So what does "cloud native" mean exactly - and how does it fit into the DevOps and microservices movement as a whole? We've invited Robert Vettor from Microsoft Premier to talk to us for thirty minutes about this architectural framework and what it means for companies wanting to produce software that's less brittle and more performant. We talk about 12-Factor Methodology, Robert's upcoming (great!) book on the topic, and a lot of free resources and guidelines that can help you map out a winning strategy for your enterprise. 

We welcome back an old friend to the podcast - John-Daniel Trask of Raygun! We talk about the importance of monitoring and making that connection with the customer experience, and what he's seen go right - and wrong - in working with companies large and small. We're huge fans of Raygun and see this company's growth as a natural byproduct of producing the right product that reinforces all the behaviors we want out of the Devops movement. Enjoy!

A great interview with Betsy Beyer and Stephen Thorne of Google, coauthors of the incredible "Site Reliability Engineering Workbook". We cover a lot of ground in this interview, including how Google learns from failures, what toil is and how good organizations try to fight it, and when LESS reliability can be a good thing in software development. Betsy and Stephen's work around publicizing and breaking down the myths surrounding SRE have been huge boons to our industry; we find their work and thinking incredibly helpful and influential. You'll love it too!

So thrilled to have Gary as a guest on the Achieving DevOps podcast! Gary Gruver is one of my personal DevOps heroes and is very well known for his landmark books. His writing is powerful and pragmatic - revealing a solid background in the manufacturing field. He brings a process-driven engineer’s perspective that is always enjoyable and enlightening! He’s worked with HP, Macys, and a host of other enterprises in helping them achieve a stable quality signal and improve their delivery pipelines.

Had a great interview recently with Michael Stahnke of CircleCI! Back when I first met him, he was at Puppet – and I loved hearing his perspectives on continuous delivery and configuration management tools. Now he’s on to new things at CircleCI, as Platform VP.

As usual we range pretty far and wide. We cover communication and interpersonal relationships, the primary value of automation (hint – it’s not speed!), microservices, and hiring for compatibility. As he says – “One of my favorite DevOps tools is called ‘lunch’!”

Had such a great conversation recently with Tyler Hardison, the CTO of Redhawk Security. When I originally reached out to him for an interview in my book, I was primarily interested in what he had to say about DevSecOps and building security into the software lifecycle. What surprised me was the breadth of his experience – we talked about what the formations of the Roman army can teach us about ideal team sizes, how to build a workable (not mean, not toothless) peer review, and how to lure and select the best talent. 

Enjoy!

I got a chance recently to get reacquainted with a very prominent figure in the Oregon tech industry - Ryan Comingdeer from Five Talents Software, based out of Bend. What he told me about security, how to learn from failure with gamedays, and how microservices and security are not just the domain of the big boys might surprise you. 

A great talk with John Weers of Micron Semiconductors. I think I interviewed about 2 dozen people for the book; John made more impact than anyone else. The Micron story intrigued me because it's not an "easy get" - fab facilities come with some unique constraints, including absurdly long lead times and absurdly expensive hardware, stringent security requirements, and a vast amount of legacy and technical debt to pay down. Not just anyone can successfully maintain momentum with that kind of environment; John's one of the best in the industry at engaging with software teams at their level and working cooperatively to meet goals. If you learn half as much as I did from our talk, you'll find this hour of time to be very valuable. 

We have a nice little sit-down with Nathen Harvey, formerly of Chef, and now at a little mom-and-pop startup called Google! Nathen is a heckuva guy and has me rolling around a few times; he brings a ton of enthusiasm and experience to the table. Join us as we talk about the role of configuration management and provisioning tools alongside containers, how to go about getting executive buy-in, and the power of a small success story with something called a DevOps Dojo. We couldn't agree more with Nathen - no more horse manure with DevOps!

About a year ago I had the pleasure of meeting with Jon Cwiak, an enterprise architect at the insurance giant Humana. I love the Humana story and I’ve been watching them overcome obstacles and challenges along the way – they always move upwards and their cloud migration effort is really starting to gain traction. 

Jon’s one of those hero architects I wish were more common in our industry; he’s a purist with a very strong vision of what cloud development and architecture means, but he’s pragmatic and engaging in how teams chart their course to get there. I think you’ll love this discussion, which explores some of the topics we covered in the book.

Here’s some of the topics we cover in the podcast: