Forrest Brazeal - The Read Aloud Cloud: An Innocents Guide to the Tech Inside

Forrest Brazeal

Copyright 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-1-119-67762-8
ISBN: 978-1-119-67764-2 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-119-67765-9 (ebk)

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For the cloud folks.

Through a decade in the tech industry, Forrest Brazeal has installed software updates during a live cataract surgery, designed robots that perform machine learning on pizza, and kept his sense of humor the whole timeeven while rapping about serverless technology in front of hundreds of developers.

Now a senior manager at A Cloud Guru, Forrest has been named one of Jefferson Frank's top seven global AWS experts. In 2018, Amazon Web Services recognized his community work by naming him one of the original AWS Serverless Heroes.

His webcomics about life in the cloud reach hundreds of thousands of readers and have been cut out, tacked up, reshared, and PowerPointed at workplaces from Google to Disney. He also speaks at public and private events around the world on the business and technology of cloud computing. The Read Aloud Cloud is his first book.

Forrest has a master's degree in computer science from Georgia Tech and a postgraduate certificate in nonsense from wherever Dr. Seuss did his doctorate. He lives near Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife, two children, and an unmanageable collection of old books.

There comes a dark point in the development of any book, but particularly one so bizarre as this, when you become convinced that you have jumped the rails and created something that nobody in their right mind would ever want to read. This is where it helps to have deadlines pushing your shapeless hunk of nonsense back on track. So: thank you, deadlines.

The entire team at Wiley embraced the challenge of publishing whatever this book is, but none more so than Devon Lewis. Devon immediately got this strange project and championed it from the very beginning, providing a tireless flow of ideas and support all the way through the production process.

My employers at Trek10 and A Cloud Guru warmly encouraged me while I was writing. I, in turn, warmly encourage you to patronize Trek10 and A Cloud Guru.

My friend, mentor, and colleague Drew Firment never let his enthusiasm for this book flag, even when I did. Thanks, buddy.

My technical reviewersJared Short, Corey Quinn, and Ken Winnerwillingly exposed themselves to early, unstable doses of this book, for which we can all be grateful. Any misrepresentation of the cloud that remains is mine alone.

The deranged Roomba on is probably Ben Kehoe's fault.

Many of the prehistoric computers in were drawn from live models at Seattle's marvelous Living Computer Museum. My thanks to the AWS Hero program, and particularly the indefatigable Rebecca Marshburn, for making that cross-country field trip possible.

Emily, Kenneth, and Joanna tolerated this project longer than any reasonable humans should. Thank you for everything. I promise I'm done now.

Cloud computing and related shifts such as serverless are major changes running through the tech industry. As with all such major changes, this comes with opportunities (often involving the gnashing of teeth and pulling out of hair), challenges (the gnashing of hair and pulling out of teeth), andif we're very luckyhumor. In the past, tectonic shifts in technologyfrom the office PC to the smartphonehave brought us stalwarts such as Scott Adams (Dilbert), Randall Munroe (xkcd), and GapingVoid. I am delighted that our industry continues its tradition of poking insightful fun at itself with the addition of Forrest Brazeal to that pantheon.

In the cloud, serverless, and DevOps world, there has been no one more insightful and incite-ful than Forrest. Cutting through the trees to see the wood, Forrest's wit has become a guiding light. His cartoons have not only delighted but meaningfully questioned our approachesall good humor is based on truthfrom the tribal nature of DevOps to the building of Towers of Babel such as OpenStack. The skill and technological knowledge required to understand a technological change, to pinpoint its failing, and to devastate an entire edifice of marketing and a bastion of management consultants with a single cartoon should not be underestimated. It also requires an element of bravery to poke the massive capitalist bear with a stick of truth. Forrest has that skill, he has that bravery, and he frequently uses it. We praise him.