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Distributed Data and Apps: What About Your Infra?
Technological and operational shifts are required to accommodate the shift to distributed data and apps

You’ve read how modern companies are disrupting their legacy peers by pursuing a data-driven culture …
1. Chick-fil-A’s edge use case allows the company to transform its fast-food restaurants.
2. An industry-first, software-only mobile infrastructure by Rakuten Mobile.
3. Tesla Autopilot functionality getting ever so close to Level 5, with new features and enhancements pushed to vehicles almost bi-weekly.
There are myriad, but the common thread is this: These are software-first companies in their categories. And why are they software-first? They are data-driven.

Their secret sauce is the continuous pursuit to process and extract insights from data to drive their business decisions and operational efficiencies. So if that’s the recipe, why aren’t incumbents doing it?

Distributed Data & Apps, Oh My!

The Trend

Data is becoming increasingly distributed in the enterprise, and for multiple reasons, including:
- Digital transformation of business processes wherever they’re needed—at the branch, the factory, the store … even the car or plane.
- The distribution of workloads and clusters themselves due to modern app architecture and deployment trends, including microservices, containers and multi-cloud.
As a result, distributed apps and data in the enterprise typically require the following:
- Real-time responses.
- Hyper-localization (aka edge).
- Near-zero downtime.
- Intelligent management and security.
To address the above, there are technological and operational shifts required. Those changes can be summarized below:

What if We Have Legacy Infrastructure in Place?

To recap: Apps are changing, driven by critical business needs. ← Read above.

These changes have a significant impact on enterprise architectures in where apps run and how those apps and data are connected, secured and operated. The properties for dealing with the requirements of distributed apps and data are driving the following shifts:
1. WHERE — Multiple Clouds and Edge
  Data gravity for performance reasons, risk reductions, edge AI use cases, etc.
2. HOW — Hybrid Applications
  Containerization of apps and serverless environments, as well as the need to connect/discover legacy apps are driving new architectural, network and security challenges.
3. HOW — Layer 3 (Network) → Layer 7 (App/Proxy/API)
  Connectivity is changing from traditional network-level (IP) access to app-to-app communication using REST/gRPC APIs which are usually delivered over HTTPS (TCP/443).
Apps Have Changed. So Have the Required Capabilities for Networking and Securing Them
- App-2-App Networking: Microservices and containers communicate to each other in addition to the end user and over wider locations, making reliability/performance an even greater consideration.
- Higher-layer Security: App-to-app and microservices architectures require zero-trust at the API layer because that’s how they communicate.
- API-first: Apps are written to be API producers and consumers on day 1. This has fundamental implications on how those APIs are delivered, connected and secured.
To summarize: There are several technical and architectural trends (driven by business needs) around the types of applications, their locality and the means of how they are delivered/accessed. As they converge, it is creating major challenges for traditional networking, security and app services infrastructures.

Why Today’s Infra Is Obsolete for Modern Apps

Legacy Vendors, Limited Approaches = Mixed Results (at Best)

Today’s enterprise architecture has become increasingly complex for app delivery

OK, I’ll write what you’re thinking: Your router/switch vendor is obsolete. Your firewall is obsolete. Your load balancer/ADC is obsolete. The operational tools and services to manage this at scale are obsolete.

When it comes to distributed apps and the need to process distributed data, traditional networking and security tools (and their operations) are unsustainable.

Your Load Balancer/ADC Isn’t in Kansas Anymore …

Legacy application delivery controllers or ADC (aka “the modern load balancer”) were designed to efficiently and securely deliver web-based monolithic apps directly to end users with the highest performance possible. They were:
- Optimized for monolithic apps accessed directly by end users, whether SaaS and internet apps or enterprise web apps hosted in a public cloud or private data center.
- Either hardware- or software-based, though recently evolved to software offerings such as NGINX and Avi, which can be deployed in multiple clusters and public clouds.
- Limited in operational simplicity and end-to-end visibility when operating at scale in a distributed environment. They can’t be centrally managed (think SaaS) and don’t provide end-to-end observability across clusters, end-to-end policy management, etc.
- Limited or no API capabilities. While newer software versions such as NGINX may have limited API gateway capabilities, most don’t. And none have API auto-discovery and control. Older ADCs were a combination of hardware or software solutions focused on delivering apps at L4 up to L7 from a traffic management basis. Modern apps have moved beyond this, and so must your app networking and security infra.
Don’t believe me? Let me give you a real-world example to help calibrate where I’m coming from.

