Screaming in the Cloud

Latest Episodes:

Learning eBPF with Liz Rice May 02, 2023

Show notes

Liz Rice, Chief Open Source Officer at Isovalent, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss the release of her newest book, Learning eBPF, and the exciting possibilities that come with eBPF technology. Liz explains what got her so excited about eBPF technology, and what it was like to write a book while also holding a full-time job. Corey and Liz also explore the learning curve that comes with kernel programming, and Liz illustrates why it’s so important to be able to explain complex technologies in simple terminology.

About Liz

Liz Rice is Chief Open Source Officer with eBPF specialists Isovalent, creators of the Cilium cloud native networking, security and observability project. She sits on the CNCF Governing Board, and on the Board of OpenUK. She was Chair of the CNCF's Technical Oversight Committee in 2019-2022, and Co-Chair of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in 2018. She is also the author of Container Security, and Learning eBPF, both published by O'Reilly.

She has a wealth of software development, team, and product management experience from working on network protocols and distributed systems, and in digital technology sectors such as VOD, music, and VoIP. When not writing code, or talking about it, Liz loves riding bikes in places with better weather than her native London, competing in virtual races on Zwift, and making music under the pseudonym Insider Nine.

Links Referenced:

Isovalent: https://isovalent.com/
Learning eBPF: https://www.amazon.com/Learning-eBPF-Programming-Observability-Networking/dp/1098135121
Container Security: https://www.amazon.com/Container-Security-Fundamental-Containerized-Applications/dp/1492056707/
GitHub for Learning eBPF: https://github.com/lizRice/learning-eBPF

CloudDev for Retail Companies with John Mille Apr 27, 2023

Show notes

John Mille, Principal Cloud Engineer at Sainsbury's UK joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how retail companies are using cloud services. John describes the lessons he’s learned since joining the Sainsbury’s UK team, including why it’s important to share knowledge across your team if you don’t want to be on call 24/7, as well as why he doesn’t subscribe to the idea that every developer needs access to production. Corey and John also discuss an open-source project John created called ECS Compose-X.

About John

John is an AWS Community Builder (devtools), Open Source enthusiast, SysAdmin born in the cloud, and has worked with AWS since his very first job. He enjoys writing code and creating projects. John likes to focus on automation & architecture that delivers business value, and has been dabbling with data & the wonderful world of Kafka for the past 3 years.

Links Referenced:

AWS Open-Source Roundup newsletter blog post about ECS Compose-X: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/automating-your-ecs-container-architecture-deployments-with-ecs-composex/
ECS Compose-X: https://docs.compose-x.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-mille/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnPre32286850

Sysdig and Solving for Strategic Challenges in Cybersecurity with Michael Isbitski Apr 25, 2023

Show notes

Michael Isbitski, Director of Cybersecurity Strategy at Sysdig, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss the nuances of an effective cybersecurity strategy. Michael explains that many companies are caught between creating a strategy that’s truly secure and one that’s merely compliant and within the bounds of cost-effectiveness, and what can be done to help balance the two aims more effectively. Corey and Michael also explore what it means to hire for transferrable skills in the realm of cybersecurity and tech, and Michael reveals that while there’s no such thing as a silver-bullet solution for cybersecurity, Sysdig can help bridge many gaps in a company’s strategy.

About Michael

Mike has researched and advised on cybersecurity for over 5 years. He's versed in cloud security, container security, Kubernetes security, API security, security testing, mobile security, application protection, and secure continuous delivery. He's guided countless organizations globally in their security initiatives and supporting their business.

Prior to his research and advisory experience, Mike learned many hard lessons on the front lines of IT with over twenty years of practitioner and leadership experience focused on application security, vulnerability management, enterprise architecture, and systems engineering.

Links Referenced:

Sysdig: https://sysdig.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-isbitski/

Fixing What’s Broken in Monitoring and Observability with Jean Yang Apr 20, 2023

Show notes

Jean Yang, CEO of Akita Software, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how she went from academia to tech founder, and what her company is doing to improve monitoring and observability. Jean explains why Akita is different from other observability & monitoring solutions, and how it bridges the gap from what people know they should be doing and what they actually do in practice. Corey and Jean explore why the monitoring and observability space has been so broken, and why it’s important for people to see monitoring as a chore and not a hobby. Jean also reveals how she took a leap from being an academic professor to founding a tech start-up.

