In this episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute Podcast, QA engineer Meryem Zid shares her insights on building effective QA pipelines, emphasizing unit tests and end-to-end testing as essentials for software quality. She discusses using tools like LocalStack and Terraform for cloud testing and explores emerging trends like chaos engineering, advanced observability, and edge computing testing. Meryem views AI as a supportive, transformative tool for QA rather than a replacement for human...

In this episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute Podcast, Jeremy Theocharis, co-founder and CTO of Unite Manufacturing Hub (UMH), joins us to discuss digital transformation in manufacturing. Jeremy delves into how UMH centralizes factory data, enhancing real-time monitoring and data accessibility with a new data layer for the manufacturing process. He explains the benefits of integrating sensors and controllers, creating a Unified Namespace to improve efficiency and prevent production downtime....

In this episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute Podcast, Hadi Hariri, the head of open source projects at JetBrains, joins us to discuss the evolution of programming languages and developer tools. Hadi shares insights on JetBrains’ diverse suite of IDEs, including the recently launched Rust Rover, and explores how the company has integrated AI tools to support developer productivity. He also addresses the hype and practical impact of AI in coding, touching on how it may shape future developer...

In this episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute Podcast, Yingjun Wu, founder of RisingWave Labs, discusses stream processing and how RisingWave enables real-time data analytics. He explains the differences between batch and streaming databases, RisingWave’s PostgreSQL compatibility, and its open-source focus. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Yingjun discuss: What is stream processing and how does it differ from batch processing?Why RisingWave is a better fit for real-time data...

In this episode of Cloud Commute, Java evangelist Bruno Souza shares insights on adapting to cloud and AI trends, navigating the hidden job market, and building career visibility. He emphasizes hands-on learning and applying new technologies in real projects. Souza also introduces his Mentorship Hub, aimed at helping developers advance their careers with personalized guidance. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Bruno Souza discuss: How to navigate the hidden job market in techThe...

In this episode of Cloud Commute, Michele Mancioppi, Head of Product at Dash0, discusses how Dash0 enhances Kubernetes-native observability using OpenTelemetry. He and Chris Engelbert explore the importance of context in telemetry data and how standardization simplifies observability. Mancioppi also touches on balancing product management with technical expertise. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Michele discuss: What OpenTelemetry brings to observability and its benefits.How Dash0...

In this episode of Cloud Commute, Christina Lin from Redpanda Data discusses how Redpanda simplifies data streaming as an alternative to Kafka. She and Chris Engelbert explore its ease of use, cloud compatibility, and innovations like the BYOC service as a seamless Kafka alternative. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Christina discuss: What makes Redpanda a simpler alternative to Kafka?How does Redpanda's BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) service work?What are the benefits of using...

In this episode of Cloud Commute, Michael Schmidt, co-founder & CTO of simplyblock, joins us to discuss the innovation behind simplyblock. Michael shares his journey from consulting and leading major retail IT operations to the creation of simplyblock. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Michael discuss: What is software-defined storage?Why is hardware-defined storage outdated?What are the challenges with cloud storage solutions today?How is Simplyblock addressing the...

Event-driven processing and real-time stream analytics are common design elements of modern, scalable architectures. Jove Zhon from Timeplus talks about how and why you want to use these architectural patterns and why Timeplus. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Jove discuss: What is Streaming Analytics?Why do people prefer Timeplus?What are the challenges with anything stream processing?What does Jove believe the future holds?Interested to learn more about the cloud infrastructure...

Writing good integration tests is hard. Databases and other services need to be started up, the test has to be run, and everything needs to be shut down again. In this episode of Cloud Commute Oleg Šelajev from Docker talks about how Testcontainers makes our lives better. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Oleg discuss: Test containers and their role in development and testing environmentsImproving developer productivity with containerized environmentsChallenges and benefits of...

In this very special episode of Cloud Commute we try something else. Joined by guest Bart Farrell, well known in the Kubernetes ecosystem for his work in the Data on Kubernetes community, as well as Kube.FM. Bart talks about his past, teaching children English after he moved from the USA to Spain, and how this shaped his view on teaching tech topics, his podcast, and more. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Bart discuss: Navigating the cloud-native ecosystem and KubernetesBuilding...

In this episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute Podcast, Bruno Borges, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft, discusses millions of Java instances at Microsoft and the role of the Microsoft Java team. He introduces Semantic Kernel, a Java library for integrating AI into business applications, using large language models. Tune in to learn how Microsoft is shaping the future of development and AI integration. In this episode of Cloud Commute, Chris and Bruno discuss: Java’s evolution at...

