2018 May 23

Kubernetes Is An Operations API

What is Kubernetes? According to the home page: Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. On that basis, Kubernetes has matured and evolved, becoming not just “an open-source system”, but the system for orchestrating containerized applications. By extension, it is the system for orchestrating any dynamic, self-healing, rapid deployment application. In October 2017, Docker threw in the towel on Docker Swarm and made Kubernetes its default (and apparently soon only) orchestration system.

2018 May 21

KubeCon Observations

Two weeks ago, I attended KubeCon/CloudNativeCon EU 2018 in Copenhagen. The sheer size of the conference was astounding. Over 4,000 people attended.. In addition to the sheer size, the professionalism of both the conference itself - audiovisual, presentation, organization and administration - and the sponsor booths was very impressive. I have always enjoyed Linux Foundation events, very warm and friendly, but a little, as they say in Yiddish, “heimish”. They contrasted with the professionally run conferences you could attend put on by other organizations.

2017 Jun 23

Agile, On-Demand and Commitment Cloud Prices

Yesterday, I worked with a colleague to determine costing for their newly deployed kubernetes cluster on AWS (Walmart must not be a customer...). The math was mostly straightforward: Get cost of instance by size, multiply by number of instances and 720 hours per month; Add EBS block storage; Add ELBs; Add data traffic out; Add S3 storage. Repeat for each environment, and you have your answer. By far, the biggest cost line item is the first: instances.

2017 Jun 5

It's About the Carbon, Not the Silicon

Earlier today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Stuart Hasking, a colleague from my financial services IT days, and currently a strategic consultant at TESM. We were discussing the challenges in making changes in a technology environment, when he shared a great line that summarizes the issue perfectly: "It's about the carbon, not the silicon." Most people view technology - deploying servers, designing networks, writing software - and especially complex large-scale distributed technology, as hard.

2017 May 11

The Narcotic Of Professional Services

In the technology world, selling new products is hard. Selling to enterprises is even harder. Small companies were (relatively) easy. They took a little bit of handholding to get your SaaS/software/hardware configured "just right" for them, but most of what they wanted pretty much fit into the offering anyways; it was "on the truck." As you expand up-market into larger customers, customization demands increase. They need: Integration with their (unique) login system Special compliance controls Unique flows and processes Added manual approval steps etc.

2017 May 4

Tech War or Diplomacy?

Yesterday, I published an article asking, "Did Docker Declare War on RedHat and CoreOS?" I received several responses pointing out market-related developments. A number of people said they know that Docker did not intend to "declare war" on CoreOS and RedHat. Docker simply was developing its tools that they needed anyways and advanced their market. With the change in CEOs this week at Docker, highly unlikely they would start a war immediately before changing.

2017 May 3

Did Docker Declare War on RedHat and CoreOS?

Yesterday, at DockerCon, Docker Inc announced open-sourcing its LinuxKit toolkit to build Linux operating system images. LinuxKit (the platform that has been rumoured as Moby for over a year) provides a relatively easy-to-use toolkit for building immutable operating system distributions. Normally, an operating system is a platform that you change on a regular basis. Sure, the core itself - the kernel and modules and basic tools - are changed only when you upgrade or patch your operating system.

2017 Apr 7

You Cannot Buy Your Culture Into Nimbleness

I find it interesting when the same conversation happens with two different people in the span of just a few days. In the past week, I had almost the exact same conversation twice, with two different people at two different companies, about culture and acquisitions. In both cases, they had initiated the topic of conversation. The following is a common pattern: Company Small is founded to bring a product to the market.

2017 Apr 5

Getting A Header On Recruiting Engineers

As every successful CEO (and VP) will tell you, recruiting great people is their top priority. Sure, they need revenue, and deliverables, and to manage funds, and a million other things. But great people are how you get these things done. In a competitive market, firms look for original ways to find and hire great people. Engineers, in particular, are in very high demand, and firms look not only for new ways to find them, but also exciting ways to appeal to them.

2017 Feb 24

I Have Given You a Service, If You Can Keep it

In my world of technology operations, two major themes recur again and again (redundantly): Incentives Litmus Tests I have written about incentives extensively on this blog. In short, as the saying goes, "you get what you measure." Don't expect extra customer handholding if you measure your support team by time spent on issues or minimizing average ticket time. Sure, you need to operate cost-effectively, but the key word is "