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Narrator: You're listening to
the humans of DevOps podcast, a

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podcast focused on advancing the
humans of DevOps through skills,

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knowledge, ideas, and learning,
or the skil framework.

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Adam Frank: You know, I've seen
a lot of developer advocates,

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within companies really kind of
start to look internally. One

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who is kind of walks in those
shoes of a developer is

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certainly going to have the best
best foot forward.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Welcome to
humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm

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Evelyn early Chief Research
Officer at DevOps Institute. Our

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podcast title today is cloud
native observability developer

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happiness. Yes, you can, or Oh,
my, if that sounds a little bit

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like the Dorsey at Kansas, it is
for a reason, because I have

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with me, a gentleman who has
incredible knowledge across

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many, many topics, and I wanted
to talk to Him about everything.

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But I know we only have about
2025 minutes. So today, we have

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with us Adam Frank. He's a
senior vice president for

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product and marketing at armory.
Hello, Adam.

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Adam Frank: Thank you so much
for having me on.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Yes, excited.
Like I said, I'm very excited.

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So before we get started, I
wanted to share with the

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audience a little bit on your
background. So Adam is

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passionate about all things
product and design, he creates

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influences and greatly improves
end to end or e to e, I just

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heard somebody say that
experiences, he is helping

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armory expand and grow by
building top shelf product

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marketing and design teams that
deliver a simple message with a

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simple experience. He has over
15 years of product and

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development experience,
specializing, sorry for that

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specializing in building
products and strategies for

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complex problems, problems that
enable digital transformations,

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and organizational change to
ensure growth and scale for

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businesses of the world. Now,
Adam is also a DevOps Institute

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ambassador, and I believe you
are still advisor for financial

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services and technology as part
of a misery that IO, is that

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correct? That is correct.
Excellent. Well, welcome again.

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And thank you for having the
time or taking the time on your

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end. I know you are very, very
busy. So I really appreciate it.

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And I know our listeners are
appreciating it as well.

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Adam Frank: Yeah, thanks for
having me. That's quite the

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intro there as well.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Yes, of
course. And I'm actually

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surprised, you know, we haven't
actually, I am an ambassador, of

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course, as well. But I'm also
Chief Research Officer, we

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haven't really met in person. So
congratulations on being an

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ambassador, and thank you for
all of your work. Hopefully, we

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get to meet in person at some
point, because now we can, we

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will see. The first thing
really, what is the take of

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being an ambassador? And how has
that helped you as kind of a

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little bit of a want to get a
little bit more insight on what

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ambassadors do to our audience?
Tell us a little bit about your

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role.

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Adam Frank: Sure, sure. So like
you said, back in 2020, is

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really where I was introduced to
the DevOps Institute. Helen Bill

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was the first person that I
interacted with, and she is

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absolutely lovely, she is full
of energy. And she really

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advocates for the community. So
her energy just kind of spilled

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onto me to advocate for the
community as well. So it's

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really about sharing the
knowledge sharing the

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experiences, the number of
courses that the DevOps

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Institute has been coming out
with lately, and being able to

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consult on those courses,
provide inputs, ideas, even

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right some of the courses, the
modules, the chapters, wherever

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they may be, and really
collaborate with that community

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to produce something that will
hopefully help other members

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that are very interested in the
topic or trying to learn. I

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think that's the impetus of all
of this is that really sharing

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knowledge to help others learn
and grow within the vast, vast

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community that we have in and
around DevOps and it in in

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general. So it's, it's, it's
fantastic to be an ambassador. I

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very much enjoyed it. And it's
really helped me both from a

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networking point of view and
understand other people's

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perspectives, but also help
understand other problems and

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things that people are facing as
well to come up with and you

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know, kind of ideate around
solutions to those problems,

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along with keeping up with
trends and things of that

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nature. It's been it's been a
wonderful ride so far.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Great. Well,
thank you for sharing that. And

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yes, shout out to Helen. She is
absolutely wonderful. She has

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Add that that Nick for getting
people connected and excited. I

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love working with her. So shout
out to her super thanks for

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sharing that. In terms of a
topic, I really want to first

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address one I have also
researched and studied. So

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you've been focusing and doing
some work around observability

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for a while. Why do you think
observability is such a hot

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topic today?

