50 Cloud Bloggers To Follow Right Now
Must-Follow Cloud Influencers
Who are the most thoughtful and influential cloud bloggers? The Channel Company's NexGen Cloud Conference & Expo set out to find them, Tuesday revealing its list of the Top 50 Cloud Bloggers of 2015.
Chosen by a panel of the event leaders, those selected are thought leaders, industry experts and opinion makers who focus on the key issues of selling and marketing cloud solutions. The list was designed for cloud integrators, consultants and solution providers who make up the NexGen Cloud community.
The 2015 NexGen Cloud Conference & Expo takes place Dec. 9-10 in San Diego to address the business of cloud computing from the perspective of businesses that develop, market, sell and manage cloud solutions. Hosted by The Channel Company, the publisher of CRN, it aims to exclusively target the topics that matter most to cloud-focused solution providers.
Here's a look at the movers and shakers helping define the cloud conversation.
Randy Bias
Bias is the CEO and co-founder of The CloudScaling Group Inc., a software company based in San Francisco.
In his blog on his company's site, Bias takes a no-nonsense approach to breaking down the value of cloud computing, and covers recent news related to popular cloud providers in the industry.
Bias was an early supporter for open systems, advocating for the OpenStack Project from the beginning as a founding board member of the OpenStack Foundation. Bias headed up the first team to deploy Swift, the public OpenStack storage cloud other than Rackspace, as well as the first public OpenStack compute cloud, Nova.
Rick Blaisdell
Blaisdell is the chief technology officer for Motus LLC, a Boston-based software company that specializes in cloud-based mobility solutions.
His blog, Rickscloud, covers current events in the IT industry, security topics and information on development tools related to cloud. His most popular posts cover best practices, and these posts takes a how-to approach to various cloud topics for technologists.
Andrew Chapman
Chapman is the vice president of product management and business line leader for New York-based CA Technologies, and is seasoned professional in the software development and cloud markets.
Chapman draws upon his industry experience in his blog. In addition to cloud-related posts, MemorableURL.com covers analytics, content management and software-related topics. Many of his posts go past the high-level overview and "into the weeds," giving IT professionals a deeper dive on new technologies or best practices.
Sam Charrington
Analyst, consultant and founder of the CloudPulse Strategies blog, Sam Charrington helps IT professionals -- both in the enterprise as well as those working for vendors -- understand cloud and work toward adoption.
Charrington's blog covers big data -- another topic he's passionate about -- in addition to cloud-related news and trends. The blog also features independent and sponsored research reports. Before starting his blog, Charrington served as vice president of product management and marketing for Appistry, a St. Louis-based software company.
Charrington is active in the cloud industry, and in 2008 he founded CloudCamp, a series of events for early adopters to share their cloud experience and exchange ideas.
Reuven Cohen
After enjoying a career working for cloud startups, Cohen was recently nabbed by Citrix as the company's first chief cloud advocate, a role that focuses on increasing the volume and reach of the vendor's cloud solutions.
A self-proclaimed "provocateur," Cohen's blog, Elastic Vapor, discusses the biggest cloud providers, platforms and industry happenings with jaunty – sometimes sarcastic -- undertones. Cohen's blog posts are also featured on Forbes.
Louis Columbus
In Columbus's blog, A Passion for Research, his passion for cloud computing comes through loud and clear. Columbus writes about Software as a Service and Platform as a Service cloud computing, in addition to CRM and ERP systems. His blog also offers a Cloud Computing Index of the 55 highest performing cloud providers, as well as a cloud learning section for IT professionals.
Columbus currently serves as the vice president of worldwide marketing for iBASEt, a software company based in Foothill Ranch, Calif. He also founder of Software Strategies Research, a consulting firm that provides insight into how SaaS applications can boost financial performance and streamline operations of an enterprise.
Tim Crawford
AVOA is a blog dedicated to propelling IT organizations into the future with posts that cover emerging technologies, as well as the unavoidable challenges they often bring to the table. Crawford differentiates his blog by taking the perspective from a chief information officer's or IT leader's point of view.
