Tag Archives: IT

Decentralized Platform Engineering

What are the human and management factors that go into building great platform engineering? And what are the efforts of control having too much control or too much flexibility, not enough collaboration, not creating space for innovation, and changing inside what’s inside these platform engineering efforts?

Today, we discuss centralized versus decentralized platform engineering, or as came up in the conversation about platform engineering, it’s the opposite of Java Enterprise, version and platform.

As you’re doing this type of work interacting with platform teams should influence how you design and authorize the effort to make that work. What type of slack you need to put in the system and what type of authority needs to be given to the platform engineering team.

Transcript: otter.ai/u/ySGeMTU_qFeeBbENz4…?utm_source=copy_url
Image: www.pexels.com/photo/keyboard-keys-lot-373072/

Rob’s Hot Take:

In the Cloud 2030 Podcast episode on March 14th, Rob Hirschfeld discusses the importance of adopting a system-wide view in platform engineering, emphasizing the need to identify over-optimization in certain areas like developer productivity while underestimating other critical aspects such as operations, security, or compliance. Hirschfeld advocates for a holistic approach to platform engineering, focusing on optimizing the entire system, streamlining teams, and making strategic trade-offs rather than just emphasizing technology or developer productivity. He suggests that this mindset can lead to improved efficiency, productivity, and return on investment for platform teams, highlighting the significance of considering the broader organizational context. Hirschfeld encourages listeners to explore the March 14 episode for a deeper understanding of these concepts, available on the 2030.cloud platform.

Generative AI in IT

What is generative AI and what are people now just generically calling ChatGPT?

We put these things in a technical frame, meaning can we use generative AI to improve our programming, testing or automation? What does it take to use these concepts in ways that iteratively improve IT infrastructures.

We review the state of chat, ChatGPT, AI infrastructure and things like that.

Transcript: otter.ai/u/nFCSMPFyUVHO50I0jG…?utm_source=copy_url
Image: www.pexels.com/photo/woman-leani…machine-15625100/

Rob’s Hot Take:

In a discussion on the DevOps Lunch and Learn podcast, Rob Hirschfeld, CEO of RackN, explores the complexities of generative AI and its impact on coding and automation. Hirschfeld raises questions about trust in generative AI models, emphasizing the need to understand how they are trained, updated, and refined to eliminate errors. He highlights the importance of creating reliable training sets to ensure the technology’s applications, focusing on enhancing system resilience and maintainability.

Business Value of Platform Engineering

https://soundcloud.com/user-410091210/business-value-of-platform-engineering

Platform engineering is quite buzzy and has a lot of hype at the moment.

Today we dug behind the hype to acknowledge how the term is being used and misused. We cover why this is a topic of interest, how it’s driving customer thinking around operations and development teams, how it’s working to establish standard operating procedure around infrastructure and operations to support a business, and how those needs drive the evolution of our technology, infrastructure and design thinking.

Transcript: otter.ai/u/GksMnMIZV0cyM6iwWj…?utm_source=copy_url
Image:www.pexels.com/photo/person-in-b…of-cards-6255293/

Rob’s Hot Take:

In the Cloud 2030 podcast episode on platform engineering, Rob Hirschfeld highlights the evolution of IT from bespoke and custom practices towards standardized operations. He emphasizes the need for easier-to-use systems that conform to standard practices, enabling businesses to optimize and scale infrastructure more efficiently. Hirschfeld discusses the challenges of unique and non-standardized operations within organizations, leading to scalability issues and touches on the broader trend driving platform engineering. He encourages listeners to explore the full conversation on the Cloud 2030 channel and engage in further discussions at 2030.cloud.

Improving Time To Decision

https://soundcloud.com/user-410091210/improving-time-to-decision

How do we improve the time to decision for CIOs? Today we talk about general business practice and how we can help.

