Two cloudy days in London

London is definitely one of the cloudiest places in the world. But one week it was even cloudier. There were two cloud events which I attended to – Cloud Expo Europe and CloudCamp.

Cloud Expo Europe is a two-day trade show which took place in Olympia National Hall on January 25-26. This is probably the biggest purely cloud event in Europe. There were about 100 exhibitors and 7 theaters with total of 130 speakers. Not so surprisingly the subject of cloud provider selection was topic of at least 3 talks. Moreover there was significant number of people visiting those talks. This shows how important aspect has been addressed by Cloudorado. One major inconvenience was virtually lack of any sound barrier between exhibit hall and speak theaters. They were just separated by walls as other stands so the noise from exhibit part was definitely disturbing. But this obviously does not lower any value of the speeches themselves.

The show was also a great opportunity to meet multiple people and companies involved in cloud computing. But Cloud Camp, which was held in the evening of the first day in Clerkenwell was a great opportunity meet the cloud computing community and “celebrities” in an informal atmosphere. It starts with a number of 5 minute lightning speeches where many different subjects are virtually just flashed out for further expansion later. The next part is in form of a panel, where anyone can ask a question to experts who were selected from the attendees. So, as there are virtually all involved in cloud computing virtually anyone could speak out their opinions on many cloud related subject. And finally, the most informal part – pizza, beer and talk to anyone.

It was great both events had synchronized schedules so that you can participate in both during a single visit. It is really a great opportunity get in touch with the cloud. I’ll definitely be back next time.