Day Two DevOps

Enterprise data is everywhere: on prem, at the edge, and across the public cloud. Storing and managing that data involves more than just SSDs and spinning disks; it’s about building and operating a data infrastructure. On today’s Day Two DevOps podcast, host Ned Bellavance explores the idea of data infrastructure with Jeff Baxter, VP of... Read more »

Job hunting is never easy and on today’s Day Two Cloud, Katrina Janeczko shares her journey from college to her current role at Comcast. Katrina discusses the challenges of job hunting, the relevance of her education, and the impact of AI tools on her learning process. She also talks about the importance of networking, mentorship,... Read more »

Cloudflare’s transition from SysLog-NG to OpenTelemetry is the topic of discussion on this episode of Day Two DevOps. Guests Colin Douch and Jayson Cena from Cloudflare explain the reasons behind the migration, including the need for better scalability, memory safety, and maintainability. They delve into challenges such as ensuring uninterrupted customer traffic and optimizing performance.... Read more »

AI is everywhere. So are questions about AI’s value, how it really works, and how it will affect technology. Hannah Foxwell aims to demystify AI via a new conference, AI for the Rest of Us, taking place October 24-25, 2024 in London. Hannah hopes to create a collaborative learning environment. In today’s Day Two DevOps... Read more »

Cloud security and responsible disclosure are the focus of today’s conversation with guest Kat Traxler. Kat shares her insights on identifying vulnerabilities in cloud services, particularly Google Cloud, and the importance of curiosity in her research. The episode explores the role of bug bounty programs and the shift towards issuing CVEs for cloud vulnerabilities. Lastly,... Read more »

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is today’s topic with guest Ed Harmoush. TLS plays a critical role in Internet security, and we dive into the differences between versions 1.2 and 1.3 In addition, Ed shares his journey into TLS, explains its components, and addresses common misconceptions about certificates and their validation processes. The episode also highlights... Read more »

On today’s Day Two DevOps we talk with Jen Stone, a technical security assessor and aerial arts competition organizer. Jen shares her journey from IT service desk to becoming a security assessor. She emphasizes the importance of creativity and empathy in regulatory compliance while advocating for a collaborative approach to assessments and auditing Episode Guest:... Read more »

Guests Ashish and Shilpi from the Cloud Security Podcast converse with Ned and Kyler on how humor and relatability can foster an engaging and collaborative environment in DevOps. The conversation also covers the importance of foundational knowledge in technology, the impact of AI on careers, and the value of just being human and learning from... Read more »

Service Level Objectives (SLOs) are a set of reliability measurements for customer or user expectations of services; in other words, are people having a good experience with your application or service? Today’s Day Two Cloud explores SLOs, the relevant metrics, and how to measure them. We also talk about how SLOs are a cross-discipline objective... Read more »

Most platform engineers are scared of databases, and most database administrators prefer it that way. But our guest today says it’s time to move forward together toward a future of database linters, observability, and abstraction. Adam Furmanek makes the case that just like how developers had to learn some networking, and networking tools were created... Read more »

Eric Chou was there for the birth of the public cloud. Before DevOps or SREs were a thing, before Azure was Azure, Eric was a network engineer for Amazon, helping them build out their retail technology platform. Of course, that platform evolved into the world’s leading public cloud–AWS. Eric joins the show today to tell... Read more »

Welcome to a crossover episode with the Heavy Strategy podcast! Firing the wrong person, mistakenly rebooting core switches in a massive network, not passing the CCIE exam– today we talk all about failure. For this conversation, we’re joined by fellow Packet Pushers Kyler Middleton and Ned Bellavance, hosts of the Day Two Cloud podcast. We... Read more »

There are about 1.4 million Kubernetes clusters just sitting out there on the public internet as we speak. That is 1.4 million lateral-movement rich, highly privileged environments. The bearer of this anxiety-provoking news is today’s guest, Lee Briggs. Lee explains why major cloud providers make this the default option– ease of use. The good news... Read more »