Technical innovators and architects create value for the teams that they support. This can either be from an automation perspective, which is what RackN does, or from a data perspective, which Tyler describes in the podcast today. These are real challenges.

When we flip the script and talk about the miscommunication between how CIOs see business challenges and translate business challenges into technical delivery, however, we get into a fascinating set of discussions where Joanne brings up some key challenges for 2023. We also discuss mapping those from CIOs into implementation, followed by ultimately trying to find ways that people can make fast, valuable decisions that feel right.

This conversation is rooted in important conceptual executive level thinking. We’ll include the list of points that Joanne talks about below as well as in the show notes, and I highly recommend you check those out.

Joanne Friedman’s Key Challenges for 2023
1. Tackle inflation and margin pressure
2. Migrate supply chain disruption
3. Make sustainability a pillar
4. Calibrate talent management strategy
5, Streamline procurement and sourcing
6. Strengthen digital thread
7. Prioritize innovation initiatives

We try to name these key challenges, but in a lot of cases we are talking about the list or the graphic. You’ll need to refer to the show notes in order to see the complete one.

Transcript: otter.ai/u/sFESW3yziGOolNbiyt…?utm_source=copy_url
Image: www.pexels.com/photo/man-holding…er-board-1117132/

Rob’s Hot Take:

In the Cloud 2030 podcast episode dated February 9, CEO Rob Hirschfeld discusses the challenge of making fast, impactful decisions in a rapidly changing technological landscape. He emphasizes the importance of intuitive understanding and emotional context in decision-making, highlighting the need for clearly articulated goals and consensus building beforehand. Hirschfeld advocates for executives to rely on their intuition, grounded in a solid foundation of groundwork, and invites listeners to engage in ongoing discussions on this topic at 2030.Cloud.

Hachyderm.io Leaves Basement

https://soundcloud.com/user-410091210/hachydermio-leaves-basement

Hazel walks us through the Hackyderm.io leaving the basement migration. We also talk much more generally about Mastodon fediverse and scaling distributed systems.

This podcast is like a super class in what it takes to scale infrastructure and systems, especially live and under duress. Every minute of this conversation is worth listening to twice.

Check out these resources as well:
* hachyderm.io/@hazelweakly
* opalstack.social/@d3cline/109638734488964593
* community.hachyderm.io/blog/2022/12/…the-basement/

Transcript: otter.ai/u/FBIjekCBWcd8tlj1v-…?utm_source=copy_url
Image: www.pexels.com/photo/elephant-cu…ya-savanna-66898/

Rob’s Hot Take:

In the Cloud 2030 podcast episode discussing Hacky Derm’s scaling challenges, Rob Hirschfeld commends Hazel weekly for exploring the intricacies of exponential growth and federated platform integration. He highlights the significance of core architectural design decisions, such as Twitter’s use of immutable IDs for tweets and the necessity for sharing media files in federated systems. Hirschfeld emphasizes the impact of early design choices on an application’s lifecycle, resilience, and scalability, encouraging listeners to delve into the insightful January 31st episode and join the Cloud 2030 community for ongoing discussions at the2030.cloud.

Retail Edge Kubernetes ala Chick-Fil-A

https://soundcloud.com/user-410091210/pt2-chickfila-devops-ll-230124

We get an update for the first time in four years about Chick-fil-A edge Kubernetes clusters that gets to the heart of how building distributed infrastructure works and what the challenges are.

Article: medium.com/chick-fil-atech/ent…ompute-f5e2fd63d20f

We had a fantastic conversation about laying the foundations for this. We came away with two really important thoughts about what edge infrastructure looks like, how you pick it, can Kubernetes be used, what is IoT and integration, and the design considerations that go into building this environment.

Listen to this podcast as a preview for a longer article.

Transcript: otter.ai/u/k3Y7S3Hoa0rPZZ8_L5vTn4SNwGI
Image: www.pexels.com/photo/cows-on-fie…andscape-8899447/

Chat GPT In IT

We discussed the implications of chat GPT for it and the industry.