Architecture for distributed HD mapping processing

Above is an example architecture of an auto manufacturer looking to retrofit its existing and planned electric vehicle (EV) stations to collect HD mapping and process it at scale.

Let’s analyze the workflow and requirements:
1. EVs (taxis, rideshare and/or vehicles agreed to share and process data) drive in and a video sensor picks up on the make, model, VIN, license plate, etc.—any identifiable data.
2. Query a backend database, typically hosted in a private cloud (for security and compliance reasons). Get the necessary credentials to access the vehicle’s local Wi-Fi.
3. Offload the data to the EV station. Process locally what’s needed; the rest is sent to AWS for large-scale mapping analytics.
4. Now add to this requirement that EV owners for business reasons or regulatory reasons would like to lease that EV compute to other automotive companies, law/government enforcement to access the EV stations in a secure, multi-tenanted and auditable way.
5. Now multiply this need across 25,000 EV stations!
The Oh Sh*t! Moment — Real-World Example

There were multiple options and proposals put forward, insourced through various teams or outsourced through system integrators. Below is an example of one of those proposals:

Traditional app networking architecture

Let’s Summarize:
- Infrastructure — 1 x public cloud vendor, 2 x private DCs, 5 x Software/Hardware Vendors (router/SD-WAN, firewall, load balancer, API gateway) across all locations (public, private and edge).
- Application Management — 1 x vendor with inbuilt tooling for LCM of apps
- Operational Model — Different tooling across environments (public, private and edge), different software/management systems for each vendor and service.
- Configuration Models — Different configurations for services and vendors to achieve a holistic outcome.
- Security/Auditing — Security across vertical software/vendor layers; along with horizontal visibility and management challenges (i.e. many locations).
I’ll let someone else make the TCO on why the above is a nightmare (or this can be a topic for another post), but let’s assume for a moment you find a business model that actually works in your favor because you have an army of lawyers to make sure the vendors (the ones with deep pockets) bear the burden. But is this really a positive outcome for your business, employees or customers?

Modern App Networking + Security for the Modern Enterprise

A modern enterprise infra architecture for distributed apps

A new generation of infrastructure platform (aka “modern”) is what’s needed for networking and securing modern apps, and it must be more app- and API-centric than your traditional ADCs. This is similar to how ADCs were an evolution of vanilla L4 load balancers over a decade ago.

Here is a potential list of things to look for as you begin researching a modern infra stack and service for app networking and security:
- Integrated stack for Layer 3-7 networking and security — a high-performance service that can be used to deliver secure app-2-app connectivity.
- SaaS-first operations — everything from deploying a stack (site) to full lifecycle management of the software and its services. Think configuring a load balancer or reverse-proxy within minutes across 10,000 locations. Or a single pane of glass for your DevOps, NetOps, Dev and SecOps teams.
- Intent-based policy — a single expression of intent across all layers starting from Layer 3 → 7 → API. A user can configure (and enforce) network connectivity, network firewall, forward proxy, load balancing, service policies, WAF, API Gateway (AuthZ/AuthZ, API service-2-service policies), etc.
- End-to-end and bottoms-up observability — a single pane of glass for all teams to view metrics, logs and alerts from networking, firewalls, load balancers, API Gateway, etc.
Here’s another example:

Finishing Up

To circle back, networking and security for modern apps requires a new kind of thinking … aka modern (or cloud-native) infrastructure. As apps become more distributed, your architecture, infrastructure and operations teams must adapt … and that includes modern app networking and security.

This article is part of a series of articles from sponsors of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2020 North America
October 21, 2020
Reducing Cloud Infrastructure Complexity
The impact of the cloud and its role in mainstream IT is undeniable. According to IDC, global cloud IT infrastructure spending is projected to reach US$92 billion (SG$126 billion) in 2023. Notably, cloud spending is exceeding the spending on non-cloud IT infrastructure, underscoring the influence of the cloud in modern IT deployments.

Fast Forward to Cloud

Why are enterprises and startups alike turning to the cloud? At the forefront is its sheer scalability and how it enables rapid time-to-market. Instead of waiting weeks or months for hardware systems to arrive, cloud infrastructure can be launched and put to work within minutes. Moreover, cloud-based resources such as managed cloud databases reduce the complexity of deploying new services, thereby enabling smaller teams of developers to do more.

