eBPF is one of the most interesting emerging technologies in the area of observability, networking and security. On the 44th episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast, Moustafa Harbi (Sr. Technical Account Manager at Red Hat) and I have a chat about this technology and its use cases in today's enterprise IT industry.   Show Notes:

• 00:00 - Intros
• 01:30 - What's eBPF in a nutshell?
• 06:40 - What can eBPF offer us?
• 12:30 - In what language or on what framework do we write eBPF code?
• 14:20 - What are the use cases of eBPF in an enterprise setting?
• 21:30 - Do eBPF programs create any load on system CPU or memory?
• 23:00 - How do we use eBPF on an enterprise-wide scale?
• 24:45 - What's Cilium and what's its relationship with eBPF?
• 30:30 - What do you think about the future of eBPF and Cilium? Can they change the way we do networking?
• 35:00 - How can we start learning about eBPF?
• 39:00 - Closing notes

  Links:

• eBPF project
• Cilium project
• BCC (BPF Compiler Collection) GitHub page

On the 43rd episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Sean Cavanaugh (Senior Principal Technical Marketing Manager - Ansible Automation Platform, at Red Hat) and we discuss all things network automation. If you'd like to hear about main use cases, common obstacles and the solution you need (spoiler alert: Ansible :)), this episode is for you.   Show notes:

• 01:00 - Intros
• 07:30 - Some of the biggest changes in networking in the last few years
• 18:30 - Main use cases for network automation
• 31:00 - Key benefits of Ansible
• 36:00 - Common obstacles on the journey to automation
• 41:30 - Closing notes

Links:

• Red Hat Ansible Automation YouTube Channel
• Ansible Automation Platform Self-Paced Labs
• Sean's Twitter

On the 42th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Gil Hoffer (co-founder & CTO at Salto) and we discuss about their solution of automating the configuration of SaaS applications, which they describe as company-as-code.   Can we manage and operate our business applications the same way as our CI/CD pipelines and IT infrastructure? Answers are on this episode.   Show notes:

• Intros: 00:00
• What's Salto? 01:30
• What can be automated by Salto on some typical applications? 06:00
• How do you make sure Salto works with many SaaS applications and keep up with their changes? 14:00
• What made you design an automation language instead of using something like YAML or XML? 17:15
• What types of companies benefit from the company-as-code approach? 19:55
• Who are the main buyers? What business benefits do they get? 22:10
• What are the main obstacles that organisations encounter when adopting company-as-code? 26:10
• How can customers test the solution? 32:30
• Closing notes: 34:30

Links:

• Salto: Company-as-Code - Blog article on Salto.io
• Salto on GitHub 
• Gil on Twitter

On the 41st episode, Nick Barcet (Sr. Director Technology Strategy, Office of the CTO at Red Hat) joins me on the show we talk about MicroShift, an open source project of optimizing OpenShift for edge/small form factor use cases. We also talk about how Red Hat looks into emerging technology projects. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.

Links:

• Nick's twitter
• MicroShift
• MicroShift blog post Red Hat Emerging Technologies portal

Virtual Stack Podcast is back after a 10 months long hiatus! On the 40th episode of the show, I'm joined by a fellow Red Hatter and the co-host of the The Cloudcast, Brian Gracely. With Brian, we look into several technology trends such as cloud computing, web3, security then we discuss what to expect in 2022 and beyond. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Show notes: 1:30: Intros 6:00: Cloud computing 20:30: web3 and Metaverse 27:45: Security 33:15: Tech investors and VC funding 39:45: Future of work and great resignation. 47:30: Closing notes   Links: Brian's twitter. The Cloudcast: Web, Twitter.

Chris Love and Jay Vyas's book "Core Kubernetes" is about to hit the shelves around July this year via Manning Publications. Chris joined me on the 39th episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast and we discussed about all things Kubernetes: learning, common challenges of running in production and the exciting future of K8S.