In today’s episode, we spend a lot of time figuring out how data provenance governance, bias, and ownership will impact chat GPT in IT and technology and cloud contexts. This discussion really looks into how chat GPT can be used in disruptive ways, but also in protective ways as what we describe as guardrails for how these systems are going to get built.

We come to some very interesting conclusions.

Transcript: otter.ai/u/aETNeRoDnspFnmPT3KcjBuHQTzE
Image: www.pexels.com/photo/surprised-y…le-phone-3771127/

Rob’s Hot Take:

In the Cloud 2030 podcast’s January fifth episode, CEO Rob Hirschfeld explores the complexities of data provenance in ChatGPT, questioning ownership and control of the generated content. He emphasizes the need to understand the sources of data, pondering whether the output belongs to users, the algorithm, or no one, highlighting the challenges of systems that belong to nobody. Hirschfeld also connects this issue with Software Bill of Materials, emphasizing the importance of knowing the components of systems for accuracy and confidence. He encourages listeners to delve into the full episode for valuable insights and invites them to engage further in discussions at 2030.Cloud.

Are Platform Teams Good?

How do you build effective, productive platform teams? What should their mission be, and what type of tools and dangers do they have? 

We start by questioning if there are such things as platform teams and their roles, as well as how they can go awry in modern organizations. 

At the end, we recognize that they do and can provide a very important role. In this conversation, you will learn the right ways to form a platform.

Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/Kf-Hi9H6bTmhufavGaa1ae9w_R4

Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-beside-woman-in-train-1970830/

Rob’s Hot Take:

In the August 23rd DevOps Lunch and Learn, Rob Hirschfeld discusses the evolving concept of platform teams as centers of excellence for corporate governance and controls in IT and operational environments. He notes the current diversity in approaches to solving problems in infrastructure but anticipates a consolidation phase where standardization becomes more prominent. Hirschfeld emphasizes the cyclical nature of IT innovation, suggesting that platform teams will play a crucial role in advocating for standards, processes, and best practices, ultimately contributing to the industry’s progress.

IT In An Age of Scarcity

How do supply chain, ecologic, capital, and political issues limit our ability to continue to build big data centers? Today we expand on this continued conversation.

We’re already seeing this in the news, and we need to rethink how we are building a lot of the core infrastructure we depend on. That includes power, data centers, networking and connectivity. Potentially even human logic, which we get into.

The purpose of this conversation was to look at the bigger picture, and then pull it back into how we build IT systems.

Transcript: otter.ai/u/herJl7zHewHfDIIEhdI_tdUewA8
Image: www.pexels.com/photo/white-paper…-surface-1101124/

Rob’s Hot Take:

Rob Hirschfeld, CEO of RackN and host of the Cloud 2030 podcast, discusses the shift from availability to scarcity in the IT landscape, highlighting the need to find synergies and connections between systems. He emphasizes the necessity of coupling components and integrating systems efficiently, especially as resources like power, data centers, and supply chains become limited. Hirschfeld encourages listeners to engage in the conversation at 2030.cloud, emphasizing the importance of diverse insights for shaping future discussions.

Career Advice Part 2

We continue our hiring advice series in this episode. It’s a really powerful thing to have people who have established careers, think about what would have made a difference, think about what is important when we work with and mentor inexperienced and junior people who are building a career.

This episode is full of thoughtful advice on how to build subject matter expertise, and the ephemeral qualities that make somebody a good leader or a good worker, or what we were calling an executive function.

If you are building your career, or helping mentor people who are building a career, you will get a lot out of this.

PART 1: the2030.cloud/2022/06/19/the-car…e-wish-wed-gotten/

Image: www.pexels.com/photo/person-s-ha…hing-wall-626163/
Transcript: otter.ai/u/t2JEhT0XXcbPvDVuDM-OTRP_G84