1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,160 well uh kubecon is coming up is that next month in march i've lost track or is it may it's april 2 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:09,760 april okay right in the middle there sandwiched between the two m months 3 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:17,120 i think uh you know this this is a good opportunity for me to do my uh my my uh periodic query i think 4 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:22,640 there's only four months that share the same letter right march may june and july well i'll 5 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:25,920 have to go through the rest of them and see if i can come up with with other ones i'm probably 6 00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:31,040 skipping something because i'm not good at these memory tests yeah don't do this to me 7 00:00:32,160 --> 00:00:37,600 well here's here's before we get to the the the meaningless of it since kubecon is coming up 8 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:42,000 now i know i know you don't live in the amsterdam area or you're not an expert on it so we don't 9 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:46,640 need to go over like restaurants and things like this but here's something that having lived here 10 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:52,480 for a while and given advice to people i realized you have to cover is like what is your advice for 11 00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:59,760 figuring out how how like the trains and the trams work and and just because it seemed to us well 12 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:06,240 well to us it's simple right but i feel like especially if you're coming over from the states 13 00:01:06,240 --> 00:01:11,440 you might just be like whoa right you've got a lot of stuff going on yeah oh i have good news for 14 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:19,120 everyone just use google maps uh yes yeah google have they ingest all of the essential infrastructure 15 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:25,600 data that our country provides and you can use it perfectly for public transport and public transport 16 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:31,680 is the way to get around i should add do not expect to be driving to kubecon don't even try 17 00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:40,480 and and it is uh there are multiple stops on all i think even the metro goes there right 18 00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:45,760 on all all forms of transit to where all forms of transit but of course if you're going dutch you 19 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:53,920 should go by bike yeah now now there is so here's a caveat to use google maps our dutch rail service 20 00:01:53,920 --> 00:02:02,320 ns does have their own app obviously and if you install that app then as part of your public transport 21 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:10,960 experience you can rent a bike at just about any dutch train station using the app 22 00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:16,240 and it gives you the perfect way from the train station to get to kubecon by bike 23 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:23,920 if it's too far you can always use the subway but i would definitely recommend trying the biking 24 00:02:23,920 --> 00:02:30,400 experience i don't know if you know the youtube channel not just bikes um it's another it's a canadian 25 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:40,000 that lives in amsterdam and his it's a very popular channel and um he um he uh all his entire content 26 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:45,840 his whole thing is using amsterdam and dutch infrastructure as the shining example to the 27 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:52,960 rest of the world what urban planning could look like yeah yeah and what what actual useful public 28 00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:58,240 transport actually can look like yeah that's it's fun it's fun to watch that you know living here 29 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:06,400 because it's uh yeah that guy has a lot of opinions which are pretty much accurate yeah yeah and and you 30 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:10,640 and you can speak from experience having how long have you lived in amsterdam now like four and a half 31 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:16,160 years basically yeah so yeah yeah you know so so to build on what you're saying yes i didn't even see 32 00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:20,720 this is why it's great to ask you because i didn't even consider that part is like yeah get google maps 33 00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:25,920 and uh you can anywhere you want to get you just switch it over to the transit thing and it's good 34 00:03:25,920 --> 00:03:30,960 it'll tell you like down to like the platform to go to at what time and it's it's uh it's quite 35 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:35,440 impressive so like when you get to uh when you get to the airport you can just put it in instantly and 36 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:41,760 it'll tell you how to get to your hotel and where to go and the other thing now i haven't tested this as 37 00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:48,400 much as i want to do to give this advice but i'm going to give it anyways uh recently they finally 38 00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:52,960 like uh got to the point where you can just use your your i don't know if this works for androids 39 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:59,280 but you can use your phone to pay for uh yes fair which means if you set up the transit stuff on your 40 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:05,760 phone you can just go up to the um i don't know what you call them the gates and just put your phone 41 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:10,240 on it which is it's always mysterious because there's this piece of glass and it looks like there's 42 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:16,800 nothing underneath it but magically it works yeah and i i think i i don't think you get a discounted 43 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:20,880 fare but you probably have to have a bank account live here anyways to get a discounted fare but it's 44 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:26,480 great you just like when you approach the gates you uh you tap in and when you leave you tap out and 45 00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:32,240 there's only one confusing aspect and that is if you're switching from uh from a metro to something 46 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:37,440 else you've got to like tap out and tap back in but you'll figure it out it'll it'll it'll be cool yeah 47 00:04:37,440 --> 00:04:42,640 and another another interesting point that people might not be used to we have a single system across 48 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:47,920 the entire country for this yeah one single you can get these cards anywhere or you can do the app on 49 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:53,120 your phone it doesn't i don't think the the phone thing works everywhere yet you get the cards the 50 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:59,440 cards will work in the entire country of a national system yeah one system and you know what i would 51 00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:04,000 recommend depend if you're staying here like however many days you're staying here like right when you're at the 52 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:09,200 airport if if you're not there at like 2 a.m although you can probably buy it at 2 a.m too you should just 53 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:14,000 get like the tourist card that's like for three days or five days or whatever for for the trains and 54 00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:18,960 obviously don't lose it but you'll be set it'll it'll be uh it'll be super easy and then yeah 55 00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:25,680 that's the other thing is like i tell only one person out only one family out of i don't know five 56 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:30,000 who visit us here over the years has ever taken me up on the vice but you should just rent some bikes day 57 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:34,960 one and and you know you can also go to the station and just rent them hourly or whatever but like 58 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:41,920 just just get some bikes it'll be fine i mean you're here and and have a good time and uh go 59 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:47,840 go around that way because that's that's the uh the as our canadian friend would tell you that's that's 60 00:05:47,840 --> 00:05:54,000 what this whole place is optimized around so it'll be the the easiest to do and then you could be those 61 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:58,960 people that are dinging at the uh the other tourists which might feel gratifying for you 62 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:06,000 i i have to i do kind of imagine you know americans you know biking maybe maybe not for the first time 63 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:12,400 but not being used to the how how many bikes there are in amstam and how dense that that that experience 64 00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:18,000 can be it presents different challenges to cars yeah it can be overwhelming if you're not used to it 65 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:23,760 yeah yeah yeah you know there's there's a little bit of just like uh gird your loins and take your 66 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:27,760 life in your hands but just do it for like 30 minutes and you'll be cool you just observe how 67 00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:33,280 people are going what what i've learned and then i think this is solid advice for kubcom people is like 68 00:06:33,280 --> 00:06:37,120 one of the things i remember i don't know what they teach around here but one of the things i remember 69 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:42,960 from driver's ed is one of the more important things was look around at the other cars and do what they're 70 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:47,840 doing right like just go with the flow of things like of course you want to follow the rules and 71 00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:52,960 things like that but it's also important to kind of read the road or read the room as it were and just 72 00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:58,400 do what they're doing and similarly like if you have that attitude just like spend 10-15 minutes as 73 00:06:58,400 --> 00:07:03,840 you're biking around looking at what all the other bikers are doing and just do that now you might 74 00:07:03,840 --> 00:07:10,480 want to actually stop when the bike lock lights tell you to stop unlike many people but that's fine if you 75 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:16,640 you want to do that i i do i do notice the cars have really good brakes and radars these days 76 00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:25,120 they do well not all so so now now that we uh uh have established your your uh regional expertise 77 00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:30,720 here what what is what is your expertise relative to computers who who are you and uh what do you work 78 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:40,480 on well my name is robert i uh i work for itq for the last three years now um and itq is um is a 79 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:48,720 consultancy and uh vmware partner um for a long time um itq itself has been around about 20 20 years or so 80 00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:57,600 um um and myself well i've been in it for about 20 years as well um i'm one of those kids that that 81 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:02,640 when you asked like what do you want to be when you grow up i had no answer but i did say something 82 00:08:02,640 --> 00:08:10,880 with computers there you go yeah so so um so basically uh once once we had a pc in the house 83 00:08:10,880 --> 00:08:21,520 and olivetti 80 88 um i uh i owned it it was mine and i uh basically that was the start of uh of my 84 00:08:21,520 --> 00:08:28,720 interest um actually because i mean see i i think my dad took me to war games when it came out 85 00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:32,880 all right like it must have been like six or something which is not an appropriate age for 86 00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:40,960 that movie i believe but i remember being being so hooked on that movie i could literally um in the 87 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:45,040 school yard like this little six-year-old was basically spouting all the lines from war games 88 00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:50,960 to his clueless and very confused six-year-old friends so that's probably where it started 89 00:08:51,680 --> 00:08:59,440 i see yeah yeah i can imagine oh it wasn't exactly like an elementary school favorite there uh like 90 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:05,840 for for the uh the six-year-old set yeah i'm trying to remember what i guess just the general feeling 91 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:11,440 of impending doom that that movie brings wouldn't be great for uh for for younger children like 92 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:16,560 especially the questions about like could that really happen no one wants to discuss that yeah i think 93 00:09:16,560 --> 00:09:22,240 i was a little too young to understand the full context of that i remember when uh i remember it 94 00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:28,320 was the same year i remember chernobyl being on the news and not understanding when they were talking 95 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:33,840 about a plant that they weren't talking about a leafy plant you know with green and in a pot somewhere 96 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:40,720 right right that confused me yeah so so what uh i mean you had a practice there at itq right what what is 97 00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:50,240 what is this practice yeah so um so itq has been um um has been doing kind of general it consultancy 98 00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:55,920 for a long time we even did software development at some point in the past and i think the last uh 99 00:09:55,920 --> 00:10:02,560 last 10 years we focused on basically vmware we decided to essentially become a single vendor 100 00:10:02,560 --> 00:10:12,000 consultancy with a focus on on the vmware ecosystem um and um we're doing pretty well at that um and 101 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:19,680 we're kind of at the european level now so we have offices in various countries and about 150 odd people 102 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:31,200 and i i think um about five years ago five or six years ago um some of some of us um decided to to 103 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:36,960 look into this cloud native stuff that was starting to emerge and very early on we developed a partnership 104 00:10:36,960 --> 00:10:46,320 with pivotal um and um and we uh we would um help pivotal in engagements we would do the pivotal labs 105 00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:52,640 stuff we would uh we would be um we would help in the dojo engagements and for those those who don't 106 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:58,960 know pivotal had a pretty interesting approach to customers as you'll be very familiar with um 107 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:04,640 and we were a we're a big fan of the way they did things and the way they approach customers and and 108 00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:11,360 how they how they how they engage with customers how they helped train up people by pairing with them 109 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:18,880 by doing these really kind of intimate and and um pretty intensive engagements with developers or 110 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:26,480 with um or building a platform team around some of their products and um and um so yeah we from early 111 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:31,200 on we were involved in that um in getting pivotal kind of started up in in the netherlands and in europe 112 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:40,080 um and um and that's how we started our cloud native division as it were um and um and it's only kind 113 00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:45,360 of been growing since there and of course a few years ago vmware reacquired pivotal came back to the 114 00:11:45,360 --> 00:11:53,920 family back to the mothership and um and uh the tanzu portfolio because it was born around the same time 115 00:11:54,480 --> 00:12:00,240 and that's around the time that i joined so i joined um yeah about three years ago tanzu was pretty new 116 00:12:00,800 --> 00:12:06,240 and i i came in i've got a long-standing infrastructure background so i did you know i've done i've done 117 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:12,960 v-sphere storage um vsan uh touch more or less every vmware product but i came to itq and i said 118 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:19,680 this cloud native stuff is really exciting that's what i want to do um i i'm i know all these other 119 00:12:19,680 --> 00:12:25,920 products i don't want to do any of that anymore um uh just just put me on this this cloud native stuff 120 00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:33,280 and that's what they did and since then i've kind of um you know i like to be really broad so i i know 121 00:12:33,280 --> 00:12:37,760 a bit about just about everything in the tanzu portfolio a little bit you know i'm not i don't 122 00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:44,240 go very deep well some things i go deep but but um this broad kind of um view of the whole portfolio 123 00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:50,400 allows me to to to be the guy who can explain it to everyone else inside itq and then to our customers 124 00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:57,040 so i've ended up as one of the tanzu practice leads in itq we call them technologists 125 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:04,960 um and it's basically me and my colleague sandra who's more on the dev developer side and so i bring 126 00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:11,520 the platform side he brings the dev side and together we kind of do our our um the tanzu practice or the 127 00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:20,960 cloud native practice inside itq um and it's headed up by uh by um our uh our valent uh uh vp of uh of 128 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:27,200 cloud native martine um and yeah we're trying to build out this and we uh of course we see ourselves 129 00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:34,800 as the uh the kind of most cutting edge it's part of itq obviously um but it's it's a it's been a wild 130 00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:39,440 ride the last three years um we've really um you know a lot of customers a lot of products of course 131 00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:44,320 the tanzu portfolio is really evolving um so keeping up with that has been a real challenge 132 00:13:44,320 --> 00:13:50,400 but it's been it's been an amazing ride so far so so let's start with like uh you know uh for people 133 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:56,320 aren't watching the live screen you have a v-san sticker on your laptop a testament to your exciting 134 00:13:56,320 --> 00:14:01,200 infrastructure background but so so let's let's start with the infrastructure background like when you're 135 00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:07,760 talking with people whether they're customers or not customers and they're kind of like infrastructure 136 00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:18,160 people um like how do you explain like this platform thing to them right like and and i ask 137 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:22,720 this because i talk with infrastructure people as well but i come from the application developer 138 00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:28,000 perspective right so i'm sort of like anytime i talk with infrastructure people i feel like i'm always 139 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:32,160 learning more than i'm telling them about about how they think and kind of like 140 00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:39,840 map their notions up to developers but like what what do you what do you do to like or what do you 141 00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:46,480 talk about to get infrastructure people to be like oh developers that's fantastic right like like to kind 142 00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:53,360 of get them to be uh work with them and be you know have a good time with developers yeah well that no 143 00:14:53,360 --> 00:15:01,360 that goes straight to the heart of it doesn't it um so so it's funny the best just if i go back to 144 00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:07,520 my experience you know on in infra you know doing infra in all kinds of different ways i mean the thing 145 00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:14,080 that kind of stands out is that when you never really ever deal with developers directly um traditionally 146 00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:22,640 so um so that the the closest the closest you usually get um from a kind of that v sphere infra 147 00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:31,040 kind of uh area is um is you deliver a vm um and you might provision you know you might be the same 148 00:15:31,040 --> 00:15:36,160 team responsible for provisioning what goes into the vm and then you hand the vm over to someone else 149 00:15:36,160 --> 00:15:42,080 and then the vm becomes someone else's problem and um and oftentimes especially in larger organizations 150 00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:45,360 where you have thousands of vms running you don't want you don't know what people are doing on those vms 151 00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:51,520 you don't know what's running on them um and it's it's in that area where developers uh will start 152 00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:58,720 to to do their thing so traditionally there's this huge culture gap and when we go into customers the 153 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:04,240 first thing the first thing i do the first questions i ask are about to see where that culture gap is is 154 00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:10,160 there a culture gap is there a gap how big is it um how close are they to the developers is it the same 155 00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:16,080 is it separate lines of business um you know is it uh is it uh do they fall under different directors 156 00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:21,920 you know what's the political situation because because knowing how far away um an it team is from 157 00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:27,920 from um the uh you know what developers are usually doing building kind of you know value around the 158 00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:34,640 the main business process um understanding how far away from that they are really tells you a huge amount 159 00:16:34,640 --> 00:16:40,160 about how to approach that customer or how to how to do an engagement or even the kind of language to use 160 00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:46,880 um so so and i notice i find it's different with every customer right there's no i mean there's 161 00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:54,160 there's always a there's always a gap of some kind um but um but sometimes uh especially if the customer 162 00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:59,680 if they if the companies are smaller or newer that gap will be smaller usually they'll be closer together 163 00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:08,640 if it's a startup or a startup mentality uh it'll usually be closer but it really really depends and um and 164 00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:15,280 so it's it's it's hard when that when there's a gap when they they really have never kind of sat down 165 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:20,480 down with their own developers to understand their world it can be really hard to to talk to them 166 00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:28,480 about shipping code or um yeah or on and it goes to the fundamentals of what containers and kubernetes 167 00:17:28,480 --> 00:17:36,000 and all that stuff is for um because you you have to maybe take quite a few steps back and start building 168 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:44,160 up a picture of how modern software development goes to to actually educate them about how it probably 169 00:17:44,160 --> 00:17:51,040 happens inside their company um so so i end up with these engagements often um getting people together 170 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:58,080 sometimes for the very first time and and and having them talk to each other and learning from each 171 00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:03,760 other how the other the other side's world actually is um and the first thing i do when i do a workshop 172 00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:08,640 around i know implementing tanzo kubernetes grid or something like that i say like you know what are you 173 00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:12,400 doing it for you're doing it for developers so we're gonna have a workshop and the developers are going to be there 174 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:16,480 you know although the line of business is going to be there the project is going to be there it's not 175 00:18:16,480 --> 00:18:21,840 just going to be with infra i mean infra might might own the product and that even that is sometimes an 176 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:28,800 open question um but i get them together and it's often for the for the first time um and that's a 177 00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:33,040 those are interesting conversations you can just kind of you you set it up you sit back and then you 178 00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:38,320 see them start asking each other the right questions uh if you're lucky sometimes you have to help a bit 179 00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:44,960 uh to get that conversation going yeah that that's i i like i like the idea of you know it's it's making 180 00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:52,240 me realize i have to do this too and i'm not very good at it it's like calibrating pretty quickly where 181 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:59,280 everyone's knowledge is of you know with with i mean it goes in both directions right like whether you're 182 00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:06,720 a developer or an infrastructure people like it's like i'm i'm quickly thinking through like the last 183 00:19:06,720 --> 00:19:11,840 you know conversations and meetings i've had for the past year and you've got to like go a couple of 184 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:18,000 levels below how are you set up to figure out like how people are actually set up like i remember one 185 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:24,480 conversation i had with someone in you know this this group of people had built out uh i don't know cloud 186 00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:29,760 stuff and kubernetes stuff and so they were like we're cool and then you know you you you as you're 187 00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:34,640 getting to you get closer to like yeah so uh how do your developers work and what do they do and then 188 00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:40,960 they're kind of like that's a great question i mean yeah and and but but and then and then as you're 189 00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:46,880 saying the the next good part after that and i think it would be interesting also to contemplate 190 00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:51,040 how again for developers you would have this same conversation in the other direction is like 191 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:59,760 uh it's often handy to just go over how software development works like like what all the components 192 00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:07,760 of it because it can be a a bit of a odd mystery of of how these things go you know you you were making 193 00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:14,720 me think in in describing this again drawing from your uh your history like i'm i wasn't in this area 194 00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:19,600 like whenever virtualization became a big thing but you've worked in that area and i remember like 195 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:26,880 i'm always curious like was it a similar structural issue because virtualization was and is kind of 196 00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:33,040 like a cross-cutting thing that doesn't really care about your organization structure now it's been 197 00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:38,240 around so much that was just like we take it for granted but back then it was just like yeah what if 198 00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:44,960 we did everything and so it's i would imagine the conversations were kind of similar yeah well it's so 199 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:50,720 i've i've i've i've experienced this this cyclical thing twice now in my career because i came in around 200 00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:59,760 1999 2000 windows 2000 had come