New cloud-centric methodologies have also emerged with the maturity of the cloud. For instance, infrastructure as code (IaC) makes it possible to automate the management and provisioning of an entire technology stack with configuration, replacing error-prone manual deployments. Among others, IaC also supports CI/CD deployments and disaster recovery plans with the ability to easily deploy test environments or even the entire infrastructure stack.

Cloud proficiency varies across organizations, however. For most, the journey to the cloud began with low-hanging, lift-and-shift migrations or relatively straightforward cloud implementations, such as a website or an online shop. Other enterprises might have started with cloud-native applications within their organization as part of an effort toward rapid experimentation.

Like most IT projects, cloud deployments are probably implemented with the technologies of the day and by developers and architects who prefer quick results over efficiency. Although this laissez-faire approach yields quick results, it can be inefficient and culminate in systems that are hard to maintain. The situation is worsened over time as additional services or new features are built on top of the initial design.

Cloud-amplified complexity

It’s no surprise that deploying well-designed cloud systems is getting more difficult. As organizations look to leverage the cloud in more advanced ways, some are forced to re-architect existing systems, preventing them from realizing the benefits of reduced time-to-market.

Other factors that increase the complexity of the cloud include the following:
- Rapid evolution of the cloud: The breakneck growth of the public cloud has birthed new cloud technologies and strategies that did not exist before. For instance, serverless architecture and containers entered the mainstream only in recent years.
- Deep expertise matters more than ever: While there are more qualified cloud engineers today, there remains a dearth of experts given the sheer demand for them. A team of “been there, done that” experts can enable an organization to move ahead much faster.
- Larger attack surface: As more systems and workloads are moved to the cloud, IT teams are under increasing pressure to keep up with the dramatically increased attack surface. From catching configuration drift to patching software libraries that are used within the technology stack, having team members with the right mix of experience is invaluable.
Modern public cloud platforms offer nuanced, broad capabilities that continue to evolve at a rapid pace. Leveraging the right features can bring forth immense rewards not just in terms of cost, but also offer greater reliability and maintainability. Conversely, ignoring good design can lead to cloud sprawl and ballooning cloud costs, tangling the organizations in a web of spiraling complexity that hinders new cloud implementations.

A Better Cloud Infrastructure Design

Ultimately, the cloud journey does not end with the successful implementation or migration of individual systems to the cloud. The breakneck pace of development in the cloud means that best practices and optimal strategies are constantly evolving, making it highly challenging for in-house IT to pin down. Moreover, as new cloud capabilities become available, the onus is on enterprises to leverage the right features for the best cloud solution possible, which necessitates constant optimization.

Getting this right requires the involvement of experts who are well-versed with the latest cloud practices and automation strategies that can be gleaned only from experience, a deep understanding of the latest cloud methodologies, and the evolving capabilities of each public cloud platform. As these cloud experts focus on core designs, in-house IT can keep doing what they do best: keeping users happy and improving productivity and user experience.

For instance, Indonesia’s streaming service provider Genflix wanted to migrate its video-on-demand (VOD) workflow to Amazon Web Services (AWS). With a library of 10,000 hours of VOD content, efficiency and seamless processing were vital. CloudCover helped Genflix architect an end-to-end media workflow with a serverless computing design in a span of just three months.

Whether you are rolling out a new cloud-native system from scratch or looking to improve an existing cloud deployment, a review of your cloud deployment might be in order. This isn’t as daunting as it seems and can be initiated through a simple discovery and analysis phase.

This article is part of a series of articles from sponsors of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2020 North America
October 20, 2020
The Low-Code/No-Code Revolution: Join the Conversation
Make plans to take part in the low-code/no-code conversation at an upcoming daylong virtual conference

MediaOps, the company behind devopsy.kinsta.cloud, is excited to announce it will be producing Low Code Today, a new live virtual event taking place Nov. 19. The call for speakers is now open and actively accepting submissions.

The low-code/no-code market has been growing and evolving for a number of years. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to bring applications to use faster than ever, as well as the increased capabilities of building complex applications with low-code/no-code tools, this area is becoming increasingly important.

We want to hear your stories: How have the economic conditions during COVID-19 accelerated your digital transformation efforts? What tools are you using to work smarter and faster in a world where building cloud-native applications is quickly becoming a necessity?

We’re inviting all professional developers, citizen developers, business executives and creators of low-code/no-code technologies to submit their abstracts before the deadline, Oct. 31.

