The Cloudcast

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?
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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?

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Peter Zairsev (@PeterZaitsev, Founder of @Percona) talks about the history of OSS databases, and how AI is reshaping the demands on modern databases. 
SHOW: 991
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #991 Transcript
SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 
NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST: "CLOUDCAST BASICS" 
SHOW NOTES:
Percona website
Topic 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?

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Aaron Delp (@aarondelp), Brian Gracely (@bgracely) and Brandon Whichard (@bwhichard, @SoftwareDefTalk) discuss the top stories in Cloud and AI from December 2025.
SHOW: 990
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #990 Transcript
SHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET 
NEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST:  "CLOUDCAST BASICS"
SHOW NOTES:
Link to December 2025 News and Articles
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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: 989
SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #989 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:
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 Areas
NVIDIA customer profitability
Companies moving to GOOG TPUs
Enterprise success beyond CoPilot/Gemini
Enterprise data+model trainability
Enterprise price hikes
Broadcom, AMD, Groq - alternative HW options
Data Center buildouts
Does AI spending shift
What is Agentic AI?
Long term spending + short term refocuses
PREDICTIONS:
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 OpenAI
AI will be a central issue in the 2026 US elections, either about job losses or electricity prices
One major LPU/TPU/dedicated inference chip will break through in 2026
Azure 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 security
Gemini will dominate the consumer/prosumer space, OpenAI will go through the trough of disillusionment
The industry will shift to a base/instruct and a reasoning split of models
AWS and Azure will double down on being a solutions provider instead of a primitive supplier for AI and infrastructure
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