Screaming in the Cloud

About PeteI enjoy improving companies organizational structures, providing insight into building and growing autonomous high functioning, high performing technical teams. I'm fascinated by the dynamics of high performance, and take great pride in building and supporting those teams. I also enjoy the intricacies of Systems Architecture, Design, and Implementation work. I like to use modern tools to solve difficult technology problems. I'm most excited by Automation, Observability, Data Engineering.  I'm a product minded technologist. For the last 20 years working from Internet Service Providers and Hosting Companies to modern SaaS hosted on Cloud providers. I like to understand how people use the products that I build, and I like to build things that last a long time.I consider product needs, business requirements, and technical capabilities when building products or planning new features. I work to understand the user and how and why they consume a service. All of our actions can impact many different ways, and I enjoy understanding how services, product teams, and business units work. I like to find ways to take one team's success and apply it more broadly, leveling up the entire business.  I like to get things done. I'm not too fond of unnecessary processes that slow down progress. I like iterative improvements, bringing new features into users' hands as quickly as possible, even if they are tiny changes. I want to share what I learn—both internal to a company and external to a broader community. I enjoy the business side of technology as much as the technical side. I went back to school and received my MBA to understand the language of business. I enjoyed my product and finance classes the most. I like to understand the financial impact of product decisions. I don't like waste (in time or money), and I also believe premature optimization is the root of all evil.Links:Last Tweet in AWS: https://lasttweetinaws.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/petecheslockLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petecheslock/

About MaciejMaciej Winnicki is a serverless enthusiast with over 6 years of experience in writing software with no servers whatsoever. Serverless Engineer at Stedi, Cloudash Founder, ex-Engineering Manager, and one of the early employees at Serverless Inc.Links:Cloudash: https://cloudash.devMaciej Winnicki Twitter: https://twitter.com/mthenwTomasz Łakomy Twitter: https://twitter.com/tlakomyCloudash email: hello@cloudash.dev