Crawford has served as CIO and in other senior IT roles for prominent organizations, including Konica Minolta, Philips Electronics and Stanford University. He serves as an adviser to several global enterprises and government agencies.
Stephen Foskett
While the name of his blog doesn't apply to his professional life, according to Foskett, the blog does cover a range of topics, including networking hardware product reviews, random musings on topics like 3-D printing and storage.
Foskett is a vendor-independent IT/business consultant, and has been a contributing editor and columnist for several trade publications and Websites. Foskett's work focuses on enterprise storage, server virtualization, networking and cloud computing.
Marc Hamilton
Hamilton is the vice president of solutions architecture and engineering for visual computing company Nvidia. He works with the company's engineering team to deliver professional visualization and design, high-performance computing and big-data analytics -- topics he is passionate about.
His blog focuses on cloud computing, data center, storage and energy efficiency. Hamilton also covers news from large players and industry events.
Dana Gardner
Gardner is the president and founder of Interarbor Solutions, a Gilford, N.H.-based IT research firm.
Gardner's blog, BriefingsDirect, is a content platform for his analyst business. The blog incorporates a blend of content forms -- like podcasts and social media -- to explain the latest enterprise software, cloud, and big data topics and advances to IT professionals, sometimes with the help of guest IT pros and bloggers.
Barton George
George has recently taken up the position of senior technologist for Dell, focusing on the vendor's efforts in the DevOps space after joining the vendor in 2009 as a cloud computing evangelist. He is also the founder of Project Sputnik, an Ubuntu-based laptop for developers.
Posts and podcasts on Barton's Blog, focus on a variety of topics -- many of which cover Dell technology and news -- but also private and public cloud, and data center topics. Recent posts from George include video interviews from his time spent at LinuxCon, a conference put on by The Linux Foundation.
Brian Graceley
Graceley, with teammate Aaron Delp, runs the cleverly titled podcast and video blog The Cloudcast. The blog covers popular cloud computing topics, such as Software-as-a-Service, OpenSource, software-defined networking in the cloud, and news involving industry heavyweight Amazon Web Services.
When he's not podcasting, Gracely is doing consulting for his firm that focuses on emerging cloud technologies, Brian Gracely Consulting. He also contributes to Wikibon, a project aimed at bringing together technology practitioners, researchers and consultants.
James Hamilton
Hamilton is vice president and distinguished engineer at Amazon Web Services. In his role, he focuses on infrastructure efficiency, reliability and scaling.
In Perspectives, Hamilton's passion about renewable energy as well as power management and optimization comes through loud and clear. The blog focuses on data center design and operations, server hardware design and optimization, high-scale storage software and hardware systems, service design principles and power efficiency.
Derrick Harris
Formally of GigaOM Media, Harris has moved from tech journalist to senior research analyst at San Francisco-based Mesosphere Inc., a software company that focuses on management for distributed systems.
Harris writes for his new employer, the Mesosphere blog, covering topics such as data center operating systems and cloud platforms. During his time at GigaOM, Harris kept his own blog of his IT musings, Tech and Stuff. The blog covered similar topics, including big data, cloud computing and Web infrastructure.
Olafur Ingthorsson
Ingthorsson is the founder and CEO of MTF LLC, a boutique IT consulting firm based in Wilmington, Del.
The CloudComputing Topics blog is a straightforward, easy-to-navigate site that covers the kitchen sink of cloud-related topics -- everything from storage to apps, security and data center design.
In his blog, Ingthorsson has aimed to create short and digestible posts about cloud news and product summaries, with the occasional opinion sprinkled in. Ingthorssson also regularly includes blogs from guest writers.
Kevin L. Jackson
No one can accuse Jackson of being bored. Jackson has enjoyed an impressive career in the IT industry. His blog, Cloud Musings, represents a combination of the work he's done and the background he has in the government and IT industries.
Jackson is the founder of CloudTek University, an online training platform to help IT professionals understand and take advantage of cloud computing. He also founded the GovCloud Network, a social networking and consulting platform to spread cloud education and increasing government transparency.
