Cloud lock-in isn't just about where your data lives—it's about how deeply cloud-specific code permeates your applications. Mark Fussell, co-creator of Dapr and CEO of Diagrid, joins Cory O'Daniel to explore how Dapr provides clean abstractions for common distributed system patterns, enabling teams to build portable applications without sacrificing cloud-native capabilities.

The conversation covers:

• How Dapr creates a clean separation between application code and underlying infrastructure services like messaging, state management, and secrets
• Why platform teams struggle with tight coupling between applications and infrastructure, and how Dapr solves this problem
• The benefits of Dapr's sidecar architecture for local development, testing, and production environments
• How Dapr automatically handles cross-cutting concerns like security, observability, and resiliency without boilerplate code
• Introduction to Dapr's workflow engine for durable execution and the emerging world of stateful AI agents

Whether you're a platform engineer struggling with cloud lock-in or a developer tired of rewriting code for different infrastructures, this conversation demonstrates how Dapr can simplify your distributed systems while maintaining access to the unique capabilities of each cloud provider.

Guest: Mark Fussell, Co-founder of Dapr and CEO of Diagrid

Mark Fussell is the CEO of Diagrid, a cutting-edge company that simplifies building and scaling cloud-native applications. As the co-founder of Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime), Mark has played a pivotal role in shaping the future of modern application development by empowering developers to build resilient, distributed systems with ease. With decades of experience in the software industry, Mark has been a driving force behind innovative solutions that bridge the gap between developers and complex infrastructure.

Diagrid

Dapr

Links to interesting things from this episode:

• "XML Bible" by Elliotte Rusty Harold
• OpenTelemetry
• SPIFFE
• DataGalaxy case study
• Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Did you know that software engineers often "learn things the hard way" because they lack a standardized system to share knowledge about reliability issues? While security professionals have CVEs to catalog vulnerabilities, reliability engineers have been left to reinvent the wheel with each new bug or outage.

Tony Meehan, co-founder and CTO of Prequel, introduces us to Common Reliability Enumerations (CREs) - an open-source approach that's doing for reliability what CVEs did for security. After spending a decade at the NSA hunting vulnerabilities, Tony recognized that the same community-driven approach could revolutionize how we handle reliability issues.

This conversation covers:

• How CREs help developers detect and mitigate reliability issues before they cause outages
• The open-source tools Preq and CRE that allow teams to leverage community knowledge
• Practical ways to implement these tools in your development workflow (locally, in CI/CD, and production)
• How this approach can reduce cloud costs by identifying issues rather than over-provisioning
• Tips for debugging mysterious production issues when no CRE exists yet

Guest: Tony Meehan, CTO at Prequel

Tony is an engineering leader obsessed with bugs. He dedicated a decade to vulnerability and exploit development at the National Security Agency (NSA) before leading Engineering at Endgame and Elastic. In 2023, Tony co-founded Prequel to change the way application failure is detected and resolved.

Tony Meehan, X

prequel.dev

github.com/prequel-dev

Prequel, X

Links to interesting things from this episode:

• Blog post about the partial outage at Endgame
• Common Reliability Enumeration (CRE)
• Preq
• XKCD: Standards
• Episode on security with Danny Allan from Snyk
• Brendan Gregg's blog

What if you could turn a five-year software project into a one-month endeavor? Gene Kim, co-founder of IT Revolution and author of The Phoenix Project, reveals how AI-powered Vibe Coding is transforming the way developers work.

Kim shares insights from his upcoming book about how developers are achieving unprecedented productivity, including how his co-author produces 12,000 lines of production-ready code daily using AI assistance. But it's not just about speed - learn how this approach enables developers to tackle previously impossible projects and explore larger design spaces.

From DevOps evolution to practical AI implementation, Kim discusses:

• What Vibe Coding really means and how it differs from traditional development
• Real examples of AI accelerating development without sacrificing quality
• Common pitfalls to avoid when implementing AI in your development workflow
• How AI is making developers more ambitious rather than replacing them
• The critical role of testing and feedback loops in successful AI implementation

Whether you're a seasoned developer or a tech leader wondering about AI's place in your development workflow, this conversation provides practical insights into the future of software development.

