Chris Ayers is a Senior Site Reliability Engineer on Microsoft’s AzRel Risk SRE team, drawing on years of experience in cloud architecture, software development, and DevOps practices. He’s passionate about continuous improvement, driving reliability, and sharing industry best practices. Outside of work, Chris is a devoted father, technology enthusiast, and avid gamer. Connect with him online to explore insights into cloud operations, agile methodologies, and more. He also organizes DevOpsDays Tampa Bay.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:50] Chris Ayers’s career journey and formative moments in site reliability engineering.

[3:33] The importance of being open to learning and stepping outside your comfort zone.

[8:53] Chris’s talk on Aspire, Azure, and Open AI.

[9:30] How Chris is improving Azure’s reliability through internal innovation.

[10:16] Benefits of Aspire: orchestration, integration, and abstraction for infrastructure.

[12:29] AI extensions in Aspire: how they enable developers to work with different AI models like OpenAI and local models.

[14:09] Using OpenTelemetry for seamless integration and monitoring in Azure.

[18:38] Prompt engineering: crafting prompts as part of business logic.

[20:50] Exploring agentic AI development and multi-agent chatbots.

[21:05] AI use cases in healthcare and responsible AI principles.

[29:22] Simplifying Azure resource management with Aspire and opinionated defaults.

[32:35] Using Honeycomb and other tools for effective telemetry and logging.

[33:39] Hugging Face and KAITO: enabling access to a marketplace of specialized AI models and Kubernetes AI integration.

[34:10] Running Olama models locally: balancing scale, cost, and use cases.

[39:38] AI as a tool to enhance productivity rather than replace people.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Chris Ayers Speaking

Chris Ayers Speaker Profile

Build with Aspire

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Scott Ambler helps people and teams adopt new ways of working (WoW) and evolve their ways of thinking (WoT), particularly around data warehousing and data quality. He is the creator of the Agile Modeling (AM) (AgileModeling.com) method and Agile Data (AD) (AgileData.org) methods. With Mark Lines, he co-created PMI’s Disciplined Agile (DA) toolkit. As a conference keynote speaker, he speaks about continuous data warehousing (DW)/business intelligence (BI), how to address enterprise data debt, how to succeed at corporate AI, and agile architecture. He has also (co-)authored several books, including Choose Your WoW!, An Executive’s Guide to Disciplined Agile, Refactoring Databases, and Agile Modeling. For a full list of his books, visit Scottambler.com/my-books/.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:29] Scott talks about his career journey.

[6:53] Scott’s early involvement in Agile.

[8:34] Needing to up our game in the Agile space.

[8:55] Agile2025 Conference this summer in Denver, CO.

[11:20] Challenges and evolution within the Agile community.

[20:01] Are we going to have a new Agile gold rush?

[21:47] Keeping an eye out for inappropriate processes.

[25:38] How we can do better.

[28:17] The Agile Manifesto.

[35:03] Importance of database refactoring and continuous data operations.

[36:46] What best practices does Scott recommend?

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Scott Ambler

Scott Ambler LinkedIn

The Future of Agile Isn't Shit

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Ryan is an Advocate at Redgate focusing on PostgreSQL. Ryan has been working as a PostgreSQL advocate, developer, DBA, and product manager for over 20 years, primarily working with time-series data on PostgreSQL and the Microsoft Data Platform.

Ryan is a long-time DBA, starting with MySQL and Postgres in the late ’90s. He spent more than 15 years working with SQL Server before returning to PostgreSQL full-time in 2018. He’s at the top of his game when learning something new about the data platform or teaching others about the technology he loves.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:10] What made Ryan a database guy?

[6:11] CodeMash.

[6:58] Discovering the potential of SQL Server.

[12:02] The state of the database in 2025 and the things generalist developers should know.

[15:27] The challenge of interfacing between database types.

[19:57] Is Microsoft Fabric the future?

[22:44] Postgres for .NET developers.

[24:46] Nuances of migrating from SQL Server to Postgres.

[26:01] Postgres resources for data professionals.

[35:29] Postgres and its innovative edge.

[38:30] What is a vector database?

[39:45] The power of Postgres indexing.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ep 245 with Ryan Booz

Figuring Out Fabric

SQLGene Training

Introduction to PostgreSQL for the data professional. Kindle Edition

Postgres Playground

pgEdge

“Name Collision of the Year”

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James Montemagno is a Principal Lead Program Manager for the Developer Community at Microsoft. He has been a .NET developer since 2005, working in a wide range of industries including game development, printer software, and web services. Prior to becoming a Principal Program Manager, James was a professional mobile developer and has been crafting apps since 2011 with Xamarin. In his spare time, he is most likely cycling around Seattle or guzzling gallons of coffee at a local coffee shop. He co-hosts the weekly development podcast Merge Conflict mergeconflict.fm.