Currently, Jackson develops cloud strategy and transition for TASC, an Engility company that provides enterprise systems engineering and solutions for the national security and public safety markets.
Steve Jin
Jin has enjoyed a long career in software development, and landed at VMware seven years ago where he created the VMware Infrastructure Java API, an open source project. Jin also founded DoubleCloud Inc. two years ago.
Jin's blog, DoubleCloud, is aimed at IT professionals, but especially VMware architects, developers and administrators. The blog covers Jin's opinions, as well as his practice in private and public cloud computing, virtualization, software architecture and development.
Jeff Kaplan
THINKstrategies' founder and managing director, Jeff Kaplan, has been active in the cloud industry.
Kaplan has been a research analyst and consultant, as well as a respected columnist and industry speaker, covering topics such as network management, Software-as-a-Service and cloud, managed services, telecommunications and outsourcing trends. Kaplan also founded the Cloud Computing Showplace, a vendor-independent online directory of cloud solutions and best practices.
Kaplan's blog draws from his work as a cloud strategy consultant, covering cloud trends and news around large cloud players in the market today.
Jim Kaskade
Kaskade refers to himself a "serial entrepreneur," who is also the vice president and general manager of big data and analytics for CSC. In the past, Kaskade has led several IT startups in the cloud industry, as well as online digital media and advertising, and semiconductor technology companies.
In his blog, Kascade covers a variety of topics such as cloud, software, mobility and big data, usually with a personal twist or anecdote included. Kascade's recent posts include a blog about the connection between children's toys and big data, the secrets for good leadership, and a story about where his love for big data first began.
Ben Kepes
Kepes, the director of Diversity Limited, wears several hats. He is a technology evangelist, investor, writer and business adviser. In his blog, Kepes covers industry trends -- like IT convergence and mobility, enabled by the cloud. Kepes is also an active member of the Clouderati, a global group of Cloud thought leaders.
Diversity Limited covers news from major IT vendors and industry trends like the Internet of Things. His blog posts aim to educate IT professionals on software, IT platforms and infrastructure, while also explaining the technology in an easy-to-digest manner for everyday users.
Walt Lapinsky
Lapinsky's self-titled blog focuses on cloud computing and data security as well as current events in the IT industry. Each of Lapinsky's posts ends with a "Last Word" segment, which helps to sum up his main points and opinions. Most recently, Lapinsky wrote up a thorough explanation of the Dark Web versus the Deep Web.
Lapinsky currently works for McLean, Va.-based Hyperion Inc. as a stealth network engineer. Hyperion is a solution provider that offers network infrastructure design and installation, as well as systems integration.
Lydia Leong
Leong is a respected industry analyst for Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Research, where she covers cloud computing, hosting, colocation and content delivery networks. She also has worked "hands on" in the industry, as a programmer and in software development in the Internet and telecommunications industry.
The Cloud Pundit blog includes Leong's commentary on her Gartner Research -- she most recently posted about her work refreshing her cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service Magic Quadrant report. She also writes about IaaS providers, hosting, data center and colocation topics for vendors, IT buyers and investors.
David S. Linthicum
Linthicum is a cloud blogger for InfoWorld, in addition to authoring several blogs on his own and one blog for Hewlett-Packard that take a deep dive into various IT topics. In his posts, Linthicum covers topics such as cloud computing trends, enterprise application integration and enterprise architecture.
Linthicum is a respected speaker, as well as a consultant and senior vice president for Cloud Technology Partners. He has authored 13 books on cloud computing, and was a lead cloud analyst for GigaOM.
Lori MacVittie
MacVittie is a principal technical evangelist for F5 Networks, and is responsible for promulgating education for F5's product suite. In her DevCentral F5 blog, MacVittie covers network programmability, security, DevOps, cloud and software-defined networking.
Throughout her career, MacVittie has worked in hands-on roles within IT organizations, specifically doing application development and systems engineering. She was also an award-winning technology editor.
Andi Mann
Mann is a business technology strategist for Sageable, a consulting startup geared toward business leaders and technology providers. He formally served as the vice president of products, strategy and marketing for CA Technologies.