Low Code Today is a free, multi-track virtual event focused on the low-code/no-code market that’s been developing over the past few years but has seen exponential growth in the past six months. We invite those who are interested in speaking to submit their abstracts for one of the following topics:
- Steering the Charge: Hear directly from CIOs, business leaders and IT managers on their approaches to adopting low-code/no-code from a high-level, organizational perspective. What are the strategic approaches, considerations and challenges with bringing low-code/no-code tools to an organization? How is low-code/no-code revolutionizing businesses? What will the future of app development look like?
- Learning by Doing: The best way to learn is by doing. Tune in to hear experiences and case studies from customers who have brought low-code/no-code technologies to their organizations. You’ll discover answers to questions such as, How has your company used low-code/no-code tools? What was the impact? What lessons were learned?
- Enabling the Citizen Developer: Low-code/no-code technologies have given rise to the “Citizen Developer.” These demonstrations, workshops and how-to tutorials will share how low-code/no-code tools can help business users improve processes and increase productivity.
Whether you’re currently using low-code/no-code technologies or creating tools that can support complex business processes, we encourage you to tell your story with an individual presentation, panel discussion, customer case study, fireside chat or live Q&A session.

For more information, please contact inaara@mediaops.com. Sponsorship opportunities are available. Sponsors to date include ServiceNow, Outsystems and Prodly. Click here to submit your session.
October 19, 2020
Accelerate Your Digital Transformation with IBM
DevOps practices, processes and solutions help businesses accelerate their digital transformation by improving the speed and quality of software development. DevOps tools enable teams to do their job more efficiently by embracing automation, increasing agility and building speed, versatility and security into the framework.

At the IBM DevOps Virtual Summit, attendees will learn how to keep their applications running smoothly with automation and data-driven solutions that can reduce mean time to resolution and explore IBM solutions to help innovate hybrid environments, disrupt cloud native development and transform existing mainframe infrastructures. The free virtual event will take place on Oct. 29 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. ET.

IBM leaders will discuss the benefits of DevSecOps, how to increase business value, SRE best practices and how IBM Cloud software and services can help organizations succeed on their DevOps journey.

The virtual event will feature four educational sessions from leading DevOps technologists:
- “Application Modernization Enabling Hybrid Cloud with IBM Z,” by Rosalind Radcliffe, distinguished engineer and chief architect for DevOps at IBM.
- “The Modern DevOps Manifesto,” by Andrea Crawford, distinguished engineer at IBM.
- “DevSecOps in a Hybrid Multicloud World,” by Sunil Joshi, executive architect at IBM.
- “Common Tooling Approaches from Kubernetes to the Mainframe,” by Eric Minick, program director at IBM.
For more information about the virtual summit or to register, please visit the IBM DevOps Virtual Summit website.
October 9, 2020
Upcoming Event: DevOps Experience 2020
The third annual DevOps Experience is just around the corner, and this year’s event will be out of this world.

DevOps Experience 2020: The Builders Shall Inherit the Earth offers attendees the opportunity to gain inspiration, sharpen their skills and network with some of the best DevOps leaders and practitioners. The conference will take place in a virtual environment with a lobby, an auditorium and an exhibit hall on Oct. 22, at 10 a.m. EDT.

This year’s event will focus on digital transformation and DevOps adoption from a “bottom up” model. It is the practitioners who are often the unsung heroes of successful DevOps implementations, choosing what tools to adopt, bringing teams together and contributing to the community.

DevOps Experience 2020 will feature a stellar lineup of DevOps luminaries, including:
- Kohsuke Kawaguchi, co-CEO and founder at Launchable (keynote speaker)
- Akash Tayal, U.S. cloud strategy and operating model leader at Deloitte Consulting (keynote speaker)
- Bob Vuong, principal at Deloitte Consulting (keynote speaker)
- Loris Degioanni, CTO and founder at Sysdig (keynote speaker)
- Tracy Ragan, co-founder and CEO at DeployHub
- Orit Golowinski, senior product manager of progressive delivery at GitLab
- Jayne Groll, CEO at DevOps Institute
- Rob Hirschfeld, founder and CEO at RackN
- Bryan Feuling, solutions architect at Harness
- Bob Reselman, analyst at ASG
- Maya Ber Lerner, CTO at Quali
The breakout sessions and panel discussions will fall under four main tracks:
- Humans in the DevOps World: DevOps is about more than just technology. Understand the important role that humans play in your organization’s DevOps journey.
- CI/CD: Learn how to keep the factory running by setting up your CI/CD pipeline to automate software delivery.
- GitOps: Find out the key principles and benefits of GitOps and best practices for continuous deployment and progressive security.
- Observability: Insights demand much more than collecting and analyzing. Observability can help developers uncover issues that impede performance and derail customer experience.
- SRE: What is SRE? Who are SREs? How do we get it? Where do we start? This track will explore the best practices and patterns associated with SRE.
- Tools: Discover and learn the latest DevOps tools and services that IT teams are using to accelerate delivery, improve quality and get faster feedback.
Take advantage of the valuable information provided in the educational sessions at DevOps Experience 2020 and learn how to adopt the right tools and practices to harness the full potential of DevOps. To infinity and beyond!

