46 - The Private Cloud Playbook with David Morales

About this episode

David Morales discusses building and managing private cloud infrastructure and digital learning environments.

David Morales helped build Walmart's private cloud from the ground up—385,000 virtual cores, a custom PaaS layer, and AI-powered store robots before the world knew what to do with them. Now, as SVP of Technology and CIO at Western Governors University, he applies those same principles to keep a 100% digital learning environment running for 193,000 students at 99.7% uptime—while fending off nearly 10,000 cyber attacks per minute. In this episode, David and host Matt Pacheco cover why lift-and-shift migration fails, how to build governance into your architecture instead of bolting it on, and what AI readiness actually requires. His closing framework says it all: listen first, get the fundamentals right, and focus on outcomes—not outputs.

People in this episode

Host: Matt Pacheco

Guest: David Morales

Topics covered

• private cloud
• digital learning
• cybersecurity
• AI readiness
• cloud architecture

Keywords

• private cloud
• Walmart
• Western Governors University
• cyber attacks
• AI
• digital learning
• cloud migration

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Walmart, Western Governors University

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