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Adam Frank: I think we could
probably sum it up in in four or

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five words. And that would be
customer experience and product

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lead growth, bring that down to
five letters UX and plg. I think

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with the complexity and scale of
infrastructure and application,

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in today's day and age, and the
reach from globalization, it's

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it's that coupled with the speed
of innovation that we are

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seeing, one really needs to
understand what that customer

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experience is, what is that
customer experiencing with the

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end to end solution that you are
providing, as a software

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provider as a product service.
So being able to not only

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understand the system, and how
they are interacting and

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behaving, but what that customer
is feeling what that customer is

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doing, that's going to really
enable you to make informed

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decisions to iterate quickly. To
increase your uptime, the way

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that we really look at the world
is agility, stability, and

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security are going to provide
the best customer experience out

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there. But in order to provide
the agility, you need to know

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where you're pivoting what
you're iterating on. And being

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able to do that quickly. In
order to provide the stability,

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you need to understand the
systems and the application and

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how they're all interacting to
make sure that it is up and

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available and ready to go for
that customer wherever they may

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be. And of course, security,
security is top of mind always,

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but there's also the other side
of it. And that's the cost

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savings. So being able to see
different areas of the

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application that can be tuned,
the infrastructure that can be

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tuned to also bring cost savings
forward is going to be very,

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very beneficial for any any, any
product in any company that is

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that is delivering the services.

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Eveline Oehrlich: That it's
really a balancing effort. And

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an outside in perspective,
right. As you said, from a

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customer experience,
perspective, we're rolling out,

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we're coming in from that
perspective, making sure we have

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the velocity, we have the
stability, and we have the

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security because my that's
essential. But at the same time,

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we know budgets aren't that big
this year, according to Gartner,

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I think there's a 5.3% rising in
IT budget. So that's not a lot

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in terms of spending. So having
that balance is where

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observability fits right in.
That's a great, I love that that

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could be actually a nice, a nice
graphic. All right. Now, of

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course, this has to do with the
digital pace, right, the pace of

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transformation, no matter if it
is in healthcare in industries,

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verticals, governments, whatever
they are, we see that pace

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continues as CEOs have that on
their, on their sleeve as a

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strategic initiative continuing,
particularly after pandemic. And

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that causes. But while we have a
pace of fast and agile and

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stable and secure, there's also
a significant challenge around

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the taking of debt that creates,
we also have skill gaps, and we

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have not enough talents. And
that makes everything a little

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bit more complicated. But really
what I want to get to is the

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technology stack is, as you
mentioned, I think you said that

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is becoming more and more
complex. And it's becoming more

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and more complicated. And I'm
assuming you're seeing that with

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your clients. So when I step
back and think about our focus

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on the on the in the listening
mode, maybe we have some leaders

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and of course, we have
individual contributors who need

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to rethink their technology
stack. How should they? So this

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is a two part question first,
how should they rethink their

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tech stack today? Where and what
can they do to consolidate the

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tech stack? What are your
thoughts on that?

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Adam Frank: Great, great
question. Yes, every day, we

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every day both as a company
ourselves and with our

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customers. We see this every
day. The pace of change is the

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fastest that it's ever been. And
it is not slowing down. I don't

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see we don't see it slowing down
anytime soon. So yes, every day.

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I think some of the first things
that leaders can start to do is

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really Staying close to the
trends and the best practices

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that are out there. But one also
needs to not just make a

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decision, because it's the new
shiny object, it's the new shiny

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toy. But is there any return on
investment with updating their

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tech stack, they'll begin to
think five years, 10 years out

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down the road, but also in that
short term, and is there

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actually going to be returned to
do this not everything needs to

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be promoted to a cloud native
piece of software. Sometimes

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things just can't, the way that
they were written, you know, we

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talked to I talked to a customer
not too long ago, and they're,

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you know, 42 year old software
company with millions of lines

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of code, supporting over 20
different languages at this

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point. And by the time that they
rewrote this, they may be 42

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years in the future, and they
will just have to rewrite it all

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again. So it doesn't necessarily
make sense to replace everything

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within the tech stack. I had a
great conversation with Kelsey

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Hightower a couple of weeks ago.
And you know, he and I both

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firmly believe that Kubernetes
is here. Kubernetes is certainly

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here for a while. And, you know,
with that, and the promise of

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cloud native is always been
cheaper, faster, more stable. So

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I think one thing that leaders
can can definitely do is embrace

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the declarative nature of
Kubernetes and future oriented

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solutions that are really
embracing the declarative

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nature. No, that's also offering
simple experiences for people.

