Key Insights from Three Cloud Experts Roundtables: Accelerate Hybrid Cloud Journey, Harness Cloud Best Practices, and Simplify Data Management
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In the past month, I am proud to have been a part of Denodo’s Experts Roundtable Series, where I moderated three separate discussions about cloud usage in data virtualization with distinguished professionals from companies around the world. Each specific episode specialized within a different scope to look at the overall industry as a whole. Through these sessions, I was able to hear interesting perspectives about the future of the industry and was able to ask unique questions about cloud technology. Listening to these ideas about the cloud has been incredibly rewarding and has taught me a lot about what big names are feeling about shifts within data virtualization.

The first Roundtable discussion was with key players with the overarching topic of “Cloud Migration and Use Cases.” I talked with Caserta’s Brice Griesbrecht, Logitech’s Avinash Deshpande, Microsoft’s Mohan Sankaran, as well as Paul Moxon from Denodo. We talked about topics ranging from the popularity of Microsoft Azure and AWS to popular use cases for the cloud. In regards to why people use cloud services, Brice Griesbrecht from Caserta noted that “comfort, cost, and culture are three differentiating factors” that are seen among clients and customers when choosing a cloud platform. Another interesting insight was in relation to the similarities between the top four use cases for the cloud, where Microsoft’s Mohan Sankaran stated that it “is a very exciting time for analytics. The high velocity, volume, and variety of data show that there is an unbelievable scale of data gathering right now.”

The second Roundtable discussion was related to “Cloud Adoption and Challenges ” and featured Toyota’s Wilbertus Darmadi, Snowflake’s Guy Baldwin, Tech Mahindra’s Manish Goenka, and Denodo’s Pablo Alvarez. With this session, questions were themed around the adoption rates of using the cloud as well as the emergence of machine learning and artificial intelligence as cloud use cases. Wilbertus Darmadi links these two points together, stating that these more advanced use cases like machine learning are the main causes for the high adoption rates for the cloud these past few years. When talking about the growing concern for security in the cloud, Tech Mahindra’s Manish Goenka made an interesting point: “The cost of cyber-attacks is the same as the cost of narcotics.” This comparison showed to me just how important of an issue cybersecurity was in the world. Overall, this discussion mainly focused on new trends in cloud adoption and what mitigations can be considered for cloud-focused companies as they grow.

The last Roundtable discussion was under the theme of “Cloud Marketplaces and Data Management,” where I got to talk with 2U’s Gerhard Lennox, pmOne’s Dr. Norman Bernhardt, Tableau’s Francois Zimmermann, and Denodo’s Mitesh Shah. Key topics covered were Hybrid-Cloud deployment strategies and cost implications in decision making. An interesting and ever-relevant point was mentioned by pmOne’s Dr. Norman Bernhard, stating that “today’s environment has to be agile, and have to adapt” to both the technological and business world, both currently affected and changed by the advent of coronavirus.

After moderating all three Roundtable discussions, I learned a lot about how tech companies are navigating cloud technology during the past few months, as well as hearing differing perspectives about the future trends of both cloud services and data virtualization. What are your opinions about what our guests at the roundtable said? Do you agree about the trends that were discussed in the videos? And lastly, do you have any more questions that you wished were answered? If you are interested in viewing the series, episodes are available both on-demand and by registering on BrightTALK.

Ravi Shankar