Wednesday 9 September 2009, Karl Geiger, Convergent Informatics, Inc. shows how life in the cloud can be heady, but few remember to bring ladders and parachutes.

Cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) have received much press as the next “silver bullet” for business systems. Although they can lower technical, software development, and support costs, Cloud projects run like any other systems development/deployment effort. They require clear goals, well-defined requirements with testable endpoints, and diligent project oversight. This talk highlights how good software engineering practices applied to two projects: Convergent Informatics’s eCompany-in-a-Box™ and the resuscitation of an e-commerce company. It covers what works, what to beware, and where technical folks can have lots of fun.

About the Speaker

Karl Geiger is one of the founders and principals at Convergent Informatics, Inc., “The Virtual CIO Company”. Formerly he worked as Director of Enterprise Architecture at Amgen, Inc., where he and his staff guided development and set standards for infrastructure and global systems such ERP. Karl also did extensive work in clinical development and on research information retrieval systems. Prior to Amgen, he developed library systems and supported mainframes at the University of Southern California. He holds BA in Classics (Latin and Greek) from USC and an MS in Computer Science from California Lutheran University. Karl belongs to the IEEE, the ACM, and the AAAS.