The Cloudcast

It’s been 13 years since the last economic downturn impacted the tech industry. Many people don’t remember those days, or we’re part of it. Here’s what to expect. SHOW: 627CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:strongDM - Secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. Manage access to any server, database, or Kubernetes instance in minutes. Fully auditable, replayable, secure, and drag-and-drop easy. Try it free for 14 days - www.strongdm.com/signupRevelo: Sidestep the competitive US talent market by hiring remote engineers in Latin America. Source, hire, and pay Latin American engineers in US time zones with one service. Revelo manages all the paperwork including benefits, payroll, and compliance. Hire a full-time engineer with a 14-day trial. Revelo.com/cloudcastDatadog Application Monitoring: Modern Application Performance MonitoringGet started monitoring service dependencies to eliminate latency and errors and enhance your users app experience with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt. SHOW NOTES: FOR THE YOUNGER PEOPLE, THAT WEREN’T AROUND FOR 2008We’re had 10+ years of public cloud adoptionWe’ve had 5+ years of microservices adoption (containers, Kubernetes, etc.)We’ve seen Digital Transformation dominate the headlinesHOW WILL THE CONVERSATION AROUND TECH CHANGE?We're seeing stories about moving back to Private CloudWe're seeing stories that microservices are badWe're seeing stories that Automation and Security spending will increaseWe'll hear less and less about Digital TransformationWe'll hear about hiring slow downs, and some rationalization of salariesFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Alessya Visnjic (CEO, WhyLabs) talks about MLOps, the concept of ML Observability and why AI models can fail. Alyessa talks about the differences between data health and model health and why post production analysis of ML is so important.SHOW: 626CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:New Relic (homepage)Services down? New Relic offers full stack visibility with 16 different monitoring products in a single platform.CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsSHOW NOTES:WhyLabs (homepage)TechCrunch Articlehttps://mlops.communityTopic 1 - Welcome Alessya! You are what is known in the AI/ML spaces as a veteran. For those who aren’t familiar with your previous work, how about a quick introduction and background.Topic 2 - Give everyone a background in MLOps as it is still an emerging market.  We are seeing an emerging trend of trust in data to train models. How did we get to this problem? Is this a transparency and observability problem once in production?Topic 3 -  How is model health different from data health? Post deployment of models can actually be a factor, things like data drift over time…Topic 4 - What does a typical tool chain look like? Under the covers is this a logging platform to provide visibility into the model behavior to ensure accuracy over time? I would think every model is different, how do you “standardize/rationalize” the data to detect anomalies and incorrect results?Topic 5 - Every new category of tools has leading use cases. Where are you seeing the most traction today and how can you best help practitioners? Topic 6 - How can folks get started if they are interested?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Priyanka Vergadia (@pvergadia, Staff Developer Advocate @GoogleCloud) talks about how to use creative visualization to convey complex cloud topics.SHOW: 625CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Revelo: Sidestep the competitive US talent market by hiring remote engineers in Latin America. Source, hire, and pay Latin American engineers in US time zones with one service. Revelo manages all the paperwork including benefits, payroll, and compliance. Hire a full-time engineer with a 14-day trial. Revelo.com/cloudcastDatadog Monitoring: Modern Monitoring and AnalyticsStart monitoring your infrastructure, applications, logs and security in one place with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.strongDM - Secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. Manage access to any server, database, or Kubernetes instance in minutes. Fully auditable, replayable, secure, and drag-and-drop easy. Try it free for 14 days - www.strongdm.com/signup SHOW NOTES:The Cloud Girl (homepage)Visualizing Google Cloud (book) - #1 Best SellerPriyanka Vergadia (LinkedIn)Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. You’re one of our favorite follows on Twitter. Tell us a little bit about your background, and what you focus on these days at Google?Topic 2 - As someone who likes to whiteboard things, I’m drawn (no pun intended) to your style of communicating complex ideas. Where did this skill and style come from?Topic 3 - How was your style looked at by Google, and what types of feedback do you get from the broader community? Topic 4 - In the book, you cover A LOT of topics. How deep do you need to get into a topic before you start drawing it? How do you go about learning all the different technologies?  Topic 5 - What tools do you use to create all the drawings, and more so, you turn a lot of these into videos. Are these tools that other people could easily use?Topic 6 - Any tips you’ve learned about how to communicate complex ideas, either to technical or business people? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Miles Ward (@milesward, CTO @SADA) talks about managing the transition to public cloud, customer vs. provider responsibilities, and how to best leverage cloud provider innovations. SHOW: 624CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsNew Relic (homepage)Services down? New Relic offers full stack visibility with 16 different monitoring products in a single platform.SHOW NOTES:SADA (homepage)Miles Ward (SADA CTO, bio)Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Dude, you’ve done some things. Tell us a little bit about your background at a few of these clouds that people have heard of. Topic 2 - Let’s talk about SADA. We’re really curious about the perspective of Google Cloud vs. AWS. Topic 3 - Based on the revenue numbers, companies are using public cloud services a lot these days. The clouds seem great, because they take a lot of people’s plates. Do you think they realize who is actually responsible for their cloud deployments? Topic 4 - Having build a number of best practices | well-architected designs, how do the cloud providers think about responsibility (let’s take security as an example) and how do they expect customers to take responsibility?   Topic 5 - What are the most common mistakes companies make in this shared responsibility model? What are the biggest gray areas? Topic 6 - Let’s come back to Google Cloud. What are some of the cool things you’re able to uniquely do in Google Cloud that really add business value for your clients?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