out just come out and this introduced a whole bunch of new stuff 201 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:04,560 that windows nt4 and previous administrators were not used to things like active directory 202 00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:12,480 and um and a group policy and things like this and i remember and i was this is when i started my 203 00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:16,560 consultancy career and they they do what most consultants do this they send you to get the 204 00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:21,680 you know microsoft mcse you know so now you're a paper mcse you don't actually know anything but you 205 00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:29,200 have the thing right and and what you notice is that there was a generation of um of admins who had come up 206 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:34,560 from the kind of the the kind of the old kind of mainframe data center days had grown through novel 207 00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:45,280 network and into into into um microsoft nt you know nt 311 nt4 um but 2000 introduced stuff and 208 00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:51,360 that was a real challenge for them um you know a lot of you really saw this drop off at that point 209 00:21:51,360 --> 00:21:58,080 where people struggled with that with new concepts with that kind of new those new things and then when 210 00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:03,200 when virtualization came around not that long after um you saw a very similar kind of effect 211 00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:09,840 where um where younger people had an easier time adapting to this concept of now we can do hardware 212 00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:14,960 as a kind of this virtual construct you could and i remember i remember the first time i struggled with 213 00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:19,040 this i was like i don't want to do this dual boot thing no it's not dual boot you just you just run 214 00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:24,160 this thing called vmware workstation um and it wasn't even called that it was the previous name and then 215 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:28,160 you just and you can spin up a server inside on your laptop and it doesn't affect anything else it's 216 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:33,040 like how can it not affect everything else that's not going to wipe my boot record come on this is 217 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:40,800 nonsense um a lot of people had trouble um adapting to that that that idea and even to this day i still 218 00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:47,760 do come across hardcore database guys who say listen i'm never going to virtualize this this this microsoft 219 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:54,160 sql server that we've had for 15 years um because it'll never run as well in the inner vm and of 220 00:22:54,160 --> 00:23:00,320 course they're usually right because vmware you know virtualization as all as all virtual you know 221 00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:05,520 kind of constructs have an overhead and things are always you know things are always never clear cut 222 00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:11,920 but um but it was yeah i was in the middle of that revolution when it came up um where everyone just 223 00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:17,040 said like oh the real you could see the realization coming into people's heads we don't need hardware 224 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:21,920 for everything you know we can set we you know we can separate that ads and then and then of course 225 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:26,880 vmotion which always blows people's minds when they see it the first time yeah even today by the way 226 00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:32,400 um you know someone coming in fresh from college i've seen this experience recently they come in 227 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:37,440 they've never seen the vmware stuff you know they've been trained on maybe amazon or something and you 228 00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:44,240 show them you know vmotion at the esx level and they're like wow it didn't even have to go down 229 00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:48,720 you know this this uncoupling of hardware and software they've never realized that that's the 230 00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:54,400 thing um so even so if the emotion that vmotion movement even happens today which is which is funny 231 00:23:54,400 --> 00:24:01,440 to me and you know yeah yeah no no that i mean that's that matches like my my theory as you were saying 232 00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:11,200 that there was uh uh i don't know every 10 or 15 years you just gotta like change yeah the the way you 233 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:20,880 think about like your the the is responsibility the right word but like like what you're doing as an 234 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:26,960 infrastructure person and and how you're doing it right and and if you you know if if you uh if you 235 00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:32,320 allow yourself to kind of float down that river of improvement like things are cool right but it's 236 00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:38,160 it's hard to uh not not to say it's hard to go against it but it's just like yeah it just stuff 237 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:44,880 changes like you know i'm i'm i'm remembering that like at uh at explore eu you know kelsey hightower 238 00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:48,480 was up there and it was it was like a short five minute talk but i think that was pretty much the 239 00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:54,480 point of his talk is just like yeah the stuff that you all do used to be crazy and now it's normal 240 00:24:55,120 --> 00:25:00,880 and just remember that at one point you thought it was crazy and and you know it was fun and 241 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:07,760 interesting to get through it so like speaking of things becoming normal and not crazy like 242 00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:13,760 with with the so with the organizations you work with right like with the customers like 243 00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:18,800 what are like what i'm always curious about is like so they they want to put a platform in place 244 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:24,960 so they're talking with you and like what are they running on it like what's motivating them to like 245 00:25:25,120 --> 00:25:30,160 put this platform in place rather than just do what they're already doing like what are the reasons 246 00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:38,240 that they're shifting over so that's that's an interesting question so um so most of our customers 247 00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:44,320 that we have most of our network that we have they're the same as vmware's network they're um you know 248 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:50,080 they're people that we've known for years running vsphere running you know vra running you know nsx 249 00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:57,280 um so our contacts and our network are mostly infra right so they'll be it directors there'll be central 250 00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:02,640 it inside these companies they're not crucially that they're not necessarily lines of business they're 251 00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:08,800 not necessarily where the developers live so when we get the ask and this is i think similar for vmware 252 00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:14,880 when we get the ask it's usually coming from central it from infra and they don't know why they're being asked 253 00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:23,120 they're simply being asked to provide say kubernetes as a service to the rest of their organization or to a 254 00:26:23,120 --> 00:26:28,800 specific project that's running or you know when they're just starting up um or to uh you know 255 00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:34,320 whatever line of business represents a group of developers and when you ask them well what's this for 256 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:40,400 you know what's the what's the actual use case behind this they don't they often won't know um because 257 00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:47,040 there's this gap um and and i love customers like that because you know because it allows me to go 258 00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:52,880 on a journey with them which excites me um because that's the journey i've been on so it's like oh you're 259 00:26:52,880 --> 00:27:01,680 in for a ride um and um you know and of course you know and some people are really all in on that ride 260 00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:08,160 and some of less so but that's that's part of you know what makes this uh an interesting job um 261 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:12,240 it's very sometimes we'll we'll we'll come in and it'll be developers it'll be a line of business 262 00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:18,640 or a specific project or something saying look we need we uh we need say you know kubernetes on 263 00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:24,800 premises um you guys specialize in this vmware stuff apparently vmware also does something with kubernetes 264 00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:30,480 why don't you go help our central it set this up and we're like great we can do that that's what we do 265 00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:37,520 um so you always end up at the place where where um the vmware products are owned which is almost always 266 