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But when it comes down to a
really careful planning, not

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over analyzing, and making
informed decisions quickly, to

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be able to fail fast on which
aspects of your tech stack you

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are replacing, don't try and do
it all at once. Nobody ever

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wants to do that just target
specific areas. And that

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portion, start with that portion
that really enables you to move

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quicker. And we definitely
advocate when people are looking

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at different parts of their tech
stack. What's What's your CI CD

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pipeline looking like? What's
that process look like? Can that

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be one of the first things that
you target that will then enable

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you to move much quicker with
the rest of your stack. And of

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course, don't force anything
down on your developers make

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sure that they are part of the
process, they are making part of

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the decisions with you. Because
they are going to be the ones

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that are going to have to
benefit and use all of this. At

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the end of the day.

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Eveline Oehrlich: That gets me
to my next question. Great. What

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is it called a hook into my next
question, developer experience.

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We have heard about this. And I
have to admit, Adam, I am an

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infrastructure and operations. I
wouldn't say geek, because I'm

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kind of an old an old guys or a
geezer I guess that's the way to

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say it. But I started out and I
you know, and developers to me,

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were always kind of a strange
animal. This is like 1994, that

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dates me, right. But anyway,
just a little bit on that. And

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but that's not why we're here, I
wanted to ask you, we hear a lot

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about developer experience
keeping developers happy. And as

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I said, I'm an IMO myself, but I
also covered developer and

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infrastructure operations. As an
analyst. We have made really

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great progress with DevOps and
SRE and many other press best

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practices and developers, we
know they don't want to do

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operations. So how do we keep
these developers happy? You

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already mentioned some ideas
there relative to C, ICD. We'll

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get there in a little bit later.
But what are some things our

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folks can do? Even if their
developers keep themselves

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happy, right, Heather, and
others to keep the developers

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happy?

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Adam Frank: Yeah, I think, in
two words, empowerment and

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transparency, with more emphasis
on the empowerment side of

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things, developers really want
to focus they want to create,

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they want to innovate, they want
to solve complex problems, and

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then want to see the benefits
that those complex problems, the

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solutions to those complex
problems are providing for their

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their users. So they need a
platform, they need a tool base,

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that's going to really provide
them the confidence and make

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their lives easier. They don't
want to be stuck in those loops

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of maintaining different pieces
of infrastructure or figuring

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out how to get their software
delivered to production. You

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know, why things are failing,
all that kind of stuff. So

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they're going to be happiest
when they're coding when they're

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solving complex problems, when
their code is being shipped out

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to production in a nice, easy
and simple fashion that they can

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fully control with that
transparency that I had

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mentioned, ops, ops also wants
to focus, create, innovate, but

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also has to enable and obfuscate
the complexities that come along

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with some of this. And really
instrument for visibility and

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stability. I mean, coupling all
of that together. And having

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close relationships with
developers. That's really

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started to really start to see
things and that velocity take

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off, you really start to see
things come to fruition and, and

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make the lives of developers
much happier. Some of the things

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that I've seen people do to
really bring us together is

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start a dedicated UX program,
sorry, a dedicated developer

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experience DX program went in
there, that has a very strong

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emphasis on improving that
developer experience. So they're

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evaluating tools or evaluating
processes, they're including the

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developers in all of the
decisions, all of the

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evaluation. So they can all make
informed decisions together, and

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really drive that experience to
where they want it to be. And at

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the end, when you do have happy
developers, you're going to have

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higher retention, your velocity
is going to be higher your time

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to market all that kind of great
stuff. So it's a really, really

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great area of focus and improve
on within your company.

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Narrator: Skill updates and
skill powders are the perfect

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way to stay on top of the latest
DevOps trends, and improve your

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skills from the comfort of your
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our skillup days, you will get

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don't miss out, check out our
lineup of upcoming events on

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register now.

