Talk Catalog
An Intro to Human Architecture: Populus ex Machina
People are complicated. Understanding them is even MORE complicated. Understanding them when you're inclined to introversion and IT is maybe the MOST complicated - which is a bummer, because we all have to somehow work together. However! Worry not. In this talk, we'll explain how architecture patterns reflect people patterns, and how understanding architecture patterns will actually help you understand people - and, if you happen to understand people, we'll explain how understanding people will help you understand architecture patterns.Categories: Human Architecture
The Business Agility Treasure Map: Charting a Course to Continuous Delivery
All companies are IT companies. Except...not. All companies who feel the weight of their customers' ever-increasing demands for speed know that they SHOULD be IT companies, but most companies don't know how to get there - or even what "there" looks like. Josh and Laine will talk about how to use a map to build a strategy to navigate the high seas of being a business today in order to deliberately find the treasure - treasure that gives the ability to embrace and empower existing IT resources, and eventually will give enough resources to thrive even at the lightning-fast pace of being a business today.Categories: IT Culture
But I Don't WANNA: Protecting Your Resources as a Skilled Knowledge Worker
We work in IT – and while we WORK with computers, we do not always FUNCTION like computers where inputs consistently make the same outputs. Our jobs are mostly theory and design and strategy, with some good old fashioned implementation thrown in – and as skilled knowledge workers, we function best when we respect that our mental and emotional resources matter. In this talk, we’ll explain some of the best practices we’ve stumbled across for personal (brain and heart) resource maintenance.Categories: Human Architecture, People
Communities for Adaptability
Companies need to be able to move quickly, to keep up with customer demand - and also to attract and retain talent. So how do you build an organization that can go fast without burning your people out? In this talk, Josh and Laine will discuss what they've seen work to build an organization that can move and pivot and grow, and the (vital) role of communities in that change.Categories: Organization Culture, IT Culture
Container Tools: The Next Generation
CRI-O and Buildah and Podman, OH MY. (...and Skopeo, and where the heck does Docker fit in now, and...) Containers are cool. Everyone knows it. But the tools to work with them are constantly evolving, and it's hard to keep up on what does what and why you should care. Laine and Josh will explain the tools on the landscape, when you should use what, and demo how it all fits together to help with container-based application development and deployment.Categories: Technical, Demo
Coordinating Chaos: ChatOps for Human People
We have systems that can tell us in some amount what's wrong with them, but the sheer volume of data, and the sheer volume of systems, make it so that we can't do anything useful with (all of!) that information. In this talk, Josh and Laine will talk about "wise alerting" to try to understand what both Dev and Ops teams (along with architects and dev/ops management, and even business units) REALLY need to know, along with an overview of their definition of ChatOps, or the idea of systems interacting with people via the chat platforms they use. They'll walk through how to think about parsing and forwarding alerts for maximum efficiency and action-ability, and how to build community via these typically confusing bits of data.Categories: Organization Culture, Technical, IT Culture
DevSecOps with Containers and Kubernetes Workshop
This DevSecOps Workshop is a unique hands-on experience for building, deploying, and securing containerized cloud-native applications using industry-standard open source technologies. You will learn how containers and Kubernetes (specifically OpenShift) can change the way you run mission-critical applications, as well as how to leverage an assembly line approach that automates increasing levels of security assurance for each step in the process. Attendees will get hands-on, applying DevSecOps techniques in building a Secure Software Factory for a Java-based application with a variety of tools - including Gogs, Nexus, Jenkins, Quay, and Sonarqube. You'll learn: A bit of each of those tools How to automate development and deployment processes using containers How to build an end-to-end trusted software supply chainCategories: Technical, Workshop
Enabling Technical Communities
Technology is implemented by people. People are more powerful in communities. But...how do you support and enable a community to be successful at technology implementation? How do you support and enable the technology you choose to help the community thrive? Josh and Laine will talk about how to simplify the on-ramp of technology for developers new to it, and also how to scale technology for growing groups of users. They'll also discuss the support models they've seen be successful and the cultural modifications necessary to put them in place.Categories: IT Culture
Event-Driven Architecture and Serverless Workshop
Serverless! Event-driven things! DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION! The world around us exists as a collection of events - things that happen and data points that we take in and process and decide what to do about (or not do about), all the time, every day. So...why shouldn't the systems we interact with be structured in the same way? In this hands-on workshop, Laine and Josh will explain event-driven architecture, and why it's different from traditional monolith and also microservice architecture. They'll explain the pros and cons, and go over some of the technology that's currently out there to implement systems in this more customer-centric way. They'll also explain more in depth how the serverless model of implementing architecture is especially helpful for accomplishing the goal of event-driven architecture, and then lead you through a workshop that ties it all together using Knative on a Kubernetes cluster (OpenShift).Categories: Workshop, Technical
Governance in the Enterprise: How to See and Set Guardrails that Don't Slow You Down
The hardest parts of technology are people and what they do - so, _culture_ and _process_. In the center of that is how to determine the right amount of oversight when implementing technology or the processes around that technology. That "right amount of oversight" is typically referred to as "governance." In this talk, Josh and Laine will explain that there is no one right answer for the right amount of oversight, but there are some best practices to keep in mind. There are also some ways to make it easier to think and talk about governance as a whole, and to deliberately apply it. They'll also go over what the wrong amounts of governance look like and give some tips about how to try to correct it when you see it.Categories: Organization Culture, Human Architecture, IT Culture
