training for pretty much anything. The cloud computing content is relatively new, but Lynda.com makes
complex topics of cloud computing, including containers, DevOps, admin, and development easy to learn.
Good books for cloud pros
Architecting the Cloud: Design Decisions for Cloud
Computing Service Models (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS):
Mike Kavis provides a good foundation for how to
build cloud-based architectures and systems. This
book is geared toward those who are more technical,
and is developer-oriented.
Amazon Web Services in Action: Andreas and
Michael Wittig offer a detailed introduction to moving your infrastructure to AWS, and show developers
and admins how to get started down the path to AWS.
The book provides both graphical and terminology
walkthroughs.
Getting Started with Kubernetes: Jonathan Baier
provides a technical guide for orchestrating and
managing large-scale Docker deployments with
Kubernetes to extend your containerization strategy
Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your
Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide: I authored this
title, which covers the use of service-based architectures as they relate to cloud computing, and gives
developers, admins, and architects a method for
moving existing or new applications into public, private, and hybrid clouds.
Cloud-focused blogs
Lori MacVittie’s blog posts on F5’s DevCentral blog:
While this is a vendor-sponsored blog, MacVittie has
extensive development and technical architecture
experience in both high-tech and enterprise organizations, and in network and systems administration.
She focuses on cloud, DevOps, and the emerging use
of architecture patterns. This is a great read for
developers and admins, as MacVittie goes deep into
the technology, with lots of practical, how-to advice.
Jeff Barr’s AWS blog: Jeff is Chief Evangelist for AWS.
The depth of the content here will be valuable to both
cloud developers and admins. it is important to
understand where AWS is moving if you’re in the
cloud. This blog provides a good learning experience,
14 | THE DOPPLER | FALL 2016
even for those who are on other private, public, and
hybrid cloud platforms. I also recommend following
Jeff Barr on Twitter.
CloudPundit blog: Lydia Leong is a distinguished analyst at Gartner who covers cloud computing, among
other subjects. Drawing on her access to Gartner’s
vast resources, she offers incisive analysis and commentary, and many people follow her on Twitter. The
value for developers and admin is that she goes into
technical detail, including guiding enterprises on the
right development paths to the cloud.
The Doppler Report: Whether it’s The Doppler
weekly email, weekly podcast or the quarterly print
issue you’re reading right now, The Doppler by Cloud
Technology Partners (CTP) delivers cloud news, best
practices and expert advice from experienced consultants in the enterprise cloud space. Our thought
leaders write about everything our clients are struggling with, ranging from IoT and containerization, to
Blockchain, DevOps and more.
Conferences on the cloud
IBM InterConnect: This cloud-and mobile-focused
conference is IBM-centric, but it is very well attended,
and there is much you can learn from the speakers and
attendees. Content is very good overall, due in part to
the fact that IBM is a bit more open about allowing its
employees to look holistically at the cloud computing
world than are some other vendors in this space.
RSA Conference: RSA’s event is the gold standard of
security conferences, and securing cloud platforms a
major theme each year. Developers and admins who
deal with cloud security should go to update their
skills yearly, and this is a good place to get caught up.
Google Cloud Next: Much like InterConnect, this is a
cloud-focused conference from a big vendor in the
space. But you’ll find information on much more than
just Google’s cloud technology, including storage,
processing, cloud development, containers, and such.
Google conferences have a tendency to be developer-focused, and this one is no exception.
OpenStack Summit: The OpenStack community’s
conferences run every six months, just after the latest version of its open source IaaS software is
released. OpenStack focuses more on private cloud,