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Security often feels like a roadblock to developers, but what if it could be seamlessly integrated into the development process? As software delivery becomes increasingly automated and self-service, the traditional approach to security needs a major overhaul.

Danny Allan, CTO at Snyk, shares practical insights on transforming security from a bottleneck into an enabler of developer productivity. Drawing from his extensive experience at IBM, VMware, and Veeam, Allan discusses how security teams can shift left effectively without creating friction.

Key topics covered:

• Building successful security champions programs that cultivate curiosity rather than relying solely on senior developers
• Practical approaches to embedding security controls into development pipelines, from IDE integration to PR checks
• Strategies for measuring security team success beyond just vulnerability counts
• The role of pre-hardened containers and infrastructure-as-code scanning in platform security
• How AI is transforming both code generation and security tooling, including Snyk's approach to vulnerability detection

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Are your platform teams constantly saying "no" to requests for new Kubernetes clusters? The traditional approach to Kubernetes multi-tenancy forces organizations to choose between cluster sprawl or restrictive namespaces - neither of which fully meets the needs of modern development teams.

Lukas Gentele, CEO and co-founder of Loft Labs, shares how vCluster is transforming the way organizations handle multi-tenancy in Kubernetes. By running virtual Kubernetes control planes inside namespaces, vCluster enables teams to experiment with different versions, operators, and configurations while maintaining efficient resource usage.

Key topics covered:

• How vCluster solves the limitations of namespace-based multi-tenancy
• Running multiple Kubernetes versions in the same cluster for testing and gradual upgrades
• Managing bare metal GPU resources efficiently for AI/ML workloads
• Balancing standardization with developer autonomy in platform engineering
• Using virtual clusters for cost-effective testing across multiple Kubernetes versions

Whether you're a platform engineer looking to say "yes" more often or a development team seeking greater autonomy within Kubernetes, this discussion offers practical insights into modern multi-tenancy approaches.

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When organizations grow beyond using third-party platforms, they face a critical challenge: how to build internal platforms that enable teams to work efficiently while maintaining security and compliance. Abby Bangser, founding principal engineer at Syntasso, shares insights on creating real-world platforms that strike the right balance between standardization and flexibility.

Key Insights

• The shift from external platforms to internal ones often comes from specific business needs, like compliance requirements
• Successful platform engineering requires finding the right balance between prescriptive standards and flexible customization
• Platforms should offer multiple levels of abstraction - from simplified "paved paths" to advanced customization options
• Platform teams should watch how users interact with their services to identify emerging patterns and needs

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Testing smart TV applications presents unique challenges that traditional web testing approaches can't solve. Dave Lucia, CTO and co-founder of TV Labs, shares how his team built a platform that virtualizes televisions and set-top boxes to help media companies test their smart TV apps on physical devices.

Learn about TV Labs' innovative architecture and how they handle everything from camera-based testing systems to their custom Lua-based DSL for faster test execution. A key highlight is how choosing Elixir as their primary technology has enabled TV Labs to build a robust orchestration system. The language's built-in capabilities for fault tolerance, process isolation, and distributed computing make it particularly well-suited for managing concurrent connections and real-time state across multiple devices.

The discussion also explores practical insights about system architecture, including how TV Labs leverages Phoenix presence for real-time device state tracking and achieves microsecond-level performance for message broadcasting.

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Why do 70% of organizations still struggle to adopt infrastructure as code? Sören Martius, CPO and co-founder of Terramate, joins Cory O'Daniel to tackle the challenges of modern infrastructure management and the delicate balance between vendor trust and lock-in.

The conversation explores practical solutions for common infrastructure challenges, from managing monolithic state files to orchestrating complex deployments. Martius shares insights on:

• When to maintain a monolithic state file versus breaking it into smaller units
• How infrastructure needs evolve as engineering teams grow beyond 100 people
• Why anti-lock-in features build trust with operations teams
• The role of AI in detecting and remediating infrastructure misconfigurations

For teams wrestling with infrastructure complexity or evaluating new tools, this discussion offers practical perspectives on building scalable, maintainable infrastructure while avoiding common pitfalls around vendor lock-in and team adoption.

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