Keith Gregory teaches us about data engineering in a way DevOps folks (and hydrologists) can understand. He explains that the role of a data engineer is to create pipelines to transport data from metaphorical rivers and make it usable for data analysts. Keith walks us through the testing process; the difference between streaming pipelines and... Read more »

What makes for a good manager, director, and independent contributor (IC), and how do you figure out which is the best fit for you? Hazel Weakly has had a whirlwind tour of all three and is ready to share her insight into each. We talk about the skill set needed for each, and figuring out... Read more »

AI has been around forever; AI is emergent. AI is just data analytics; AI hallucinates. AI doesn’t have many business use cases; AI is already being used by your employees. Today, Greg and Johna from the Heavy Strategy podcast join Day Two Cloud to give their takes on enterprise AI. Johna brings with her the... Read more »

You can’t just drop a knife on fish and expect there to be sushi. Jack Lindamood joins us today to share his metaphors and thoughts on picking the right IT tools and processes as outlined in his popular article, “(Almost) Every Infrastructure Decision I Endorse or Regret after 4 Years Running Infrastructure at a Startup.”... Read more »

Life isn’t easy for someone looking for a job in tech. There are lots of content mills pushing the idea that if you just pass this one six-month course, you’ll have a six-figure career in no time. There are lots of hiring companies who make job applicants jump through a ton of hoops, but often... Read more »

In this podcast episode, Randy Horton from Orthogonal and Ian Sutcliffe from AWS discuss the complexities of supporting regulated medical devices in the cloud. They explore the challenges of adhering to regulations, the importance of security, and the need for robust frameworks. The conversation highlights the non-prescriptive nature of regulations, encouraging best practices rather than... Read more »

Today we welcome a new co-host, Kyler Middleton, to the Day Two Cloud podcast. Kyler grew up in rural Western Nebraska, fixing neighboring farmers’ computers in exchange for brownies and Rice Krispies. Now she’s the newest co-host for Day Two Cloud… perhaps a lateral move, given the lack of baked goods. Kyler will draw on... Read more »

Chances are, you’ve probably only heard of GovCloud because at the bottom of new feature releases from the Big 3 there’s usually an asterisk that says “not yet available in GovCloud.” So what is GovCloud? And why does it not get the newest shiny thing as fast as the rest of us? Chris Wahl has... Read more »

Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware has generated a lot of anxiety among VMware customers. In this episode, we closely analyze the situation. First, we look at Broadcom’s past acquisitions in the infrastructure sector. Then we examine the product alignment and possible new product offerings and whether the acquisition will hamper innovation and development. We also cover... Read more »

What are we talking about when we are all talking about private clouds? On-prem? Hybrid? Virtualization? Where does hardware fit into it all– and would younger engineers even know what to do with a physical piece of hardware? Driven by Broadcom’s acquisition of VMare and the anticipated rising costs of VMare licenses, enterprises are exploring... Read more »

Chaos engineering is all about resilience and reliability… it just takes the harder path to get there. By injecting random and unpredictable behavior to the point of failure, chaos engineers observe systems’ weak points, apply preventative maintenance, and develop a failover plan. Matt Schillerstrom from Harness introduces Ned and Ethan to this wild corner of... Read more »

Cloud repatriation: Is it a good idea? Guest Marino Wijay, an OSI and networking open source advocate, joins hosts Ethan Banks and Ned Bellavance to discuss the recent interest in cloud repatriation. They cover the intricacies of moving workloads from the cloud back to on-premises or edge environments, and question if it is possible to... Read more »

Today we’re talking about Python. If you’re new to Python and want to add it to your toolkit, this is the show for you. This episode offers a broad perspective on all the approaches and plug-ins that Python includes. Our guest Michael Kennedy is a Python enthusiast and Python instructor. We discuss: Why you should... Read more »

