Welcome!
Hello Cloud Gurus! Well, you may not feel like a Cloud Guru, just yet, but I know you can get there. And I hope that this guide can help you a little bit along that way. Especially to take advantage of Google’s Cloud Next ‘21 online conference, happening October 12th to 14th, 2021.
Now, you might be wondering who I am! No worries! I’m Mattias Andersson, and I work with A Cloud Guru and Pluralsight to help people learn to cloud–you know, kind of like the Derek Zoolander Center For People Who Can’t Cloud Good And Who Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too. Ummm… yeah. We just want you to be able to take advantage of this seriously awesome technology–like Google Cloud, obviously–so that you can be much more efficient and successful in your technology career. And that applies regardless of whether you already have such a career or are hoping to move into one.
So this is my guide to help you get the most personal value out of Google’s Cloud Next ‘21 conference.
Now, if you’re not already registered, you should feel free to pop over to the registration page and do that right now. It’s completely free. And then as you go through the rest of my guide, you’ll be able to add some things that interest you to your personal playlist for the event. Did I mention that it’s free? I mean, yes, I know I did, but I still felt like I should repeat it. 
OK.
Tips
First off, let’s take a look at some of the logistics and my general tips.
I already mentioned that it’s a free event, but because it is an online event, it means that you don’t need to travel to a particular location in the world to join in. But different sessions will come online at different times, during the event.
Thankfully, Google has built a very helpful “playlist” functionality into their conference site. We can all use this to pre-select sessions that interest us to watch when they go live. I’ve made my own list of sessions that interest me, and I’ll walk us through that, in a bit.
Tip: Make a playlist.
Now, given the absolutely overwhelming amount of content that is included in this event–I mean seriously overwhelming–you cannot possibly hope to LEARN ALL THE THINGS! You have to pick and choose, right?
Tip: Don’t stress about trying to catch everything!
And although every session will be valuable to someone, I want you to get the most value for you. So that leads me to consider impact.
Tip: Pick sessions by impact.
Now, if I ask you, right now, to tell me the three most important things you hope to learn from Google Cloud Next ‘21, what would you say? But you don’t actually need to do that, because I will still argue that the most important thing you can learn will not be on your list, anyway.
Why not?
Well, because you’ll only have listed known unknowns, not unknown unknowns.
Unknown unknowns are those “blind spots” that rob you of effectiveness without you even realizing it. Insidious. So let’s help you find those. Everything else, you can dig into later.
Tip: Biggest impact comes from discovering your blind spots.
Now, one of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking that they already fully understand the cloud. In reality, none of us fully understands it, because it’s just too big of a thing. It’s like saying that you “understand all of medicine”. I mean sure, you may understand some parts of it, but even a specialist doctor would only claim to fully understand their little slice. I don’t say this as a bad thing, though! It’s just the reality of technology! So when I hear the old trope, I shake my head: No, the cloud is not “just someone else’s computer” any more than Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is “just some sounds” or da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is “just some paint”.
So what is the cloud, then? Well, to paraphrase Morpheus, “Unfortunately, nobody can be told what the cloud is. You have to find out for yourself.” 
Tip: Keep an open mind.
Session Recommendations
So buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, and let’s dive into my session recommendations! Feel free to open the link and follow along, adding sessions to your own personal playlist when you find yourself intrigued or convinced by my reasoning. 
High-Level: Keynotes and Social Impact
First off, don’t miss the keynotes! Now, although I’ve said “first off”, these are not all at the start of the conference. But I’m grouping them together into one category because they share a single purpose: To gather together and efficiently communicate the most impactful high-level information about Google Cloud, right now. In this group we have the Opening Keynote (GENKEY1), the Developer Keynote (DEVKEY1), and Urs Hölzle’s Unleash the Innovators! (SPTL121). Also, don’t miss the Live Q&A: Developer Keynote (DEVKEY1QA), on October 13, where Aja Hammerly and Priyanka Vergadia will give lots of valuable perspective in response to questions from real people like you and me.
Now, if you saw my recent Canada-themed GCP This Month episode 
, you’ll have heard that one of the Cloud Next speakers will be none other than Vint Cerf–one of the people who literally invented the internet! His session is called A conversation with Vint Cerf and Jim Hogan on disability in tech (SPTL120), and this is only one of the many sessions Google has about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Two more are Meet the Women Techmakers team (GCD119) and Pathways to Tech: Why STEM Access Matters (SPTL104). Cloud is democratizing technology and we all have a part to play in making the world a better place by building a brighter future for all sorts of people, all around the world.