To check out the full agenda or to register for free, visit the DevOps Experience website.
September 17, 2020
Operationalizing Cloud Native with Kubernetes Virtual Summit Speaker Spotlight: Tracy Ragan, Cornelia Davis, Ashley Ward and Rob Hirschfeld

The Operationalizing Cloud Native with Kubernetes Virtual Summit will bring together Kubernetes and cloud-native community members for a unique learning experience focused on the tools and best practices you need in order to successfully secure and manage Kubernetes. Presented in a virtual reality environment, the event will take place on Oct. 1, at 10 a.m. EDT.

At the The Operationalizing Cloud Native with Kubernetes Virtual Summit, Kubernetes technologists, DevOps and cloud-native experts will be educating the audience on cloud-native technologies and digital transformation with Kubernetes. Tracy Ragan of DeployHub, Cornelia Davis of Weaveworks, Ashley Ward of Palo Alto Networks and Rob Hirschfeld of RackN are a few of the outstanding speakers that will be sharing their knowledge and insights with the community at the Operationalizing Cloud Native with Kubernetes Virtual Summit.

Recognized as a Women In Technology (WIT) Honoree for her work in DevOps, DeployHub Co-Founder and CEO Tracy Ragan is an expert in configuration management and pipeline life cycle practices with a hyper focus on microservices and cloud-native architectures. Tracy is a well-known DevOps evangelist and DevOps Institute Ambassador. She serves as board member of the CDF, where she is the elected General Member Representative, and she is also the creator of the Continuous Delivery Foundation Interactive Landscape. Prior to DeployHub, Tracy was co-founder and COO at OpenMake Software.

During her talk, “Achieving Business Agility with Microservices,” Tracy will explain what application teams must do in order to achieve business agility. She will explore how microservices are truly the last mile of Agile practices and an essential component for the creation of a modern software architecture.

One of our most distinguished speakers is Cornelia Davis, CTO at Weaveworks and author of “Cloud Native Patterns: Designing Change-Tolerant Software.” Cornelia is an industry veteran with almost 30 years of experience in image processing, scientific visualization, distributed systems, web app architectures and cloud-native platforms. She is responsible for Weaveworks’s technology strategy, inclusive of open source projects, commercial products and services offerings. Cornelia is driven by the desire to help enterprises transform their business through the leverage of cloud computing platforms.

In her session, “The Business Benefits of GitOps,” Cornelia will cover key GitOps principles and practices and tie them to measurable IT outcomes, such as change failure rates and mean time to recovery. These IT metrics are intrinsically tied to digital transformation initiatives. She will also review research that has shown a correlation between these measures and where companies fall on the spectrum from high to low performers in terms of business outcomes.

Ashley Ward, CTO for Prisma Cloud at Palo Alto Networks, is another of our brilliant speakers presenting at the virtual event. Ashley aids customers in the secure deployment and scaling of cloud native environments. He has over 15 years of experience in the operations and infrastructure architect space.

During the session “Kubernetes Security – Defense in Depth,” Ashley covers the areas that need attention when securing the Kubernetes stack.

“Kubernetes can seem complicated and even frightening when trying to secure it,” said Ashley. “I hope that people takeaway an understanding of why and how they can secure their Kubernetes clusters and resources.”

He will also introduce the audience to the concept of a cloud-native application protection platform.

Another DevOps and cloud-native expert joining as a speaker at this year’s virtual event is Rob Hirschfeld, founder and CEO at RackN. Rob has been creating software to automate infrastructure for over 20 years. He has been involved in numerous open source efforts including LF Edge (Board), CNCF (SIG Chair) and OpenStack (Board).

Rob will show how EdgeLab.digital uses Digital Rebar to provide PXE boot, immutable O/S and API-driven automation control of RPis to build Kubernetes (k3s) and OpenFaaS.