00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:43,440 still central it um now we could we can have a discussion whether that should remain 267 00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:50,960 the normal uh because i don't think it should i think that um i think that that maybe when you 268 00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:55,760 especially when you talk in terms of platform teams and the stack of technology you you need the 269 00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:02,160 full stack of technology you need to um to create say you know an internal developer platform or some 270 00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,360 kind of developer experience something that's going to be consumed mostly by developers 271 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:11,040 maybe it shouldn't be owned by central it maybe it should be distributed or maybe you you need to 272 00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,960 create a separate division for this so this is the kind of these are the kind of conversations 273 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:19,280 i have too so it's not just about product and about how to implement you know tkg or avi or that 274 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:23,200 stuff but it's also like how do you position this inside your company how are you going to sell this 275 00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:30,320 to the business or how are you going to how are you going to make sure that that it doesn't 276 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:37,840 immediately fall into the same list of building blocks as say virtualization it may not fit best 277 00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:43,440 there maybe this is a separate category i think it's a separate category because these technologies 278 00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:52,080 like let's say kubernetes and up um is way closer to software development you know it's it's um the way 279 00:28:52,080 --> 00:29:01,040 i explain kubernetes to to people is is you know see it as see it as a framework and infrastructure 280 00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:05,040 to build a scaffolding to build modern application architectures 281 00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:11,040 so that means you know this and it goes so that goes way beyond just vms vms are like individual 282 00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:16,320 building blocks you can use you know to to do runtime kubernetes does a lot more you can describe the 283 00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:23,120 whole architecture in it so it is naturally going to be closer to the people building that architecture 284 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,360 and who builds software architecture it's going to be the developers it's going to be some project or 285 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:32,400 it's going to be something something that's probably outside of central it you're going to have to be 286 00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:37,520 pretty close to that wherever that's coming from in order to make the adoption of these technologies be 287 00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:43,680 successful to actually fit the use case you have to bridge the gap so so that that creates all kinds 288 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:48,720 of interesting discussions um within within within companies within organizations that we talk to 289 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:53,120 because it will be the first time that they've been confronted with the fact that they're building a 290 00:29:53,120 --> 00:30:02,240 platform specifically to enable software development in a modern way um and but to make it successful 291 00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:07,600 they they they it has to be you know they have they have to bridge that gap that sometimes for the first 292 00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:14,640 time they're really really forced to bridge the gap um and and then we start talking talking about well 293 00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,400 let's talk about self-service instead of doing everything through a ticketing system for example 294 00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:25,760 um and let's talk about automating dns and certificates and uh and data services instead of 295 00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:34,320 having to put in a ticket um and and this is where things get crazy because the scope of what what it 296 00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:40,480 takes to make um a kind of a modern app platform actually successful then suddenly they realize it goes 297 00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:47,520 beyond just um you know building some technology and raising a stack inside central it but it requires a 298 00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:53,680 bit of a cultural shift it requires an organizational shift and that's that's really at the heart of it um all 299 00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:59,280 the technology is really cool and it's going to keep changing and it's cyclical but what the harder 300 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:03,760 thing to change is the people in the process right it's the mindset and the organizational 301 00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,800 stuff you need to put in place to to actually make the adoption of this stuff actually successful 302 00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:14,000 that's the real challenge you know you may maybe you can help me figure out how to word this thought that 303 00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:23,920 you're uh you're you're uh making me have which is like so you know the the the easy main way to talk about 304 00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:29,520 like you know whenever using cloud native stuff like building stuff on kubernetes or using like a 305 00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:34,640 paths thing like you know like a cloud foundry thing or whatever whatever it may be building these platforms 306 00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:40,960 developers is often around like automation and speed and kind of as you were alluding to not um 307 00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:48,320 not have like avoiding having to file tickets for getting stuff right just self-service and and all 308 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:56,480 the good ways but there's another angle that like it's always well i don't know it feels like it's 309 00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:01,680 weird to talk about if only because we don't talk about it this explicitly but it's also like whenever 310 00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:07,280 you're putting a platform in place there's both like the opportunity and the need to do a lot of 311 00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:13,280 customization of that platform for how it works in in your organization how your developers use it and 312 00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,600 you know build a platform out on top of it and then as you were kind of getting to that's where 313 00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:26,400 if you are building kind of a a customized platform then of course you should talk with 314 00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:32,720 the developers to see what works for them and you know it doesn't work right and in contrast right like 315 00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:36,880 i mean as we were talking virtualization has been around for a while and and sort of like 316 00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:41,600 i mean i work at vmware so i know there's a lot of interesting innovation and stuff that goes on there 317 00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:46,000 but it's like it's we've got it figured out right like as you were saying there's like the building 318 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:51,520 blocks of virtualization and like what you do with them whereas like when you're building like cloud 319 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:59,120 native platforms like i don't know if it's all figured out let alone like how inside your organizations 320 00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:04,560 and with various groups of developers how they want to use it and so it seems like that's why you have 321 00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:10,880 this pull if you're just more of a a traditional infrastructure person to think a lot more about 322 00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:17,280 just not so much how you provide and ensure that like the infrastructure you're giving developers like 323 00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:23,200 runs and that it has all of the illities that you need but also that it just has like the features 324 00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:30,400 and the functionality that you the platform people are kind of like own like you're in charge of that 325 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:36,880 and and building it out which is a different i think that's a different function than infrastructure 326 00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:43,600 people have had for a long time like customizing things out yeah this is um this is also where the um 327 00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:49,520 this is also a bit of a trap that people can fall into really easily um so so one of the things pivotal 328 00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:55,520 was like to talk about was the concept of platform as a product and the idea behind that is is think of 329 00:33:55,520 --> 00:34:03,200 think of an app you know think of um think of a version 0.1 like an alpha version of an app or maybe a 330 00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:10,160 a game on steam right you decided to fund it on the patreon you get access to the uh the early alphas 331 