About MattMatt is an AWS DevTools Hero, Serverless Architect, Author and conference speaker. He is focused on creating the right environment for empowered teams to rapidly deliver business value in a well-architected, sustainable and serverless-first way.You can usually find him sharing reusable, well architected, serverless patterns over at cdkpatterns.com or behind the scenes bringing CDK Day to life.Links:AWS CDK Patterns: https://cdkpatterns.comThe CDK Book: https://thecdkbook.comCDK Day: https://www.cdkday.comTranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: It seems like there is a new security breach every day. Are you confident that an old SSH key, or a shared admin account, isn’t going to come back and bite you? If not, check out Teleport. Teleport is the easiest, most secure way to access all of your infrastructure. The open source Teleport Access Plane consolidates everything you need for secure access to your Linux and Windows servers—and I assure you there is no third option there. Kubernetes clusters, databases, and internal applications like AWS Management Console, Yankins, GitLab, Grafana, Jupyter Notebooks, and more. Teleport’s unique approach is not only more secure, it also improves developer productivity. To learn more visit: goteleport.com. And not, that is not me telling you to go away, it is: goteleport.com.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Rising Cloud, which I hadn’t heard of before, but they’re doing something vaguely interesting here. They are using AI, which is usually where my eyes glaze over and I lose attention, but they’re using it to help developers be more efficient by reducing repetitive tasks. So, the idea being that you can run stateless things without having to worry about scaling, placement, et cetera, and the rest. They claim significant cost savings, and they’re able to wind up taking what you’re running as it is in AWS with no changes, and run it inside of their data centers that span multiple regions. I’m somewhat skeptical, but their customers seem to really like them, so that’s one of those areas where I really have a hard time being too snarky about it because when you solve a customer’s problem and they get out there in public and say, “We’re solving a problem,” it’s very hard to snark about that. Multus Medical, Construx.ai and Stax have seen significant results by using them. And it’s worth exploring. So, if you’re looking for a smarter, faster, cheaper alternative to EC2, Lambda, or batch, consider checking them out. Visit risingcloud.com/benefits. That’s risingcloud.com/benefits, and be sure to tell them that I said you because watching people wince when you mention my name is one of the guilty pleasures of listening to this podcast.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I’m Corey Quinn. I’m joined today by Matt Coulter, who is a Technical Architect at Liberty Mutual. You may have had the privilege of seeing him on the keynote stage at re:Invent last year—in Las Vegas or remotely—that last year of course being 2021. But if you make better choices than the two of us did, and found yourself not there, take the chance to go and watch that keynote. It’s really worth seeing.Matt, first, thank you for joining me. I’m sorry, I don’t have 20,000 people here in the audience to clap this time. They’re here, but they’re all remote as opposed to sitting in the room behind me because you know, social distancing.Matt: And this left earphone, I just have some applause going, just permanently, just to keep me going. [laugh].Corey: That’s sort of my own internal laugh track going on. It’s basically whatever I say is hilarious, to that. So yeah, doesn’t really matter what I say, how I say it, my jokes are all for me. It’s fine. So, what was it like being on stage in front of that many people? It’s always been a wild experience to watch and for folks who haven’t spent time on the speaking circuit, I don’t think that there’s any real conception of what that’s like. Is this like giving a talk at work, where I just walk on stage randomly, whatever I happened to be wearing? And, oh, here’s a microphone, I’m going to say words. What is the process there?Matt: It’s completely different. For context for everyone, before the pandemic, I would have pretty regularly talked in front of, I don’t know, maybe one, two hundred people in Liberty, in Belfast. So, I used to be able to just, sort of, walk in front of them, and lean against the pillar, and use my clicker, and click through, but the process for actually presenting something as big as a keynote and re:Invent is so different. For starters, you think that when you walk onto the stage, you’ll actually be able to see the audience, but the way the lights are set up, you can pretty much see about one row of people, and they’re not the front row, so anybody I knew, I couldn’t actually see.And yeah, you can only see, sort of like, the from the void, and then you have your screens, so you’ve six sets of screens that tell you your notes as well as what slides you’re on, you know, so you can pivot. But other than that, I mean, it feels like you’re just talking to yourself outside of whenever people, thankfully, applause. It’s such a long process to get there.Corey: I’ve always said that there are a few different transition stages as the audience size increases, but for me, the final stage is more or less anything above 750 people. Because as you say, you aren’t able to see that many beyond that point, and it doesn’t really change anything meaningfully. The most common example that you see in the wild is jokes that work super well with a small group of people fall completely flat to large audiences. It’s why so much corporate numerous cheesy because yeah, everyone in the rehearsals is sitting there laughing and the joke kills, but now you’ve got 5000 people sitting in a room and that joke just sounds strained and forced because there’s no longer a conversation, and no one has the shared context that—the humor has to change. So, in some cases when you’re telling a story about what you’re going to say on stage, during a rehearsal, they’re going to say, “Well, that joke sounds really corny and lame.” It’s, “Yeah, wait until you see it in front of an audience. It will land very differently.” And I’m usually right on that.I would also advise, you know, doing what you do and having something important and useful to say, as opposed to just going up there to tell jokes the whole time. I wanted to talk about that because you talked about how you’re using various CDK and other serverless style patterns in your work at Liberty Mutual.Matt: Yeah. So, we’ve been using CDK pretty extensively since it was, sort ...

About MilesAs Chief Technology Officer at SADA, Miles Ward leads SADA’s cloud strategy and solutions capabilities. His remit includes delivering next-generation solutions to challenges in big data and analytics, application migration, infrastructure automation, and cost optimization; reinforcing our engineering culture; and engaging with customers on their most complex and ambitious plans around Google Cloud.Previously, Miles served as Director and Global Lead for Solutions at Google Cloud. He founded the Google Cloud’s Solutions Architecture practice, launched hundreds of solutions, built Style-Detection and Hummus AI APIs, built CloudHero, designed the pricing and TCO calculators, and helped thousands of customers like Twitter who migrated the world’s largest Hadoop cluster to public cloud and Audi USA who re-platformed to k8s before it was out of alpha, and helped Banco Itau design the intercloud architecture for the bank of the future.Before Google, Miles helped build the AWS Solutions Architecture team. He wrote the first AWS Well-Architected framework, proposed Trusted Advisor and the Snowmobile, invented GameDay, worked as a core part of the Obama for America 2012 “tech” team, helped NASA stream the Curiosity Mars Rover landing, and rebooted Skype in a pinch.Earning his Bachelor of Science in Rhetoric and Media Studies from Willamette University, Miles is a three-time technology startup entrepreneur who also plays a mean electric sousaphone.Links:SADA.com: https://sada.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/mileswardEmail: miles@sada.com