“This session is a ground-up demo of the entire process and background about why it’s important to have a proven reference architecture,” said Rob. “This is designed as a learning environment that can also scale to real edge and enterprise use.”

Attendees will learn how this easy-to-duplicate-at-home demo creates a true desktop data center using the community edition of Digital Rebar to enable netboot for RPis and install CNCF sandbox project K3s. The same code learned in this demo session can run any COTS infrastructure and is currently running multinational banks in the EdgeLab.

You can hear from these speakers and more than 30 other industry leaders at Operationalizing Cloud Native with Kubernetes Virtual Summit. To check out the agenda, the full lineup of speakers and to register (for free), visit the Operationalizing Cloud Native with Kubernetes Virtual Summit website.

September 11, 2020
Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit Speaker Spotlight: James Strachan, Liz Rice, Priyanka Sharma and Tim Hockin

The Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit will bring together Kubernetes and cloud-native community members for a unique learning experience focused on the tools and best practices you need in order to successfully secure and manage Kubernetes. Presented in a virtual reality environment, the event will take place on Oct. 1, at 10 a.m. EDT.

The Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit is a free, interactive virtual conference featuring a stellar lineup of Kubernetes and cloud-native experts, including keynote speakers James Strachan, Liz Rice, Priyanka Sharma and Tim Hockin.

James Strachan, distinguished engineer at CloudBees, is one of the four brilliant keynote speakers presenting at the virtual event. James is co-founder of Jenkins X, an open source project that helps developers automate their CI/CD processes for cloud native applications. James is also the creator of the Apache Groovy programming language and the Apache Camel integration framework.

In his keynote session “Using Jenkins, Jenkins X and Tekton with GitOps,” James will demonstrate how Jenkins, Jenkins X and Tekton can solve all of your cloud-native CI/CD requirements using a simple GitOps approach that is easy to set up, use and manage from Git.

AWS Container Hero, Liz Rice, will also make an appearance at the virtual conference as keynote speaker. Liz is vice president of open source engineering at Aqua Security, where she works on container-related open source projects, and she’s also chair of the CNCF’s Technical Oversight Committee.

The author of “Container Security: Fundamental Technology Concepts that Protect Containerized Applications” will review what you do and don’t need to worry about when running your cloud native applications during her session, “The State of Kubernetes Security.”

Another CNCF member joining as keynote speaker is Priyanka Sharma, general manager at CNCF. Priyanka was previously the director of Cloud Native Alliances at GitLab, where she built the developer evangelism team that participates regularly in the cloud native community. Priyanka has contributed to several CNCF projects such as Jaeger and Vitess and was a founding team member of the OpenTracing standard.

During her talk, “What 6.5 Million Developers Have in Common: Kubernetes,” Priyanka will share some interesting findings from research done by CNCF on the cloud-native ecosystem and will also discuss Kubernetes and cloud-native trends and best practices.

Last but not least, Tim Hockin, principal software engineer at Google, will be interviewed for the keynote session “Operationalizing Kubernetes: Interview with Tim Hockin.” Tim works on the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and is co-founder of the Kubernetes project. He has also worked on Google’s Borg and Omega projects as well as the Linux Kernel.

As Kubernetes keeps gaining traction in mainstream IT environments, the next big challenge IT teams will face is operationalizing the platform at scale. But, is the Kubernetes ecosystem mature enough to operationalize at scale? Attend Tim’s keynote session to find out.

Join this interactive, multi-track virtual conference and learn how thought leaders are embracing containers and microservices environments, leveraging cloud native technologies and enabling digital transformation with Kubernetes.

You can hear from these keynote speakers and more than 30 other expert speakers at Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit. To check out the agenda, the full lineup of speakers and to register (for free), visit the Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit website.

September 4, 2020
MediaOps Helps GitLab Power the First GitLab Commit Virtual, a 24-Hour User Event Unlike Any Other
GitLab and MediaOps Collaborate to Bring GitLab Commit as a Free Global Virtual Event Providing Everyone the Opportunity to Join DevOps Discussions and Network with Thought Leaders from Microsoft, Google, HubSpot and Forrester

BOCA RATON, Fla. — MediaOps, the place for IT to tell its story in the most powerful way, announced it is collaborating with GitLab to help power the first-ever Virtual GitLab Commit Event. The 24-hour conference takes place Aug. 26, bringing together DevOps luminaries from around the globe for a free, interactive learning experience.