In his blog, Mann takes a casual approach to covering enterprise IT products and issues for IT professionals. In addition to cloud computing, Mann writes about mobility, application development, data center management, and security. As a sought-after speaker for many industry chows – including Interop, Cloud Expo, and many vendor-oriented conferences – Mann also often blogs about his conference experiences.
Chirag Mehta
This SAP exec who moonlights as a computer science professor is a specialist in big data and cloud platforms.
As such, Mehta, the German software giant's vice president of product management, frequently blogs on the topics of big data, cloud computing and all things pertaining to enterprise software.
Recent posts have focused on "the dark side of Big Data" and how providers can use cloud resources, like powerful parallel computing capabilities coupled with sophisticated algorithms, to discriminate in how they direct advertising to specific online viewers.
Mario Meir-Huber
This analytics pro who heads Teradata's big-data efforts in Europe is a popular speaker on cloud computing.
Meir-Huber formerly worked as a researcher with IDC and is a board member of the Austrian Computer Society.
He often writes in his blog, CloudVane, about software-defined networking, big-data management and cloud platforms. Unfortunately for many would-be readers, much of his work is in German.
Paul Miller
Forrester (Formerly blogging at Cloud of Data )
Miller, a U.K.-based blogger and thought leader in the fields of cloud computing and semantic technology, recently joined Forrester Research as a senior analyst.
His blog describes itself as offering "analysis and consultancy at the interface" of the enterprise and the Web.
Miller, until 2009, worked as an evangelist for Talis, an English software developer that pioneered semantic Web and linked data technologies. Before that, he held the post of director at the Common Information Environment, a consortium of U.K. public sector organizations.
Sramana Mitra
One Million by One Million Blog
Mitra is the founder of One Million by One Million (1M/1M), a virtual incubator and tech-business accelerator that aims to help 1 million entrepreneurs reach $1 million in annual revenue, build $1 trillion in global GDP, and create 10 million jobs.
A Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and strategy consultant, Mitra has expertise that spans a wide range of disciplines, from semiconductors to cloud computing to consumer marketing.
Mitra founded three companies and is the author of "Entrepreneur Journeys," a series of 12 books focused on demystifying entrepreneurship.
She's also the author of Vision India 2020 and was a columnist for Forbes. Her columns are often syndicated in Wired and other influential publications.
JP Morgenthal
This exec at global IT services giant CSC previously ran cloud-centric businesses at EMC and Perficient. Morgenthal is a cloud evangelist who weighs issues of IT transformation and the implementation of modern cloud systems from a business perspective.
He's written several books about cloud computing and information integration and frequently blogs on those topics in The Tech Evangelist. Recent posts tackled the economics of application development using Platform-as-a-Service and DevOps approaches.
Morgenthal's also often called to advise C-level execs on cloud transformation.
Ofir Nachmani
This Israeli author and cloud evangelist with a knack for making sense of market trends is a contributor to TechTarget, often writing about Amazon Web Services, and a member of the Israel Cloud Computing Association.
Nachmani's blog, I am OnDemand (IOD) is a guide for companies, especially startups, looking to identify business management and go-to-market strategies that leverage cloud technologies. It also provides know-how for other industry publications striving to create content that establishes them as thought leaders.
Greg Ness
Ness, a marketing and communications pro who holds the position of vice president of worldwide marketing at CloudVelox, is a specialist in consumer products, telecom, networking, security and all aspects of business strategy.
His Archimedius blog tackles the nexus of business and technology. In it, Ness often writes about disaster recovery and hybrid cloud security and reliability. He also shares sought-after insights on the changing nature and cost structure of IT infrastructure.
Greg O'Connor
AppZero's president and CEO is a pioneer in the practice of using virtual appliances to simplify application lifecycle management.
At the helm of AppZero, which specializes in migrating enterprise apps to the cloud, O'Connor plots strategic business objectives that deliver financial results.
His AppZero blog is a repository of knowledge addressing a range of issues related to migrations across platforms and services.