00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:17,600 and what you what you get is a you know a minimal viable product you get you get a beta version of 332 00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:23,280 the game or a beta version of an app you know that it's not going to do everything that you there's a 333 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:29,120 vision there's somewhere you want to get but the initial version won't have that but you go on a journey with 334 00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:34,720 um with with uh you know whatever team is behind the game or the app and they have a road map and they 335 00:34:34,720 --> 00:34:44,080 have an ambition and they have a vision and and it gets better and better over time um so so the what 336 00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:51,520 what a lot of especially in in corporate it um they're used to just buying buying products off the shelf 337 00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:57,200 and saying here's a product here's a feature set this product's been around for for ages it's supported 338 00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:03,840 by some vendor it does you know x y and z and that's what you get and um and it's a kind of a 339 00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:10,080 closed loop you know the if you if you wanted to do more than that well we can maybe put in a feature 340 00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:15,040 request with the vendor but that's not necessarily going to be you know it's it's you know it'll be in 341 00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:20,400 a road map somewhere but but when you when you look at kind of you know indie games or apps it's a lot 342 00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:27,040 more iterative right it's a lot it's a lot more cloud native shall we say um and the way i advise 343 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:31,440 people is think of platform teams and the product that they're building in the same way start small 344 00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:37,920 you know don't don't don't try to reach for the moon don't don't don't you know go go into your 345 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:44,720 organization find requirements write them all down but create a road map that's very restricted in 346 00:35:44,720 --> 00:35:50,000 scope you don't need to solve every organizational problem every developer need in day on day one 347 00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:55,760 um you might want to start with the most important ones but sometimes the most important ones are also 348 00:35:55,760 --> 00:36:00,400 the most complex to solve so i'll give you i'll give you an example to make it a little bit more 349 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:05,280 tangible um data services so okay you've got kubernetes you've got a platform team that runs 350 00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:12,720 kubernetes for you developers want self-service data services and they want to be able to just consume a 351 00:36:12,720 --> 00:36:18,240 you know postgres database um now you have to provide them a postgres database so that's already 352 00:36:18,240 --> 00:36:21,680 a challenge for some platform teams because they might not know anything about databases certainly 353 00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:29,520 not dbas might know a bit about kubernetes um so you can you know use use an operator spin up postgres 354 00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:37,200 deliver postgres as a service and then if it's um if it's a windows uh kind of based organization 355 00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:42,800 they're used to developing in windows they might say hold on this postgres thing can this uh can 356 00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:50,080 this can this can this integrate with microsoft kerberos and and then you go like uh that sounds like fun 357 00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:58,080 no and you go go to the operator it's like uh no i don't think so and this is all we we definitely 358 00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:02,560 need we definitely need kerberos authentication because that's how we're used to working with with databases 359 00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:08,000 you know we need uh we need we need we need the uh the microsoft service accounts that do the service 360 00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:14,480 identity go straight into the database that's how we do things but this is this is where things can 361 00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:22,800 kind of get off the rails because the the their requirements is is also a bit of a a mental trick 362 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:27,840 people do they're used to something they're used to a way of working and when you ask them what they 363 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:33,360 need they will say they will give you a version of reality that matches what they used to it doesn't 364 00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:40,160 necessarily map to what they actually need so part of having a successful platform team and building 365 00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:45,360 a successful road map is being able to pass the difference between those two things um this is this 366 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:50,160 is what they do this is what they say they need this is what they actually need but to understand what 367 00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:54,960 they actually need you have to know a little bit about their process you have to understand what it is 368 00:37:54,960 --> 00:38:00,880 they're building and able to and then you can say look how about this we're going to give you on-demand 369 00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:05,360 databases so you'll never have to do a ticket ever again how about that does that sound good 370 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,880 and they say yes okay but it won't ever have kerberos authentication because you're going to have 371 00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:17,040 to learn how to do you know a different way of authentication but you get this amazing self-service 372 00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:21,440 experience back in return what do you think of that oh that sounds kind of cool they might say 373 00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:26,960 well they might not say that um so so building a successful platform and the road map for it is 374 00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:32,960 always a negotiation um is basically my point um yeah you're never going to be able to give them 375 00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:38,720 everything they need but you can give them most of what they need yeah and and to your your i mean 376 00:38:38,720 --> 00:38:48,240 you know it's a it's an excellent uh change agent tactic to give people things they want to have 377 00:38:48,240 --> 00:38:52,960 them stop doing things the old way or or to put it in a more positive way to have them start doing 378 00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:57,920 things in a new way right as you know give them advantages and and tasty treats and things like 379 00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:01,920 that and you know you're you're also like in in what you're going over there right like there's 380 00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:06,400 maybe the the notion that that i was looking for some good wording on is like 381 00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:12,080 when you're putting a platform in place you have the option to like 382 00:39:14,720 --> 00:39:19,280 to make the platform better for your needs as you were saying right instead of like waiting for 383 00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:24,640 another road map or trying to influence features being added that just kind of come out of the box 384 00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:30,240 you can actually like change things not everything but you can customize what things are like add in 385 00:39:30,240 --> 00:39:36,000 different services like you're saying uh like how integrations work all sorts of stuff like that but 386 00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:42,320 what that means is that you have to be able to basically like product manage it like you have 387 00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:47,760 to go through that process of figuring out what to do but you know having having the uh having your 388 00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:53,520 infrastructure finally behave in a way that your organization wanted in the first place should be pretty 389 00:39:53,520 --> 00:40:00,000 attractive like and and it's also like i keep saying this word customize and i think it's like a uh uh 390 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:05,440 commentary on the the fraught nature of this idea is like at some point i learned that customizing was 391 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:11,360 a bad idea but but in fact in this case you know it's it's like kind of like you were saying the whole 392 00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:18,480 not the whole but a major component of doing like platforms in this area is that it is a system that 393 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:25,520 has been developed so that customizing is okay is not a bad idea to kind of be lost on your own custom 394 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:31,280 island but customizing has a cost associated with it and i think that's the most important thing to 395 00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:37,600 always you know be aware of because um because say that that it becomes an actual requirement to to make 396 00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:43,120 sure that that postgres can be accessed through some kind of kerberos integration i mean there are 397 00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:47,760 solutions for