In this episode, Oliver Cronk is joined for a discussion on observability by Scott Rowan, Senior Developer at Scott Logic, and Daniel Gomez Blanco, Principal Engineer at Skyscanner and a member of the Open Telemetry Governance Committee.   The conversation explores what observability means in modern distributed software architectures, how it differs from traditional monitoring, and the challenges of implementing observability at scale. The discussion touches on practical aspects of implementing observability and how this approach can lead to faster problem detection and resolution, as well as cost savings by reducing the volume of less useful data collected.   The rise in popularity of observability has gone hand in hand with the rise of microservices and event-driven architectures. But although it’s a relatively new kid on the block, is observability hyped or a necessary evolution in managing modern software systems? Links from this episode What is Observability? – The New Relic perspective What is Observability? – The Dynatrace perspective OpenTelemetry website OpenTelemetry introduction at CloudNativeCon

In this episode, Oliver Cronk, Doro Hinrichs and Kira Clark from Scott Logic are joined by Peter Gostev, Head of AI at Moonpig. Together, they explore whether we can ever really trust and secure Generative AI (GenAI), while sharing stories from the front line about getting to grips with this rapidly evolving technology. With its human-like, non-deterministic nature, GenAI frustrates traditional pass/fail approaches to software testing. The panellists explore ways to tackle this, and discuss Scott Logic’s Spy Logic project which helps development teams investigate defensive measures against prompt injection attacks on a Large Language Model. Looking to the future, they ask whether risk mitigation measures will ever be effective – and what impact this will have on product and service design – before offering pragmatic advice on what organisations can do to navigate this terrain. Links from this episode Prompt injection explained, with video, slides, and a transcript – Simon Willison's Weblog Spy Logic on GitHub Spy Logic – Doro Hinrichs and Heather Logan How the tables turned – My life with Spy Logic – Kira Clark

In this episode, Oliver Cronk and David Rees from Scott Logic are joined by Hannah Smith, Director of Operations at Green Web Foundation, an organisation aiming to make the internet fossil-free by 2030. Together, they explore the potential benefits and limitations of ‘carbon aware’ computing, which involves scheduling computational workloads during times or in locations where energy sources have lower carbon emissions. With the simplicity of ‘carbon aware’ being at odds with the complexities of managing the electricity grid, they move on to discussing ‘grid aware’. This concept goes beyond carbon intensity to take into account factors like grid stability, demand patterns, and energy sources being curtailed. Ultimately, they consider just how marginal the gains are likely to be. With global emissions from cloud computing already exceeding those from commercial flights, is ‘carbon aware’ a distraction from getting to grips with the scale of the challenge we face? Links from this episode Green Web Foundation What software engineers need to know about how energy grids work - Green Web Foundation (thegreenwebfoundation.org) Full Grid Aware Research on GitHub Sustainability topic on the Scott Logic Blog

In this episode, Colin Eberhardt is joined by Jess McEvoy and Peter Chamberlin, who have both spent many years in senior roles within public sector organisations. Their conversation covers the excitement and concerns around AI, both from a citizen's perspective and for those building public services. They discuss the UK government’s approach to addressing AI challenges with its pro-innovation mantra, and whether this creates the right environment for success. They also touch on the need for global cooperation when tackling what are increasingly becoming global challenges. Links from this episode A guide to using artificial intelligence in the public sector  National AI Strategy (PDF) A pro-innovation approach to AI Prime Minister's speech on AI: 26 October 2023 The Bletchley Declaration – November 2023 Policy implications of artificial intelligence (AI)  A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation: government response  AI Safety Institute - Third progress report

In this episode, Oliver Cronk, Andrew Carr and David Hope talk about the ever-changing world of data, with conversations moving from data warehouse to data lake, and data mesh to data fabric. They discuss the importance of data ownership and common tooling, and their view that data mesh is an approach rather than an architecture. Links from the podcast Data Mesh by Zhamak Dehghani Data Fabric as Modern Data Architecture by Alice LaPlante Principles of Data Fabric by Sonia Mezzetta

In this episode, Oliver Cronk is joined by experts including Jeremy Axe, Group CTO at DS Smith, and consultants Darren Smith and Katie Davis from Scott Logic. Together, they unpack topics like the energy usage and carbon emissions of IT infrastructure, the challenges in accurately measuring sustainability, and whether claims of ‘green tech’ are substantiated or just hype. The conversation covers the nuances around operational versus embodied carbon emissions, the sustainability trade-offs involved in cloud versus on-premises hosting, and the need for transparency and standards around eco-friendly tech claims. Links from the podcast Proposed Technology Carbon Standard – open sourced by Scott Logic under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence Scott Logic blog posts on Sustainability – including the Conscientious Computing series DS Smith's approach to sustainability Scott Logic’s approach to supporting technology sustainability

In this episode, Colin is joined by Rebecca Rumbul, CEO of Rust Foundation, and Mirko Boehm from Linux Foundation Europe. Between them, they have decades of experience in open source. They start by discussing the critical role open source has grown to play in the world of software and how this, along with its growing complexity, presents significant challenges. They then turn their attention to the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), a piece of EU legislation that is actively under development, designed to make end-user products more secure. Early drafts of this act detailed significant obligations on open source maintainers, despite the fact that they often work without financial reward. This caused concern, fear and some anger in the open source community. They discuss the latest update to the CRA, which has thankfully addressed these concerns, and ponder whether it will actually solve the problems it has set out to tackle. Links from the podcast: Panel Discussion: The Impact of the CRA on the Open Source Ecosystem – Cheukting, Mirko & Greg, Laura, Justin, Philip The EU's new Cyber Resilience Act is about to tell us how to code – Bert Hubert's writings Will the Cyber Resilience Act help the European ICT sector compete? Understanding the Cyber Resilience Act: What Everyone involved in Open Source Development Should Know EU CRA: What does it mean for open source? – Bert Hubert's writings  The EU's Proposed CRA Law May Have Unintended Consequences for the Python Ecosystem

In this episode, Oliver and Peter from Scott Logic are joined by Laura Bell Main, CEO and co-founder of SafeStack, for a lively discussion on DevSecOps. They touch on techniques such as “assume breach” and “shift left”, and the relationship to DevOps, which is trying to solve a similar problem. However, much of the discussion focused quite simply on security and the challenges this presents, especially when this so often falls to a very small team or an individual. Laura mentioned OneHourAppSec at the end of the recording. It’s a free appsec program that helps software teams worldwide bring security to their software development lifecycle in just one hour per sprint. You can join at any time, from anywhere. She’d love you to check it out. Links from the podcast: The Assume Breach Paradigm  Shift left vs shift right: A DevOps mystery solved  

Bailey Hayes and Sean Isom delve into the origins of WebAssembly, its potential beyond the browser, and the Component Model breaking language barriers. They discuss comparisons to Docker, secure default settings, and upcoming events. The podcast explores WebAssembly's role in web development, low adoption rates, and expanding use cases outside browsers. They highlight its performance benefits, language ecosystem unification, and simplified application deployment.

In this episode, Colin Eberhardt is joined by colleagues Oliver Cronk, Chris Price and James Heward for a lively debate on whether the latest advances in generative AI are going to threaten our jobs – are we going to be made redundant by our own creation? The discussion starts with a quick summary of the latest advances in AI, and considers the nascent reasoning capabilities these models exhibit. The discussion then explores the various tasks and roles required to build software applications, and considers the impact this technology will have. Links from the podcast: AI is morphing from tool to platform (and the next technology epoch begins) – some personal reflections on the impact of this technology Catching up with OpenAI – a quick update on the most recent advances and research from OpenAI An OpenAI API primer – a three-part series that covers explores the API, explaining concepts such as few-shot learning Sam Altman: OpenAI CEO on GPT-4, ChatGPT, and the Future of AI – Lex Fridman and Sam Altman chat about the future of AI Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4 – Researchers find that GPT4 is more than just a text generation engine