How to Avoid Overpaying for Public Clouds and Minimize Cloud Management

Two exciting topics, two very experienced speakers and much networking opportunity. We are very much looking forward to the next DevOps Meetup Zurich. Here's what's planned for the evening:

17:30 - 18:00 - Arrival and first drinks

18:00 - 18:45 - How to Avoid Overpaying for Public Clouds and Minimize Cloud Management

18:45 - 19:30 - Beyond the Price Tag: Rethinking your IT Infrastructure Costs by Christian Nicoll

19:30 - 20:30 - Networking, Open Space & More drinks

How to Avoid Overpaying for Public Clouds and Minimize Cloud Management by Kenneth Tan
Various reports indicate that businesses’ cloud costs have already risen by almost 30%, with further increases expected. Key factors contributing to this include rising borrowing costs and a 40% increase in energy costs (which typically account for 10-30% of operating expenses).
Cloud bills’ issue will continue to persist, forcing more enterprises to reconsider their budgets and cloud strategy.
We advocate viewing infrastructure not simply as a collection of various contractors, but as a cohesive process essential for seamless operation and effective optimization.
In this talk, we'd like to discuss an all-in-one software and hardware solution built on open-source technologies. The new cloud approach is designed to tackle the key challenges faced by businesses:
- Cloud Economy Efficiency
- Complexity of Cloud Management
- Accelerating Infrastructure Processes

Kenneth Tan
PhD, Sardina Systems’ Executive Director and Multilingual Technology Leader
Kenneth Tan stands at the forefront of cloud computing innovation as the Executive Director of Sardina Systems. With over 20 years of rich experience in the technology sector, he has played a pivotal role in establishing Sardina Systems as a vanguard in delivering automated, flexible, efficient, and scalable cloud solutions powered by OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Ceph.
He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Reading, UK, where he developed a deep understanding of complex computing systems that now underpins his professional endeavors.
Kenneth Tan leads a top-notch European team of Sardina Systems in the cloud infrastructure domain. Sardina FishOS cloud platform is widely recognized and utilized across diverse sectors, including telecommunications, finance, banking, government, service provision, research, and academia.
As a respected thought leader in the industry, Kenneth specializes in a range of topics. His expertise spans cloud and edge computing, high-performance computing, large-scale IT systems, data center management, and cloud market transformations, including acquisitions and changes in pricing policies. Additionally, he is well-versed in cloud economics, technology trends analysis, sustainable data center operations, and international business development.

Beyond the Price Tag: Rethinking your IT Infrastructure Costs by Christian Nicoll
When we talk about cloud computing, there's clearly more to it than just how much it costs. At the same time many of us wonder if the cloud can save us money compared to using our own data centers. Should we stop buying new servers? There's no one-size-fits-all answer, but often, when comparing costs, we miss some important details. In this talk, we're going to look into these overlooked areas and shine a light on them. We'll use real examples to help you think differently about how much you spend on your IT setup. Our goal is to help you find ways to save money and get the most out of what you pay for your IT needs. Join this session to explore how to make smarter spending choices for your IT, and ultimately, pay less for what you use.

Christian Nicoll
AWS, Senior Solutions Architect
I’m Christian and having 20 years of experience in various IT roles, from being a software developer to a Senior IT Manager. I was born in Belgium, worked several years in Germany and live now for more than 12 years in Switzerland. This international background showed me also different people understand topics around DevOps. I’m a senior conference speaker and regular blog about IT topics on LinkedIn. One of my relevant blogs posts for this talk covers the topic around the rise of IT platform teams (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-platform-teams-christian-nicoll/).

Many thanks to our sponsors:

• Catering Sponsor: DevOpsDays Zürich https://www.devopsdays.ch/
• Location Sponsor: Digicomp https://www.digicomp.ch/