ITOps, DevOps, AIOps - All Things Ops

From traditional system engineering to DevOps – Is GitOps the next step?

In today's episode, Donald Lutz, Director and Enterprise Architect at taos, shares his insight with our host Elias Voelker.

What's in it for you:
1. Donald’s views on Kubernetes as a “meta-layer across cloud platforms”
2. Whether GitOps is the next step in the transition from traditional system engineering to DevOps
3. Donald’s view on great automation tools from a software engineering perspective
4. The benefits of eventstorming as a collaboration format

About Donald
Donald holds the role of Senior Cloud and Software Architect at Taos. Experienced as a Director of Software Engineering, Cloud Architect, and Solution Architect, he has great standing in Microsoft architecture. His area of expertise includes delivering enterprise cloud solutions implemented with Actors, ASP.NET Core, DAPR, functional languages and Kafka. Donald started getting into computers when he was about 13 and crashed his first one at 18.

Find Donald on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-lutz-5a9b0b2/ or at [email protected]
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About Taos
Taos is an IBM company and provides strategic as well as technical consulting, and implements transformative solutions. It focuses on strategic cloud consulting, migration, 24x7x365 operations and managed services supported by its DevOps practice. Working with Taos enables companies to operate efficiently, scale the business, and innovate quickly.

Website: https://www.taos.com/
Industry: Consulting
Company size: 501-1000
Headquarters: San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, West Coast
Founded: 1989
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About the host Elias:
Elias is Director of International and Indirect Business at tribe29. He comes from a strategy consulting background, but has been an entrepreneur for the better part of the last 10 years. In his spare time, he likes to do triathlon.

Get in touch with Elias via LinkedIn or email [email protected]
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Podcast Music

Music by Ströme, used by permission
‚Panta Rhei‘ written by Mario Schoenhofer
(c)+p 2022, Compost Medien GmbH & Co KG
www.stroeme.com
https://compost-rec.com/ 

How do you encourage continuous learning and integration in your tech teams to offer a holistic service to your clients?

In today's episode, our host Elias Voelker talks to Yann Mulonda, Senior SRE and Team Lead for the "Run" team at ICF, and CIO of ITOT Africa.

They talk about:
1. How global experiences shape tech leadership and benefit inclusion in your team
2. The importance of understanding concepts vs. knowing tools in IT operations
3. How working with clients’ different requirements for their IT systems encourages continuous learning and integration in Yann’s team
4. How Yann uses his blog to help his tech education mission on a broad scale
5. How ITOT Africa’s mission of technology education for the next generation aims to benefit Africa’s economic development

About Yann
Yann is a Senior SRE and Tech & Team Lead at ICF. His background experience includes Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps Engineering, System Engineering, Software Engineering, Full-Stack Software Development, Cloud Computing & Architecture, Computer Networking, and System Admin & automation. At ICF, His expertise ranges from building automation, providing support, troubleshooting critical issues, to specifying, deploying and maintaining internal tools. Yann has an educational background in Electronics, a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Information Technology, and a Master of Science in Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence.
Yann speaks five languages, is passionate about open source, and prefers Linux. He is also the CIO of ITOT Africa, a company dedicated to bring technology education to Africa.

About ICF
Founded in 1969, ICF is a global provider of consulting and technology services. Combining unmatched expertise with cutting-edge engagement capabilities, ICF's 5,000+ employees provide consulting services in areas including Cybersecurity, Digital and Marketing, International Development, and many others.

About the host Elias
Elias is a highly driven commercial leader in technology with an entrepreneurial mindset. He is Director of International and Indirect Business at tribe29. In his spare time he likes to do triathlon.

Get in touch with Elias via LinkedIn or email [email protected]

Shownotes Yann
Find Yann on LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannmjl/ )
Find Yann's company ICF
(https://www.icf.com/ )
Yann's company ITOT
(https://itot.africa/)
Yann's Blog
(https://medium.com/@yannmjl)

Podcast Music

Music by Ströme, used by permission
‚Panta Rhei‘ written by Mario Schoenhofer
(c)+p 2022, Compost Medien GmbH & Co KG
www.stroeme.com
https://compost-rec.com/ 

Uptime is what SRE is all about – or is it?

