Conference Brings 'The Cloud' Down To Earth

Hundreds of metro Detroit's top software minds gathered at Compuware Corp. Saturday for an event called CloudDevDay, a daylong seminar devoted to software development for applications in "the cloud."

Defining exactly what "the cloud" is was part of the point. Essentially, cloud computing puts all necessary computer resources -- memory, operating systems, data centers -- in a remote location, so that computer programmers and computer users no longer have to worry about maintaining hardware.

Opening keynote speaker Jinesh Varia, a "technology evangelist" with Amazon Web Services, likened it to the remote control on a TV. Remote controls made it so you no longer had to touch your TV to change the channel or adjust the volume. Similarly, he said, with cloud computing, "you no longer have to hug your servers."

Varia said studies have shown that IT staffs spend 70 percent of their time "powering, cooling, racking, stacking, securing and maintaining" their hardware -- time that can be spent on more creative endeavors by using the cloud for that purpose.

Varia said Amazon now offers a service called the "elastic beanstalk" that lets developers simply upload their code, and Amazon provides all needed infrastructure and hardware, scaling it automatically as needed.

Such services are being used by companies like Netflix to allow them to rapidly scale up or down their online offerings.

Varia's presentation is available at http://slideshare.net/amazonwebservices, as are more than 150 related presentations.

Breakout sessions covered Microsoft Corp.'s cloud offering for developers, Microsoft Azure, as well as application testing, a Compuware specialty through its Gomez offering. There were also breakouts on open-source cloud options.

Organizers of the event credited Compuware with donating money, space, time and resources for the event.