Saturday, November 7, 2009

My Cloud Computing Presentation at VT's ACM


Above is a photo of me (hard to see me) presenting to Virginia Tech's Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Meeting on cloud computing.    My oldest son John is the President.   I spoke Wednesday night the 4th of November at VT for one hour and 45 minutes.   Sun Microsystems provided pizza, soft drinks and gave away very nice Java/Sun Microsystems/VT t-shirts in the school color of "Chicago Maroon".

This is the abstract that was used for my presentation:

Cloud Computing is the hottest topic in the IT industry today.  Cloud Computing is also most over loaded buzz word in the IT industry as well.  Come learn:

                What is cloud computing and what is not?
                Where cloud computing is being used and how?
                When cloud computing makes sense and when it does not?
                Why cloud computing is important for a VT student?
                What are the technical challenges of cloud computing?
                Most importantly, how cloud computing can help you at VT
                and in your career after VT?


My slides can be downloaded at VT's ACM site here.


Above is a photo that my son John took of the students and Professors who attended the ACM meeting where I presented.  I received some very nice comments from the students and professors in attendance which I greatly appreciated.

This is the first time that I presented to the VT ACM and the sixth time that Sun Microsystems provided a speaker to the ACM and picked up food and drink.  Previously, I have helped John by bringing down some real thought leaders in the computer industry:

  • Chris Melissinos - Sun's Chief Gaming Officer to speak on gaming
  • Dr. Bruce Haddon to speak on Java and software development
  • Dr. Harry Foxwell to speak on Open Solaris and Solaris
  • Curt Harpold to speak on grid computing
  • Jim Fiori to speak on Software Perfrormance
With Oracle purchasing Sun, this may be the last time that Sun Microsystems provides a speaker.   If this turns out to be the case, I am very proud of Sun Microsystems and how it has helped VT's ACM over the past couple of years.

John is a Senior with 141 credits finishing up his BS in CS/Math and BA in Business as well as working on his Masters in CS as well this year.  I could not be more proud of him.