IT Ops Query

How Capital One scaled serverless computing

Serverless computing is nothing new, but it's poised for major growth, according to recent market research. This week's guest has had a front-row seat to that growth both at AWS and Capital One, where he led the company's efforts to use serverless at scale and helped shape its Serverless Center of Excellence. In this episode, he discusses the pros and cons of serverless computing for enterprises, recent advances in adjacent technologies such as observability, and shares his lessons learned.
Featuring: Brian McNamara, distinguished engineer at Capital One
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
Cost and efficiency savings with serverless computing
AWS CloudWatch, X-Ray and OpenTelemetry updates for serverless observability
The "NoOps" misnomer
How to help developers work with serverless functions effectively
And more!
References:
AI will heavily influence cloud-related decisions in 2026
Compare AWS Lambda vs. AWS Fargate for serverless
19 Top Distributed Tracing Tools to Know About
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

Cisco incubator proposes Internet of Cognition for AI agents

Outshift by Cisco published a whitepaper titled "Scaling out Superintelligence" in January that suggests that new standard network layers will be required for AI agents and humans to work together at scale. It also began designing a distributed infrastructure to support those layers, which it calls the "Internet of Cognition," that helps agents and humans think together with a shared semantic context. In this episode, Guillaume de Saint Marc, vice president of engineering at Outshift, discusses how the project evolved and what's coming next.  
Featuring: Guillaume de Saint Marc, VP of Engineering, Outshift by Cisco 
In today’s episode, we’ll cover… 
Artificial superintelligence – definition and challenges 
Proposed OSI model Layers 8 and 9 for agentic AI 
The Internet of Cognition vs Agntcy and A2A protocols 
And more! 
References:  
Big vendors back Linux Foundation agentic workflows project 
How agentic AI is changing work, strategy and competitiveness 
Is your business ready for an agentic AI team? 
The ethics that make human-AI agent collaboration work  
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations. 
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.  

Mainframe modernization: Where AI wins and fails

There are two sides to the mainframe modernization coin, according to Asa Kalavade, vice president of AWS Transform, an agentic AI service that modernizes Windows, mainframe, and VMware environments. In late February, Asa wrote a blog post about misconceptions regarding AI and mainframe modernization that were revealed by work with more than 400 AWS Transform customers. In that post and during this episode's discussion, she explains why successful mainframe modernization requires both reverse and forward engineering – and why AI is only good at one of those things.
Featuring: Asa Kalavade, VP of AWS Transform
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
The need for both reverse and forward engineering in app modernization
The intricacies of mainframe applications AI tends to struggle with
Where AI agents help the modernization process
The evolving role of mainframe experts
And more!
References:
How to use ChatGPT in mainframe modernization
Mainframe modernization to AI apps: USPTO reinvents itself
Learnings from COBOL modernization in the real world (AWS)
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

The "observability tax," AI and the SaaSpocalypse

"I would love there to be a SaaS apocalypse" in observability – that's the spicy take from Ari Zilka, CEO at data pipeline engine startup MyDecisive.ai, and a former exec at New Relic and Hortonworks. MyDecisive's open source software targets data management costs from observability vendors such as Datadog by reducing data at the source; it can also proactively alert on and take action on OpenTelemetry data as it comes in from enterprise applications. If Zilka has his way, observability will return to enterprises as an in-house discipline, but without requiring an army of engineers to set it up.
Featuring: Ari Zilka, CEO at MyDecisive.ai
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
MyDecisive's approach to AI and Zilka's outlook on AI agents (It's not what you might think)
Observability costs and how MyDecisive proposes tackling them
MyDecisive vs Cribl and other data pipeline tools
And more!
References:
New Relic plans to expand AI agent observability
Snowflake storms into IT monitoring with Observe acquisition
Dynatrace AI agents draw on new observability integrations
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

AI, jobs and billionaires: Former Googler issues warnings

Tom Chi has played many roles inside and outside the tech industry, including serving as head of Google X, where he helped develop Google Glass and self-driving cars. Now a founding partner at the environmentally focused venture capital firm At One Ventures, Chi has published a book, Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future. The book offers dark warnings about the possible future of humans on Earth amid threefold crises in the environment, the AI economy, and geopolitics and also proposes a framework for change.
In this wide-ranging and provocative interview, Chi puts forth his opinions on why a world in which billionaires are building doomsday bunkers is one in which no one is really winning, and how that would could be re-imagined.
Featuring: Tom Chi, founding partner, At One Ventures
In today's episode, we'll cover…
White collar jobs and AI
Demand as a check on corporate power
Connections between climate change, AI's impact and political unrest
Chi's proposed skills to address these challenges: critical thinking, creativity, compassion, and community.
References:
Potential Salesforce pricing reset latest sign of 'SaaSpocalypse'
AI job losses: Transformation expected, not mass layoffs
Half of Google's software development now AI-generated
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

