Master Of None

As we near the end of 2020 with the entire world getting into podcasting big time and podcast becoming mainstream, I do not want to become left out. Because I love to experiment with all things new and shiny. So jumping into the bandwagon and created my new podcast ‘Master Of None’.

Through this Master Of None podcast, I would like to provide a running commentary on the emerging and new trends in the tech industry focussing predominantly on the intersection of cloud, programming, architecture, DevOps, machine learning and security. I hope you find the topics discussed in the podcast interesting.

I’m creating this podcast entirely through the mobile app called Anchor FM. This app helps to record and publish to podcasts to all major platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. It makes the creation and publishing part relatively easier. Spotify has bought this app and is looking to become the epicentre of all things about podcasting. There are some monetisation options available for podcast creators based out of US only at this point of time.

To get latest episodes, please subscribe to my podcast here : Spotify Apple Podcast Google Podcast

Permission to publish to Apple podcasts is still being awaited.

I’m really curious and excited as to where this journey would lead me to. If there are any specific area/ topics that you are curious and interested to understand better, please let me know. I will try to cover as part of future episodes.

Episodes:

Welcome to Master Of None : ~ 1 min

Hi Everyone, Welcome to my brand new podcast Master of None. I’m Dinakaran and I have been working in the IT industry for over a decade now . Through this podcast, I would like provide a running commentary on the emerging and new trends in the tech industry focussing predominantly on the intersection of cloud, programming , architecture, DevOps, machine learning and security. I hope you find the topics discussed in the podcast interesting. Let’s get started .

1.Hype Around Cloud: ~30 mins

The Hype Around Cloud. In the last 5 to 6 years, there is a lot of hype and momentum around Cloud. A lot of traditional businesses, governments, startups and freelance developers have started using the cloud. There are a lot of job opportunities too these days. To understand the demand, it is useful to jog down the memory lane to see how applications were built before and how things have changed in the last 10 years and how Cloud is going to evolve in the next decade.

2.The Serverless Mindset : ~ 15 mins

“The Serverless Mindset”. In this 15 min talk, I discuss what The Serverless Mindset is all about. What is Serverless and how do we go about architecting and designing applications leveraging the various offering from cloud and saas providers using the low code / no code and low infra / no infra mindset.

3. Event Driven Architecture : ~ 30 mins

Event Driven Architecture has been much talked about with the evolution of distributed systems , cloud and microservices. In this episode , we would be discussing on the challenges with the distributed system and microservices and how to build applications that are decoupled yet communicate with each other asynchronously. Also we have smart devices like sensors pushing in lot of data at scale and we need to find efficient ways to handle these as well. Discussion on the different ways of implementing Event Driven Architecture - Reactive Event Driven Systems aka Message Queue - Publisher Subscriber pattern vs Event Streaming aka Logs. We will also look at typical use-cases where each of these pattern fit and finally wrapping with pros and cons of an event driven architecture.

4. CDN and it’s evolution to Edge Computing : ~ 33 mins

CDN Content Delivery Networks have been there for decades. In this episode, we try to understand what CDN is and the general use case where CDN may be a good fit. We also look at the main components that are available in a typical CDN. We also explore the various caching mechanisms of Push vs Pull, cache invalidation strategies . Also a brief look at different types of CDN like Public CDN vs Private CDN and Image CDN and Media CDN. We also discuss how CDN can help from security aspect, be it DDOS attack or acting as Web Application Firewall for OWASP based attacks. Finally delving into newer trends of CDN being used at a Compute level with Edge Computing with 3 main uses being 1. JAM stack for building modern server side rendered web applications 2. IOT devices that may perform small pre and post processing and deployment of AI/ML models at Edge for inference and finally 3. Edge Computing for 5G networks to serve content with milli second latency. I hope you find the topics discussed in the episode pretty useful.

