a highly secure casino was breached through an innocuous IoT device. Then learn what today’s biggest security vulnerabilities are, and how to fight back.

How We Got to AIOps

October 22nd, 2020  |  Season 1  |  45 mins 52 secs

aiops, application performance monitoring

Application performance management (APM) changed the IT industry in the mid-2000s, but AIOps transformed it even more dramatically in the mid-2010s. Will Cappelli, CTO of Moogsoft, joins host Jeff DeVerter to discuss the trajectory of AIOps and its multiple implications for today’s IT enterprises. Hear about the relatively short history of APM, and the fast-moving interconnected development of AI, the cloud, big data and IT digitization.

Machine Learning Is More than a Buzzword — but It’s Not the Answer to Every Problem

October 16th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  34 mins 36 secs

artificial intelligence, machine learning

Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. Outside of tech, these things instill anxiety, due to a lack of understanding about their implications. But those immersed in tech sometimes go overboard, infusing them into everything they do. This episode of Cloud Talk explores the many sides of machine learning: how it adds value; ethics and concerns; when it shouldn’t be used; and the kinds of projects that without machine learning just aren’t feasible.

The Road Back from Developer Burnout

October 8th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  37 mins 31 secs

burnout, developer, developer burnout, stress

Developer burnout: It’s not just a theory. It’s a reality. And it may be affecting more developers on your team than you realize. Are any of them angry? Withdrawn? Rudderless? Those are just three of the classic signs that someone is headed for a crash-and-burn. Another sign is the work itself. Are developers struggling without clear direction, boundaries on their time, recognition or a healthy work-life balance? Those are all precursors to trouble.

Managers play a critical role in taking care of their developers and preventing the slide into burnout. They can proactively communicate, give clear project direction, set clear boundaries, give recognition and promote healthy work-life balance.

In this episode of Cloud Talk, three developers who experienced burnout share their experience. Together, they provide value insight and strategies for keeping developers healthy and happy on the job.

Strengths, Not Skills, Are the Difference Makers for Winning Teams

October 1st, 2020  |  Season 1  |  42 mins 34 secs

gallup strengths, leadership, management, strengths, team building

In this episode of Cloud Talk, Kathy Kersten – the “maven of Gallup Strengths™ training” and host of the Obey your Strengths podcast – shares how leaders can harness the power of Strengths to build winning teams, via her own journey from miserable-feeling working mom to Gallup Certified Strengths™ Coach.

Founders Series: Build a Small Business, Not a Startup

September 23rd, 2020  |  Season 1  |  41 mins 38 secs

small business, startup

Shane Young grows businesses the old-fashioned way: with slow, organic growth. No loans. No seed funds. No angel investors. “You want to do something? Find a way to make the money, not borrow it,” Shane explains. This small-business mentality has served him well. In this Founders Series episode of Cloud Talk, join host Jeff DeVerter and Shane Young as they discuss their history working together, the Microsoft landscape, how PowerApps enables non-developers, and the biggest differences between operating a small business and operating a startup.

Founders don’t know everything, so build better teams for success

September 16th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  36 mins 20 secs

founder, startup, teams, technology

Building teams and finding a place where everyone fits is vital for success. In this episode of the Cloud Talk podcast, Rackspace founder Dirk Elmendorf shares his experiences about how individuals at every level can have a meaningful impact on businesses, why the best ideas don’t always arrive from obvious places, and when to know it’s time to leave a company — even if it’s one you founded.