The buzz and hype around the Cloud continues to grow, but as software development professionals, how can we leverage the Cloud to improve our practices and ultimately our professional lives?

Sometimes this Cloud buzz is real, and sometimes Cloud gets thrown around for the sake of marketing. In this presentation, Eric D. Boyd will cut through the hype and offer a Cloud Litmus Test to help us determine what is Cloud, and what is hype and marketing. Next, Eric will dive into two major areas of software development, Application Lifecycle Management and IT & Production Operations. He will present some opportunities to improve our lives in those areas by utilizing Cloud services, he will provide solutions to common challenges when using Cloud services, and he will provide us with onramps to get started using the Cloud. Lastly, Eric will discuss how to architect applications for the Cloud. He will identify four major things that often get glossed over that we must consider when architecting for the Cloud.

What you will learn:

• Characteristics of Cloud services and platforms
• Where to use Cloud services to improve software development
• How to manage production environments in the Cloud
• Key things to consider when architecting Cloud apps