Jeremy Proffitt, Director DevOps and SRE at Ally Financial, technology craftsman and problem solver, is today’s guest at the All Things Ops podcast, hosted by Elias Voelker.

They talk about:

1. Different approaches to thinking about technical debt
2. Why 'uptime' may not be the best KPI out there
3. How to handle the trade-offs of having multiple observability systems
4. How Jeremy successfully uses runbooks with his teams

About Jeremy
Jeremy is Director DevOps and SRE at Ally Financial. His role is to ensure that his team gives DevOps services, like CI/CD pipelines and QA testing, as well as the observability that comes with those, to the Customer Communications Unit of Ally. Jeremy started dabbling with computers when he was about 10 or 11. That was also the age when he destroyed one for the first time.

About Ally Financial
Ally Financial is a financial services company powered by a top direct banking franchise and was founded in 1919. Ally's automotive services business offers a full suite of financing products and services. Its Commercial Finance unit provides financing to middle-market companies across a broad range of industries.

About the host Elias
Elias is a highly driven commercial leader in technology with an entrepreneurial mindset. He is Director of International and Indirect Business at tribe29. In his spare time, he likes to do triathlon.

Get in touch with Elias via LinkedIn or email [email protected]

Shownotes Jeremy
Find Jeremy on LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-proffitt-11279889)
or
at [email protected]
Jeremy's company Ally Financial
(https://www.ally.com/)

Podcast Music

Music by Ströme, used by permission
‚Panta Rhei‘ written by Mario Schoenhofer
(c)+p 2022, Compost Medien GmbH & Co KG
www.stroeme.com
https://compost-rec.com/ 

There's no modern IT without cloud computing. But what does it take to run a cloud provider's infrastructures efficiently and securely?

In today's episode of “All Things Ops”, our host Elias talks to Jerry Bell, CISO of IBM's cloud division, veteran IT leader and host of “The Defensive Security” podcast.

What's in it for you:

1. Why IT teams would benefit from more exposure to red teaming and to pen testing techniques
2. What ITOps and DevOps teams are missing to adequately design and run things in the cloud
3. Organizational best practices to running at 'cloud scale'
4. What role monitoring and observability should play in security
5. How the industry can reap the benefits of open source & alleviate some of the challenges it brings

About Jerry:
Jerry is the CISO of IBM's cloud division and has held leadership positions in IT and IT security for nearly 30 years. He is responsible for the security of their cloud and for all connected services they offer. Jerry discovered podcasting about 10 years ago. When he was about 10 years old, Jerry started getting into computers, and crashed his first one at the age of 10 and a half.

Find Jerry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maliciouslink/
Find Jerry on Twitter: https://twitter.com/maliciouslink
Jerry’s Defensive Security Podcast: https://defensivesecurity.org/
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About IBM:
IBM is the largest international technology, consulting, and innovation company in the world. Clients are represented in 170 countries and served by more than 400,000 employees. IBM offers its clients a wide range of experience in business consulting, technology and research and development with the world's most advanced servers and supercomputers.

Website: https://www.ibm.com/
Industry: Business Development, Business Information Systems, CRM, Software
Company size: 400,000
Headquarters: Greater New York Area, East Coast, Northeastern US
Founded: 1911
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About the host Elias:
Elias is Director of International and Indirect Business at tribe29. He comes from a strategy consulting background, but has been an entrepreneur for the better part of the last 10 years. In his spare time, he likes to do triathlon.

Get in touch with Elias via LinkedIn or email [email protected]
__________

Podcast Music

Music by Ströme, used by permission
‚Panta Rhei‘ written by Mario Schoenhofer
(c)+p 2022, Compost Medien GmbH & Co KG
www.stroeme.com
https://compost-rec.com/