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00:16:32,340 --> 00:16:36,720
Eveline Oehrlich: A little side,
turn down the Dorothy's past,

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00:16:36,750 --> 00:16:40,380
you said developer experience
program. So what kind of skills

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does somebody like that need to
have?

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Adam Frank: You know, I've seen
a lot of developer advocates,

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within companies really kind of
start to look internally, to

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bring these programs to date,
they definitely need the skills

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to understand the life and the
day of a developer, what a

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developer is experiencing, they
definitely need the tools to

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understand or the experiences to
understand what some of these

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tools are, what some of these
processes look like, having

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somebody come in off the street
without any development

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experience whatsoever, it would
be a very tough job for them to

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improve that developer
experience. So one who is kind

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of walks in those shoes of a
developer is certainly going to

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have the best best foot forward.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Great idea,
I'm actually going to add that

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to my upskilling report. As a
potential idea in the area of

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start WM process, it's not
really in tech, federally, and

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in total, just kind of all
override. Excellent idea. I love

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that skill building. That's the
next topic I want to explore

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with you. So we talked a little
bit about it already. But I'm a

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little biased, maybe because of
where I come from, but I won't

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tell you which bias I have until
you answered the question. So

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what do you what do you think is
the most is the must have skill

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building category? Is it around
people or humans? Is it around

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technology? Is it around best
practice models and frameworks?

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Is it leadership? Or is there
anything else?

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Adam Frank: Yeah, I mean, given
the the title of this podcast, I

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can probably guess, where were
you lean in this? My guess is

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correct, I would lean the same
way. I think a good mix is

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always a sound strategy, you'll
always need a level of

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leadership that can believe in
what you're doing, they can

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inspire others and they can,
they can downright execute

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against your strategy and your
plan. But the right people can

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learn tech, so I always believe
that starting with the humans

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starting with the people, and
the rest kind of comes together.

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When you have people that are
have a willingness to learn,

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they have have the ability to
foster great relationships with

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people collaboration,
communication, all that kind of

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good stuff. A lot of that stuff
is is a lot more difficult to

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teach in people than the actual
tech is and the best practices

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the best practices will come
from learning what the new tech

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is and and having those people
that are very capable and very

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willing so I always believe
starting with people is the

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00:19:23,970 --> 00:19:24,780
right choice

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00:19:25,410 --> 00:19:28,050
Eveline Oehrlich: you know music
to my ears, but you will be some

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00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:32,550
you will be surprised as I have
been for the last five years in

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00:19:32,550 --> 00:19:36,390
doing this research that
organizations particularly IT

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00:19:36,390 --> 00:19:43,740
teams are hiring for technology
skills. That's to me right maybe

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00:19:43,740 --> 00:19:47,760
it is it maybe it's a it's a
it's a muscle they have trained

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00:19:47,910 --> 00:19:52,200
for many many years where they
where they think that they need

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00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:56,220
to bring and hire for technology
skills. To me sometimes shakes

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00:19:56,250 --> 00:19:59,940
shake my head because Absolutely
I agree with you. It has to be

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00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,510
Around to humans and the empathy
and the collaboration and the

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00:20:03,510 --> 00:20:06,570
problem solving the
communication. Because without

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00:20:06,570 --> 00:20:10,710
that, it makes it very
difficult. But as I said, in, in

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00:20:10,710 --> 00:20:14,700
the research, that's not what
it's saying, I've been beating

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00:20:14,700 --> 00:20:18,960
the drums on that. And maybe
this is the year where we can

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00:20:19,020 --> 00:20:22,230
maybe make a little bit more,
you know, an inroad on that.

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Anyway, I have another two part
question. This is now into, of

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course, your favorite topic of
continuous integration versus

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continuous deployment. Give us
your thoughts on these two very

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important topics. And relative
to each other, I hear sometimes

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there are folks talking it
interchangeably. And I remember,

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you know, having conversations
with they said the same, it's

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not the same, it's different.
And here's why. So what are your

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thoughts on those things, and
then I have another part, but

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00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:57,120
I'll hold that until we're done
with that.

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00:20:58,140 --> 00:21:01,890
Adam Frank: Excellent,
definitely not the same thing.

