The New Stack Makers

Like so many milestones that were achieve in the history of computing, creators and inventors rarely had eureka moments, but instead, found a very practical way to solve a problem. The creation of Kubernetes is but another example of something very big that was created with little initial fanfare, before becoming one of the most important developments in modern computing that will likely serve as the cornerstone of how software is deployed and developed for at least years to come. As Brendan Burns, distinguished engineer at Microsoft and one of the founders of Kubernetes, said during a podcast Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack, hosted during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2018 in Shanghai: “I don’t think we could have ever imagined that this would be where we’d be sitting five years from then — it’s really unbelievable.” Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/MuKVrEaQopY

The programming languages and platforms of tomorrow when code for machine learning and artificial intelligence code become as common as writing java scripts are just beginning. They should also be Kubernetes and cloud-native-centric, according to  to emerge, co-founder and COO  Jiayao (Julia) Han and CEO Xin Zhang of Caicloud, as the role operating systems and other components will play, during the podcast Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack, hosted live during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2018 in Shanghai. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/m7A75WApeY0

Welcome to The New Stack Context, a weekly podcast discussing the latest news around at-scale application development and management. For this week's episode, we discuss the latest developments in serverless computing, with Sebastien Goasguen who this month launched a new company, TriggerMesh, offering an event triggering cloud service for serverless workloads. Goasguen's last company, Skippbox was acquired by Bitnami, where he subsequently became senior director of cloud technologies. We're looking forward to hearing all about TriggerMesh. Also this week, we discuss the latest OpenStack Summit, held this week in Berlin.  The OpenStack Foundation is expanding its scope to include other infrastructure technology, which no doubt will cause ripples in the open source ecosystem. TNS editorial director Libby Clark hosts this episode of Context, with the help of TNS founder Alex Williams and TNS managing editor Joab Jackson.

Many, if not most people, discover their life calling at a very young age. In the software engineering space, those with decades of experience who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s learned they loved to code often got their start programming in BASIC in grade school or junior high. Anouska Streets, vice president of engineering, at Fiserv, is yet another example of someone lucky enough to have had access to a PC while growing decades ago. In her case, it was a school BBC microcomputer made available to the students of her school when she was 11 while in the UK. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSPyiBK9fbE

Cloud Native means different things to different people. However, Ian Andrews, vice president, products and marketing, of Pivotal, sees continuous delivery at the heart of the cloud native movement. “In the last ten years or so, a handful of organizations decided that the model of building and operating software was not effective. One of the changes they needed was the rate of changes and management of software,” said Andrews talking about the evolution of the cloud native paradigm. People at the forefront of the cloud native revolution championed things like continuous delivery — frequent release of software that contrasted the traditional model. However, as people embraced the continuous delivery model they faced challenges they didn’t anticipate. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxJbRnkQfm4

Today, we speak with Andrew Storms, vice president, security and product, for New Context, as part of The New Stack Makers podcast series featuring developers and engineers who share their down-in-the-trenches stories during this renaissance era in computing.  Storms took the opportunity to discuss his experience past and present as a security application developer. Renaissance aptly describes Storms’ 15-year plus career in IT security. Besides holding high-level security roles including Broderbund, nCircle Security, CloudPassage and others, he has written for “Wired” and taken part in an FBI Citizens Academy training course, which he says, more than reinforced any doubts he previously had about the importance of security. Still, Storms is sanguine about the levels of data security that leading cloud providers such as AWS and Google Cloud, for example, can offer compared to attempts to lock down data with on-premise data centers. “I still hear this today, which is fairly [based] on fear in my opinion: that is, 'moving all my stuff to the cloud is inherently going to be less secure than if I had it my building that I manage and secure,’” Storms said. "And it’s really just not that case anymore. So, predominantly most organizations are probably going to find a much stronger and more secure environment running it on Amazon or any of those public clouds, then they would be able to provide themselves.” However, “we do have to remember that there is a clear delegation between what is the responsibility of your provider versus yourself,” Storms said. In addition to how certain established cloud providers can offer reliable data security as part of their services, they can also offer superior technologies beyond what DevOps teams can usually develop for their on premises data centers.  “There came a point in time when the internal ops IT teams didn’t need to run giant data centers and...it didn’t make sense to do so,” Storms said. "[It became clear on-premise] was actually predominantly more expensive and you didn’t get all these tools and fancy widgets and features [unless] you went to Amazon. Where today, you’ve seen [Amazon] become during the last few years  the leader in the innovation around services they’re providing on top of their platform.” Storms, who describes himself as “one of those crazy people who likes to work 60 hours a week,” says his first real job while still in college at Broderbund Software served as a springboard for his career in tech. “It was a great time for me,” Storms said where he held several roles, including product management, IT operations and security. “But what was a little different from most other people that went to school and took computer science major was I had that kind of very stringent developer background. That's also why when the industry, some 10-15 years later, starting to move into DevOps, that was something I really grasped on, because everything in my life as just an admin was about coding. It wasn’t necessarily about installing patches or getting software up to date — it was understanding how we do it once and how we automate it when we do that."