How to Technology Good: Tips for Implementation at Scale
Want to bring [new cool thing X] or [necessary technology change Y]? GOOD IDEA! Except…now what? If your company is more than about 3 people, how do you explain, enable, and encourage the adoption of this change, especially if it will require some work on everyone’s part? In How to Technology Good, we’ll explain the pitfalls of technology implementation at scale, along with some tips and tricks for how to be as successful as you can.Categories: IT Culture
Kubernetes Platform Security: A framework to think about it and some practical advice
Running containers requires a container management layer that thinks about and handles many moving parts. The architecture of that layer can't have cliffs, gaps, or rough edges: it has to be a _reliable_ and _complete_ platform. One critical piece of this is security - and in this talk, Laine and Josh will give their recommendations for Kubernetes security from container ingredients to how to look at application and platform boundaries, and they'll wrap it all in a framework that makes it easy to think about, understand, and explain.Categories: IT Culture, Technical
Not a Cultural Fit - Anatomy of Organization Breakdown
What exactly does it mean to be "not a cultural fit" for an organization? Is it a slightly more polite euphemism for "that person was terrible at their job"? Or maybe, "they had no social skills to speak of"? What happens when it means that it's the _organization_ that's...kind of terrible at their job? What if _no one_ is actually terrible at their job and "not a cultural fit" is a simple statement of fact? In this talk, Laine and Josh will share the experiences they've collected over the years with multiple organizations, and how the relationship between person and organization can break down. They'll look at why that relationship fails, what it looks like when it's failing, how to salvage it when possible - and when to know it's time to choose something else. They'll also talk about how to find where you DO belong, either within an organization or outside of it. This session is intended to be mostly discussion, but please also feel welcome if you just want to listen.Categories: IT Culture, Organization Culture, Human Architecture, People
One of Us: The Importance of Community in Culture Change
If companies truly want to go FAST, occasionally that requires changing something about the culture of the company. Processes get stale or overly complex, people don’t know why things are the way they are, and everyone wonders at the wisdom of asking too many questions. Culture change is hard, and in this talk we’ll explain the most important piece of surviving and even finding JOY in it – having a strong, supportive community.Categories: IT Culture, Organization Culture
Pivoting in the Noise: Event-Driven Architecture for Customer-Responsive Systems
Hey! Hey! Hey! The world around us exists as a collection of events - things that happen and data points that we take in and process and decide what to do about (or _not_ do about), all the time, every day. So...why shouldn't the systems we interact with be structured in the same way? In this session, Laine and Josh will explain event-driven architecture, and why it's different from traditional monolith and also microservice architecture. They'll explain the pros and cons, and go over some of the technology that's currently out there to implement systems in this more customer-centric way.Categories: Technical, Human Architecture
Serverless in Kubernetes: Portable Simplified Ops for Cloud-Native Workloads
Serverless! Functions as a service! DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION! ...just kidding. One of the ideas in IT that's been gathering buzz for a while is "serverless." Or sometimes "functions as a service," used interchangeably. And...okay, but what does that actually _mean_? And...how does it help what you're trying to accomplish in your organization? In this talk, Josh and Laine talk about what serverless is, and what it isn't, along with why you should care and how it can help with actual "digital transformation." They'll go over the benefits and drawbacks of this method of implementing applications and show a demo of how it works using Knative (https://knative.dev/) on a Kubernetes cluster.Categories: Technical, Demo
Solving Software Delivery Pain - What Hurts and Why it Matters
There is pain inherent in development - monoliths, confusing deployment processes, conflict between dev/ops/business. IT is hard and the pace of change now makes it even more difficult. Join Josh and Laine as they talk about how focusing on solving this pain can help in a lot of surprising ways - kickstarting DevOps, speeding up product delivery, and even enabling the business as a whole.Categories: Human Architecture, Organization Culture
The Treasure Map, Hands-On: Chart Your Way to Continuous Delivery
There is pain inherent in development - monoliths, confusing deployment processes, conflict between dev/ops/security/business... IT is complicated, and hard to do well, and the pace of change expected by customers makes it all even MORE difficult. It can also be _massively_ overwhelming to try to fix any of these pain points. A plan can help, but...how do you go about making that plan, and how do you share the plan with other people in a way that's easy to understand? Join Josh and Laine as they talk about how to create a version of this map for your organization - by focusing on what you want to accomplish and the pain points in the way. You'll leave with a version of the problems in the way of accomplishing CD at _your_ organization, along with some "huh, this isn't as overwhelming as it seemed before!" This workshop will include a lot of discussion and interaction, and probably some feels!Categories: Workshop, IT Culture, Organization Culture
To Hug or to Strangle: Tips for Dealing with Monolith Pain
A long time ago, in a land far far away, there were monoliths. These fabled artifacts brought consistency and stability to the land - but there was a cost in speed, agility, time, and development pain. Whether Java EE, .NET, or something else, the big ol' integrated plexi-purpose binaries or yore (and also now...) have grown into problems that hurt developers, architects, and the execution of business goals. In this talk, Josh and Laine will talk specifics about the pain points of monoliths, and the various strategies they've seen to alleviate that pain.Categories: Technical, IT Culture