The GitLab Commit Virtual community event features eight different content tracks, with more than 80 speakers, including panels, demos and thought-leader presentations. Speakers will showcase the power of community and share DevOps best practices through strategy and technology discussions, lessons learned, behind-the-scenes looks at the development life cycle and more.

“GitLab Commit was created to be a home for DevOps learning and collaboration and tailored with the end user in mind,” said John Jeremiah, product marketing manager at GitLab. “At GitLab, we believe that anyone can contribute. This event will offer the opportunity for attendees around the world to participate and contribute, no matter what time zone they’re in.”

The virtual environment features auditoriums with more than eight different tracks, an expo hall lined with booths featuring interactive chats and downloadable resources, a virtual photo booth, speaker networking sessions via Zoom and behind the scenes interviews. It offers the best of a physical environment in a virtual context combined with the advantages and convenience that a virtual environment offers.

“Partnering with GitLab is exhilarating because of the enthusiasm of both the GitLab team and GitLab community at large,” said Alan Shimel, CEO of MediaOps. “That enthusiasm helps us to reach further and higher to ensure that GitLab Commit Virtual is the biggest, best virtual event we have produced to date. It really is a don’t-miss event for the DevOps World.”

The agenda for GitLab Commit Virtual features a mix of topics including technical sessions, live coding, deep-dives and case studies covering DevSecOps, containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD, open source, all-remote and more.

This year’s event features outstanding sessions from DevOps and 20+ industries, including:
- “The Power of GitLab,” opening keynote by Sid Sibrandij, CEO GitLab.
- “DevOps Works! Why Hasn’t Security Kept Up?” a keynote session by Joni Klippert, StackHawk.
- “DevSecOps in Government and Highly Regulated Industries,” a keynote session by Nicolas Chaillan, U.S. Air Force.
- “Real World DevOps,” by Abel Wang, Microsoft.
- “Why Your Organization Should Embrace the Community Model,” by Karl Cardenas, State Farm.
- “Getting Fuzzy: Blurring the Lines of Traditional QA and Security Testing,” by David DeSantos and Sam Kerr, GitLab.
- “State of the Market: Empowering Developers to Find and Fix Security Flaws,” by Amy DeMartine, Forrester.
- “Leading DevOps Transformation with GitLab Data,” by Bobbi Wenzler and Nicole Schultz Northwestern Mutual.
- “GitLab for Collaboration Beyond Code,” by Molly DeBlanc, GNOME Foundation.
- “How the U.S. Army Cyber School Created ‘Courseware as Code’ with GitLab,” by Ben Allison, U.S. Army Cyber School.
- “Measuring DevOps,” by Nathen Harvey and Dina Graves Portman, Google.
- “How To Create an Equitable and Inclusive Culture That Transcends Physical Walls,” by Eimear Marrinan and Meaghan Williams, HubSpot.
In addition to the sessions, attendees can visit the virtual exhibit hall to interact with partner sponsors including Google Cloud, Oracle, Pulumi, VMWare Tanzu, Chef, Lightstep, RedHat and ServiceNow. The expo hall will be open throughout the event, giving attendees the opportunity to chat with the sponsors and download information at any time.

Registered attendees will also receive a link to access the virtual environment on-demand for up to 30 days after the live event. To see the full agenda and to register, please visit the GitLab Commit Virtual website.

ABOUT GITLAB

GitLab is a DevOps platform built from the ground up as a single application for all stages of the DevOps lifecycle enabling Product, Development, QA, Security, and Operations teams to work concurrently on the same project. GitLab provides a single data store, one user interface, and one permission model across the DevOps life cycle. This allows teams to significantly reduce cycle times through more efficient collaboration and enhanced focus.

Built on Open Source, GitLab works alongside its growing community, which is composed of thousands of developers and millions of users, to continuously deliver new DevOps innovations. More than 100,000 organizations from startups to global enterprises, including Ticketmaster, Jaguar Land Rover, NASDAQ, Dish Network, and Comcast trust GitLab to deliver great software faster.

GitLab is the world’s largest all-remote company, with more than 1,300 team members in 68 countries and regions.

