The Cloudcast

Aaron Delp (@aarondelp), Brian Gracely (@bgracely) and Brandon Whichard (@bwhichard, @SoftwareDefTalk) discuss the top stories in Cloud and AI from January 2026.
SHOW: 997
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #997 Transcript
SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 
NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST:  "CLOUDCAST BASICS"
SHOW NOTES:
Link to January 2026 News and Articles
FEEDBACK?
Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
Instagram: @cloudcastpod
TikTok: @cloudcastpod

Following on the discussion of the Cloud 1.0 to Cloud 2.0 transition, we explore what that future cloud might look like. 
SHOW: 996
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #996 Transcript
SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 
NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS" 
SHOW NOTES:
Q1 - What didn’t Cloud 1.0 achieve from the grand vision?
Q2 - What seemed promising but might have been the wrong timing? 
Q3 - Why didn’t more SaaS get bundled by the hyperscalers?
Q4 - Does multi-cloud become easier?
Q5 - Do primitives continue to be the core offering, or do more integrated offerings dominate the landscape?
Q6 - Do a bunch of existing primitives get turned off to make room for new AI capabilities (DC capacity)?
Q7 - Is security on by default? 
Q8 - Do more private/sovereign capabilities get offered?
Q9 - What are the new AI capabilities that nobody has even thought of yet?
Q10 - How does the mix of AI workloads get distributed across clouds, or across private and public? 

FEEDBACK?
Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
Instagram: @cloudcastpod
TikTok: @cloudcastpod

After 1000+ shows of The Cloudcast, when critical lessons have we learned about the industry, our our journey, and tips for anyone in tech. 
SHOW: 995
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #995 Transcript
SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 
NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS" 
SHOW NOTES:
Lesson 1 - Why did we create The Cloudcast? [Career expansion]
Lesson 2 - How did we learn all the topics we covered? [Skills development]
Lesson 3 - What have been the biggest Cloud trends we’ve covered [Trends]
Lesson 4 - How did you think about technology transitions over the last 10-15 years? [Change]
Lesson 5 - How important was it for you to learn the business side of cloud? [Follow the money]
Lesson 6 - What structural changes do you think Cloud will have on IT in 10 years? [Legacy]
Lesson 7 - What lesson from an episode do you think about the most frequently?
Lesson 8 - What surprised you the most about the Cloud 1.0 era?
Lesson 9 - What did you expect to happen, which never really happened?
Lesson 10 - What were the most important lessons you personally learned? [Lessons Learned]

FEEDBACK?
Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
Instagram: @cloudcastpod
TikTok: @cloudcastpod

15 years ago, when we started The Cloudcast the definition of cloud was pretty clear cut. But now in 2026, the rules are all different and a new era of Cloud is upon us. Let’s explore what the next generation might provide. 
SHOW: 994
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #994 Transcript
SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 
CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK: http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotw
CHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS"
SHOW NOTES
AWS in 2026: The year of proving they still know how to operate (This Week in AWS)

WHAT IS AND ISN’T CLOUD IN 2026?
Cloud isn’t a single company
Cloud isn’t just public cloud
A CIA cloud isn’t a Gov cloud isn’t your Enterprise Cloud
Multi-cloud is a real thing that needs technology
Google, the people that invented “cloud” are a real company in cloud
Defining cloud by purity, or IaaS/PaaS/SaaS terms doesn’t really matter
Does data locality matter more in an AI-Cloud era?
Do we begin to see price wars over the core Cloud 1.0 primitives?
Are we in the 9th inning of Cloud, and the 1st inning of what’s next? 
AI has replaced SaaS in immediacy, so does that have impact on Cloud services? 
Does the lack of application portfolio finally come back to bite AWS? 
Can niche cloud services emerge (e.g. is Vercel another Digital Ocean, or something unique?)

FEEDBACK?
Email: show at the cloudcast dot net
Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
BlueSky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
Instagram: @cloudcastpod
TikTok: @cloudcastpod

Adam Kamor (@tonicfakedata, Founder & Head of Engineering) talks about building RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) systems in production for AI data. 
SHOW: 992
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #992 Transcript
SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 
NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS" 
SHOW NOTES:
Tonic.ai website
Tonic Validate Product Page
Tonic Validate GitHub
Topic 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 net
Bluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.social
Twitter/X: @cloudcastpod
Instagram: @cloudcastpod
TikTok: @cloudcastpod