The IaC Podcast

How did Chef and Puppet shape the early days of Infrastructure as Code?

Join Matty Stratton as he shares his experiences with these foundational tools and how they paved the way for modern IaC practices. We explore the power of open-source solutions and how they've transformed DevOps workflows.

Matty Stratton is the Director of Developer Relations at Aiven, a well-known member of the DevOps community, founder and co-host of the popular Arrested DevOps podcast, and a global organizer of the DevOpsDays set of conferences.

Matty has over 20 years of experience in IT operations and is a sought-after speaker internationally, presenting at Agile, DevOps, and cloud engineering focused events worldwide.

What does the future hold for DevOps and platform engineering? Patrick Debois, the creator of DevOps Days, shares his thoughts on the evolution of DevOps practices. From the emergence of AI-driven automation to the challenges of building effective internal platforms, this episode covers the key trends and developments shaping the industry. Learn about the skills and strategies that will be crucial for the next generation of professionals.

Patrick Debois is a versatile technologist with a breadth of experience across Dev, Sec, and Ops. Known for his aptitude in harnessing emerging ideas , he skillfully guides teams and advises businesses ranging from startups to enterprises in their journey. Recognized as a trusted ally among dev, sec, ops communities, and beyond, he is currently immersing himself in the world of AI & Machine Learning continuously pushing the boundaries of his technical expertise.

Join Mitchell Hashimoto, the visionary behind Terraform and co-founder of HashiCorp, on an engaging journey from his college years to his groundbreaking impact on cloud resource management.

Explore the pivotal moments that led to Terraform's inception, the challenges of fostering an open-source community, and how HashiCorp evolved from a passion project into an industry powerhouse.

Don’t miss this captivating conversation that delves into the story behind one of the most influential software tools, offering a rare insight into the mind of a true innovator.

Mitchell is a developer living in Los Angeles, CA. He co-founded HashiCorp, and was part of the initial engineering team behind most of HashiCorp's products, such as Vagrant, Packer, Consul, Terraform, Vault, Nomad, Waypoint, and more. Mitchell was CEO for 4 years, CTO for 5 years, an individual contributor for 2 years. He is passionate about flying airplanes - he's an FAA-licensed pilot and currently flies a Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet.

How does Crossplane simplify multicloud infrastructure management? Join us as Jared Watts, co-creator of Crossplane, walks us through the project's evolution from its inception to its current capabilities. What advantages does Crossplane’s approach offer over other IaC tools? How does it handle drift detection and reconciliation? And what exciting new features are on the horizon, like operational functions for day-2 tasks? Jared offers insights into Crossplane's architecture, community development, and vision for the future of cloud resource management. Whether you're wrestling with multicloud complexity or seeking more programmatic control over your infrastructure, this episode is a must-listen deep dive into the world of Crossplane.

Jared Watts is a Founding Engineer at Upbound, where he is working on advancing cloud-native computing by enabling anyone to build their own cloud native control plane. He is also a co-creator for the open source Crossplane and Rook projects. Prior to Upbound, Jared worked on P2P storage distributed across the public internet at Symform, a startup later acquired by Quantum. Jared began his career at Microsoft working on applications for Windows Server setup and management.

Docker or Kubernetes? And why are some clouds trickier for container deployment? Join us as Jérôme Petazzoni, an early Docker advocate, all about containers. We'll explore provisioning Kubernetes across 12 different cloud providers, uncover surprises in Infrastructure-as-Code for container orchestration, and discuss making multi-cloud Kubernetes manageable. Let's see what containerization has become and some of the challenges it still faces.

Jérôme was part of the team that built and launched Docker. He worked there for 7 years. These days he teaches Kubernetes at Enix, a French Cloud Native shop. When he's not busy with computers, he collects musical instruments. He can arguably play the theme of Zelda on a dozen of them.

Infrastructure as Code is evolving rapidly, and open-source collaborations are playing a big part in shaping where it's headed. In this episode, Zach Goldberg, CTO of Gruntwork, shares his insights on tackling enterprise IaC complexity with open source tools. We dive into the origins of Terragrunt and its roadmap, why organizations are rapidly adopting OpenTofu, and explore the innovative ways these tools are being used in the community. How are these developments transforming IaC practices? What challenges and opportunities lie ahead? Tune in to find out!