Alex Williams, the founder, and editor-in-chief of The New Stack sat down with Erica Windisch, founder, and CTO of IOpipe, to learn about her background, upbringing and evolution as the co-founder and CTO of IOpipe. Windisch grew up in Levittown, Pennsylvania in a middle-class family. She got interested in computers via playing video games. At one point she realized that she could use computers to program them. Windisch was also inclined towards art through. To her amazement, when her grandfather showed her his PC she came across an application called Paint Brush, it was a revelation that she could use computers to create art. “With computers, I could do both of these things - programming and creating art. It was ideal,” said Windisch. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHgafdkjvx0

Those lucky enough to work in tech will almost certainly face life struggles at some point in their lives affecting careers. And those who are really fortunate are able to bounce back and continue on their successful career track after taking time off for family reasons. During a podcast hosted during OSCON in Portland, Ore. by Libby Clark, editorial director for The New Stack with Meryll Larkin, a senior Linux systems administrator and engineer,  Larkin  discussed how she took time off from her 20-year plus career in open source computing and Linux to care for her husband. Larkin is currently contracting for a company that she said, “I’m not supposed to name in Seattle.” “It’s a company with a large tech division and I’m doing security compliance, which is mostly running scripts and sending out emails, which is not my favorite kind of work, and they’re letting me update the scripts, which is more my favorite kind of work,” Larkin said.

On today's episode of The New Stack Makers, TNS Founder Alex Williams is joined by Stackery CEO Nate Taggart. Earlier in the year at ServerlessConf, the two discussed the makings of Stackery, and how it has standardized on top of the AWS Serverless Application Model to the benefit of both its developers and enterprise customers. Prior to making the move to standardize on AWS SAM, Stackery used a tool known as AWS Cloud Formation in its stack. "Amazon realised that because Cloud Formation was so powerful, that it was also very intimidating. So they released AWS SAM to focus on three common serverless patterns: Reading an API endpoint, one is creating a function on Lambda, and the other is to create a database, which they call a table. Actually a DynamoDB table. So SAM gives you, instead of having to configure all of the settings for all of your services, it gives you a nice on ramp into serverless and into infrastructure-as-code," said Taggart. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wSIi6Owxw4c

The open source moment has gone through some profound changes over the past two decades to become the cornerstone of full stack computing it is today. After entering tech in the late 1990s as programmer for early Web-based platforms, Chip Childers, CTO of the Cloud Foundry Foundation, has seen how the movement has evolved on a code level. He discussed this and other themes about his lifework during a podcast Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack, hosted during Cloud Foundry Summit Europe 2018 in Basel, Switzerland. Childers said: “I think we've learned a lot as an industry about it's open-source infrastructure services,” and noted how “there are definitely places where they are valuable.” However, much work remains to be done. “We've also learned that instead of trying to automate all of these devices,” Childers said. “We need to simplify. I'm reflecting what the industry is doing.” Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUq8L1cV054