We talk with Tim Banks about a wide range of topics including career development, how to stand out as an interview candidate, building a resume, finding your blind spots, diversity in tech (or lack thereof), and more. Let’s get into all the things with Tim! Episode Guest: Tim Banks | Lead Developer Advocate at Dell... Read more »

While it’s easy to find technical content and make professional connections online, in-person interactions are still valuable for learning, forging business and personal connections, and career development. On today’s Day Two Cloud we discuss how and why to build local tech communities. Guest Laura Santamaria is a developer, developer advocate, and longtime community builder. We... Read more »

Today’s show explores platform engineering. Guest Chad McElligott has thought a lot about the practice of platform engineering, and a blog post and talk he gave about the subject inspired us to reach out and have a conversation. Chad describes platform engineering as “the application of a Product Mindset to supporting your engineering organization’s software... Read more »

On today’s Day Two Cloud podcast we talk about a cloud project where things didn’t go as planned. There were people problems, technical problems, and regulatory problems. Our guest Jonah Andersson shares lessons learned and how they can inform your own cloud strategies. We also talk about how to identify your project goals to determine... Read more »

This is part two of a special edition of Day Two Cloud we’re calling Security KubeConversations. I spent two days in the Windy City, attending KubeCon Cloud Native Con Chicago 2023. I had the opportunity to speak to a wide array of vendors and open source maintainers about what’s happening on the security front in... Read more »

Our KubeConversations series continues with a two-part episode on securing Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructure. I attended KubeCon 2023 in Chicago and had the opportunity to speak with vendors and open-source maintainers about the work they’re doing to help protect your Kubernetes environments. In this episode we’ll talk about a Kubernetes Bill of Materials, protecting K8s... Read more »

Welcome to Day Two Cloud! In this episode with Microsoft, it’s November 2023, and I’m in Seattle for the Microsoft Ignite conference. If you think you heard this intro before and you’re wondering if you’re hearing the same episode again, you’re not. This is the second episode from Microsoft Ignite 2023. Today, I’m talking with... Read more »

From using hollow core fiber to building networks designed to support AI workloads and modern applications, there’s a lot happening in Azure networking. In this sponsored Day Two Cloud episode, recorded live at Microsoft Ignite this November, we have a wide-ranging discussion about new and forthcoming features and capabilities. My guest is Narayan Annamalai, who... Read more »

Welcome to part 2 of my KubeConversations. I spent two days in the Windy City attending KubeCon Cloud Native Con Chicago. I had the opportunity to speak to a wide array of vendors and open source maintainers about what’s going on in the cloud native ecosystem. From those conversations, I picked up on some major... Read more »

Welcome to a special edition of Day Two Cloud. Host Ned Bellavance traveled to KubeCon Chicago 2023 and spoke to vendors and open source maintainers about what’s going on in the cloud-native ecosystem. This episode features conversations on platform engineering. Part 2 will focus on security. Episode Guests: Cole Morrison, Developer Advocate at HashiCorp LinkedIn... Read more »

What if you could have a multi-cloud network that was cloud-native, but you didn’t have to know the nitty-gritty details for each of the clouds? That is, you work with a cloud network interface, and that platform handles the networking–in a cloud-native way–for you. You wouldn’t need to know the nuances of AWS, Azure, and... Read more »

AI and machine learning are being more widely used in IT and elsewhere. Today's episode opens the AI magic box to better understand what's inside, including software and hardware. We discuss essentials such as training models and parameters, software components, GPUs, networking, and storage. We also discuss using cloud-based AI platforms vs. building your own in-house, and what to consider when assembling your own AI infrastructure.

On today's Day Two Cloud we talk about how to build a successful security practice within your organization. Our guest is Swathi Joshi, VP, SaaS Cloud Security at Oracle. She breaks down security teams into three core groups: proactive security, defensive security, and assurance (risk reduction, enabling secure access, meeting compliance requirements). She also shares her insights around SoCs, security automation, threat and vulnerability management, and successful blue team practices.

