Structure News: Jay Parikh, Google’s cloud, Docker’s rise

preview copy   Welcome to the first edition of the Structure newsletter July 31, 2015 / by Tom Krazit Greetings from Structure! In this weekly newsletter you'll find regular updates on industry news, upcoming events, and interesting people. This week, we'll talk about Google's cloud business, why security is still such a concern for those contemplating the cloud, and the messy practice of standards setting in tech. STRUCTURE NEWS FIVE HOT TOPICS YOU'LL HEAR ABOUT AT STRUCTURE 2015 As we gear up for Structure 2015, here's a preview of some of the topics we knew we had to cover. We want to pick up right where we left off last year and give you the updates you need on both the present and the future of cloud computing. WELCOME BACK! JAY PARIKH OF FACEBOOK Jay Parikh will be back at Structure, and I'm looking forward to hearing an update on Facebook's homegrown networking infrastructure as well as what's coming up on the engineering roadmap with the huge increase in spending on research and development since we last talked. INDUSTRY NEWS TOUGH CLIMB FOR GOOGLE'S CLOUD REVENUE The Information (subscription required) published a very interesting story this week on Google's cloud business, which according to its sources is projected to do $400 million in revenue this year. That's strong growth, but AWS is growing faster, which makes the challenges faced by Structure 2015 speaker Urs Hölzle of Google even harder. TRACKING DOWN THE VILLAINS: OUTLIER DETECTION AT NETFLIX Just because you're in the cloud doesn't mean you can forget about server performance. Learn how Netflix, a huge AWS customer, tracks down and deals with balky servers. ADOPT AND PERISH: THE CIO's CLOUD DILEMMA Former Gigaom Research analyst David Linthicum (who will be moderating a session at Structure 2015) weighs in on a tricky problem for the modern CIO: You probably have to embrace some kind of cloud services that will slowly but surely make your job irrelevant. A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCALING LINKEDIN LinkedIn has grown from 2,700 users in its first week (which is kind of amazing for week one, actually) to over 350 million users. Josh Clemn of LinkedIn reviews how the company scaled its infrastructure to handle that growth. EXECUTIVE ORDER: CREATING A NATIONAL STRATEGIC COMPUTING INITIATIVE Who said nobody's ordering servers anymore? President Obama ordered a supercomputer this week. The National Strategic Computing Initiative will be "accelerating delivery of a capable exascale computing system that integrates hardware and software capability to deliver approximately 100 times the performance of current 10 petaflop systems across a range of applications representing government needs." WHY DOCKER IS NOT YET SUCCEEDING WIDELY IN PRODUCTION Docker is certainly hot right now, but what will it need to go really big? Simon Hørup Eskildsen of Shopify is an enthusiastic Docker user, but in this essay he lays out a few roadblocks in front of widespread adoption of the container ecosystem and Docker. STRUCTURING SUCCESSFUL ENGINEERING TEAMS AT LINKEDIN AND ADMOB Until Vinod Khosla and the cloud providers automate all of IT, you're still going to need people, and organizing and managing those people the right way remains as crucial as ever. Kevin Scott of LinkedIn talks about how he's done that over his career. SECURITY STILL A TOP CONCERN FOR CLOUD BUYERS As they say, you're not paranoid if they are really out to get you. After yet another year of huge data breaches, security remains a sticking point for gunshy cloud shoppers, and a Harvard Business Review study goes into detail about their worries. BIG PICTURE Technology standards are a good thing: too many non-compatible options hurt consumers and enterprises that wind up betting on the wrong vendor and find themselves stuck with bloated and temperamental services. But when everyone wants their technology to be The Standard, it can get a little messy. Former Structure host Barb Darrow explored that tension last week over at Fortune with Jonathan Vanian in a story that's partly some insider baseball on how group press releases get written, but it is also emblematic of how big the stakes are for the container ecosystem over the next few years. As everyone jockeys to do The Right Thing by their customers by pledging their support for industry standards, larger companies can see an opportunity to make sure they control the development of the standard to their liking. History is littered with standards battles that have not gone very well, in both hardware and software. Hopefully the Docker-led Open Container Initiative (which includes Google) can live alongside Google's Cloud Native Computing Foundation (which includes Docker) but there will have to be a lot of diplomatic communication between the two companies and their fellow members of these organizations to avoid conflict down the road. It would be shame if these projects fail, as container standards are in everyone's best interest. But there's a lot of economic opportunity in controlling either container technology or container-management technology, and if you thought vendor lock-in was a problem a decade ago, failure to come up with standards could make a CIO wistful for the good old ERP days.     DISCOVER MORE   Unsubscribe subbusmr.enjoyment@blogger.com from this list. Our mailing address is: Structure 702 Oak Grove Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book Copyright (C) 2015 Structure All rights reserved. Forward this email to a friend Update your profile

Announcing Cockcroft, Hölzle, Khosla & more

View this email in your browser Today, we are happy to announce that some of our favorite speakers will return to the main stage at Structure this November. Adrian Cockcroft of Battery Ventures, Urs Hölzle of Google, and Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures are just a few of the cloud visionaries who will be discussing their thoughts on the cloud marketplace and future. These industry influencers, among many others, are returning to Structure because it's a no-BS, high-level conference that focuses on conversations around cloud infrastructure. We like strong opinions, good conversation and thought-provoking banter. Read more about the 5 hot topics you can expect to hear about at Structure. Then get it on your calendar, get your ticket early and join us this November. November 18-19 • Julia Morgan Ballroom • San Francisco, CA ADRIAN COCKCROFT Technology Fellow Battery Ventures URS HÖLZLE Senior VP, Technical Infrastructure & Google Fellow Google VINOD KHOSLA Partner Khosla Ventures *Structure LLC is a newly formed company that purchased the Structure event assets from Gigaom's creditors. Copyright © 2015 Structure, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you attended a Gigaom event in the past or signed up for a Gigaom.com newsletter Our mailing address is: Structure 702 Oak Grove Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

Announcing the return of Structure and the Structure Events Series!

View this email in your browser After the abrupt closure of Gigaom this March, many of us were left searching for something to fill the information void left by such an integral part of the tech community. Happily, over the past two months, quiet conversations began about continuing the event series known as Structure. Structure, Structure Data and Structure Connect are known for their unwavering editorial integrity, their unbiased picture of the technology and business landscape and for being a place where visionary industry leaders and entrepreneurs converge. Today, we are thrilled to announce that many of the original Gigaom Structure team are bringing the series back to life – beginning with their first Structure event this November in San Francisco. The Structure 2015 team includes Gigaom's former VP of Events and the longtime Executive Editor, as well as additional marketing and event logistics team members. Expect to see many familiar faces both on stage and in the audience. More information on speakers and themes will be released on the website in the coming days and weeks. Save the date! November 17-19,  San Francisco, CA We look forward to once again producing leading technology events that inspire you to learn, network and discover. Want to snag a ticket now? Register here. -The Structure Event Team   Structure LLC is a newly formed company that purchased the Structure event assets from Gigaom's creditors with the goal of maintaining the Structure Event Series You are receiving this email because you attended a Gigaom event in the past or signed up for a Gigaom.com newsletter. Copyright © 2015 Structure. All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Structure 702 Oak Grove Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences