The DevOps Pulse
A collection of links with insights of useful information that is impacting Platform Engineering/DevOps today
This week, Code n Culture is launching The DevOps Pulse section of the newsletter. As a working engineer and architect, along with the research I do for the newsletter, I come across many different topics, articles and relevant information that can be impactful to your jobs. My goal is to collate, share and provide insights on them on a recurring basis in an easily consumable format that gives you quick insights and wins that you can take back to your teams.
GenAI + Toolchain
GenAI is popular and many leaders I've met are only considering consuming APIs from leaders in this space (think OpenAI, Claude, etc). The issues that come with these are:
You don't own the IP
Are just consuming a service
Security concerns for data (if the service is hacked)
They can be expensive at scale
Using a managed service (ex AWS Bedrock) you're forced to deal with vendor lock-in, limited customizability, and data portability issues
With approach it may not give you the results than running your own AI toolchain. I would argue it's worth investing time to setup your toolchain as it can be reused once your focus shifts beyond LLMs into other AI domains.
If you decide to setup your own LLM, the infrastructure management can be significant. Microsoft introduced the Kubernetes AI Toolchain Operator (KAITO) that automates tasks like provisioning GPU nodes, configuring resources, and setting up inference endpoints
Link: https://github.com/kaito-project/kaito/tree/main
It's a great project to familiarize yourself with as other AI use cases beyond LLMs increases, these tools will be necessary for scaling.
Blue Yonder Ransomware + Incident Response Plan
The supply chain SaaS vendor was disrupted by Ransomware, impacting UK vendors and even Starbucks. According to Verizon, ransomware ranks as the number one threat to organizations across 92% of industries.
Link: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/blue_yonder_ransomware/
Even systems designed with the best of intentions and no expense spared can become compromised so having an incident response plan in place will pay dividends in case of a ransomware attack. Imagine not have access to your email, or having backed up your data - these are the kind of things being prepared for that will make your life easier in the long run.
Yes, it requires work, time and money but this is no different than you owning a fancy car and having it detailed + garage parked. Treat your infrastructure and applications the same way you would treat your prized Porsche.
Rust Taking Over Data Engineering
Sylvain Kerkour has a great article outlining why Rust is taking over data engineering. Data engineering has heavy workloads from real-time data processing, serialization to high performance databases. Rust is increasingly used due to its performance, memory safety, and concurrency capabilities.
Link: https://kerkour.com/rust-data-engineering
It's worth spending time to learn a language on which a significant number of data engineer tools and products are written. Most organizations don't/won’t have significant data storage requirements (he references an article Big Data is Dead by Jordan Tigani that is a compelling argument), unbundled databases will be the path forward and is worth learning now.
If you have come across any articles or would like to submit one to share on The DevOps Pulse, please message us using the button below.
Thoughts on this type of article? An opinion on anything that I’ve said? Disagree on my take. I am open and happy to have a discussion. Respond in the comments below (or click the button).