The Cloudcast

Adam Kamor (@tonicfakedata, Founder & Head of Engineering) talks about building RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) systems in production for AI data. SHOW: 992SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #992 TranscriptSHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS" SHOW NOTES:Tonic.ai websiteTonic Validate Product PageTonic Validate GitHubTopic 1 - Adam, welcome to the show. Give everyone a brief introduction.Topic 2: Our topic today is RAG systems, specifically RAG in production. Let’s start with customization sources and types. When it comes to customizing off-the-shelf LLMs, RAG is one option, as is an MCP connection to a SQL database, and there is pre- and post-training, as well as fine-tuning. How does an organization decide what path is best for customization?Topic 3 - RAG came on the scene as the savior for organizations that want to use customer AI without the need for fine-tuning and additional training. It has either gone through or is currently still in the trough of disillusionment. What are your thoughts on RAG's evolution and the challenges it faces?Topic 4 - Let’s walk through the basics of validation. Once you set up RAG, how would an organization know it works? How is accuracy measured and validated? Are you looking for hallucinations? Context quality?Topic 5 - What is Tonic Validate, and where does it fit into this stack? Is it in band? Out of band? Built into the CI workflow?Topic 6 - Accuracy is one aspect, but we hear more and more about ROI for Enterprises. How should ROI, risk, and compliance be measured?Topic 7 - Where and how does security fit into all of this? Also, your thoughts on synthetic data for training vs. real data?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netBluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.socialTwitter/X: @cloudcastpodInstagram: @cloudcastpodTikTok: @cloudcastpod

Peter Zairsev (@PeterZaitsev, Founder of @Percona) talks about the history of OSS databases, and how AI is reshaping the demands on modern databases. SHOW: 991SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #991 TranscriptSHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS" SHOW NOTES:Percona websiteTopic 1 - Welcome to the show, Peter. Give everyone a brief introduction, and we’ll also dig into the details of Percona after that.Topic 2 - Percona is basically a household name in our space. Part of that is the excellent tech, and part of that is the longevity. Tell everyone the origin story of Percona.Topic 3 - How have OSS databases evolved? Going back 20 years is a bit far, but what recent trends stand out? How have cloud (i.e. the hyperscalers) and SaaS in particular changed this landscape Topic 4 - Percona plays in the same space, and with, MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL. If you don’t mind, help everyone connect the dots there and why that matters.Topic 5 - What are the typical business cases and implementations you are seeing today? What are organizations trying to solve for the most?Topic 6 - How has AI and the rise of embeddings and vector databases impacted the OSS space? What are your thoughts here? Is this complementary/competitive/both?Topic 7 - What do you wish people knew more about Percona?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netBluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.socialTwitter/X: @cloudcastpodInstagram: @cloudcastpodTikTok: @cloudcastpod

Aaron Delp (@aarondelp), Brian Gracely (@bgracely) and Brandon Whichard (@bwhichard, @SoftwareDefTalk) discuss the top stories in Cloud and AI from December 2025.SHOW: 990SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #990 TranscriptSHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST:  "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW NOTES:Link to December 2025 News and ArticlesFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netBluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.socialTwitter/X: @cloudcastpodInstagram: @cloudcastpodTikTok: @cloudcastpod

Aaron and Brian make some bold predictions for the 2026 Cloud and AI markets, as well as reviewing the biggest issues going into 2026.  SHOW: 989SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #989 TranscriptSHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW NOTES:CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - NOV 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - OCT 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - SEPT 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - AUG 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - JUL 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - JUN 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - MAY 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - APR 2025 (show)CLOUD & AI NEWS OF THE MONTH - MAR 2025 (show)2026 CLOUD + AI PREDICTIONS (AND BIG ISSUES TO REVIEW)OpenAI Revenues and Focus AreasNVIDIA customer profitabilityCompanies moving to GOOG TPUsEnterprise success beyond CoPilot/GeminiEnterprise data+model trainabilityEnterprise price hikesBroadcom, AMD, Groq - alternative HW optionsData Center buildoutsDoes AI spending shiftWhat is Agentic AI?Long term spending + short term refocusesPREDICTIONS:At least one big AI IPO in 2026, and it won’t go well. (Aaron says Anthropic)People will question whether Sam Altman is the right person to lead OpenAIAI will be a central issue in the 2026 US elections, either about job losses or electricity pricesOne major LPU/TPU/dedicated inference chip will break through in 2026Azure will be the Number One Cloud… (Aaron has to keep it going)We will start to see a shift in the Enterprise from big models in the sky (1+trillion parameters) to dedicated, purpose-built models of 500M or less in size for efficiency and securityGemini will dominate the consumer/prosumer space, OpenAI will go through the trough of disillusionmentThe industry will shift to a base/instruct and a reasoning split of modelsAWS and Azure will double down on being a solutions provider instead of a primitive supplier for AI and infrastructureFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter/X: @cloudcastpodBlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.socialInstagram: @cloudcastpodTikTok: @cloudcastpod

A lot changed in the world of Cloud and AI this year. And then it changed some more, and some more, and so more. The only constant was change. SHOW: 988SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #988 TranscriptSHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW NOTESIT WAS AN INTERESTING YEAR IN CLOUD AND AI TECHNOLOGYAI has become a mainstream technology, political and social talking pointAI went through 7yrs of news cycles in 1 yrDeepSeek - Maybe NVIDIA chips aren’t needed?NVIDIA acquihired Grok and their technologyMaybe AWS’ lead in the cloud is now in questionGoogle got their act together with GenAI, after inventing the technology in 2017Microsoft and OpenAI sort of broke up, or at least they are seeing other peopleOpenAI forecasts 100x their current revenue in future computing needsThe US Gov’t either bailed out, or socialized IntelBitcoin - 94k, up to 125k, down to 84kFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter/X: @cloudcastpodBlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.socialInstagram: @cloudcastpodTikTok: @cloudcastpod