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However, hand in hand, it's
very, very difficult to have one

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without the other, you know,
almost impossible, continuous

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integration and continuous
deployment. They're like peanut

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butter and jelly. I mean, these
two are just absolutely made for

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each other a match that is like
no other. But they are very,

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00:21:20,580 --> 00:21:23,910
very different. Continuous
Integration is really about

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producing the highest quality
artifacts as quickly as you can.

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Continuous Deployment is about
getting that artifact out to

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00:21:32,670 --> 00:21:36,990
production, and to your users as
safely and as soundly as

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00:21:36,990 --> 00:21:41,010
possible. So to two very
different things. However, they

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00:21:41,010 --> 00:21:45,510
do work hand in hand, when we
look at continuous integration,

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this is really where most people
start. And this typically been

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around a little bit longer,
taking in a lot of the build and

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test automation to produce that
artifact. And I think it's

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really only been the last couple
of years, that continuous

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00:21:59,820 --> 00:22:04,020
deployment is starting to catch
on more and more, giving people

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00:22:04,020 --> 00:22:07,260
that competitive advantage to
iterate quickly, to understand

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00:22:07,260 --> 00:22:10,320
that a user is more accelerate
the time to market, all of that

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00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:14,790
kind of really great stuff. So
that's absolutely needed. And to

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00:22:14,790 --> 00:22:18,780
have a sound strategy back to
the agility, the stability and

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the security. That's really
where continuous deployment

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comes in, giving you the ability
to get that code out to your

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users quickly, but to be able to
do it safely and soundly. So you

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can control the blast radius,
no, look at 5% of your user

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base, you can start to shift
traffic between different users.

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But ultimately getting that code
out there. And really empowering

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back to empowering and making
developers have a great

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00:22:43,650 --> 00:22:47,340
experience, empowering them to
deploy on commit, and having

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00:22:47,340 --> 00:22:49,770
that confidence to be able to do
that. And having that

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00:22:49,770 --> 00:22:54,270
transparency to watch that code
go through Dev through staging,

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you know, on to production.

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Eveline Oehrlich: Well, just
something on the side. For those

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00:23:03,210 --> 00:23:06,990
who don't know, peanut butter
and jelly for us, Europeans, it

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is red wine and chocolate.
Right? Just FYI. But so armory

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00:23:16,740 --> 00:23:20,610
provides products and solutions
in that space. Tell us a little

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00:23:20,610 --> 00:23:23,640
bit about what you guys have to
offer in that area.

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00:23:24,030 --> 00:23:27,180
Adam Frank: Yeah, absolutely. So
we specialize in continuous

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00:23:27,180 --> 00:23:31,620
deployment. And in particular,
we have a declarative model,

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00:23:31,740 --> 00:23:35,430
we're deploying out to
Kubernetes. And in fact, we were

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the first and still the only
that I'm aware of that has a

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00:23:38,550 --> 00:23:42,030
declarative model that actually
orchestrates that deployment

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00:23:42,060 --> 00:23:45,540
across all of your Kubernetes
clusters and environments. No

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00:23:45,540 --> 00:23:49,860
matter how many you have. It's
really at any scale. So you

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00:23:49,860 --> 00:23:54,690
know, hooking up to continuous
integration like GitHub using

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GitHub actions. So empower
developers to be able to deploy

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on commit, and orchestrate that
deployment. Throughout dev

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00:24:04,020 --> 00:24:07,830
tests. We integrate with things
like security scanning,

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00:24:08,580 --> 00:24:10,830
integrate with logging
solutions, observability

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00:24:10,830 --> 00:24:14,730
solutions to be able to run
automated Canary analysis. So

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00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:18,390
you understand, is this change
affecting my user base? How is

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00:24:18,390 --> 00:24:21,210
it affecting my user base? Is it
close to the baseline baseline

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00:24:21,210 --> 00:24:25,410
is the same, all that kind of
really good stuff, to really

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00:24:25,410 --> 00:24:29,580
help our customers accelerate
their time to market? You know,

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00:24:29,580 --> 00:24:32,190
move quicker, have that agility
that they need to understand

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their users and their user base,
iterate quickly. But do it in a

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00:24:35,940 --> 00:24:40,440
nice, safe, sound and reliable
way? Wow,

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00:24:40,470 --> 00:24:44,940
Eveline Oehrlich: great. You are
really wicked smart about all