During uncertain times, many people seek the help of a mentor. On today’s show, we look at how to find a mentor, and how to consider being a mentor. SHOW: 623CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:Datadog Kubernetes Solution: Maximum Visibility into Container EnvironmentsStart monitoring the health and performance of your container environment with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.strongDM - Secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. Manage access to any server, database, or Kubernetes instance in minutes. Fully auditable, replayable, secure, and drag-and-drop easy. Try it free for 14 days - www.strongdm.com/signupRevelo: Sidestep the competitive US talent market by hiring remote engineers in Latin America. Source, hire, and pay Latin American engineers in US time zones with one service. Revelo manages all the paperwork including benefits, payroll, and compliance. Hire a full-time engineer with a 14-day trial. Revelo.com/cloudcast SHOW NOTES: HOW DOES THE MENTOR-MENTEE PROCESS WORK?How to determine if you’re trying to find a job, or trying to find a mentor. And what does a good mentor-mentee relationship look like? HOW TO FIND A MENTOR, HOW TO BE A MENTORKnow if you’re job hunting or trying to find a mentorBe visible in the community. Define a scope of what you’re asking of the mentorCome with ideas and potential solutionsUnderstand the time commitment needed for successFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Andy Grotto (@grottoandrew, Researcher @StanfordCyber) and Steve Weber (Professor Cal Berkeley I-School) talk about the big picture intersection of Cybersecurity, Global Economy and Government policy. SHOW: 622CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:New Relic (homepage)Services down? New Relic offers full stack visibility with 16 different monitoring products in a single platform.CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsSHOW NOTES:RSA Conference 2022Andrew Grotto - https://fsi.stanford.edu/people/andrew-j-grottoSteven Weber - https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/people/steven-weberTopic 1 - Welcome to the show. Tell us a bit about both of your backgrounds. Topic 2 - You both focus on the intersections between Technology, Gov’t Policy and Economics. We tend to focus on technology, but obviously they are all interconnected.  Where would you start in a 101 Technology-centric class to branch out from Security threats to how it impacts those other areas? Topic 3 - Sometimes individuals feel like they can’t impact macro-level issues. So how do you frame your areas of focus when speaking with Government or Business leaders to get them to understand the scope, the breadth, and what actions could be taken? Topic 4 - We talk a lot on this show about new security technologies, and we talk about companies having trouble keeping up to be able to manage their security. Do you think there are other factors involved that are preventing companies from remaining secure?Topic 5 - What are some of the security (technology) areas where you see opportunities to improve business and government security? Are these areas that need more implementations, or more funding, or more research? Topic 6 - We’re coming (mostly) out of COVID-19, there’s various levels of economic uncertainty around the world (supply chain, inflation). What are the headlines you’re writing today and what are some of the scenarios you see playing out over the next 12-18 months?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Cory Albert (Global Head of Cloud Strategy, Bloomberg Enterprise Data) talks about delivering cloud services to the financial services industry, new cloud delivery models, and innovations on the horizon. SHOW: 621CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:strongDM - Secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. Manage access to any server, database, or Kubernetes instance in minutes. Fully auditable, replayable, secure, and drag-and-drop easy. Try it free for 14 days - www.strongdm.com/signupRevelo: Sidestep the competitive US talent market by hiring remote engineers in Latin America. Source, hire, and pay Latin American engineers in US time zones with one service. Revelo manages all the paperwork including benefits, payroll, and compliance. Hire a full-time engineer with a 14-day trial. Revelo.com/cloudcastDatadog Synthetic Monitoring: Frontend and Backend Modern MonitoringEnsure frontend issues don’t impair user experience by detecting user-facing issues with API and browser tests with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt. SHOW NOTES:Bloomberg Content and DataBloomberg launches Real-Time Data in the Cloud for Global ClientsTopic 1 - Welcome to the show. Bloomberg is one of the most recognized companies in the world. Let’s talk a little bit about your background and where your focus is today.Topic 2 - Help us understand the scope of Bloomberg’s role in the overall financial markets, in terms of delivering data to clients and partners. Topic 3 - The demands of financial markets (latency, data volume, security, etc.) have previously mandated that resources be local (on-prem, specialized co-lo facilities, etc.), but we’re hearing more and more about how financial services are leveraging the public cloud. Can you talk about how this hybrid cloud model might be impacting data management? Topic 4 - As we look out a few years, how do you see shifts in cloud delivery models potentially reshaping how financial services data is used, delivered, protected, etc? What are some of the future trends that you’re keeping your eyes on? Topic 5 - There is a ton of innovation happening around the financial services markets, from how services are delivered to who is using the services. How do these changes shape the way that Bloomberg has to partner with other companies to remain innovative and competitive? Topic 6 - You’re a veteran of the financial services industry. What are some of the interesting areas that you’re seeing for new people coming into the industry where they might have an opportunity to potentially shape the future of financial markets? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Sam Lambert (@isamlambert, CEO @PlanetScaledata) talks about building a cloud-native SQL database from first principles, and how to eliminate the things people hate about database operations. This is cool stuff! SHOW: 620CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsNew Relic (homepage)Services down? New Relic offers full stack visibility with 16 different monitoring products in a single platform.Spot by NetAppMore Cloud, Less Cost (Spot by NetApp)SHOW NOTES:PlanetScale - The Databases for DevelopersVitess - open source databasePlanetScale Rewind - Zero Downtime RevertsTopic 1 - Welcome to the show. In less than 10 years, you’ve had quite a career rise from “MySQL DBA” to some very high-profile roles. Tell us a little bit about your background, and where you focus now as CEO of PlanetScale. Topic 2 - There have been an explosion of “Internet-scale” databases over the last 5 years. Where is the market today for these technologies?  Topic 3 - Scaling databases is difficult. Scaling them while still allowing compatibility with known skills is even harder. PlanetScale builds upon a project called Vitess.  Walk us through the journey of how Vitress got started to where it is today. Topic 4 - What do developers want to know about databases? What do they wish they could ignore or not worry about?  Topic 5 -  In today’s world, what’s the right balance between what developers want and what’s needed under the covers (e.g. Ops, scaling, security, etc.) to make sure the data is always available? What are some of the quantum leaps that PlanetScale has taken to eliminate previous problems? Topic 6 - What are some (customer) examples of things that PlanetScale does now that you wish you had in your previous DBA roles? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

As we wade into global economic uncertainty, let's look at what we can learn from previous (2001, 2008) economic downturns and how they impacted the tech industry. SHOW: 619CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:strongDM - Secure infrastructure access for the modern stack. Manage access to any server, database, or Kubernetes instance in minutes. Fully auditable, replayable, secure, and drag-and-drop easy. Try it free for 14 days - www.strongdm.com/signupDatadog Kubernetes Solution: Maximum Visibility into Container EnvironmentsStart monitoring the health and performance of your container environment with a free 14 day Datadog trial. Listeners of The Cloudcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirt.Revelo: Sidestep the competitive US talent market by hiring remote engineers in Latin America. Source, hire, and pay Latin American engineers in US time zones with one service. Revelo manages all the paperwork including benefits, payroll, and compliance. Hire a full-time engineer with a 14-day trial. Revelo.com/cloudcastSHOW NOTES:WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM PAST ECONOMIC DOWNTURNS AND HOW THEY IMPACT THE TECH INDUSTRYLESSONS FROM PREVIOUS ECONOMIC DOWNTURNSGet your finances in orderMake sure you're aligned to near-term business needsInvest in yourself (health, family, learning, etc.)Align with communities and mentorsFEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet

Danny Fields (CTO/EVP @Avalara) talks about operating large SaaS environments, customizations for customer demands, and transitioning from traditional software. SHOW: 618CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK - http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwCHECK OUT OUR NEW PODCAST - "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SHOW SPONSORS:New Relic (homepage)Services down? New Relic offers full stack visibility with 16 different monitoring products in a single platform.Spot by NetAppMore Cloud, Less Cost (Spot by NetApp)CloudZero - Cloud Cost Intelligence for Engineering TeamsSHOW NOTES:Avalara - Tax Compliance Software for your industryDanny Fields - EVP and CTO EngineeringTopic 1 - Welcome to the show. You’ve got a very broad background in engineering and leadership roles. Can you share with us a little bit of your evolution, and where you focus your time at Avalara?Topic 2 - Give us a little bit of background on Avalara (SaaS for Tax Compliance), and a little bit of details on what it means to run a SaaS platform for such a complex product offering? Topic 3 - You’ve been involved in a number of different SaaS platforms over the years. What are some of the biggest changes and challenges you face in running modern SaaS platforms today?Topic 4 - Taxes are a very complex ecosystem, especially with all the variants around the world. How does a product team think about balancing the desire to deliver a consistent experience (SaaS operations) and customer demands for uniqueness?Topic 5 - How do you think about balancing optimizations around Operations and taking advantage of all the new innovations happening in open-source, or from the cloud-providers, or just internal capabilities from your team? Topic 6 - Any tips for anyone looking to get into SaaS operations, or transitions from traditional data center software delivery? FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netTwitter: @thecloudcastnet