Whether everyone should learn to code or not is a subject of debate despite the hype — but those who wear the project management hat when offering software solutions to customers stand to gain valuable career lessons. During a podcast Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack, hosted during Cloud Foundry Summit Europe 2018 in Basel, Switzerland;  Abby Kearns, executive director of the Cloud Foundry Foundation, discussed the major influence this role has had on her career. Indeed, Kearns’ first job as a project manager set the course for her career after earning a computer science degree 20 years ago from Chapman University. “I went straight from graduating college into project management — to be quite honest, I think anyone that starts their career in tech should have to start with that job,” Kearns said. “It teaches you and gives you a broad understanding of a lot of the different pieces that go into making something happen.” Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmlrEkbrtv0

The role of a software developer has certainly changed over the years. Like programming in the punch card days in the 1960s when Star Trek debuted in the 1960s, professional coding has undergone radical changes over the decades. Using the Vulcan “mind meld” concept from Star Trek from a previous conversation as a starting point,  Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack, during Cloud Foundry Summit Europe 2018 in Basel, Switzerland, discussed how the developer’s role has changed during a podcast with Tammy Van Hove, distinguished engineer at IBM, and Simon Moser, senior technical staff member, IBM Germany Research and Development. Van Hove remembered wanting a communicator when she first saw Star Trek. “I wanted that communicator and then when the first flip phones came out, [I said], ‘oh, I got a communicator, right?’” Van Hove said. Regarding the developer experience today, the culture has become very “varied and community,” Van Hove said. “When I first started programming, it was terminals and terminal rooms,” Van Hove said, adding that “resources were limited.” Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kIZ91kPKTLM

Have you ever tried to explain microservices to anyone? Depending on the context, people explain it differently. But when it comes to establishing the relationship between microservices and Cloud Native, no one explains it better than Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure. According to him, the best way to understand microservice infrastructure is to look at the previous generation architecture of client-server era. The era of monoliths. Typically, there were three tiers: application (front end); the middle tier (business logic) and then the third tier of backend for things like database server. This model slows everything down. You can’t innovate because all three tiers need to be in sync with each other. Trying to be agile by embracing cloud means on-demand creation of computing resources. It breaks the older model. You end up with a mismatch between the delivery model of the application architecture and what the underlying platform can provide. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9rG8en7Po00

One of the main  benefits of serverless is the ability to shift server administration- and platform management-related tasks to a third party, allowing for a greater focus on development and deployment. But this freedom can come at a price — relying on serverless also means, for example, giving more control to a third party. Many things for which you are at the mercy of the serverless provider include unexpected downtimes, fluctuating pricing, and ultimately, the inability to benefit from features tailored to your specific needs since you are likely one of thousands of customers. The control of underlying security parameters can also be an issue. However, with the right tools, it is possible gain visibility and control of runtime security for your serverless data and applications. Ory Segal, CTO and co-founder of serverless security provider PureSec, was on hand to discuss how, during a podcast hosted earlier this month by Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack, earlier this year at ServerlessConf 2018. The inherent issue with serverless is that customers do not own the runtime environment since “you are a guest,” Segal said. “Being able to sit there and monitor everything at a very low level..is challenging,” Segal said. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/70G1e1QpiX8

A number of services on offer for Cloud Foundry architectures have emerged, posing new challenges — as well as offering new opportunities — for service providers. Steffen Zuber and Michael Lieser,  platform engineers for anynines, were on hand to discuss their challenges offering data services for Cloud Foundry platforms during a podcast hosted earlier this month by Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack,  during Cloud Foundry Summit Europe 2018 in Basel, Switzerland. Zuber described how their roles have evolved over the past year as platform engineers. “Last year, we [adopted] DevOps, as we have enabled users to use Cloud Foundry. We have begun to develop data services customers need to for database applications, messaging queues etcetera,” Zuber said. “We focus on the automation to set up these services. So, you have the features from Cloud foundry also for our data services.” When offering data services with Cloud Foundry, stateless is the operative word, Zuber said. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbhXFofcWRs