Insightful conversations. Less snark.

In the same way that the cloud can be incredibly helpful, it can also be the source of a few headaches. Just like the printing press, technology can help eliminate the arduous parts of our jobs and help create new specialties. But it doesn’t mean that we have the golden ticket. Today we are talking to Cloud Data Engineer, Richard Boyd, of iRobot about the perils of getting services to talk to each other and keeping your career flexible in the ever-evolving tech world.

Today, data service is becoming more like a utility and that affects the expectations and practical uses of the cloud in almost every form. Today we are talking to Richard Hartmann about the logistics of serverless infrastructure from how data centers are built to how the cloud is kind of just more of the same in the technology world.

While cloud architecture has many forms from container to serverless, the value of open source infrastructure never changes. Today we talk to Jess Frazelle of Twitter fame about role of GitHub in the cloud and how open source is beneficial to the community. Even though the way the cloud if built might change, open source will always be important to the growth of developers as well as the industry.

While a valuable investment, the value of AWS training is still not always well understood. With a library of free digital training and a variety of certifications validating baseline as well as more specific expertise, there are many reasons to look at investing the Amazon’s training program. Today, we are talking to Maureen Lonergan who works hard to bring value to the training programs for AWS and doesn’t take your time and investment in their cloud services for granted.

What if every time you washed your dishes, your dishwasher got smarter? Now imagine your dishwasher getting smarter every time someone else washed their dishes. Today, we are talking to Roger Barga, the General Manager of AWS Robotics. We discuss the recent advances in robotic programming as well as the benefits of the cloud in commercial and domestic applications.

Today we are talking with Silvia Botros, Principal Engineer at SendGrid. They specialize in email marketing that is trusted by developers and marketers for time-savings, scalability, and delivery expertise. Our discussion centers around SendGrid’s migration to AWS and the unique career paths that the company has been evolving over the past several years.

The job market in the AWS world is complex and often confusing to both employers and employees. Wouldn’t it be great to have over 43,000 data points to draw a larger picture of the market and where you fall in line? Today, we are talking to Kate Powers who walks us through the AWS Salary Survey from Jefferson Frank and discusses some interesting insights as well as real world examples of the findings. Some of the highlights of the show include: The AWS job market at large Training Certificates: what’s their value How much value is in a job title Most desirable skills from employers Gender representation in the industry The discrepancy in compensation based on geography Links: https://www.jeffersonfrank.com https://www.jeffersonfrank.com/aws-salary-survey/ https://twitter.com/_JeffersonFrank https://www.linkedin.com/company/jefferson-frank/ https://www.facebook.com/JeffersonFrank.AWS

Years ago, if you wanted to launch an Internet company or Web application, you had to own necessary hardware. Now, the economics have changed drastically with the ease of Cloud computing. It’s still a new industry that people are trying to figure out, especially when it comes to cost and optimization. Today, we’re talking to Dann Berg, a Cloud ops analyst at Datadog. He helps others understand and lower the cost of Cloud operations. Dann is a detective who is dedicated to figuring out why a company’s Cloud bill is so high. Some of the highlights of the show include: Companies struggle with field of Cloud economics; can be overwhelming because there’s so much to learn about products and implementation Companies use the Cloud to grow quickly, which makes their Cloud costs grow quickly and more than expected Only access to full list of every resource being used is the Cloud bill; there’s no comprehensive inventory service available Companies need to offer visibility to Cloud bill; not everyone has access to understand how their actions impact the bill Cost of Cloud bill is dependant on different factors, including new features, new users, and cost of goods sold (COGS) Scale and manage bill by using a platform app or hiring a consultant/team Understand pricing of AWS and learn best practices for cost controls early on Don’t leave money on the table by focusing on engineering time - not best use of resources; focus on the smallest things that have the biggest impact Cost is important, but don’t slow down those developing in the Cloud; open lines of communication to create culture to understand cost, value what’s measured Links: Dann Berg on Twitter Datadog re:Invent AWS Cost Explorer CloudHealth CloudCheckr Cloudability Lambda EC2 GCP Azure CHAOSSEARCH