This high-level category should help to open up your eyes to many possibilities you hadn’t considered–both within your sphere of influence and beyond it. Make some notes as you watch–maybe to distill some concepts you’ve learned or to remember questions for follow-up.
Next-Gen: Serverless and Edge
My next category is about opening your eyes to the next-generation awesomeness you get when you embrace truly cloud-native abstractions and architectures. No Lift-and-Shift, here, as this is all about embracing Serverless and the Edge.
If you have no background or understanding of just how revolutionary this can be (think “like what the combine harvester did for farming”), then you should start with Top use cases to start your serverless journey (DEV100) and Designing and building serverless solutions (GCD115).
After this, dig a bit deeper into how systems like this are built with the sessions Event-driven applications with Eventarc and Cloud Run (DEV205) and Addressing advanced use cases with new Cloud Functions capabilities (DEV201).
That should put you into a great frame of mind to look at how your future might benefit, with What’s new in serverless? (DEV300) and Edge Computing is the Future of an Extended Cloud Continuum (PAR109).
This category is likely to have the biggest impact on your effectiveness in building information systems.
Do the Right Thing: Security
The category that will have the biggest impact on your risk profile, though, is this next one, on Security.
The critical thing about security is that it is pervasive. Every single one of us–no matter our role–must take responsibility for the security of our systems. We cannot abdicate this duty to some other role, person, or time. So we need to understand this space well enough to identify and cover our blind spots. That’s why I think that The path to invisible security (SPTL100) is an important place to start.
After that, Shared fate (SEC208) gets a little deeper about what that means for systems built on Google Cloud, and then Securing the software supply chain (SEC207) looks at how you can keep that system secure as it changes from ongoing development work.
Now, you will probably never wind up making your own blockchain, yourself, but I still think that Creating secure, transparent digital infrastructures (PAR123) may be worth checking out. Especially because speaker Miles Ward comes so highly recommended.
Remember that my theme is that we want you to discover your blind spots–right?–so the next session I’m going to recommend is Innovations in DDoS, WAF, cloud firewalls, and network-based threat detection (SEC211). You might not have to dig into the details of securing networks, but it is still useful to at least understand why it matters (e.g. DDoS) and how one (whether you, your team, or Google) can protect against such attacks.
Finally, to take responsibility of security, you need to Take charge of your sensitive data (SEC204). You might not realize how important this is or how to handle it, but this session should give you a good idea. Also, this segues nicely to our next category of session suggestions, which is…
Leverage: Data and AI
Data! There are no two ways about it, but every IT system involves data. I mean, “Information” is right there in the name of “Information Technology”, right?
First up, get a sense for this space with Simply innovate: Data cloud customer panel (DA105). And then, to get a feel for all the different types of data flying around, check out Where to store your stuff: A storage overview (INF109).
With a good idea of the fundamentals, here, look at the latest technological advancements highlighted by The future of mobile and web app development with cloud databases (DBS100), What’s new and what’s next for storage (INF210), and What’s new and what’s next with Google Cloud databases (DBS203).
For the adventurous, Under the hood of Google Cloud data technologies (DA301) should then offer a healthy respect for the engineering genius underlying all of these Google Cloud products and services.
Finally, make sure you how you can extract value from all that data you hold! Start with Transform Your Data into Value: Trends & Best Practices (PAR149) and AI-powered applications with Google Cloud (DEV202). But definitely do not miss Sara Robinson and Leigha Jarett’s Build an interactive machine learning application with Looker and Vertex AI (DA200). Data is the new gold, so don’t let yours stay buried.
Beyond Next: Build Your Foundation
Even this curated list of session possibilities I’ve made is pretty overwhelming. But it should really open your eyes to lots of blind spots you might have. Google Cloud is a huge world of possibility! So that’s why I want to finish my playlist with this: Take it to the next level: Learn about becoming a certified professional (INF108).
Google has a very impressive certification program, and I strongly advise people to use it to guide their own learning of Google Cloud. In fact, I recommend this so strongly that I’ve made a whole video walking through each of the Google Cloud Platform certifications and how you can benefit from them: my GCP Certification Guide, on YouTube! (Do check it out!)
Wrapping Up
Phew! That’s a lot, right? But don’t let it get to you. Just pick your way forward one step at a time. And I know I must sound like a broken record (hmmm… this expression reminds me that I’m getting old 
), but your first step should probably be to sign up for Google Cloud Next, if you haven’t already, right?
And although this is a virtual conference, I still hope to “see” you there!–engaging in the community while it happens.
And, as we usually like to sign off, “Keep being awesome, Cloud Gurus!” 
–Mattias
