Keenan Vision Podcast - Produced by SalesforceDevops.net

Keenan Vision Podcast - Produced by SalesforceDevops.net

By Vernon KeenanTechnology
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Keenan Vision Podcast - Produced by SalesforceDevops.net episodes

  • Watch Out For Those Guardrails! – Waqas Nazir of DigitSec – Keenan Vision Podcast Episode 6, Feb 25, 2022

    This week on the Keenan Vision Podcast we continue our interview series with Waqas Nazir, CEO and founder of DigitSec, a leading Salesforce cybersecurity vendor (DigitSec.com).

    https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/salesforce-devops-needs-guardrails

    Here are the points covered by Vernon Keenan and Waqas Nazir in this interesting and lively conversation.

    • Waqas shares how he was eminently practical getting into computers and engineering.
    • He talks about his engineering background, which involved electrical engineering
    • Then we hear about his experience at Microsoft
      • He was lucky enough to be there when Microsoft made a major pivot towards security
      • Waqas continues with his story, talking about his experiences in industry
      • Vern asks what a Salesforce platform owner needs to worry about in cybersecurity
      • Waqas talks about how platform owners need to understand they have responsibility for security
      • Vern and Waqas talk about how digital transformations drive security requirements
      • Waqas talks about building threat profiles
      • Vern asks about management programs for cybersecurity.
      • Waqas talks about some management frameworks and principles like security design
        • Planning is key to cybersecurity success to make sure all bases are covered
        • Vern asks about adoption, and Waqas talks about the range use cases
        • Waqas comments on how cybersecurity integrates into devops and release management
        • Vern asks about how DigitSec fits into the whole process of release management
        • Waqas builds up the case for integrated solutions
          • The shift left idea comes in by adding code scans to the IDE
          • They talk about how expensive it is to fix bugs later rather than earlier!’
            • Vern mentions how important it is to authenticate logins to key networks
            • Vern talks about why he calls it cybersecurity and how he see DigitSec as risk management tool
            • Waqas and Vern talk about the Dark Reading article about how Salesforce Devops needs Guardrails!
            • Waqas talks about the cost-benefit analysis of how you can use metrics and other information to measure success
            • Waqas talks about how security scanners slow people down
            • Vern talks about the Dark Reading article and why people need guardrails.
            • Waqas relates more about how important those guardrails are to business continuity
            • Vern gets some really good advice on how to start a career in cybersecurity!
              • 31 min
            • Do More With Less – Kumar Chivukula – Keenan Vision Podcast Episode 5, Feb 18, 2022

              This week on the Keenan Vision Podcast we continue with our devops thought leader series with Kumar Chivukula, CTO of Opsersa. Check out how Kumar gets about making enterprises get the job done with less effort. Plus find out how Opsera is making it through the pandemic.

              Here are the key points we covered in this conversation:

              • Kumar’s journey through Silicon Valley with Adobe and Symantec
              • Challenges faced when putting applications into the cloud
              • Found there to be challenges in doing software development across an organization
              • Kumar gives the Opsera elevator pitch for IT execs and Salesforce architects
              • Kumar describes how to use Opsera in a Salesforce release management scenario
                • It involves a integrating a bunch of tools into a pipeline
                • Help to measure business value
                • Vern compares Opsera to the Top 5 devops platform
                  • Opsera is a “command server” that runs devops pipelines
                  • Kumar describes how Opsera is an alternative management tool
                    • Describes some internal architecture for expansion
                    • “We are the Salesforce of [cloud native] devops”
                    • Kumar describes how Opsera makes Salesforce devops go faster.
                      • He said deployments go from hours to minutes!
                      • Helps teams avoid “burning the midnight oil” with Opsera
                      • Vern asks about the Opsera partner ecosystem
                        • Opsera makes it easy for a bunch of systems to be integrated
                        • Vern reminds potential partners to contact Opsera’s partner program
                        • Vern asks about key experiences as an Opsera founder
                          • He talked about the team, with all the sacrifices, especially with the pandemic
                          • Kumar gets to express how much he loves his employees!
                          • Kumar explains how some global system integrators use Opsera during digital transformation projects
                          • Kumar explains how customers get started with Opsera.
                            • “It’s easy!”
                            • Kumar talks about Opsera free trials
                            • Kumar gives advice for job seekers!
                              • 32 min
                            • Professionalizing Business Engineering - Gil Hoffer - Keenan Vision Podcast Episode 4, February 4, 2022