The goal of private AI is to bring AI models and compute to where your data is stored to ensure privacy and control. On today's Day Two Cloud, sponsored by VMware, we dig more deeply into private AI, major use cases, and the kinds of data that get fed into a private AI system. We also discuss the infrastructure required to build out a private AI platform, how to connect to your data stores, and VMware's role in virtualizing GPUs to maximize efficiency.

Today's Day Two Cloud covers highlights from a recent Edge Field Day event. Ned Bellavance was a delegate at the event and will share perceptions and insights based on presentations from the event. Topics include a working definition of edge, the constraints of hosting infrastructure in edge locations (power, space, network connectivity and others), and operational models for running software and services in these environments.

Welcome to Day Two Cloud. If you want your journey to infrastructure automation to be successful, you have to prepare for that journey. On today's show we talk about how to lay the groundwork for infrastructure automation or Infrastructure as Code (IaC). And this isn't just about tools and training (though we do also discuss these). There are organizational, team, and personal elements required to help people to incorporate automation into their daily work.

Welcome to Day Two Cloud! Today we talk with sponsor Mirantis about Lens AppIQ. If you've started using Kuberentes and you've got multiple clusters supporting many applications, Lens AppIQ help you get visibility into what's going on. Lens AppIQ is a SaaS service that provides app-centric visibility, policy management, and governance. It's targeted at developers and DevOps teams.

Day Two Cloud continues the Cloud Essentials series with cloud storage. We focus specifically on AWS's offering, which include object, file, and block storage options. We also discuss special file systems, file caching, instance stores, and more. We cover use cases for the major storage options and their costs. We also touch briefly on storage services including data migration, hybrid cloud storage, and disaster recovery and backup.

Today on Day Two Cloud we go deep on new areas of cloud security that you may not be familiar with. There are forces out there that are driving the rise of new security tools and processes, and we bring back guest Jo Peterson to help us make sense of it all.

On today's Day Two Cloud we discuss the state of network automation and whether and how it can catch up to automation in the public cloud. We look at network automation challenges, define boundaries with other elements of the infrastructure stack, the impact of cloud networking, whether AI and ML can help, and more. Our guests are Chris Grundemann and Scott Robohn, co-founders of the Network Automation Forum (NAF).

Today's Day Two Cloud kicks off an occasional series on cloud essentials. For the first episode we discuss the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). A VPC is an fundamental construct of a public cloud. It's essentially your slice of the shared cloud infrastructure, and you can launch and run other elements within a VPC to support your workload. Ned Bellavance walks through key VPC components including regions and AZs, networking and IP addressing, paid add-ons, data egress and associated charges, monitoring and troubleshooting, and basic security controls.

Today on Day Two Cloud we dive into the implications of licensing changes that HashiCorp has made to its popular Terraform software. In short, the company has switched from an open source to a business source license. HashiCorp says it felt compelled to make the change to ensure that some other business entity doesn't take the open-source software and turn it into a competing product (looking at you, AWS). Will the licensing change have a significant impact? For 99% of users probably not, but there are caveats and concerns to discuss. Today's show is a crossover with Chaos Lever, a weekly podcast co-hosted by Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner that covers IT news.

On today's Day Two Cloud we examine the similarities and differences among SSE and SASE, which provide cloud-delivered security; and SD-WAN, which can provide connections to these services. We also discuss the drivers for cloud-delivered security, the role of networking, where and how zero trust can come into play, some of the big players in these spaces, and more.

Red teams attack a customer's security systems. The idea of a red team, whether consultants or in-house, is to approach the target like an attacker would. A red team includes technical and human-based exploit and attempts to test defenses, probe for weaknesses, and identify vulnerable systems and processes. On today's episode we look at how to get the most out of a red team engagement--it's much more than just an attack and a report.