About Jean

Jean Yang is the founder and CEO of Akita Software, providing the fastest time-to-value for API monitoring. Jean was previously a tenure-track professor in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.

Links Referenced:

Akita Software: https://www.akitasoftware.com/
Aki the dog chatbot: https://www.akitasoftware.com/blog-posts/we-built-an-exceedingly-polite-ai-dog-that-answers-questions-about-your-apis
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanqasaur

Hacking Old Hardware and Developer Advocate Presentations with Darko Mesaroš Apr 18, 2023

Show notes

Darko Mesaroš, Senior Developer Advocate at AWS, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss all the weird and wonderful things that can be done with old hardware, as well as the necessary skills for being a successful Developer Advocate. Darko walks through how he managed to deploy Kubernetes on a computer from 1986, as well as the trade-offs we’ve made in computer technology as hardware has progressed. Corey and Darko also explore the forgotten art of optimizing when you’re developing, and how it can help to cut costs. Darko also shares what he feels is the key skill every Developer Advocate needs to have, and walks through how he has structured his presentations to ensure he is captivating and delivering value to his audience.

About Darko

Darko is a Senior Developer Advocate based in Seattle, WA. His goal is to share his passion and technological know-how with Engineers, Developers, Builders, and tech enthusiasts across the world. If it can be automated, Darko will definitely try to do so. Most of his focus is towards DevOps and Management Tools, where automation, pipelines, and efficient developer tools is the name of the game – click less and code more so you do not repeat yourself ! Darko also collects a lot of old technology and tries to make it do what it should not. Like deploy AWS infrastructure through a Commodore 64.

Links Referenced:

AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/
Blog post RE deploying Kubernetes on a TRS-80: https://www.buildon.aws/posts/i-deployed-kubernetes-with-a-1986-tandy-102-portable-computer
AWS Twitch: https://twitch.tv/aws
Twitter: https://twitter.com/darkosubotica
Mastodon: https://hachyderm.io/@darkosubotica

Viewing Security through an Operational Lens with Jess Dodson Apr 13, 2023

Show notes

Jess Dodson, Senior Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss all things security. Corey and Jess discuss the phenomenon of companies that only care about security when reacting to a breach, and Jess highlights how important it is to have both a reactive and a proactive approach to security. Jess also shares her thoughts on why it’s valuable to get security and operations working well together, and why getting the basics right in security is still a more pressing priority than solving for level 10 security threats. Jess and Corey also reveal best practices when it comes to monitoring and revoking admin rights and much more.

About Jess

Chances are if you’ve run into “GirlGerms” online, you’ve spoken to Jess! Based in Brisbane, Jess joined Microsoft in 2019 and is now a Senior Cloud Solution in Cyber Security, after working in a mixture of both government and higher education industries for over 15 years. Jess regards herself as a 'recovering systems administrator' and still wears her operations hat when looking at security - doing REAL SecOps!

Outside of work, Jess is mum to a 5 year old daughter, a cat, 4 chickens and a hive of bees. In her downtime, she spends far too many hours building Lego, playing video games or doing random crafty projects.

Links Referenced:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/girlgerms
Mastodon:https://infosec.exchange/@girlgerms
DevNxt: https://devnxt.nz/

Uptycs and Security Awareness with Jack Roehrig Apr 11, 2023

Show notes

Jack Roehrig, Technology Evangelist at Uptycs, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud for a conversation about security awareness, ChatGPT, and more. Jack describes some of the recent developments at Uptycs, which leads to fascinating insights about the paradox of scaling engineering teams large and small. Jack also shares how his prior experience working with AskJeeves.com has informed his perspective on ChatGPT and its potential threat to Google. Jack and Corey also discuss the evolution of Reddit, and the nuances of developing security awareness trainings that are approachable and effective.

About Jack

Jack has been passionate about (obsessed with) information security and privacy since he was a child. Attending 2600 meetings before reaching his teenage years, and DEF CON conferences shortly after, he quickly turned an obsession into a career. He began his first professional, full-time information-security role at the world's first internet privacy company; focusing on direct-to-consumer privacy.