that there are technical solutions for that but they they take time and expertise to 398 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:53,360 implement and they add an overhead to maintain and that and that can be the role of that platform 399 00:40:53,360 --> 00:41:00,480 team right there's nothing wrong with that but um but what you can this is the trap you can end up in 400 00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:06,160 everything being um super custom and impossible to maintain it's like spaghetti code but at the 401 00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:12,720 platform level you end up with with um you know 20 point solutions built into your platform to address 402 00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:19,200 20 needs how big is your platform exactly supposed to be how many people in your platform team do you want 403 00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:25,440 to have how many different skills are they supposed to have is it still viable now at larger and larger scale 404 00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:33,200 of course you can get efficiencies around this um but if this is every every company every organization is 405 00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:37,600 it has um you know a different dividing line where where they where they where they draw that where they 406 00:41:38,240 --> 00:41:50,800 where where the the effort becomes too much um i think i i mean we touched on the role of the product owner or the role of the project leader or whatever who is managing those expectations and managing that roadmap 407 00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:58,720 that role is super super important um um and it's certainly going to become more important um to uh to 408 00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:07,280 to create you know to create platforms and services like this um and that and of course the and i touched on the skill thing um 409 00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:14,160 and maybe we could just expand on that one a bit because that's a huge problem right the the amount of people 410 00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:20,800 currently in the kind of workforce that know kubernetes is still relatively small uh the people understand 411 00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:25,120 cloud native architectures and all the stuff that goes into building a cloud native architecture is 412 00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:33,840 relatively rare still amongst developers amongst uh you know infrastructure people ops people um and i don't 413 00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:39,040 see that problem going away anytime soon in fact i kind of i see signals that get it's getting worse 414 00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:44,880 and it doesn't doesn't help like as you pointed out that this this ecosystem is still like really in flux 415 00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:54,000 still and uh very much uh kind of we're in the early days of it um but um but this you know i i really 416 00:42:54,000 --> 00:43:00,240 see that the problem around around skills being a real impediment to progress it's that's again it and 417 00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:05,440 when it goes back to the platform team this is what i say like keep your scope really constrained because 418 00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:10,400 you're not going to find you're not going to be able to add a dba to this team um you know anytime 419 00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:15,600 soon you're not going to be able you try to focus on one or two services first become really good at 420 00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:21,680 delivering those before you go wide um because you're not going to have you know the skill sets you 421 00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:28,160 know you it's a distributed mongodb um you know you have to find a mongodb guy right um yeah yeah yeah 422 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:35,840 i mean to to oversimplify it almost to the uh the uh i don't know the level of cuteness and triteness 423 00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:42,800 right like it's it's i mean it's it's always good to know how your tools and technology work like i 424 00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:47,520 always think that like yeah culture is great but if you don't have tools it's just a bunch of talking 425 00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:54,720 uh so you you always need tools but also like kind of the it seems like in in this fluxiness period that 426 00:43:54,720 --> 00:44:00,800 we have like the most durable thing you can do is like understand what your needs are right like 427 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:06,480 understand like what the developers need what your organization needs and understand also that kind 428 00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:11,440 of like product owner product management process of continually refreshing and understanding it and that 429 00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:17,200 way whenever some new technology or you know different versions of the same technology come around you can 430 00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:23,200 always start with with what the needs are like what what people are doing instead of having to um 431 00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:32,240 rediscover those needs based on the tool you end up with right like you know i'm a big fan of 432 00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:39,040 changing the way you work according to the tools that you have but not like all the way it's also good 433 00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:44,640 to be realized like here here's like what we need and so we're gonna get tools that work this way or force 434 00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:49,680 our tools to work that way right like a good a good middle path uh oh yeah that's um that's a 435 00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:55,360 question that customers often don't expect um you know when i when i say this this use case you think 436 00:44:55,360 --> 00:45:01,360 you have does it actually need kubernetes right it's actually needs containers does this need does this 437 00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:08,160 need to be a microservices architecture um and they're like well you know it shocks them um but but i mean 438 00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,520 there's there's there's there's a place for all of this stuff there's a place for monoliths you know 439 00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:17,920 there's a there's a place for spaghetti code somewhere there's a there's a it it it doesn't you know 440 00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:27,280 that nothing things often don't need to be perfect to be successful um you know we we see that um you 441 00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:32,960 know we see that all the time um i mean it's twitter just take twitter for example right i mean if you 442 00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:37,360 if you if you believe the twitter files and if you if you're following all the stuff coming out of twitter now you 443 00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:41,760 think oh it was a mess inside but it was good enough it was good enough to create a service that millions 444 00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:48,800 of people were using um successfully happily um you know even even even what we think of as the most 445 00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:53,520 cutting-edge services that are actually really messy on the inside and we often don't know because they 446 00:45:53,520 --> 00:46:00,960 work well enough um and and but you know engineers like doing things properly they like to you know they 447 00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:06,560 often feel a little bit thinking in black and white they they like to to make have the best technical solution 448 00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:13,040 they want things you know implemented in the best technical way um and that that's of course and 449 00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:18,160 this is not related to cloud natives just just generally to get some way it doesn't always have 450 00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:23,600 to need doesn't always need to be perfect it needs to be good enough to address the need and the same is 451 00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:28,640 true for for platform engineering or what you what you want to what you want to deliver even the quality 452 00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:34,160 and what you want to deliver it i mean of course there are best practices but you can you can get in in the 453 00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:38,080 end you want to you want to be able to achieve something that's a value to your business or to 454 00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:45,440 your use case um and so you you can compromise um but you need to compromise in the right ways 455 00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:50,320 um and that can be that would be a real trick to understand like you know what's important what is 456 00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:56,640 not important yeah i mean it definitely like all of this uh shifting to a platform stuff or when when 457 00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:01,840 when when you get the request to build up a kubernetes thing like it's it's a good it's a good 458 00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:07,600 moment to just do your standard five wise thing not to be an annoying contrarian you know the the 459 00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:13,040 the uh the consultative person who's always like let's back up and start with why but really just to 460 00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:18,560 like you know every now and then it's good to like go down a five or so wise just