If you use MongoDB, then you may be feeling ecstatic right now. Why? Amazon Web Services (AWS) just released DocumentDB with MongoDB compatibility. Users who switch from MongoDB to DocumentDB can expect improved speed, scalability, and availability. Today, we’re talking to Shawn Bice, vice president of non-relational databases at AWS, and Rahul Pathak, general manager of big data, data lakes, and blockchain at AWS . They share AWS’ overall database strategy and how to choose the best tool for what you want to build. Some of the highlights of the show include: Database Categories: Relational, key value, document, graph, in memory, ledger, and time series AWS database strategy is to have the most popular and best APIs to sustain functionality, performance, and scale Many database tools are available; pick based on use case and access pattern Product recommendations feature highly connected data - who do you know who bought what and when? Analytics Architecture: Use S3 as data lake, put in data via open-data format, and run multiple analyses using preferred tool at the same time on the same data AWS offers Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and Managed Blockchain to address use case and need for blockchain Authenticity of data is a concern with traditional databases; consider a database tool or service that does not allow data to be changed Lake Formation lets customers set up, build, and secure data lakes in less time DocumentDB: Made as simple as possible to improve customer experience AWS Culture: Awareness and recognition that it takes many to conceive, build, launch, and grow a product - acknowledge every participant, including customers Links: Amazon DocumentDB MongoDB Amazon RDS React Aurora re:Invent DynamoDB Amazon Neptune Amazon Elasti-Cache Amazon Quantum Ledger Database Amazon Timestream Amazon S3 Amazon EMR Amazon Athena Amazon Redshift Amazon Managed Blockchain Amazon EC2 Amazon Lake Formation Perl CHAOSSEARCH

Does operating system (OS) choice even matter anymore to most people? Especially with the emergence of serverless and containers? Debian may not see its name up in lights much these days, but it’s still very much front, center, and relevant to what people are doing in Cloud environments. Today, we’re talking to Elana Hashman, a Python packager and Debian developer. Everything inside a base operating system may not be interesting to end users, but such a collection of components is necessary to create a functioning Linux system. Some of the highlights of the show include: Alternative Linux operating systems, including Amazon Linux 2 Level of awareness about free software when choosing and distributing an OS What is a Python packager? How do you become one? Python is the new default language due to growth and adoption of its ecosystem Packaging community off-putting to beginners; find someone who understands the system to guide you Links: Elana Hashman Elana Hashman on Twitter Elana Hashman on Mastodon A tale of three Debian build tools Python Python Packaging Authority PyCon Debian The Debian Women Project Docker Red Hat Fortran Amazon Linux 2 Go Perl SaltStack OpenHatch SCALE Jordan Sissel on Twitter DigitalOcean

Companies can find working in the Cloud quite complicated. However, it’s a lot easier than it used to be, especially when trying to comply with regulations. That’s because Cloud providers have evolved and now offer more out-of-the-box services that focus on regulation requirements and compliance. Today, we’re talking to Elliot Murphy. He’s the founder of Kindly Ops, which provides consulting advice to companies dealing with regulated workloads in the Cloud. Some of the highlights of the show include: Technical controls are easier, but requirements are stricter Risk Analysis: Putting locks on things to thinking about risks to customers Building governance and controls; making data available and removable Secondary Losses: Scrub services to make scope and magnitude of loss smaller Computing became ubiquitous and affordable; people started collecting data to utilize later - nobody gets rid of anything General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set of regulations apply to marketing technology stacks to manage systems Empathy building exercise and security culture diagnostic help companies understand compliance obligations Security Culture: Beliefs and assumptions that drive decisions and actions Evolution of understanding with public Cloud’s security and availability Raise the bar and shift mindset from pure prevention to early detection/ mitigation; follow FAIR (factor analysis of information risk) Links: Kindly Ops Amazon Web Services (AWS) Microsoft Azure Relational Database Service (RDS) Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Nist Cybersecurity Framework GDPR Day People-Centric Security by Lance Hayden Stripe Society of Information Risk Analysts (SIRA) DigitalOcean

More and more enterprises and on-prem applications are moving to the Cloud. Therefore, flexibility, agility, time-to-market, and cost effectiveness need to be created to address a lack of visibility and control. Today, we’re talking to Archana Kesavan, senior product marketing manager at ThousandEyes. The company offers a network intelligence platform that provides visibility to Internet-centric, SaaS, or Cloud-based enterprise environments. Our discussion focuses on ThousandEyes’ 2018 Public Cloud Performance Benchmark Report. Some of the highlights of the show include: Purpose of Report: Reveals network performance and architecture connectivity for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud (GCP), and Microsoft Azure Report gathered more than 160 million data points by leveraging ThousandEyes’ global fleet of agents that simulate users’ application traffic Data collected during four-week period was ran through ThousandEyes’ global inference engine to identify trends and detect anomalies Internet X factor when calibrating network performance of public Cloud providers; best-effort medium that has no predictability and is vulnerable to attacks AWS’ performance predictability was lower than GCP Cloud and Azure leveraged their own backbones to move user traffic Certain regions, such as Asia, were handled better by GCP and Azure than AWS Customers should understand value of long-distance Internet latency when selecting a Cloud provider Determine what the report’s data means for your business; conduct customized measurements for your environment   Links: ThousandEyes ThousandEyes on Twitter ThousandEyes’ Blog 2018 Public Cloud Performance Benchmark Report Amazon Web Services (AWS) Google Cloud Microsoft Azure AWS Global Accelerator for Availability and Performance re:Invent DigitalOcean