Sunday, October 31, 2021

Developer Platforms aren't Repeatable

While developers are the new kingmakers, it’s rare that any two companies will use the same systems, the same platforms, or the same models to enable developers to be successful. Let’s explore why.   

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DEVELOPERS HAVE NEVER HAD MORE ACCESS TO TOOLS

Between open source tools, improved local hardware (laptops), online tutorials, free tiers, cloud-based tools, SaaS-based platforms and public repositories, there has never been a better time to be an application developer. Yet we still hear complaints about developer productivity, and developers feeling like too many things are in their path to success. 

AND DEVELOPERS HAVE NEVER HAD MORE ACCESS TO PLATFORMS

  1. In a perfect world, there would be a platform that would align to all of a developers needs and patterns, and make everything else “invisible”. 
  2. But platforms (by definition) have opinions, and limitations and have to eventually be maintained by someone (or groups).
  3. Developers don’t like their tools to be dictated to them.
  4. Developers don’t mind having access to too many tools, if they can somehow solve a problem, or a piece of a problem.
  5. People aren’t staying in jobs long enough to really care about long-term technical debt, or the ramifications about their platform decisions. 

 

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Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Real-life Digital Transformation in Banking

Ken Meyer (EVP & CIO Consumer Technology at Truist Bank) talks about the 2yr transformation of Truist Bank (SunTrust and BB&T), managing multiple tech stacks, enabling a multi-cloud strategy, and internal communications and learnings. 

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Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Let’s start by talking about your background, and the scope of the transformation you’ve been driving at Truist Bank. 

Topic 2 - Beyond the merger of two large banks, how did you think about the business challenges that you were trying to solve? 

Topic 3 - Walk us through how you tried to rationalize two technology stacks, and how you’ve been planning for a more cloud-centric future? 

Topic 4 - Every transformation has to balance existing (“old”) and new. How did you work through priorities, leveraging new technologies, maintaining existing systems, learning curves, etc? 

Topic 5 - Have you been able to create any unique ways to manage through the transition of so many technology stacks?

Topic 6 - How are you measuring progress, success, alignment to business goals, etc? 

Topic 7 - How are you communicating the evolution to the teams, as well as management and stakeholders? Any lessons learned?


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Sunday, October 24, 2021

Embrace Your Inner Maker

Many tech workers are struggling with the repetitive effects of the COVID pandemic (work from home, constant video calls, longer hours, etc.). But there’s never been a better time to explore new ways to be a “maker”. 

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CREATIVITY GETS THE BRAIN ENGAGED

We (The Cloudcast)  frequently discuss the need to have a “learning mindset” in the IT industry, since the only constant is changing technologies. But learning requires a specific time commitment and a specific type of mind engagement. It’s important, but at times can feel very mentally draining. Finding a way to be creative, to be a “maker”, can be a good balance to learning. 

MAKERS FIND, ENGAGE and EXPAND via COMMUNITIES

  1. One of the reasons we keep doing The Cloudcast is that it gives us a creative outlet to directly make something. Making something gives you a chance to get feedback. It gives you a chance to succeed or fail. 
  2. Makers tend to seek out other makes, to share experiences, to bond, to create new ideas. These communities tend to be more positive than online forums (e.g. Reddit, HN, etc.) which tend to trend towards negativity and complaints. 
  3. The tools to be a digital creator are more available and more powerful than ever. Our friend Rodrigo Flores had a good Twitter thread this week about the new Apple Mac M1 Pro and how it’s tailored for the (digital) creator economy. 
  4. I’ve been reading a book, The Making of Bandon Dunes, about the history behind the creation of that resort in Oregon. Part of that reading is history, part of it is learning, and part of it is seeing how other creators think about their dreams, their opportunities and their ambitions. And how they overcame challenges.  

 

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Wednesday, October 20, 2021

WebAssembly and wasmCloud

Kevin Hoffman (@KevinHoffman, CTO at @Cosmonic_com, wasmCloud creator) talks about WebAssembly and wasmCloud, and how this new development paradigm can simplify application development.

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Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Let’s start by talking a little bit about your background, and what led you to create wasmCloud. 

Topic 2 - Let’s begin by talking about Webassembly. What is it (a language, a framework??), and what problems does it solve for developers?

Topic 3 - Let’s talk about wasmCloud. Once you’ve built something leveraging Webassembly, how does it interact with wasmCloud?

Topic 4 - Everything in application development tends to be a progression from something prior. How did Webassembly evolve? Docker’s Solomon Hykes said that if wasm+wasi existed 7yrs ago, he never would have created Docker. 

Topic 5 - Yesterday was WASM Day at Cloud Native Con. What were some of the highlights and focus areas?

Topic 6 - What are some of the early uses and usage patterns of Webassembly?

Topic 7 - What are some of the ways to get started with Webassembly and wasmCloud?

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Sunday, October 17, 2021

Technical Debt isn't Free

While many computing systems mirror systems in nature, one aspect that doesn’t is technical debt. The majority of spending is maintaining the existing systems, and yet very little attention is paid to how to reduce the on-going costs. 

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IN NATURE, THE FALL BEGINS THE PROCESS OF RESETTING

In many parts of the world, Fall (or Autumn) gives us a last glimpse of the beauty of nature, but then it resets for another cycle of recuperation and regeneration. This is one of the aspects of nature that the tech industry doesn’t seem to emulate in their systems. 

WE ACCEPT RESETS AND CHANGES ALL AROUND US, EXCEPT IN IT

  1. Why don’t we create “life cycles” on commonly deployed systems? 
  2. Why don’t we prepare people for resets and “leap forwards” better?
  3. Why isn’t there a part of our industry that attempts to innovate in this space, rather than just shift it to another party as “someone else’s problem”?
  4. Why do we assume the same needs (support, uptime, etc.) of the technical debt as we do the new things we build to replace it?


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Wednesday, October 13, 2021

A New Distributed Cloud Architecture

Jonathan Seelig (@j_seelig, Co-Founder/CEO of Ridge) talks about building the distributed cloud, remotely managing cloud resources, and the evolution of the edge. 

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Topic 1 - Welcome to the show. Let’s start by talking a little bit about your background, and what led you to trying to create a new vision of “the cloud”. 

Topic 2 - What types of problems exist with the current (mostly centralized) cloud architectures today? Or where are there new opportunities to rethink and introduce a new architecture?

Topic 3 - Let’s talk about the main concepts behind the Ridge architecture. How much does it borrow from your experience at Akamai, and how much of it is your team looking at the world differently?

Topic 4 - What are the core primitives of Ridge? How do companies engage with it? 

Topic 5 - What are some of the near-term and long-term impacts that you expect companies would see in using the Ridge architecture vs. more centralized cloud architectures? 

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Sunday, October 10, 2021

Innovator's Dilemma - Part 2

Part 2 (of 2) looking at a recent example of how The Innovator’s Dilemma is playing out between the biggest clouds and the challenging upstarts.  

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MAKING A MAJOR CHANGE IS ALWAYS DIFFICULT

Understanding the transition to cloud means understanding that almost everything about your technology stack and business stack will likely have to change, get re-invented, or built from scratch.

A BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS OR FAILURE THROUGH THE TRANSITION

  1. To build or to buy? Do you understand the scope of the problem, the velocity of change this creates,and how well you can actually execute?  
  2. How do you acquire, and how do you manage internal conflict?
  3. What will the new technology stack look like? Are you using the same design principles? Are you using the same architects?  
  4. How does this impact your business? What backstops (“cash cows”) does your business have to prop up the new business? 

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