to find out like let's 461 00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:24,400 just make sure we're doing the best here that like we're uh we're meeting the needs uh that people have 462 00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:30,560 well speaking of meeting the needs that people have if someone had some needs that they needed addressed 463 00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,000 how would they uh how would they get in contact with y'all what should what should they look up to 464 00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:44,240 see if uh you're someone who could help them out well um so um well i mean i'm on twitter and um but 465 00:47:44,240 --> 00:47:49,840 i'm not as active as i used to be i've also been playing around with mastodon a bit um as we probably 466 00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:56,720 all have been recently um but um but i do occasionally put some blurbs out there um i used to blog more 467 00:47:56,720 --> 00:48:01,920 i find it hard to keep up with blogging um when it comes to my company anyways that's that's the 468 00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:07,840 problem with well very unsatisfying well i'll tell you though i mean the the the reason i've 469 00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:11,760 if i block something the reason i block something is because i wanted to show up in a google result 470 00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:18,000 in six years time right right that's my motivation is that one guy in the middle of nowhere who's run 471 00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:23,520 into a problem and it's like my blog is the answer and it doesn't matter that it was like you know 472 00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:28,560 a seven-year-old blog post i get comments like that it's like oh my god you saved me i'm like 473 00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:34,880 why are you still working with exchange version you know 2010 or clear or clearly how to get microsoft 474 00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:40,800 kerberos to work with postgres i think oh yes yeah exactly yeah um but uh when it comes to the 475 00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:47,440 company i work for itq um so um so so we yeah we specialize around the whole vmware stack so we're 476 00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:53,920 the people to go to for that but um and this is kind of um to go back to the skills issue um 477 00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,720 we think we think a lot of people are going to struggle with this cloud native stuff we can see 478 00:48:58,720 --> 00:49:03,760 i mean we see them struggling with this cloud native stuff the skills aren't there uh we saw 479 00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:09,440 an opportunity like a like a you know a gap in the market to address so we've uh we teamed up with 480 00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:16,400 vmware to create to create a managed service around tanzu uh so this is kind of a new concept 481 00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:22,160 uh new for vmware too uh to actually do to do managed services around around some of the cloud 482 00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:27,360 native stuff that vmware's building um so we've just launched that we launched that at explore in 483 00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:32,560 barcelona um and and that's what i'm currently working on the most that's my whole focus right 484 00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:37,840 now is building out that whole service um so so that's i just needed to pitch that in there 485 00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:43,360 you know have my commercial hat on um because because if people want to contact us they should 486 00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:50,800 definitely contact us about that yeah so i wrap that up yeah you know i i i you know related to 487 00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:57,760 that right like uh i'm always like tossing around in my head like the notion of like doesn't everyone 488 00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:04,800 just want public cloud and and what i mean by you know again to apply the needs analysis is like 489 00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:10,080 you just want to like not really there's a certain level of infrastructure management you just don't want 490 00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:16,800 to do anymore right and whether whether that's like someone else is managing it for you or like you get 491 00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:23,360 it from like public cloud over here or whatever like it seems like wherever that line may be there's a 492 00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:31,360 lot more uh interest in just like having someone else do that but without the um without the like 493 00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:36,480 we have to file a ticket and be compliant with our uh five-year contract that you hear about from 494 00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:41,520 traditional outsourcing right you want something a little more fungible uh which which i think it's 495 00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:46,160 it's exciting to see how that's uh that's panning out with people well well thanks for being on it was 496 00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:53,520 it was fun uh i i had a few things to uh noodle around on here to use some other mind idiom uh after 497 00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:58,400 talking with you and you know i i'm maybe we'll see each other at kubcon we always uh we always sort of 498 00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:04,000 accidentally run into each other yeah uh when we're out and about yeah okay so yeah well we should remind 499 00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:09,520 people and this is some more relevant for the dutch markets there's a vmug coming up in march so the 500 00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:16,960 dutch vmug which is the biggest vmug uh vmware user group meeting in the world um it's that's coming 501 00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:23,200 up soon i'll be i have a session there around um uh some some best practices and kind of lessons 502 00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:28,080 learned around uh tansy kubinators grid and the avi and basically you know some of the stuff we talked 503 00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:33,680 about how to do a platform team and then yeah we're going to kubecon um not speaking there but 504 00:51:33,680 --> 00:51:38,000 we're taking 10 of our consultants to kubecon because we just think it's an important thing 505 00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:42,240 for them to to be exposed to that ecosystem it's right around the corner it's amsterdam which is great 506 00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:49,200 and um and i'm planning to organize a vbeers around kubecon so that's an interesting combination 507 00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:55,360 because vbe is very v community thing very much a vmware thing and then that's at kubecon so we 508 00:51:55,360 --> 00:52:00,240 co-located it you know somewhere in the amsterdam city center if you have yet to pick a place for it 509 00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:06,640 um and of course i want to see all our vmware friends show up there including those who uh who 510 00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:13,200 are at the who are doing booth duty uh at the uh at kubecon uh all the developer advocates and uh 511 00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:18,880 all those all those friends but uh but anyone's welcome to to show up um i haven't published anything 512 00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:24,480 um just keep an eye on my twitter for that um and uh it'll just be a cool way for the um 513 00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:29,200 the more v communities kind of people that are walking around kubecon to get together maybe 514 00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:35,360 um but i would definitely um drag anyone who's dead deliberately not from the v community so 515 00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:41,760 people outside of our ecosystem drag them along um because meshing you know the the cloud native 516 00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:48,160 the cncf community together with the v community sounds like a a pretty good uh pretty good plan for 517 00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:52,800 all of us yeah yeah no that should be good because i i think i think people around here on on uh 518 00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:59,680 what whatever whether whatever if if you're a v or a k so to speak uh everyone around here is always 519 00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:05,840 very curious and open about what's going on and has uh is always very forthcoming with their opinions 520 00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:11,360 so there's always a uh there's never a boring conversation up here about computers and stuff 521 00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:16,560 well great well i'll uh i'll try to list those things in the uh the show notes which which you 522 00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:23,280 can get dear listener if you go to tanzu talk.com and uh it's easy to find this episode but you can uh 523 00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:28,480 you can see the the v mug that's going on i i spoke at that last year and it is it's massive it's a 524 00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:34,240 it's a very large v mug uh which was nice and then also uh links to the other relevant stuff well thanks 525 00:53:34,240 --> 00:53:39,600 for being on yeah you're really uh you're welcome and that was a lot of fun hope we can do this again 526 00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:41,040 at some point