• Velocity Conference:
  • Audience: web operations technologists

  • Duration: 2 days of relatively deep dive technology sessions
  • Value: high for operations and scalable infrastructure folks
  • Interactivity: lots of good hallway conversations and opportunities to compare notes
• CloudCamp:
  • Audience: cloud computing services vendors, consumers, and investors

  • Duration: an evening
  • Value: very high for cloud vendors and consumers, high for investors
  • Interactivity: exceptionally high as it’s an unconference format; lots of small group sessions
• Structure ‘08:
  • Audience: business leaders in infrastructure and cloud computing

  • Duration: one day
  • Value: medium to high for business leaders, low for vendors and consumers
  • Interactivity: very poor; mostly a ‘push’ format; little to no hallway conversations; traditional media or blogger dominated; no twitter or grassroots blogger backchannels

Some impressions follow.

Velocity Conference
Velocity was really a technology and operations focused event, which had a very strong presence of folks actually running large scale web infrastructure. There was also a specific focus on not only running this infrastructure, but measuring it’s performance and scalability. Several presentations were either on cloud computing (EUCALYPTUS), using EC2, or on automation in general.

All of the presentations can be found here.

CloudCamp
CloudCamp is an unconference style event that appears to be gaining a lot of momentum. It was largely attended by folks with a specific interest in cloud computing and was extremely ‘frothy’, to steal an adjective from Luke Kanies. In other words, there was a high level of interaction between participants. This was due to a combination of the unconference format and the particular topic. Cloud computing is clearly ‘hot’ and a lot of different stakeholders were trying to get a better handle on what it is, how it works, and the direction it will evolve.

Structure ‘08
GigaOm’s team put together this infrastructure and cloud computing conference. Although it wasn’t specific to cloud computing, there was a lot of discussion of cloud computing and it was featured front and center. There were a number of interesting panels and discussions, but it was definitely business executive focused and more ‘push’ than interactive. Low froth level you might say. It was still worthwhile though and, in particular, I thought Greg Papadopolous’ presentation had some fairly interesting information.

One huge negative is that none of the presentations or panels are online at all yet, which I find disappointing. Given the level of savvy of the GigaOM team it’s a little surprising how this event came off. It seemed deliberately targeted at business folks without thought of other audiences. I don’t see any reason some other stakeholders couldn’t have been considered.

Summary
Personally, I found all three events of value, but that’s because I wear all three hats: technologist, cloud vendor, and business exec. If you get a chance, hit the next CloudCamp and next year I recommend Velocity if you lean towards the tech side, Structure for the business folks, and both if you straddle the two worlds.

• Velocity Conference

• Cloud Camp
• Structure ‘08

I may try to review these conferences in a follow on posting, but mostly I wanted to talk about the ‘cloud hype’, it’s ‘boom’ and inevitable bust.

Before Web 1.0 was Network 1.0
I remember pre-Web 1.0, that era right before the Internet exploded. Roughly 1990 to 1996. This was the era in which network ubiquity was in sight, but nowhere near achieved. I worked at InterNex Information Services, which was one of the earliest Internet Service Provider pioneers in the SF Bay Area, along with many other known (Netcom), and unknown (TLG, CRL, GeoNET) providers. For lack of a better term I will call this Network 1.0.

Yes, there were websites, but in ‘93/’94 they weren’t in heavy commercial use. There weren’t any online pet food purchasing services. High traffic websites sat behind T-1 circuits and only the very earliest examples of Web 1.0 sites, like TheSpot.com (an InterNex customer) existed. For the most part ‘the problem’ that we were solving was just getting people connected.[1]

Network 1.0 vs. The Cloud Shift
I like to talk about Network 1.0 and compare it to the emergence of cloud services. The main reason is that it looks like that kind of fundamental shift to me. Network 1.0 never ‘crashed’. There wasn’t a bust per se. The network never got smaller. Yes, some players died, much consolidation happened, but the Internet never stopped growing. Not even for an eye-blink. The value proposition was too large and the momentum too huge. It was a ground shift.

Compare this to the business models built on top of Network 1.0. Web 1.0’s bust was a killing ground for bad ideas and bad business models, but it didn’t kill the net. It just kept evolving. This is because the Internet, and infrastructure in general, is more important than what rides on top of it.

The shift to cloud services is this same kind of fundamental change. The businesses and ideas that ride on top of it may win or lose. Some cloud service providers will surely lose and many will consolidate, but cloud computing services are not a fad and can’t die. The economics, the value prop, and the momentum are just as they were with Network 1.0.

The parallels are not exact between the two, but are very very similar. I don’t have a lot of empirical evidence to prove this as we’re currently in ‘land grab’ mode and no one wants to tell anyone else what’s happening, but I’ve been told in confidence from some EC2 alternatives that they are seeing 30% month over month growth rates in uptake. That’s huge. That’s the kind of growth we saw during Network 1.0.

Unkillable Clouds
So what does this mean? The bottom line is that cloud computing services are here to stay. There will be winners and losers as always, but this next generation of infrastructure is going to be a key enabler of new and important business models. It also means we are in for a wild ride over the next several years and that business models that predict accurately (or just get lucky) about what the future holds are likely to create some big winners.

More competition is good.