The Modern Software Podcast: FutureStack15 Preview

Welcome to Episode Two of the Modern Software Podcast, New Relic’s very own podcast series designed to let you hear directly from New Relic experts, technologists, customers, and other industry leaders.

New Relic was the host of the attached forum presented in the embedded podcast. However, the content and views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of New Relic. By hosting the podcast, New Relic does not necessarily adopt, guarantee, approve or endorse the information, views or products referenced therein.

After a spirited discussion of recent modern software news—including the impact of the recent AWS re:Invent conference, VW’s blaming “rogue engineers” for its emissions cheating scandal (update: A new DMCA exemption allows individuals to hack their own cars), and what’s behind Dell’s ginormous purchase of EMC, this episode provides a unique sneak peek at our upcoming FutureStack15 user conference in San Francisco, Nov. 11-13. My co-host Tori Wieldt and I are joined by New Relic Senior VP of Marketing Jay Fry, perhaps the man most responsible for the event. Jay offers his personal perspective on the most interesting elements of FutureStack15 and how to get the most out of the conference.

Jay has company, too. We also talk with a number of FutureStack15 presenters, including:

• Stevan Arychuk, a recovering DevOps engineer now working in marketing strategy at New Relic, who’s moderating a fascinating panel on using containers in production at scale.
• Nic Benders, New Relic’s newly named chief architect, whose session covers “Building a System That Never Stops: New Relic at Scale.”
• Senior Site Engineering Manager Dana Lawson, who will show you that “If It Touches Production, It Is Production.”
• Nick Floyd, a New Relic lead software engineer and author, who will be talking about “Nerd-Life Balance—The Next Generation,” or as he puts it, “How to refactor life for awesome!”

From left to right: Tori Wieldt, Jay Fry, Fredric Paul, Stevan Arychuk

Listen to the entire podcast in the player above or access all the Modern Software Podcast episodes on SoundCloud. And read on for additional insights based on our discussion of AWS and cloud computing.

In the podcast, Jay notes that AWS re:Invent naturally attracts cloud converts, which he thinks could create a reality distortion field. It may seem that 19,000 smart technologists can’t be wrong, but that’s not the only group out there.

This week, for example, some 60,000 people are carousing through downtown San Francisco at Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne. Not all of them may have bought into the cloud to the extent of re:Invent attendees, but you can bet they’re well aware of the opportunities the cloud presents. To what extent will the public cloud convince so-far unconverted enterprise folks to actively move their existing workloads from on-premise data centers to the cloud?

Clearly, AWS is committed to making that happen, but we think there are plenty of hardware and software vendors who are worried about that transition. How quickly enterprise users rip and replace their on-premise solutions will go a long way toward determining the next phase of cloud adoption.