I have free eBook codes for this book and you’ll get one if you’re one of the first 5 people to share my LinkedIn and Twitter posts with your network. Besides that, you can use the code “podstack20” for a 40% discount on all Manning Publications products (use this link).   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Links:

• Core Kubernetes
• Twitter: Chris, Jay
• Lionkube

Learning Kubernetes can be a great boost for your career, and you might be wondering where to start and what resources to use. Elton Stoneman joined me on the 38th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast and talked about his new book "Learn Kubernetes in a Month of Lunches", his journey of learning K8S and his views about the future of K8S.   I have free eBook codes for this book and you’ll get one if you’re one of the first 5 people to share my LinkedIn and Twitter posts with your network. Besides that, you can use the code “podstack20” for a 40% discount on all Manning Publications products.   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Links:

• Learn Kubernetes in a Month of Lunches 
• Twitter
• Elton's Blog
• Elton's Pluralsight profile

Show notes:

• 02:00 - Intro about the book and Elton's background
• 08:45 - How does the approach for learning K8S change for different personas, e.g. infra teams, dev teams, security teams?
• 15:15 - How would you learn K8S if you were to start from scratch today?
• 22:45 - How do you see the adoption trends and future of K8S?
• 27:00 - In the future, are we still going to need to learn how K8S works under the hood, or will we just use  it as a service
• 32:00 - Closing notes

Virtual Stack Podcast is back after a long break! On the 37th episode of the show, I'm joined by the authors of the book "AI as a Service", Peter Elger (CEO, fourTheorem) and Eoin Shanaghy (CTO, fourTheorem).   No need to mention the importance of the role that AI/ML play in digital transformation. With the incredible speed of evolution of cloud computing, it's now much easier to adopt cloud-based solutions rather than building everything by yourself. Peter and Eoin's book explain the AI as a Service with real world examples.   I have free eBook codes for this book and you’ll get one if you’re one of the first 5 people to share my LinkedIn and Twitter posts with your network. Besides that, you can use the code “podstack20” for a 40% discount on all Manning Publications products.   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Show Notes:

• 02:00 - Intro
• 08:30 - Current cloud landscape and definition of AI/ML and Serverless
• 17:30 - Who can benefit the most from reading the book?
• 19:45 - What are the main use cases for AIaaS and which industries can benefit the most?
• 21:30 - When do you recommend using AIaaS versus DIY, or vice versa?
• 27:00 - How would you build a web application using AIaaS and Serverless technologies? What are the architectural building blocks and public cloud services?
• 36:00 - How can we be more effective and efficient while using AIaaS?
• 41:00 - Recommendations for further learning and closing notes

Links:

• Peter and Eoin's book: "AI as a Service"
• Peter's Twitter
• Eoin's Twitter
• SLIC Starter: A complete starter project from fourTheorem for production-grade serverless applications on AWS.

vSphere Bitfusion delivers elastic infrastructure for AI/ML workloads by creating pools of hardware accelerator resources, such as GPUs. VMware has acquired Bitfusion in late-2019 and it has been recently announced that Bitfusion will be an integrated feature of vSphere 7.0.

On the 36th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Mike Adams (Sr. Director Cloud Platform Product Marketing at VMware) and we discuss about vSphere Bitfusion, its technology and use cases.

You can reach out to Mike on Twitter and LinkedIn, and you can learn more about vSphere Bitfusion via [email protected] mailer. 

Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.

Show Notes:

• 01:00 - Intro
• 02:00 - Intro to Bitfusion and their technology
• 05:30 - Relationship between GPU technology and AI/ML applications
• 08:30 - How can we use Bitfusion, is it now a part of vSphere? How’s pricing and packaging?
• 12:30 - The architecture and components of the solution
• 15:00 - What’s CUDA and what’s its relationship with Bitfusion technology?
• 19:15 - What about Kubernetes workloads and Bitfusion?
• 21:45 - What are some of the use cases/verticals that can benefit from Bitfusion technology? 
• 30:15 - Usage of FPGA and custom ASICs with Bitfusion.
• 32:30 - Closing notes

Links:

• Hardware Acceleration with vSphere Bitfusion
• Announcing vSphere Bitfusion – Elastic Infrastructure for AI/ML Workloads
• VMware Blogs on AI/ML
• VMware’s AI/ML direction and Hardware Acceleration with vSphere Bitfusion
• VMware Kubernetes Integration with Bitfusion

 

On the 35th episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by David Burton (Director, Colleague Experience & Technology - EMEA at VMware) and we discuss about how VMware uses its own technologies to create the best employee experience. We also touch base on the new definition of workplace in enterprises after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.

Show notes:

• 01:00 - Intro
• 02:00 - What’s employee experience, why does it matter?
• 05:30 - What sets the difference between companies that can and cannot identify customer needs and set the right experience. What are they doing right or wrong?
• 08:45 - How did VMware define the colleague expectations in different areas, like, on boarding, remote working, learning and development?
• 11:20 - How will the pandemic will effect the employee experience going forward?
• 20:30 - What’s the technology stack used in VMware’s employee experience solution.
• 24:30 - Closing notes