TechEX 24 Cloud Curious

[Bob Flynn <>]

Colleagues,

 

TechEX24 has come to a close. That was quite a week packed with content and connections. I hope you found the journey worthwhile and you left charged up about the ideas you heard and the new relationships you made.

 

I’m going to try to put a bow on things with this email. In the absence of new sessions tomorrow I will leave you with a few suggestions on how to keep that cloud community energy going. But first, let’s give the final set of sessions their due.

 

Day Three Recap

 

The Presentations

When I settled into the Cloud Track sessions today I was shocked to learn that not only is this a technology conference, but that techies like to geek out. Who knew? With a couple of notable exceptions on Tuesday and Wednesday, the topics floated above the waves at the tactical and even strategic level. Few plumbed the depths of code commonly associated with TechEX. It turns out people wanted more CLI. Today was a different story. 

 

We opened with OnPrem HPC Bursting to AWS from George Washington University. After a brief context-setting strategy tease we got into the challenges of setting up the cloud as an extension of your on-prem HPC and how they went about solving them. I was struck by their thoughtful process and solutions. To my great relief, the clouds burst during their talk, with architecture and code raining down on their screen. The developers in the room turned their faces skyward and soaked it in. (OK, I might be exaggerating a teensy bit, but it was great to see.)

 

Next, Phil Fenstermacher (W&M) returned to the Cloud stage for Containing an Application. Not only did Phil manage to go deeper on containerization than one would think possible in a short presentation, but he blew wide open the conspiracy by Big Looney (or is it Big Tunes) to cover up the fact that Wile E. Coyote is, in fact, a well-educated and erudite canine. See for yourself! 

 

And they said it was just a technology conference.

 

We then had James Sonnichsen and Vladimir Plotkin, whose talk Creating a secure, modern, automated file transfer service in the cloud for legacy applications/vendors was dropped in their laps by a former colleague who then skipped town. James and Vlad rose to the challenge though and gave a great talk about an elegant solution using the cloud to address a (pre)historic IT challenge. Be sure to check out their slides when they are posted.

 

Rounding out the morning set was part presentation/part panel (a paneltation?) called Did AWS Stick the Landing (Zone Accelerator)? This was a session where 008, a.k.a. The Man with the Golden Jacket (Kevin Murakoshi), explained the history and differences between AWS Control Tower, AWS landing zones, and AWS Landing Zone Accelerator before we moved on to talk about who’s using it and why. Kevin, along with the rest of the panel – Ron Canepa from Tufts (actual user) and I (actual poser) – were led by moderator Tim Manik from I2 on a discussion of the Community of Practice (CoP) that was formed as a result of community members desire to see improvements in the service and AWS’s willingness to listen. Ron was one of those community members who shared his experiences with LZA, prompting the idea to create to CoP. You can find Ron’s presentation to a NET+ AWS meeting back in May here. The community now has a monthly call with AWS, including members of the LZA product team.  If you are interested in LZA and would like to join the LZA CoP, register here.

For those who don’t know, the Golden Jacket goes to those who currently hold all AWS certifications. (And to think golfers covet the green jacket.)

 

After lunch, we moved down the hall for a cross-track panel discussion titled Security in the cloud: research, monitoring, automation, compliance and more with Stacy Kahill (UMBC), Chris Misra (U Mass Amherst), Kari Robertson (UCOP), and moderator James Monek (Lehigh). Together they covered a lot of ground, including:

• how to approach compliance standards
• approaches for who and how to train
• strategies for prioritizing your security focus
• the importance of practicing incident response, not only for preparedness but also for building relationships with a broader group of stakeholders

This was a great conversation that will stand the test of time. Check it out when session recordings are posted early in the new year.

 

 

We then returned to the Cloud room to take on the enormity of the task of both data backup and data preservation. First up was Saving the data hoarder from themselves. How the Getty protects data with David Lacey and Gene Tomilko from the J Paul Getty Trust. Before taking on the challenge of backing up the 6 million images and artifacts in the Getty collection, they had to address the day-to-day storage habits of the content creators and curators. Over time they established both standard data handling practices and a robust storage infrastructure. Built on Peter Krogh’s 3-2-1 backup rule, but expanded to the more modern 3-2-1-1-0, Getty’s resulting infrastructure, largely based on QStar, is robust and cost-effective.

 

From backup we moved to preservation. Flavia Ruffner from UVA-based Academic Preservation Trust presented Simplify to Amplify: Re-Architecting for Preservation in the Cloud. Flavia laid out how she and her colleague developed a distributed cloud-based system to establish the infrastructure to meet their charge to preserve the scholarly and cultural record. While early iterations got the job done, a recent overhaul led to a “sustainable, efficient, secure, and scalable preservation platform.” It’s an impressive piece of cloud architecture and I encourage you to check it out when the recordings are posted.

