The Washington Technology Industry Association held a Tech in Focus event on Wednesday, February 4 on the hot topics of cloud hybridization, data migration and inoperability. The evening was sponsored by Digital Fortress and hosted at the downtown Seattle location of Disney Technology Solutions and Services, both WTIA member companies.

The moderator for the evening, Manon Buettner from Nuvalo, led panelists in conversation on defining cloud hybridization, where the development of data migration is now, current application architecture and infrastructure, and advice for those looking to get involved in data migration through the cloud.

The evening’s panelists included Ed Kimm, Partner and CRO at Wowrack, Robi Johnston, VP of Operations at Digital Fortress, Brian Page, Director of Managed Services at Structured, and Nehmret Singh Sandhu, Solutions Architect at Dev9.

“I think of hybridization as another form of extraction,” said Sandhu when defining cloud hybridization and the ways in which it is utilized. “For some, there are regulatory reasons to run applications in house, and there is a bit of consolidation that is happening that allows you to move back and forth seamlessly across all of the applications.“

Docker, an open platform for developers and system admins to build, ship and run distributed applications, was a topic of discussion among panelists as well. Proven to work well for users, panelists came to the consensus that there are a wide variety of tools out there and there is no “one cloud fits all” program out there.

“What I care about most is the end user experience; make sure you are monitoring the end user experience because ultimately that’s all that matters,” said Page.

Cloud migration is no easy task; Kimm weighed in, saying, “make sure you understand those processes, understand the resources it takes to move data. It takes a lot manpower and womanpower to move things. It’s a tremendous workload so make sure you get the help you need to do that..”

Addressing the question of preference, vs. private cloud, Johnston said, “I wouldn’t say there is a big difference between the public cloud and your private cloud but with the AWS there are some differences that you need to aware of; it depends on what kind of risk you want to take.”

Attendees participated in another round of the WTIA’s pair-seeking networking game, congrats to our winners Peanut Butter and Jelly, Batman and Robin, and Macaroni and Cheese, who went home with Mission Ridge Ski Resort lift tickets, WTIA swag bags, and copies of “How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking” by Jordan Ellenberg.

Thank you to all of our attendees, panelists, sponsor, Digital Fortress and host, Disney for a great event. We hope to see more WTIA members at our next back-to-back events on February 10: Essentials of Angel Investing Seminar and Tech in Focus- Data Aggregation and Marketing.