5. Infrastructure As Code - Taking DevOps CI- CD Automation to the next level ~ 18 mins

DevOps Continuous Integration - Continuous Delivery CI CD have seen successful adoption in many places . This has helped in the automation of code integration, build and deployment . But infrastructure is always missed out in this process. In traditional on premises world, infrastructure once created will not change very often. But with Distributed Computing and Cloud, infrastructure needs to be created real time and teared down as and when required. There is no way to manually create infrastructure across regions without automating the creation of infrastructure. And these scripts have to be version controlled and treated as another piece of code . It should be part of CI- CD process as well. In this episode, I’m discussing Infrastructure as Code and why should Developers , not just DevOps engineers should care.

6. Cloud Economics and FinOps ~ 37 mins

As cloud adoption goes mainstream, the cost and financial impact of running services in the cloud is gaining significance. There is a mindshift change required to think of costs from Capital Expenses ( Capex ) to Operational Expenses ( Opex ) . Architecting solutions keeping the cost as an important lever is mandatory . Using tools like Cost Calculator to better predict cost is recommended. Monitoring the infrastructure to ensure the cost escalation is kept in control by means of alerts , dashboard and monitoring and optimization of resources through automation is becoming more pronounced across organization. We finally discuss on the idea of FinOps - Finance , Operations, Engineering and Senior Management coming together to collaborate and ensure each of them understand the roles and responsibilities . We discuss the main pillars of FinOps - Governance, Engineering, Reporting and Optimization.

7. DevSecOps - Security is not an afterthought ~ 36 mins

DevSecOps is a relatively new term coined that focus on the collaboration between Application Development, Operations and Security Teams coming together to deliver applications and software in an agile fashion in an iterative, faster and secure way.

In this podcast, we discuss the reason why DevSecOps have come into focus in the last few years. And for teams to start adopting DevSecOps practices, what are different aspects, perspectives and approaches that need to be considered are also briefly touched upon.

Threat Modelling is the starting point to understand the security posture, identifying gaps and prioritize critical aspects that need attention. We also discuss the tools, technology and automation that are required for successfully building DevSecOps practices.

8. De-mystifying oAuth and OpenIDConnect ~ 50 mins

Authentication and Authorization as a concept has been there for a long time. oAuth is the most standard way in which authorization is implemented and OpenID Connect is a preferred mechanism for authentication. In this podcast, we will Demystify oAuth and OpenID Connect - why, what and how. We will briefly touch upon the history of authentication, OAuth Grants, Scopes and Claims. We also discuss the different types of tokens like ID Token, Access Token and Refresh Tokens. We also briefly touch upon the differences between Cookie and Token and finally ending with how API validates these token. I hope you find the topics discussed in this episode useful.

9. Deployment Strategies for Modern Infrastructure ~ 35 mins

In this podcast, we are going to discuss the Deployment Strategies that can be adopted for managing modern infrastructure. Customers are digitally savvy these days and downtime is frowned upon. So how can we plan our deployment in such a way so that there is little to no downtime for the end-users?

To arrive on a deployment strategy, we need to understand the requirements to start with and then mapping each deployment strategy with pros and cons. I have discussed on the capabilities and requirements for arriving and deciding on deployment strategies, the various deployment strategies like Recreate, Rolling Updates, Blue Green, Canary and A/B Testing. Monitoring and Deployment Automation is another important aspect that needs to be factored. With Modern workloads in the cloud, Immutable Infrastructure as a paradigm is gaining traction.

Finally, we end up discussing the best practices for Safer Production Deployment.

10. What the heck is Digital Transformation anyway ~ 45 mins

Digital Transformation has caught the fancy of large organisations in the last 5 to 6 years. We get to hear about organisations becoming more digital. And what does this becoming Digital means? We have been in the digital world and have been using banking services and other online services for well over 15 years now and they are mostly digital as a customer. So what has changed? I tried to address this aspect of the podcast.

Like DevOps, if you speak to different people, each will have their perspective on what Digital Transformation is all about. And to be a great extent, it might be true as well. I would like to bring my perspective on what Digital Transformation is all about, by taking a real-world example and applying the core elements of Digital Transformation that involves people, process and technology. I also delve into the metrics, goals and outcomes that are required for Digital Transformation and the evolving trends and process in software engineering that can help to make Digital Transformation successful.

To get latest episodes, please subscribe to my podcast here : Spotify Apple Podcast and Google Podcast

Hope you like it.