                              Join the Keenan Vision Podcast for a fascinating and fun interview of Gil Hoffer, co-founder and CTO of Salto, by Vernon Keenan.  Learn about Gil’s perspective on Business Engineering, his love of code, and some cool stories from his past.

                              These are the key point covered in this lively conversation:

                              • Gil’s experience as a company builder
                              • How as an operator he figured out the complexity of configuring all the applications
                              • Vern describes how revolutionary products like HashiCorp Terraform was to devops and notes that Salto is kind doing the same thing with “infrastructure as code”.
                              • Gil describes how they invented Salto’s NaCl syntax to be a universal language for describing how to configure SaaS systems
                              • Gil describes how organizations may depend on a SaaS system like Zendesk, and sometimes that critical system is being managed manually, and how Salto can help businesses more formally engineer the solutions.
                              • Gil tells the story about how he got started with computers at the age of six, and that was his first experience with English as an Israeli child.
                              • Vern asks Gil about his experience in the Israeli Defense Forces, but any response would have gotten both of them killed.
                              • Gil shares more details on his motivation where he looks at processes and wants them to go faster!
                              • The occupation of “business engineer” is discussed. How it is now a profession, and how Salto supports being more rigorous leveraging the wisdom of the ages.
                              • Vern and Gil discuss the low-code features of the Salto UI.
                              • Vern describes why he likes Salto’s architecture, and Gil describes more how it works by ingesting data from a variety of sources.
                              • Gil explains why Salto is open source and available on GitHub.
                              • The free version of Salto is available at Salto.io.
                              • Gil discusses some of his customers. There are a variety of use cases! Some visionary, some practical.
                              • The Salto customer success team’s process is described.
                              • Vern describes more about why he likes Salto
                              • Gil and Vern discuss Salto’s investors
                              • Gil gives a pep talk about professional business engineering
                                • 32 min
                              • From Devops Heroics to Excellence - Ian Gotts - Keenan Vision Podcast Episode 3 January 28, 2022

                                Join the Keenan Vision Podcast for a fascinating and important interview of Ian Gotts, CEO of Elements.Cloud, by Vernon Keenan.  So many important topics are covered by Ian and Vern you will want to listen through to the very end!

                                Here are some of the key points covered:

                                • How did Ian get so smart about application delivery and devops?
                                • What is Elements.Cloud as a product?
                                • Who is the Elements.Cloud customer?
                                • Ian describes how he has focused on the Salesforce Center of Excellence and how that has benefited users and platform owners
                                • Ian touches several times how devops has to move from “heroics to excellence”
                                • We give lots of love to people who want to enter the ecosystem and take advantage of trends with some career advice
                                  • 32 min
                                • Salesforce Extension Pack Review: Breakthrough Tool Needs Improvement - Keenan Vision Podcast 002

                                  This is an abridged version of a full review video that shows me using the product: https://youtu.be/sInYK7yCfxU

                                  Read the review: https://salesforcedevops.net/index.php/2021/06/30/salesforce-extension-pack-review-breakthrough-tool-needs-improvement/

                                  Before Visual Studio Code (VS Code) from Microsoft became the preferred integrated developer environment (IDE) for Salesforce, developers struggled with Java-based Eclipse because it was the only supported IDE. Now, in 2021 this has all changed with VS Code plus Salesforce Extension Pack integrated with command line utilities resulting in much faster Salesforce devops pipelines.