After working the startup scene in the 90's, Jack realized that true growth required a renaissance education. He enrolled in college, completing almost six years of coursework in a two-year period. Studying a variety of disciplines, before focusing on obtaining his two computer science degrees. University taught humility, and empathy. These were key to pursuing and achieving a career as a CSO lasting over ten years.

Jack primarily focuses his efforts on mentoring his peers (as well as them mentoring him), advising young companies (especially in the information security and privacy space), and investing in businesses that he believes are both innovative, and ethical.

Links Referenced:

Uptycs: https://www.uptycs.com/
jack@jackroehrig.com: mailto:jack@jackroehrig.com
jroehrig@uptycs.com: mailto:jroehrig@uptycs.com

Improving the Developer Experience with Aja Hammerly Apr 06, 2023

Show notes

Aja Hammerly, Developer Relations Manager at Google Cloud, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss her unexpected career journey at Google and what she’s learned about improving the developer experience throughout her career. Aja and Corey discuss the importance of not only creating tools for developers that are intuitive and easy to adopt, but also cater to different learning styles. Aja describes why it’s so important to respond with curiosity when a user does something seemingly random within a piece of software, and also reveals why she feels so strongly about the principle of least surprise when it comes to the developer experience.

About Aja

Aja lives in Seattle where's she's a Developer Relations Manager at Google. She's currently excited about developer experience, software supply chain security, and becoming a better manager and mentor. In her free time she enjoys skiing, kayaking, cooking, knitting, and spending long hours in the garden.

Links Referenced:

Google Cloud: http://cloud.google.com/developers
Personal Website: https://www.thagomizer.com

The Rise of Generative AI with Raj Bala Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

Raj Bala, Founder of Perspect, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss all things generative AI. Perspect is a new generative AI company that is democratizing the e-commerce space, by making it possible to place images of products in places that would previously require expensive photoshoots and editing. Throughout the conversation, Raj shares insights into the legal questions surrounding the rise of generative AI and potential ramifications of its widespread adoption. Raj and Corey also dig into the question, “Why were the big cloud providers beaten to the market by OpenAI?” Raj also shares his thoughts on why company culture has to be organic, and how he’s hoping generative AI will move the needle for mom-and-pop businesses.

About Raj

Raj Bala, formerly a VP, Analyst at Gartner, led the Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services since its inception and led the Magic Quadrant for IaaS before that. He is deeply in-tune with market dynamics both in the US and Europe, but also extending to China, Africa and Latin America.

Raj is also a software developer and is capable of building and deploying scalable services on the cloud providers to which he wrote about as a Gartner analyst. As such, Raj is now building Perspect, which is a SaaS offering at the intersection of AI and E-commerce.

Raj's favorite language is Python and he is obsessed with making pizza and ice cream.

Links Referenced:

Perspect: https://perspect.com

The Benefits of Mocking Clouds Locally with Waldemar Hummer Mar 30, 2023

Show notes

Waldemar Hummer, Co-Founder & CTO of LocalStack, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how LocalStack changed Corey’s mind on the futility of mocking clouds locally. Waldemar reveals why LocalStack appeals to both enterprise companies and digital nomads, and explains how both see improvements in their cost predictability as a result. Waldemar also discusses how LocalStack is an open-source company first and foremost, and how they’re working with their community to evolve their licensing model. Corey and Waldemar chat about the rising demand for esoteric services, and Waldemar explains how accommodating that has led to an increase of adoption from the big data space.

About Waldemar

Waldemar is Co-Founder and CTO of LocalStack, where he and his team are building the world-leading platform for local cloud development, based on the hugely popular open source framework with 45k+ stars on Github. Prior to founding LocalStack, Waldemar has held several engineering and management roles at startups as well as large international companies, including Atlassian (Sydney), IBM (New York), and Zurich Insurance. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from TU Vienna.

Links Referenced:

LocalStack website: https://localstack.cloud/
LocalStack Slack channel: https://slack.localstack.cloud
LocalStack Discourse forum: https://discuss.localstack.cloud
LocalStack GitHub repository: https://github.com/localstack/localstack

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