Topics of Discussion:

[:36] Jeffrey introduces the concept of .NET Aspire and highlights its integration with Azure DevOps and .NET ecosystem tools.

[2:51] The evolution of .NET mobile and desktop development since 2005.

[4:45] An overview of .NET Aspire and its focus on simplifying app development and infrastructure orchestration.

[11:45] How .NET Aspire supports both local development and cloud deployment.

[16:24] Integrating DevOps automation for Azure deployments using bicep templates and Azure Developer CLI (azd).

[25:30] Generating infrastructure manifests and deploying them with Azure Developer CLI.

[32:51] Configuring Azure resources like Redis Cache for development and deployment scenarios.

[35:11] Simplifying cloud deployment for developers using Azure Container Apps.

[39:37] Polyglot support in .NET Aspire projects, allowing integration with Python, JavaScript, and more.

[44:50] Plans to integrate development tunnels to streamline mobile app testing.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ep 62 with James Montemagno

James Montemagno

James on YouTube

James Montemagno GitHub

James on DevOps

James on X

.NET Aspire Manifest plus + azd + Bicep == Mind Blown

Aspire Dashboard

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Brady Gaster is a Principal Program Manager on the .NET and Visual Studio team at Microsoft where he works on Orleans, SignalR, microservices, APIs, and integration with Azure service teams in hopes of making it exciting for developers who work on .NET apps to party in the cloud!

Topics of Discussion:

[6:27] Collaboration with Azure Developer CLI.

[8:08] The challenges of integrating ASP.NET Core with existing deployment methods like App Service.

[11:45] The main questions they heard at the panel.

[13:53] Deploying your dashboard to Azure Container apps.

[24:31] Aspire builds on .NET and everything you can do with .NET, you can keep doing.

[27:03] Tips for developing against Aspire resources.

[27:50] The future focuses on security.

[30:02] Optimizing your development environment around DevOps.

[34:28] How much is Kubernetes an actual dependency, or can normal .NET applications just use App Service and not be tied to Kubernetes?

[39:37] Brady’s thoughts on the benefits of containers and the potential for easier alternatives in the future.

[44:06] AI doing a better job of suggesting the right code.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

“Building new (and retrofitting old) apps with .NET Aspire to streamline your development process”

Ep 295 with Brady Gaster

Want to Learn More?

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Aaron is a Developer Advocate at Microsoft. Having spent 15 years doing web development, he’s seen it all, from browser wars to the rise of AJAX and the fall of 20 JavaScript frameworks (and that was just yesterday!). Always tinkering with something new, he explores crazy ideas like writing your own implementation of numbers in .NET, creating IoC in JavaScript, or implementing tic-tac-toe using git commits. When not sitting at a computer, he can be found spending time with his wife and kids.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:38] Aaron shares his career journey, including his time in consulting and technical sales.

[6:48] The importance of understanding both technical and business aspects of software development.

[7:36] .NET Aspire and the community toolkit.

[15:21] Having a centralized place for discovering and contributing integrations.

[17:02] Running Ollama.

[21:12] Diving in more to the integration.

[24:27] Deployment options for .NET Aspire applications, including Azure Container Apps and Kubernetes.

[29:08] Testing and Acceptance with .NET Aspire.

[35:02] The process of attaching debuggers to applications and the challenges of debugging distributed applications.

[41:23] The community toolkit provides clear guidelines and contributing guides to help developers get involved.

[43:42] How people can get more involved and contribute.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

GitHub Community Toolkit

Aaron Powell

Aaron Powell Website

Aaron Powell Microsoft

Aaron on X 

Aaron on Mastodon Social

Aaron on Twitch

Aaron on LinkedIn

Aaron on Bluesky

Want to Learn More?

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Sam Basu is a technologist, author, speaker, Microsoft MVP, and gadget-lover and is the Developer Advocacy Manager for Progress Software. With a long developer background, he now spends much of his time advocating modern development platforms & tools on Microsoft/Telerik technology stacks. His spare time calls for travel, fast cars, cricket, and culinary adventures. You can find him as @samidip on the internet.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:09] Sam shares his career journey and more about his background as a developer.

[5:18] Meeting the users where they are and the importance of adaptability.

[8:07] What kinds of use cases are available today for developers to use AI when it comes to UI?

[9:15] The two-pronged approach to UI and UX.

[13:33] Challenges and opportunities in AI integration.