Zach Goldberg is an executive coach, the author of 10k+ GitHub star book, “The Startup CTO’s Handbook” and is the CTO of Gruntwork. Zach Goldberg graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Computer Science and Engineering. He’s been the CTO of seven startups including WiFast, Sticks and Brains, AutoLotto, Trellis Technologies, GrowFlow (acq. Dama Financial 2022), Towards Equilibrium Inc. and most recently Gruntwork as well as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Tencent and an Associate Product Manager at Google.

How are modern cloud-native environments changing the way we handle security? Liz Rice, Chief Open Source Officer at Isovalent, explains why traditional IP-based network policies are becoming outdated and how game-changers like Cilium and eBPF, which leverage Kubernetes identities, offer more effective and readable policies. We also discuss the role of community-driven projects under the CNCF, and she shares tips for creating strong, future-proof solutions. What challenges should we expect next? Tune in to find out!

Liz Rice is Chief Open Source Officer with eBPF specialists Isovalent, creators of the Cilium cloud native networking, security and observability project. She is the author of Container Security, and Learning eBPF, both published by O'Reilly, and she sits on the CNCF Governing Board, and on the Board of OpenUK. She was Chair of the CNCF's Technical Oversight Committee in 2019-2022, and Co-Chair of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in 2018.

She has a wealth of software development, team, and product management experience from working on network protocols and distributed systems, and in digital technology sectors such as VOD, music, and VoIP. When not writing code, or talking about it, Liz loves riding bikes in places with better weather than her native London, competing in virtual races on Zwift, and making music under the pseudonym Insider Nine.

Tools, workflows and the Terraform ecosystem - Masterpoint's Matt Gowie dives deep into the IaC tooling landscape, covering tools like Terragrunt and Atmos, linting with TFLint, security scanning, CI/CD workflows and more. From Terraform 0.11 to OpenTofu, static code analysis to encryption, gain an inside look at pragmatic IaC practices.

Matt Gowie is a seasoned entrepreneur, cloud architect, and platform engineer based in Boulder, Colorado. As CEO and CTO of Masterpoint, he leads a team dedicated to developing top-tier infrastructure-as-code solutions for a diverse clientele. With over twelve years of experience in software development, tech startups, and cloud infrastructure, Matt has a deep passion for Terraform and OpenTofu. He actively contributes to the community as a core maintainer of one of the largest open-source Terraform Module libraries and an AWS Community Builder. Outside of work, you can find him rock climbing across the American West, training for an ultramarathon, or exploring remote corners of the globe.

How have DevOps movements broken down the longstanding cultural barriers between developers and operations teams? What role have container technologies like Docker played in shaping today's IT landscape? John Willis, with over 35 years in IT management, dives into these questions, sharing his insights on simplifying complex systems and fostering integration between development and operations.

Tune in to this must-listen episode as we explore the evolution and future of DevOps with a pioneer in the field.

John Willis has worked in the IT management industry for more than 35 years and is a prolific author, including "Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge" and "The DevOps Handbook." He is researching DevOps, DevSecOps, IT risk, modern governance, and audit compliance. Previously he was an Evangelist at Docker Inc., VP of Solutions for Socketplane (sold to Docker) and Enstratius (sold to Dell), and VP of Training & Services at Opscode where he formalized the training, evangelism, and professional services functions at the firm. Willis also founded Gulf Breeze Software, an award winning IBM business partner, which specializes in deploying Tivoli technology for the enterprise. Willis has authored six IBM Redbooks for IBM on enterprise systems management and was the founder and chief architect at Chain Bridge Systems.

How could read access to an S3 bucket escalate to a full AWS environment compromise? Daniel Grzelak walks us through a real red team engagement that sparked his research into Terraform state file vulnerabilities. Hear about the evolution of these vulnerabilities into significant security concerns and how OpenTofu 1.7's state encryption feature is set to change the game.

Listen now and explore Daniel's detailed insights on 'Hacking Terraform State for Privilege Escalation' here.

Daniel Grzelak is a 20-year cybersecurity industry veteran, investor, advisor, and speaker. He is no longer the CISO at Linktree nor the Head of Security at Atlassian, but he tries to stay relevant by hacking AWS and Cloud in general.