In this episode, our guest Gwen Shapira talks about her co-founded database startup Nile, a serverless Postgres database. She explains how they implemented the multi-tenant features, made sure that customers are probably isolated, how scalability works, and what the future holds. Gwen has years and years of experience using technologies as Oracle databases, PostgreSQL, Kafka, and many more. She's a seasoned speaker and keynote giver at conferences, and overall one of the most influential...

In this episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute Podcast, host Chris Engelbert interviews Mike Freedman, co-founder and CTO of Timescale. Timescale enhances Postgres to manage time series data, analytics, and AI applications efficiently. Mike explains how Timescale's automated partitioning and lifecycle management transform data from row-based to compressed columnar formats and tiered storage, optimizing performance, and cost. The episode dives into Timescale’s use of Kubernetes for scalable,...

In this week's episode we have a very special guest, Michael Schwarz from CISPA. A security researcher specialized in CPU side channel attacks. He explains how side-channel attacks work in general, but most specifically with the example of his team's most recent find: #CacheWarp. He was also involved in the finding of #Meltdown and #Spectre. To contact Michael or CISPA, you can find them here: Website: https://misc0110.net/LinkedIn:...

In this week's episode of the Cloud Commute podcast by simplyblock, host Chris Engelbert talks to Hannes Ullman from bifrost security, a company building an automatic application firewall. Bifrost is built upon AppArmor, using a training phase to learn the application's network behavior, necessary system calls, and more. Using the data acquired during training, the application firewall will keep your application safe in production. If you want to reach out to Hannes or bifrost, here's...

In this episode of the Cloud Commute Podcast, Chris Engelbert talks with Dominik Obermaier, CTO and co-founder of HiveMQ. They delve into the technical aspects of MQTT, a lightweight communication protocol designed for the Internet of Things (IoT). Dominik explains how MQTT, an ISO standard, is ideal for connecting millions of devices due to its publish-subscribe architecture, resilience to disconnects, and efficient handling of low-bandwidth scenarios. They discuss HiveMQ's innovations in...

In this week's episode of simplyblock's Cloud Commute podcast, host Chris Engelbert sits down with Jennifer Reif, a developer advocate at Neo4j. Jennifer dives into the fascinating world of graph databases, explaining how Neo4j stores data as entities and relationships, making it perfect for complex queries involving networks, social structures, supply chains, and more. She highlights the advantages of Neo4j over traditional relational databases, especially in handling complex relationships...

In this week's episode of simplyblock's Cloud Commute podcast, host Chris Engelbert welcomes Paloma Oliveira, a Brazilian growth engineer at Sauce Labs and active member of the Python Software Verband and PyLadies Berlin. Paloma shares insights from her experience at recent conferences and dives into the importance of comprehensive end-to-end testing in software development. She emphasizes how Sauce Labs helps developers ensure their products work seamlessly across various devices and...

In this week's episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute podcast, host Chris Engelbert interviews Luigi Nardi, founder and CEO of DBtune. Luigi recounts his journey from Italy to France, the UK, the US, and finally Sweden, where he built a distinguished career in software engineering and academia. He explains DBtune, a company that emerged from Stanford University research, which uses machine learning to optimize database management systems like Postgres. This technology automates database...

Welcome to this week's episode of Simplyblock's Cloud Commute podcast! Host Chris Engelbert sits down with Shaun Thomas, affectionately known as "Mr. High Availability" in the Postgres community, to discuss his journey from a standard DBA to a leading expert in high availability solutions for Postgres databases. Shaun shares his experiences working in financial services, where he redefined high availability using tools like Pacemaker and DRBD, and the path that led him to authoring a...

In this episode of simplyblock's Cloud Commute podcast, host Chris Engelbert welcomes Alessandro Vozza, a prominent figure in the Kubernetes and cloud-native community. Alessandro shares his journey from his early days in open-source advocacy to his pivotal role in organizing the DevOps and Kubernetes meetups in Amsterdam. He discusses his current endeavors as a CNCF Ambassador and his passion for fostering community engagement and knowledge sharing within the tech ecosystem. Alessandro draws...

The podcast episode of simplyblock's Cloud Commute features Chris Engelbert interviewing Anders Eknert. They discuss Anders' background and current role at Styra, the company behind the Open Policy Agent (OPA) project. Anders lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden, and has been involved with Styra for about three and a half years. He shares how his previous work led him to OPA due to a need for managing complex authorization requirements across diverse environments. Styra, founded by the...

Using CI/CD pipelines to build and deploy your applications is common sense. Many use combined tools though. Stefan Prodan, from ControlPlane, talks about the importance of recognizing that a deployment pipeline is basically a cluster admin and needs to be handled securely as a production system. If you have questions to Stefan, you can reach her here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanprodan/X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/stefanprodanGithub: https://github.com/stefanprodanBlog:...