Thanks to the open ONUG Community of digital architects and designers, we made a digital pivot last year and kept the community together at a time when we needed each other most. We continued our collaboration and expanded the community by a factor of four. ONUG Spring used to be the smaller version of ONUG Fall; not anymore. ONUG is now in sequential growth mode with every conference/trade show getting larger than the one before. We are more productive and engaged than we’ve ever been in the working groups, and so Day 2 of ONUG Spring on May 6th will be dedicated to working group output. There will be five playbook journeys presented and one huge announcement for the future of our community as we collectively and collaboratively deliver open source software tools needed to operationalize hybrid multi-cloud infrastructure. 

Industry practitioners have transitioned from reactionary mode to planning for scale of their enterprise cloud architectures to gain flexibility, all in an effort to create business value. This year is all about planning. What are the enterprise cloud building blocks to use and how to stitch them together? What are the operational models that will sustain business value? What are the skill sets needed and most effective culture to promote and celebrate in the new world or remote workforce? What insights and impact will the academic community’s research have on corporate computing? Fundamental to this planning is how to scale; that is, how to build and operationalize enterprise clouds to go big and support the largest brands in the economy. Where is flexibility gained so that IT as the new business platform can deploy this new architecture to deliver sustainable business value?

At ONUG Spring, we bring it all together with the best minds in the industry and all organized for maximum networking with peers. Here are the top five activities to take in at ONUG Spring.

• IT Is the Digital Business Platform: We’ve been saying that “Digital Strategy Is Business Strategy” at ONUG for years. But last year, a big twist occurred. We used to think that technologies such as cloud, AI, etc., were business platforms. But it became crystal clear that the business platform is the IT organization as they are now responsible for digital transformation creation, delivery and outcome; Day 1 or May 5th will address this topic head on.
• First ONUG Collaborative CSNF Decorator Multi-Cloud Demonstration to Take Place: Those in charge of cybersecurity know that cloud consumption is linear, but the cloud security streams communicating security events are growing exponentially. All have had to invest in security infrastructure, such as SIEM/SOAR/Security Data Lake, etc., as the perimeter disappeared last year. This infrastructure spending growth is more than 2x per year but key staff, such as security engineers and the more elusive cloud security engineer, have grown very slowly. As all companies go multi-cloud, the cognitive load and toil that occupies the days of these professionals is becoming overwhelming and to the point where they can’t do their main job, assessing the minimal viable security posture so your company is not in the news for all the wrong reasons. To solve this, the ONUG Collaborative will deliver its plan for the Cloud Security Notification Framework (CSNF) and its Decorator. Its implementation is an open source project that will eliminate the toil and put your security teams back in charge so your business can scale. May 6th is the day to tune in to hear how ONUG Collaborative members Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and IBM Cloud are collaborating to build the CSNF Decorator and how you can get involved in this open source project.
• May 6th Is Working Group Output Day: Journey playbooks will be presented along with five new papers on Elastic Infrastructure, Orchestration and Automation, AIOps, CSNF Decorator and Cloud Native Security. These working groups have done all the work on how to scale your enterprise cloud by building journey playbooks. You’ll be able to hear these journeys and download the playbooks on May 6th.
• Research Track: Dr. Doug Comer of Purdue University and Dr. Behnaz Arzani of Microsoft developed the research track for ONUG Spring and Fall to bring academic thought leadership back to ONUG. We are so proud of and thankful to  Dr. Comer and Dr. Arzani for developing the ONUG Research Track. We have some of the best minds in the research community presenting 5G and cloud edge, the future of network management, the future of SDN controllers and 5G vs Wi-Fi 6. These sessions are spread over both days, May 5th and 6th.
• ONUG Academy Certifications: ONUG’s first multi-cloud certification education and training program will take place for a maximum of 40 students. ONUG in conjunction with Aviatrix Networks will offer a multi-cloud certification program, free for 40 students. This is a one-time offer to ONUG Community members to receive this $2,600 certification program at ONUG Spring. Students will gain an ONUG Academy certificate and micro-credential and an Aviatrix ACE certification certificate, both of which will increase your value, career and salary in the high-demand area of multi-cloud networking. 

2021 is a planning year. To make sure your plans are in line with your peers so as to avoid costly mistakes and learn how others are planning for enterprise cloud scale and flexibility, join the community at ONUG Spring. It’s all coming together at ONUG Spring; register here, join the fun, learn a lot, network with friends and walk away with the multi-cloud playbooks for 2021.