The New Stack Podcast

At All Things Open in October, Anandhi Bumstead, AWS’s director of software engineering, highlighted OpenSearch's journey and the advantages of the Linux Foundation's stewardship. OpenSearch, an open source data ingestion and analytics engine, was transferred by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to the Linux Foundation in September 2024, seeking neutral governance and broader community collaboration. Originally forked from Elasticsearch after a licensing change in 2021, OpenSearch has evolved into a versatile platform likened to a “Swiss Army knife” for its broad use cases, including observability, log and security analytics, alert detection, and semantic and hybrid search, particularly in generative AI applications.

Despite criticism over slower indexing speeds compared to Elasticsearch, significant performance improvements have been made. The latest release, OpenSearch 2.17, delivers 6.5x faster query performance and a 25% indexing improvement due to segment replication. Future efforts aim to enhance indexing, search, storage, and vector capabilities while optimizing costs and efficiency. Contributions are welcomed via opensearch.org.

Learn more from The New Stack about deploying applications on OpenSearch

AWS Transfers OpenSearch to the Linux Foundation

From Flashpoint to Foundation: OpenSearch’s Path Clears

Semantic Search with Amazon OpenSearch Serverless and Titan

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. 

Is Apache Spark too costly? Amazon Principal Engineer Patrick Ames tackled this question during an interview with The New Stack Makers, sharing insights into transitioning from Spark to Ray for managing large-scale data. Ames, described as a "go-to" engineer for exabyte-scale projects, emphasized a goal-driven approach to solving complex engineering problems, from simplifying daily chores to optimizing software solutions.

Initially, Spark was chosen at Amazon for its simplicity and open-source flexibility, allowing efficient merging of data with minimal SQL code. The team leveraged Spark in a decoupled architecture over S3 storage, scaling it to handle thousands of jobs daily. However, as data volumes grew to hundreds of terabytes and beyond, Spark’s limitations became apparent. Long processing times and high costs prompted a search for alternatives.

Enter Ray—a unified framework designed for scaling AI and Python applications. After experimentation, Ames and his team noted significant efficiency improvements, driving the shift from Spark to Ray to meet scalability and cost-efficiency needs.

Learn more from The New Stack about Apache Spark and Ray: 

Amazon to Save Millions Moving From Apache Spark to Ray

How Ray, a Distributed AI Framework, Helps Power ChatGPT 

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. 

In this New Stack Makers, Codiac aims to simplify app deployment on Kubernetes by offering a unified interface that minimizes complexity. Traditionally, Kubernetes is powerful but challenging for teams due to its intricate configurations and extensive manual coding. Co-founded by Ben Ghazi and Mark Freydl, Codiac provides engineers with infrastructure on demand, container management, and advanced software development life cycle (SDLC) tools, making Kubernetes more accessible.

Codiac’s interface streamlines continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD), reducing deployment steps to a single line of code within CI/CD pipelines. Developers can easily deploy, manage containers, and configure applications without mastering Kubernetes' esoteric syntax. Codiac also offers features like "cabinets" to organize assets across multi-cloud environments and enables repeatable processes through snapshots, making cluster management smoother.

For experienced engineers, Codiac alleviates the burden of manually managing YAML files and configuring multiple services. With ephemeral clusters and repeatable snapshots, Codiac supports scalable, reproducible development workflows, giving engineers a practical way to manage applications and infrastructure seamlessly across complex Kubernetes environments.

Learn more from The New Stack about deploying applications on Kubernetes:

Kubernetes Needs to Take a Lesson from Portainer on Ease-of-Use 

Three Common Kubernetes Challenges and How to Solve Them 

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. 

Valkey, an open-source fork of Redis launched in March, introduced its multithreaded Version 8.0 in September, now available through AWS ElastiCache. At All Things Open 2024 in Raleigh, AWS's Kyle Davis explains that Valkey was developed after Redis changed to a restrictive license, drawing contributors from companies like AWS, Google, Alibaba, and Oracle. Notably, some contributors emerged independently, including a significant contributor from Vietnam. Version 8.0 differentiates itself from Redis by leveraging multithreaded CPUs, addressing the efficiency of I/O operations in modern hardware. Additionally, data structure refinements were made to improve memory efficiency by up to 20%, particularly benefiting large-key databases.

Looking ahead, Valkey plans two annual updates, with the next release expected in 2025. New modules are anticipated, including a JSON module for efficient data manipulation and a Bloom filter for probabilistic data presence checks. Version 9.0 may bring substantial changes to clustering, updating it to better leverage modern technologies. The Valkey project aims to continue evolving its capabilities to meet the demands of advanced data storage needs.

Learn more from The New Stack about Valkey: 

Valkey Is a Different Kind of Fork 

AWS Adds Support, Drops Prices, for Redis-Forked Valkey 

Valkey: A Redis Fork With a Future 

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. 

Deb Nicholson, executive director of the Python Software Foundation, attributes Python’s popularity to its minimal syntactical complexity, which appeals to beginners and seasoned developers alike. Python allows flexibility for those exploring coding without a specific focus, unlike purpose-built languages. Since her leadership began in 2022, Nicholson has overseen the foundation’s role in managing Python’s fiscal and operational needs, including the package index that hosts over half a million add-ons. This open ecosystem enables contributions from large corporations and individual developers while demanding vigilant security measures.

Nicholson envisions Python's future advancements, particularly in improving multi-threading and expanding usage in mobile development. She acknowledges Python’s critical role in AI and data science but remains cautious about AI’s pervasive application, likening it to a temporary trend. On open source in the enterprise, Nicholson critiques companies profiting from open-source tools while adopting restrictive licenses. Instead, she admires models like Red Hat’s, which leverage open source sustainably without compromising accessibility or innovation.