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00:24:44,940 --> 00:24:50,010
these topics. I love it. This is
great. We could continue. But I

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00:24:50,100 --> 00:24:55,650
have been looking at the clock
and it's amazing how quickly 25

387
00:24:55,650 --> 00:25:00,120
minutes pass. So I have a
closing question has nothing To

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00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:04,680
Do With CI CD, or maybe a little
bit with peanut butter and jelly

389
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,920
or red wine and chocolate, but
what do you do for fun if you

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00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:12,450
don't do what you do at your
teams as an ambassador or

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00:25:12,450 --> 00:25:13,920
otherwise? What do you do for
fun, Adam?

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00:25:14,670 --> 00:25:17,610
Adam Frank: Yes, sir. Certainly
closer to the red wine and

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00:25:17,610 --> 00:25:23,970
jelly. Having grown up in
Canada, you really need to do

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00:25:23,970 --> 00:25:28,470
something throughout the winter
months. So since it is the very

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00:25:28,470 --> 00:25:31,020
beginning of March, the sun is
starting to shine. But there's

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00:25:31,020 --> 00:25:34,830
still snow on the ground here. I
very much enjoy snowboarding.

397
00:25:35,250 --> 00:25:40,140
I've played hockey for a lot of
my life and playing sports. But

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00:25:40,260 --> 00:25:43,770
most importantly, I have a
beautiful daughter who has

399
00:25:43,770 --> 00:25:49,200
almost a year and a half, and a
fantastic wife and partner. So I

400
00:25:49,230 --> 00:25:52,440
very much enjoy spending a lot
of my time with them. And just

401
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,440
watching her grow right now is
one of the funniest things that

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00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:57,150
that I could possibly do with my
dad.

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00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:01,290
Eveline Oehrlich: Oh, fantastic.
That is fantastic. Embrace it,

404
00:26:01,290 --> 00:26:04,080
because they grow up fast. I
have two daughters myself, and

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00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:09,270
they are 25 and 27. And oh,
well. I love them. But they're,

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00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,500
they're their own. This has been
fantastic conversation. Thank

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00:26:13,500 --> 00:26:17,550
you so much for talking to us
and sharing your wealth of

408
00:26:17,550 --> 00:26:21,840
knowledge, your excitement and
your I can hear the passion. And

409
00:26:21,870 --> 00:26:24,600
I could hear the little accent
there. There's another thing we

410
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,450
have in common. I used to live
in Colorado, I love to ski and I

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00:26:27,450 --> 00:26:30,600
have an accent because I'm from
Germany. And um, this has been

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00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:35,970
great. Thank you so much. Thank
you so much for the pleasure. We

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00:26:35,970 --> 00:26:39,990
have been talking to Adam Frank,
Senior Vice President, product

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00:26:39,990 --> 00:26:44,700
and marketing at armory. Adam
again, wonderful. Enjoy.

415
00:26:44,700 --> 00:26:47,880
Hopefully the upcoming weekend
soon have some fun with your

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00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:53,760
daughter. And here is again
humans of the ops podcast is

417
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:57,930
produced by DevOps Institute.
Our audio production team

418
00:26:57,930 --> 00:27:03,690
includes Julia pape, and Brendan
Lee. I am humans of DevOps

419
00:27:03,690 --> 00:27:07,620
podcast, executive producer
evolutionarily. If you would

420
00:27:07,620 --> 00:27:12,450
like to join us on the podcast,
please contact us at humans of

421
00:27:12,540 --> 00:27:18,240
DevOps podcast at DevOps
institute.com. I cannot imagine

422
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:22,290
a longer email address and that
anyway, I'm Evelyn, I'll talk to

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00:27:22,290 --> 00:27:22,890
you soon.

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00:27:25,619 --> 00:27:27,719
Narrator: Thanks for listening
to this episode of the humans of

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00:27:27,719 --> 00:27:31,259
DevOps podcast. Don't forget to
join our global community to get

426
00:27:31,259 --> 00:27:34,619
access to even more great
resources like this. Until next

427
00:27:34,619 --> 00:27:38,099
time, remember, you are part of
something bigger than yourself.

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00:27:38,369 --> 00:27:39,149
You belong