About LeviLevi's passion lies in helping others learn to cloud better.Links:Jamf: https://www.jamf.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/levi_mccormick

About AaronI am a Cloud Focused Product Management and Technical Product Ownership Consultant. I have worked on several Cloud Products & Services including resale, management & governance, cost optimisation, platform management, SaaS, PaaS. I am also recognised as a AWS Community Builder due to my work building cloud communities cross-government in the UK over the last 3 years. I have extensive commercial experience dealing with Cloud Service Providers including AWS, Azure, GCP & UKCloud. I was the Single Point of Contact for Cloud at the UK Home Office and was the business representative for the Home Office's £120m contract with AWS. I have been involved in contract negotiation, supplier relationship management & financial planning such as business cases & cost management.I run a IT Consultancy called Embue, specialising in Agile, Cloud & DevOps consulting, coaching and training. Links:Twitter: https://twitter.com/AaronBoothUKLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronboothuk/Embue: https://embue.co.ukPublicgood.cloud: https://publicgood.cloud

About EllEll, former SysAdmin, cloud builder, podcaster, and container advocate, has always been a security enthusiast. This enthusiasm and driven curiosity have helped her become an active member of the InfoSec community, leading her to explore the exciting world of Genetic Software Mapping at Intezer.Links:Intezer: https://www.intezer.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/Ell_o_Punk

About Serena Serena is a Network Engineer who specializes in Data Center Compute and Virtualization. She has degrees in Computer Information Systems with a concentration on networking and information security and is currently pursuing a master’s in Data Center Systems Engineering. She is most known for her content on TikTok and Twitter as Shenetworks. Serena’s content focuses on networking and security for beginners which has included popular videos on bug bounties, switch spoofing, VLAN hoping, and passing the Security+ certification in 24 hours.Links:TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shenetworksTwitter: https://twitter.com/notshenetworks?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

About AnilAnil Dash is the CEO of Glitch, the friendly developer community where coders collaborate to create and share millions of web apps. He is a recognized advocate for more ethical tech through his work as an entrepreneur and writer. He serves as a board member for organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending digital privacy and expression, Data & Society Research Institute, which researches the cutting edge of tech's impact on society, and The Markup, the nonprofit investigative newsroom that pushes for tech accountability. Dash was an advisor to the Obama White House’s Office of Digital Strategy, served for a decade on the board of Stack Overflow, the world’s largest community for coders, and today advises key startups and non-profits including the Lower East Side Girls Club, Medium, The Human Utility, DonorsChoose and Project Include.As a writer and artist, Dash has been a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Wired, written for publications like The Atlantic and Businessweek, co-created one of the first implementations of the blockchain technology now known as NFTs, had his works exhibited in the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and collaborated with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on one of the most popular Spotify playlists of 2018. Dash has also been a keynote speaker and guest in a broad range of media ranging from the Obama Foundation Summit to SXSW to Desus and Mero's late-night show.Links:Glitch: https://glitch.comWeb.dev: https://web.devGlitch Twitter: https://twitter.com/glitchAnil Dash Twitter: https://twitter.com/anildash

About DanDan is CISO and VP of Cybersecurity for Shipt, a Target subsidiary. He worked previously as a Distinguished Engineer on Target’s cloud infrastructure. He served as CTO for Joe Biden’s 2020 Presidential campaign. Prior to that Dan worked with the Hillary for America tech team through the Groundwork, and contributed as a founding developer on Spinnaker while at Netflix. Dan is an O’Reilly published author and avid public speaker.  Links:Shipt: https://www.shipt.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/danveloperLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danveloper