Learn more from The New Stack about Python: 

Python 3.13: Blazing New Trails in Performance and Scale

The Top 5 Python Packages and What They Do

Python Mulls a Change in Version Numbering

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.

Platform engineering will be a key focus at KubeCon this year, with a special emphasis on AI platforms. Priyanka Sharma, executive director of the Linux Foundation, highlighted the convergence of platform engineering and AI during an interview on The New Stack Makers with Adobe’s Joseph Sandoval. KubeCon will feature talks from experts like Chen Goldberg of CoreWeave and Aparna Sinha of CapitalOne, showcasing how AI workloads will transform platform operations.

Sandoval emphasized the growing maturity of platform engineering over the past two to three years, now centered on addressing user needs. He also discussed Adobe's collaboration on CNOE, an open-source initiative for internal developer platforms. The intersection of platform engineering, Kubernetes, cloud-native technologies, and AI raises questions about scaling infrastructure management with AI, potentially improving efficiency and reducing toil for roles like SRE and DevOps. Sharma noted that reference architectures, long requested by the CNCF community, will be highlighted at the event, guiding users without dictating solutions. 

Learn more from The New Stack about Kubernetes: 

Cloud Native Networking as Kubernetes Starts Its Second Decade

Primer: How Kubernetes Came to Be, What It Is, and Why You Should Care 

How Cloud Foundry Has Evolved With Kubernetes 

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. game. https://thenewstack.io/newsletter/

Rohit Choudhary, co-founder and CEO of Acceldata, placed an early bet on data observability, which has proven prescient. In a New Stack Makers podcast episode, Choudhary discussed three key insights that shaped his vision: First, the exponential growth of data in enterprises, further amplified by generative AI and large language models. Second, the rise of a multicloud and multitechnology environment, with a majority of companies adopting hybrid or multiple cloud strategies. Third, a shortage of engineering talent to manage increasingly complex data systems.

As data becomes more essential across industries, challenges in data observability have intensified. Choudhary highlights the complexity of tracking where data is produced, used, and its compliance requirements, especially with the surge in unstructured data. He emphasized that data's operational role in business decisions, marketing, and operations heightens the need for better traceability. Moving forward, traceability and the ability to manage the growing volume of alerts will become areas of hyper-focus for enterprises.

Learn more from The New Stack about data observability: 

What Is Data Observability and Why Does It Matter?

The Looming Crisis in the Observability Market

The Growth of Observability Data Is Out of Control!

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. 

Rust has maintained its place among the top 15 programming languages and has been the most admired language for nine consecutive years. In a New Stack Makers podcast, Joel Marcey, director of technology at the Rust Foundation, discussed the language's growing importance, including initiatives to improve its security, performance, and adoption in various domains. While Rust is widely used in systems and backend programming, it’s also gaining traction in embedded systems, safety-critical applications, game development, and even the Linux kernel.

Marcey highlighted Rust’s strengths as a safe and fast systems language, noting its use on the web through WebAssembly (Wasm), though adoption there is still early. He also addressed Rust vs. Go, explaining that Rust excels in performance-critical applications. Marcey discussed recent updates, such as Rust 1.81, and project goals for 2024, which include a new edition and async improvements.

He also touched on government interest in Rust, including DARPA’s initiative to convert C code to Rust, and the Rust Security Initiative, aimed at maintaining the language’s strong security reputation.

Learn more from The New Stack about Rust 

Could Rust be the Future of JavaScript Infrastructure?

Rust Growing Fastest, But JavaScript Reigns Supreme

Rust vs. Zig in Reality: A (Somewhat) Friendly Debate

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. 

In a New Stack Makers episode, Ashley Williams, founder and CEO of axo, highlights how the software world depends on open-source code, which is largely maintained by unpaid volunteers. She likens this to a CVS relying on volunteer-run shipping companies, pointing out how unsettling that might be for customers. The conversation focuses on open-source maintainers’ reluctance to be seen as "suppliers" of software, an idea explored in a 2022 blog post by Thomas Depierre. Many maintainers reject the label, as there is no contractual obligation to support the software they provide. 

Williams critiques the industry's response to this, noting that instead of involving maintainers in software supply chain security, companies have relied on third-party vendors. However, these vendors have no relationship with the maintainers, leading to increased vulnerabilities. Williams advocates for better engagement with maintainers, especially at build time, to improve security. She also reflects on the growing pressures on maintainers and the underappreciation of release teams.

Learn more from The New Stack about open source software supply chain

2023: The Year Open Source Security Supply Chain Grew Up

Fortifying the Software Supply Chain

The Challenges of Securing the Open Source Supply Chain

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.

In this New Stack Makers podcast, Xun Wang, CTO of Bloomreach, brings insights from his time at Nvidia, particularly lessons from its founder, Jensen Huang, to his current role in e-commerce personalization. Wang emphasizes structuring organizations to reflect the architecture of the products they build, applying a hands-on, detail-oriented approach that encourages deep understanding of engineering challenges. 

He credits Huang for teaching him the importance of focusing on fundamental architecture rather than relying on iterative testing alone. Wang highlights the impact of generative AI (GenAI) on Bloomreach, explaining how AI-driven search is essential to understanding human language and user intent. As GenAI reshapes application development, Wang stresses the need for engineers to adopt new skills in AI manipulation, while still maintaining traditional coding expertise. He advocates for continuous learning, acknowledging the challenge of staying updated in a rapidly evolving field. Wang, himself, reads extensively to keep pace with innovations, underscoring the importance of staying curious and adaptable in today’s tech landscape. 

Learn more from The New Stack about Entrepreneurship for Engineers: 

How to Grow into Leadership 

Engineering Leaders: Switch to Wartime Management Now 

How Teleport’s Leader Transitioned from Engineer to CEO 

Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.