 

The final presentation of TechEX24 was System-Wide Cloud-Native Data Integration at Project Kitty Hawk with AWS. Speakers Jerry Thompson (Project Kitty Hawk) and Martin McGreal (AWS) described how the University of North Carolina System schools worked together with AWS and McKinsey to develop a platform that wrapped a number of disparate systems together to create a streamlined, integrated online education experience from enrollment to graduation for adult learners in the state. Jerry laid out the challenge and Martin the technical underpinnings of the solution. It is an impressive project with profound impacts.

 

What’s Next in the R&E Cloud Community

 

Stay Engaged

Don’t let your involvement in the cloud conversation end with TechEx. The Higher Ed Cloud Community is a vibrant community. The EDUCAUSE Cloud Computing Community Group (CCCG) is at the heart of that community with a very active Slack workspace (https://cloudcgteam.slack.com), mailing list, and monthly meetings covering a wide range of topics. To get connected with the CCCG, join the Slack workspace, and discover sessions initiated by Internet2 and others, check out the Higher Ed Cloud Community site at https://tinyurl.com/edu-cloud-community. 

Complementing the work of the CCCG is Internet2’s recently announced Cloud Infrastructure Community Program (CICP). The CICP provides an opportunity to raise your institution’s cloud game by subscribing to CICP for regular technical discussions around AWS and GCP, no-friction discounted access to CLASS trainings, no-fee cloud consulting, and our Data Benchmarking Project. For details contact me directly at . 

Plus, the Higher Education Cloud Forum calls for proposals are currently open. Were you inspired by a talk you saw at TechEx and want to share what you are doing? Submit a proposal to the Cloud Forum. Did you see a presentation you loved and think more people should see it? Encourage the presenter to submit it to the Cloud Forum. We are looking for both Cloud and Researcher presentations. Full details, including eligibility language, can be found on the CfP page. The Cloud Forum calls proposals closes on Friday, December 20. Cloud Forum 2025 will be hosted at NYU in May. Do you have questions? Contact me directly at . 

  

Have a little CLASS

Some of the tutorials delivered on Monday are part of Internet2’s Cloud Learning and Skills Sessions program, CLASS. Others could be repeated through CLASS. If you did attend, let us know what you thought. Let us know what topics you would find valuable for yourself and your colleagues. CLASS strives to deliver training that not only meets the needs of the community but does so in a way that differentiates itself by crafting the content specifically for the research and education community. Drop us a line at or contact the CLASS manager Amanda Tan . 

 

Final Word = Thanks!

 

The Presenters

Naturally we couldn’t put together such a solid cloud track without so many members of the community doing amazing, innovative, and creative work, and being willing to share it with their peers. Everyone is working hard every day, doing the work of supporting their institution’s teaching and research missions. In a strange sense, that’s the easy part. The exceptional part is the willingness and the sacrifice these professionals make to come here to sunny, balmy Boston and share it will the rest of us. Some come long distances, some take time out of crazy busy schedules, some even bring their moms along to watch the kids or their kids along to share the adventure, all so they can share their expertise with their professional peers. We are all truly grateful to all our presenters. [NOTE TO PRESENTERS: If you made changes to your slides after you sent them in, please send the updated copy to or to me and I’ll get them there.]

 

The Program Committee

I work closely with the co-chairs of the Cloud Computing Community Group (CCCG) during the year. In addition to giving their time to the community that way, many serve as the chairs of the Cloud Technology track program community. They do all the hard work of reviewing, evaluating, and selecting from among the many excellent presentation proposals we receive. They also serve as the session hosts all week. Heck, I think every one of them presented at least twice. (Maybe the fix is in.) This year’s group includes CCCG co-chairs past and present:

• Damian Doyle, University of Virginia (even if he did bail out early on us to go home and make cookies)
• Phil Fenstermacher, William & Mary
• James Monek, Lehigh University
• Kari Robertson, University of California Office of the President

Please join me in thanking them for their contributions of time, leadership and good humor to the community. 

 

You

We had an astounding 382 TechEX24 attendees who listed Cloud as an area of interest when they registered for the conference. This is only the third year of a formal Cloud Track at TechEX. From the small, standing-room-only room at TechEX22 in Denver to this year’s massive track room, the Cloud track continues to grow by leaps and bounds. That is thanks to your work, your willingness to share that work, and your interest in each other’s work. That’s what this cloud community is about, not just at this conference, but year-round. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a part of the cloud conversation.

 

Have a lovely holiday season. Rest up. Let’s do it again next year!

 

Bob Flynn (he/him/his)

Program Manager

Cloud Infrastructure & Platform Services

Internet2 NET+ Services

 || 812.558.0323