[16:21] Future of the user interface.

[21:43] The AI models are exceptionally smart in understanding natural language.

[25:41] How GitHub Copilot can help developers.

[26:48] The limitations of GitHub Copilot.

[30:46] The gap in training for developers for Copilot.

[33:06] Use cases on Smart AI.

[36:14] The importance of responsible AI development.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Sam on X

Sam Basu

Sam Basu Microsoft

Smart UI Powered by AI

ASP.NET Core

Smart AI Components

Sakura AI

Want to Learn More?

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Jeff Fritz is an experienced developer, technical educator, and PM on the .NET team at Microsoft. He’s the producer of the .NET Conf online series of events, and regularly livestreams builds of websites and fun applications. You can follow Jeff for more .NET, .NET Core, and, Visual Studio content on Twitch and Twitter at @csharpfritz.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:40] Jeff’s background and the many roles he is involved in.

[6:17] Key announcements from .NET Conf.

[6:18] Starting with .NET Aspire, and getting it right with version 3.

[11:24] Version 3 covers the unattended deployment process.

[12:20] Benefits of the aspireify.net website.

[18:23] AI extensions for .NET.

[22:28] Recommendations for hardware for AI development.

[25:35] The static assets features.

[28:57] Using Github Copilot.

[30:13] Remembering that AI is just a text calculator.

[36:21] How people can catch up with the content from .NETConf.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ep 278 with Jeff Fritz

TagzApp

Fritz on the Web

AI extensions for .NET

Unified AI Building Blocks for .NET using Microsoft.Extensions.AI

Introducing Phi-3

Introducing Whisper

dotnet on YouTube

Microsoft Ignite

aspireify.NET

Want to Learn More?

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Ravi Ram is a software engineer specializing in .NET, Azure, and intensive, high-stakes software. He started developing in 1998 with basic websites. Moved from Classic ASP with Cart.ASP. After learning about SQL injections after a client hack, he was hired by the California Department of Justice to do that work. Ravi is completely self-taught and has contributed to countless software projects over 30 years.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:24] Ravi shares his career journey, starting with web design for a neighbor, moving to classic ASP, and eventually to .NET.

[5:12] TechBash is a .NET conference in Pennsylvania, emphasizing its family-friendly atmosphere and the high attendance of families.

[8:00] A few of Ravi’s favorite moments and sessions from TechBash.

[12:57] Going through code in real-time with one of the TechBash speakers.

[16:51] How approachable, diverse, and friendly TechBash is.

[17:11] Ravi talks about a session on scope logging with OpenTelemetry, which impressed him with its configuration capabilities.

[27:49] Why the duo loves the word “seam”!

[28:07] Encouragement for first-time speakers who may be interested in TechBash.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ravi Ram on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhali/ Sandi Metz' Rules For Developers https://thoughtbot.com/blog/sandi-metz-rules-for-developers Llewellyn Falco refactoring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWiwDdx_rdoSandi  Metz' Rules For Developers https://thoughtbot.com/blog/sandi-metz-rules-for-developers Llewellyn Falco refactoring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWiwDdx_rdo

Want to Learn More?

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Greg is a Cloud Architect who assists organizations with cloud adoption and innovation. He is currently the Head of Microsoft Cloud Services at Built Global and also the founder of Webonology. He posts on a daily Cloud Blog — clouddailywire.com. He has been working in the IT industry since his time in the military and is a developer, teacher, speaker, and early adopter. Greg has worked in many facets of IT throughout his career and is currently the president of TampaDev, a community meetup that runs #TampaCC and various technology events throughout Tampa. Greg holds a certification as a Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert and Microsoft Certified Trainer and is an Azure MVP.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:14] Greg’s career journey, his role as an innovator, and his early adoption of Azure.

[4:00] The utility of “compute” in Azure and how it simplifies application deployment.

[4:44] Recent developments in Azure and AI.

[5:17] The pendulum swings between cloud and on-premises solutions, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach.

[10:21] Strategies for streamlining business productivity — understanding there is no single “silver bullet.”

[14:08] How AI can enhance productivity and its evolving role in the workplace.

[18:45] Encouraging the younger generation to challenge the status quo and simplify processes.

[25:11] Addressing the global tech talent shortage and the role of AI in filling productivity gaps.

[29:49] Ethical considerations and challenges in AI adoption, including the risks of misinformation and biases.

[33:14] The potential future convergence of AI and quantum computing, and its implications for software development.

[37:10] The responsibility of developers to verify AI-generated outputs, emphasizing the importance of critical thinking.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at [email protected].

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer’s Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ep 282 with Greg

Greg Leonardo

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