CoreWeave neocloud makes AI pitch to enterprises

Corey Sanders, Senior Vice President of Product at neocloud provider CoreWeave, leads product strategy and execution for the company. His mission: Gain enterprises' trust for CoreWeave's AI cloud services. The challenge: slower-than-expected enterprise AI adoption so far and skyrocketing demand for AI infrastructure, including data center power and water resources.
Featuring: Corey Sanders, Senior Vice President of Product at CoreWeave
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
The shift from model building to AI inference
The potential effect of reinforcement learning on AI accuracy
CoreWeave's new ARENA AI lab
NeoCloud architectures take on "RAMageddon"
and more!
References:
GenAI drives $119B cloud revenue in Q4
Upstart cloud provider Railway turns heads with speed
Neoclouds: Meeting demand for AI acceleration
 
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

Microsoft's Brendan Burns on the future of AI infrastructure

Microsoft corporate vice president and Kubernetes project co-founder Brendan Burns envisions a long-term transition in the industry from declarative cloud-native infrastructure to intent-based infrastructure, facilitated by AI. In the short term, the impact of AI on enterprise infrastructure will be strongest in two major areas, according to Burns: reducing toil through automation and improving data summarization with natural language-based infrastructure exploration.  As enterprises adjust to these changes, Burns emphasized that IT leaders should get hands-on, firsthand experience with AI automation tools.
Featuring: Brendan Burns, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
The KAITO open source project and Kubernetes evolution for AI
AI governance and control
What needs to change about companies' mindsets to best use AI
and more!
References:
Cloud infrastructure suffers AI growing pains
Microsoft Foundry ties in with Agent 365
Kubernetes AI progress in 2025 and the road ahead
SREs map uncharted territory with LLMOps
 
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

Ex-Googler joins Crusoe Cloud, neocloud of Stargate fame

Erwan Menard spent six years at Google, where he most recently worked as director of product management for Google's Cloud AI services. Six months ago, he left to join Crusoe Cloud as senior vice president of product management. Crusoe Cloud, which offers everything from hosted cloud services to renewable power sources, is best known for operating the Stargate 1.2 gigawatt data center campus in Abilene, Texas. In this interview, Menard discusses the advantages of designing cloud data centers from the ground up to support AI workloads, and how the industry can meet exploding demand for data center resources, including power, as technology evolves.
Featuring: Erwan Menard, senior vice president of product management, Crusoe Cloud
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
Challenges and opportunities in AI cloud services
Technical differences in neocloud and public cloud networks
Gaining enterprises' trust in neoclouds
Keeping AI data centers sustainable
and more!
References:
Cloud infrastructure suffers AI growing pains
GenAI drives $119B cloud revenue in Q4
AI will heavily influence cloud-related decisions in 2026
Upstart cloud provider Railway turns heads with speed
 
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

IBM Watsonx Orchestrate and the state of AI agent platforms

Suzanne Livingston is vice president at IBM, overseeing product management for the watsonx Orchestrate AI agent platform. She says enterprises must strike between AI governance and trying to force every workload into one platform – or to be agentic at all. Going forward, managing AI agents will require new kinds of human-to-AI and human-to-human collaboration, according to Livingston, that the industry is just learning about.
Featuring: Suzanne Livingston, Vice President, IBM watsonx Orchestrate
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
Watsonx Orchestrate support for third-party AI agents
Unsolved AI security problems
How IBM customers are approaching AI governance
AI's influence on the future of work
and more!
References:
AI security worries stall enterprise production deployments
DevSecOps AI agents add platform context, woo enterprises
AI Agent Frameworks: A Guide to Evaluating Agentic Platforms
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

Kelsey Hightower's advice for platform engineers as AI looms

Renowned public speaker, industry commentator, technologist and open source ambassador Kelsey Hightower describes himself as an AI skeptic, but warns that platform engineers should take the threat of AI to their jobs seriously. In this episode, he explains the skills IT operations leaders must emphasize as they prepare for the question: "What value do you bring over the machines?"
Featuring: Kelsey Hightower, technologist, speaker and open source ambassador
In today’s episode, we’ll cover…
AI's "Bridge building problem"
Why AI is a surface-level technology
A coming salary correction for some IT pros
"Training your replacement" vs understanding systems
and more!
References:
DevSecOps AI agents add platform context, woo enterprises
Cloud-native platform engineering in the enterprise
Kubernetes AI progress in 2025 and the road ahead
GitHub Universe: Large IT orgs share AI automation gains
To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.
To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.