He previously was founder and president of Sonic Software, a company that did pioneering work in Service Oriented Architecture.
Tommy Patterson
This cloud expert is a platform evangelist at Microsoft. As such, on his VirtuallyCloud9 blog, Patterson typically focuses his attention on Microsoft's cloud platforms.
Patterson was an early proponent of adopting virtualization environments for production applications.
He's a well-known consultant to major enterprises, often hired to troubleshoot complicated scenarios and help them incorporate best practices into their production virtualization systems.
Kamesh Pemmarju
As marketing director at Mirantis, Pemmarju's primary professional focus is evangelizing OpenStack and bringing the open-source cloud operating system into the enterprise by crafting marketing and go-to-market strategies.
So it's no surprise Pemmarju's Cloudel blog dedicates itself to issues surrounding OpenStack development, enterprise adoption, vendor partnerships within the burgeoning community and the solutions ecosystem at large.
The blog also offers a comprehensive take on OpenStack as it relates to cloud infrastructure, mobility and big-data applications.
Gregor Petri
Gregor Petri -- Tune Into the Cloud
Gregor Petri, a vice president of research at Gartner who studies cloud computing and cloud service brokering, is a trusted source when it comes to the financial questions that cloud providers and customers encounter.
On the Gartner hosted blog, Petri writes about how cloud computing enables digital and software-defined businesses, which are forcing rapid change for vendors, users and service providers.
Petri, a member of Gartner's CSP Enterprise Markets team, advises organizations planning their transition to the new digital era.
Ed Saipetch
Saipetch, director of applied research at Savvis, says the purpose of his blog is to contribute useful information about managing data and infrastructure in small business to large enterprise environments.
He's "here to talk about trends, rules and how to break or best them," he writes. Posts often focus on integrating storage systems in clouds.
Saipetch also understands the channel. Before joing Savvis, he was director of alliances and channels at Inktank and also once senior technical director at Joyent.
He's a co-host of the "SpeakingInTech" podcast.
Nati Shalom
Shalom is chief technology officer and founder of GigaSpaces and heads the influential Israeli Grid consortium.
His focus is on distributed technology and architecture, topics on which he frequently speaks at industry conferences. He's an evangelist for Space Based Architecture and Data Grid patterns.
Shalom's blog focuses on how emerging technologies and practices, like OpenStack and DevOps, impact the IT landscape.
Krishnan Subramanian
As director of OpenShift strategy at Red Hat, Subramanian is a specialist in Platform-as-a-Service tech and a thought leader in open-source cloud solutions.
Before joining Red Hat, he helped found Rishidot Research, a research community focused on cloud platforms, infrastructure and open-source services. Those are topics Subramanian frequently tackles in his Krishworld blog.
He's also been a contributor to CloudAve from its inception and was part of the GigaOm Pro Analyst Group.
Christian Verstraete
Christian Verstraete, chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard's Cloud Strategy Team, is responsible for defining the tech giant's cloud's functional and reference architectures and coordinating cloud projects across the company.
In the HP Cloud Source Blog, Verstraete examines cloud computing challenges, discusses practical approaches to cloud computing and suggests realistic solutions.
Before assuming his role as CTO, Verstraete was responsible for thought leadership and innovation, tasked with scanning industry and technology trends and assessing business opportunities.
Werner Vogels
Amazon's CTO is a towering figure in the world of cloud computing and widely regarded as one of the industry's leading luminaries.
As a major force behind Amazon's league-leading cloud computing infrastructure, Vogels' blog is an important read for those interested in the topic of building scalable and robust distributed systems.
The Dutch transplant started the blog All Things Distributed back in his days as a computer science research scientist at Cornell University. Since he joined Amazon, the blog has skewed to being more product-oriented.
Vogels writes extensively about Amazon's cloud and new features AWS is adding to the mix, from containers, to data management to app development.
Ray Wang
A Software Insider's Point of View
Wang is the founder and chairman of Constellation Research, a Silicon Valley-based analysis firm.
His business strategy and technology blog, A Software Insider's Point of View, is a popular source for insights into how disruptive technologies and new business models such as digital transformation impact brands, enterprises and organizations.