ABOUT MEDIAOPS

MediaOps, the place to tell your story in the most powerful way, is an omniversal media company covering IT industries and practices that are reshaping the world of technology, including DevOps, Cloud-Native, Cybersecurity and Digital Transformation. Through a convergence of new media distribution platforms, MediaOps delivers the experiential stories IT professionals need to gain fresh insights and learn new skills. For marketing partners, MediaOps delivers unparalleled access to inform and engage with a highly involved IT community for thought leadership, demand generation and specialized campaigns. MediaOps is not only the most trusted name in technology media, but the most loved as well.
August 25, 2020
Upcoming Event: Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit
As Kubernetes keeps gaining traction in mainstream IT environments, the next big challenge IT teams will face is operationalizing the platform at scale. On Oct. 1, at 10 a.m. EDT, leading Kubernetes and cloud native communities will come together at the Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit to explore the tools and best practices you need in order to secure and manage one of the most powerful, yet complex IT platforms in the world.

Today, organizations are managing not just one or two Kubernetes clusters, but entire fleets as their infrastructures increasingly depend on Kubernetes for automating deployment, scaling and operations of applications. As such, operationalizing Kubernetes is paramount to a successful environment.

The free, interactive virtual conference brings Kubernetes technologists, DevOps and cloud-native experts together to share their knowledge and insights with the community. Attendees will find out how organizations such as AWS, Microsoft, CloudBees and many others are embracing containers and microservices environments.

Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit features an exceptional lineup of industry leaders, including:
- (Keynote speaker) James Strachan, distinguished engineer at CloudBees
- (Keynote speaker) Priyanka Sharma, general manager at CNCF
- (Keynote speaker) Liz Rice, vice president of open source engineering at Aqua Security
- Tracy Miranda, director of open source community at CloudBees
- Michelle Noorali, senior software engineer at Microsoft
- John Willis, senior director of the Global Transformation Office at Red Hat
- Bob Reselman, analyst at Accelerated Strategies Group
- Prashanto Kochavara, director of product at Trilio
- Pankaj Gupta, senior director of product marketing at Citrix
The virtual environment features a lobby, an expo hall lined with booths full of downloadable resources and an auditorium where attendees can watch the sessions by industry experts. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact, in real time, with speakers and sponsors, and will have the chance to participate in contests to win incredible prizes.

Stay tuned for speaker announcements and more summit details. For more information and to register, visit the Operationalizing Kubernetes Virtual Summit.
August 12, 2020
Upcoming Event: GitLab Commit Virtual 2020
For the first time ever, GitLab’s annual user conference will take place in a virtual environment on Aug. 26, bringing together DevOps luminaries from around the globe for a free, interactive learning experience.

GitLab Commit Virtual is a 24-hour virtual event that provides attendees with the opportunity to join DevOps discussions, demos and presentations, and network with thought leaders from the industry’s top companies, such as Microsoft, Google, Hubspot, Forrester and many more.

Speakers will showcase the power of community and share DevOps best practices through strategy and technology discussions, lessons learned, behind-the-scenes looks at the development life cycle and more.

The agenda for GitLab Commit Virtual features a mix of topics, including technical sessions, live coding, deep-dives and case studies covering DevSecOps, containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD, open source, all-remote and more.

The virtual environment features a lobby, an expo hall lined with booths full of downloadable resources and an auditorium where attendees can watch sessions by industry leaders.

This year’s GitLab Commit features more than 40 sessions from some of the most brilliant DevOps experts, including:
- “DevOps Works! Why Hasn’t Security Kept Up?,” a keynote session by Joni Klippert, StackHawk.
- “DevSecOps in Government and Highly-Regulated Industries,” a keynote session by Nicolas Chaillan, U.S. Air Force.
- “Real World DevOps,” by Abel Wang, Microsoft.
- “Why Your Organization Should Embrace the Community Model,” by Karl Cardenas, State Farm.
- “Getting Fuzzy: Blurring the Lines of Traditional QA and Security Testing,” by David DeSantos and Sam Kerr, GitLab.
- “How the U.S. Army Cyber School Created ‘Courseware as Code’ with GitLab,” by Ben Allison, U.S. Army Cyber School.
- “Measuring DevOps,” by Nathen Harvey and Dina Graves Portman, Google.
- “How To Create an Equitable and Inclusive Culture That Transcends Physical Walls,” by Eimear Marrinan and Meaghan Williams, HubSpot.
By visiting the expo hall, attendees will also be able to interact with sponsors, including AWS, Google Cloud, Lightstep, HashiCorp, Red Hat, VMWare Tanzu and WhiteSource.

Attendees will get a deep dive into how enterprises are transforming DevOps at an organizational level and how they can implement similar practices in their own organization.

To see the full agenda and to register, please visit the GitLab Commit Virtual website.
August 4, 2020