                                  To help spread the word about this fantastic development, and to chime in with my comments and observations about the current state of the product, here is my detailed review of Salesforce Extension Pack for VS Code. You can check out my video review here

                                  Salesforce Bridges the Gap with Salesforce Extension Pack and SFDX-CLI

                                  SFDX-CLI is the key architectural component that connects simple scripting capabilities with many crucial metadata API and DML functions of Salesforce. Introduced in late 2017, SFDX-CLI plus VS Code integration provides a key touchpoint between the open source devops world and the Salesforce platform.

                                  SFDX-CLI gives devops engineers a scriptable interface to a Salesforce org, which enables the orchestration of devops pipelines. Now, by marrying SFDX-CLI with the most popular interactive developer environment (IDE), Salesforce Extension Pack delivers a powerful and extensible working environment for Salesforce developers.

                                  Salesforce Extension Pack Components

                                  The Salesforce Extension Pack is a collection of eight separate VS Code extensions, which should be installed together by first installing the extension pack.

                                  Apex: The Apex Language Server

                                  Salesforce CLI Integration

                                  Lightning Web Components

                                  Apex Interactive Debugger

                                  Aura Components

                                  SLDS Validator: The Salesforce Lightning Design System Validator

                                  Apex Replay Debugger

                                  I will cover the most used parts of the Pack for back-end development, which are Apex, SFDX-CLI integration, and the Apex Replay Debugger. One component, the Apex Interactive Debugger, only applies to partners and is not used by most developers.

                                  Conclusions

                                  Salesforce Extension Pack delivers on its promise to augment VS Code, which makes it a powerful and productive platform for day-to-day Salesforce developer activities. With Salesforce Extension Pack installed, using VS Code and Salesforce CLI (SFDX-CLI) dramatically increases a developer’s productivity when compared to using Eclipse or the Developer Console.

                                  There is still plenty to improve upon, such as the awkward installation procedure and other glitches that can turn into showstoppers. I wish that Apex language server were more lightweight, and that Java was not needed as well. And please slow down with all the versions!

                                  Despite any ratings or other reservations, I wholeheartedly recommend that all new and existing Salesforce developers immediately adopt the best, free Salesforce development system available. Hopefully by seeing how using these tools improve the daily workflow of a Salesforce developer, you and your team members will be inspired to make the leap to the future today.

                                  9 min
                                • Salesforce TDX 21 -- Keenan Vision Episode 001

                                  Hey everybody! It's Vern Keenan here with the very first edition of the Keenan Vision podcast recorded on Friday June 25, 2021!

                                  Before I say anything else, I want to thank everybody who has supported me on this journey of helping people figure out Salesforce devops. 

                                  I couldn't do this without your support, so thank you.  

                                  Let's kick off with something everyone wants to hear about, which is the TrailheaDX 21 event broadcast this week from Salesforce headquarters in San Francisco. I'll be giving you my spin on things from the devops perspective.  

                                  TrailheaDX showed off low-code and high-code app production tools and strategies for developers, administrators, architects, partners, and IT leaders.   On to Salesforce DevOps Center  I mainly paid attention to high-code stuff, but there were some low-code advances too.   

                                  Dynamic Interactions is a new feature where writers of Salesforce Lightning Web Components may create interfaces that may be arbitrarily “wired” together via the Lightning App Builder. This enables components to receive updates and automatically transmit data updates to related components.   

                                  There is Flow Orchestrator for developing Salesforce workflows and MuleSoft Composer for designing multi-system interactions among some other data management announcements.  So, with the delay of Salesforce DevOps Center and these winds of change around OmniStudio, it looks like the Salesforce devops tooling and lifecycle management efforts are still a work in progress.

                                  6 min

                                About Keenan Vision Podcast - Produced by SalesforceDevops.net

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                                Hear the periodic industry analysis and insights from the only industry analyst who produces multimedia content on Salesforce devops and the enterprise software development industry.