He writes about innovation and disruption, business models, matrix commerce, customer experience and big data.
Wang has previously held executive positions in product, marketing, strategy and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. He's the author of "Disrupting Digital Business," which weighs the impact of digital disruption on global business.
Simon Wardley
Wardley, once vice president for cloud at Canonical, is a researcher with CSC Leading Edge Forum.
His Bits or Pieces? blog, which features his "rants and raves," describes itself as "a node between the physical and digital."
Wardley, who often writes about business strategy for tech companies ranging from startups to international conglomerates, proudly proclaims his blog as a "destroyer of undeserved value."
He's also a coveted speaker on utility computing, fabrication technologies and the open-source movement.
Bob Warfield
Warfield, a serial entrepreneur who's working on his fifth startup, has expertise in manufacturing, social media, cloud, big data, SaaS, desktop and enterprise software.
He's CEO of CNCCookbook, a software provider that enables manufacturers to improve machining efficiency.
Warfield founded the SmoothSpan blog to provide insights to executives, entrepreneurs and other Digerati.
The blog explores SaaS, Open Source, Web 2.0 and other cutting-edge technologies and business models. It describes itself as covering "radical technology innovation with equally radical business model innovation to literally reinvent and extend software as it used to be."
George Watt
Watt, vice president of strategy at CA Technologies, has spearheaded initiatives that have enabled organizations to simplify and automate their complex IT infrastructures, deliver new business benefits, and drive millions of dollars in savings and productivity gains.
He's founder of the CA Technologies Engineering Services team, responsible for protecting the company's intellectual property, managing the consolidated source-code repository, and providing automation and development tools.
In this role Watt led development of CA Technologies' own private cloud. He shares lessons from that experience with other cloud builders on the Pragmatic Cloud blog.
Watt is also co-author of "The Innovative CIO: How IT Leaders Can Drive Business Transformation."
Michael Webster
On his blog, Long White Clouds, Webster, an engineering manager of business critical applications at Nutanix, writes about virtualizing critical business applications.
He's a specialist in designing virtualization solutions for Unix to Linux migrations, business critical applications, disaster avoidance, and mergers and acquisitions.
His posts especially focus on VMware and Nutanix technologies.
Alex Williams
Williams, a veteran technology journalist, is founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack.
In his nearly 30-year career in journalism, he's been a writer at TechCrunch, SiliconAngle and what is now known as ReadWrite.
Developers building stacks on open-source technologies and distributed infrastructure often turn to The New Stack as a trusted source of industry knowledge.
Chris Wolf
The CTO for Americas at VMware is well-known among the virtualization giant's North American customers. Wolf helps guide VMware's product development and innovations while also collaborating with the IT and business community on cloud, mobile, virtualization and data center modernization strategies.
Wolf primarily blogs about VMware and where the company is taking virtualization tech and hyper-converged infrastructure.
Before joining VMware, Wolf was a research executive at Gartner, managing the firm's data center and private cloud research agenda, responsible for the strategic direction and technical accuracy of the team's collective research.
He is the author of "Virtualization: From the Desktop to the Enterprise," the first book that was exclusively devoted to defining all aspects of x86 virtualization.
Buck Woody
Woody, who holds the position of Information Technology Architect at Microsoft, is a database expert who worked on the development of Microsoft's Azure cloud.
Woody's expertise is in applying data technology to solve business and science problems.
He's a popular speaker at conferences around the world, the author of more than 650 articles and six books on database technologies, and sits on the Data Science Board at the University of Washington.
His blog posts revolve around his specialties of security, data science, SQL and cloud platforms.
Joel York
CEO and founder at Markodojo, a marketing management software vendor, York is a cloud-focused business executive, entrepreneur and startup adviser.
York blogs in Chaotic Flow to share knowledge and opinions aimed at executives of on-demand software companies developing and delivering SaaS, PaaS and IaaS solutions.
His focus is on critically analyzing go-to-market strategies for disruptive technologies through the application of sound business principles.