Challenges of being Cloud Native

vaughan mason - 2021-09-28

Cloud Native Computing

Challenges of being Cloud Native - why being Cloud Native is more than just working in the cloud

Agenda

1. Introduction
2. What is Cloud Native
   1. Why companies are choosing cloud native
   2. Cloud Native Landscape
3. Why Developers are Key
   1. Cloud Skill Shortage
   2. Developer Experience
   3. Certifications
4. Are your teams designed for success.
   1. Architecture - Conway’s Law

Introduction

Vaughan Mason - Transfer Agency Head of Engineering at FNZ South Africa

• Good morning, my name is Vaughan Mason and I’ll be speaking about the challenges of being cloud native
• Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
  • I have been working as part of technology deliver teams for a number of years.
  • I have multiple certification in Cloud and Data Management and I have passion for understanding the fundamentals and growing my capability from there.
• I work for a company called FNZ and our purpose is Helping people achieve their financial goals.
  • We do this by transforming the way financial companies serve their wealth management clients by providing digital personalised, high-quality and low-cost solutions.
• Providing high-quality solutions is where my role at FNZ is so exciting.
  • I’m the Head of Engineering for the Transfer Agency Business in South Africa.
  • As the Head of Engineering I’m responsible for building a world class software engineering capability within FNZ.
  • We are focused on continuously improving the way that developers work and providing a supportive environment that is focused on continuous improvement.
• Why is this important.
  • If we look at the research that highlighted in the book
  • Accelerate
  • Building and Scaling High Performing Technology organisations.
  • Research
  • We need to start with Transformational Leadership if we are going to make improvements to Software Engineering performance.
  • As with most teams in your organisations success does not just happen, it is driven by teams and individuals and you have to design your organisation for success.
• Here is what we are going to discuss today.

1. What is Cloud Native
   1. Why companies are choosing cloud native
   2. Cloud Native Landscape
2. Why Developers are Key
   1. Cloud Skill Shortage
   2. Developer Experience
   3. Certifications
3. Are your teams designed for success.
   1. Architecture - Conway’s Law

What is Cloud Native

So to describe what cloud native is I’m going to use the definition from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation which falls under the umbrella of the Linux foundation.

CNCF Cloud Native Definition

Cloud native technologies empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments such as public, private, and hybrid clouds. Containers, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative APIs exemplify this approach.

These techniques enable loosely coupled systems that are resilient, manageable, and observable. Combined with robust automation, they allow engineers to make high-impact changes frequently and predictably with minimal toil.

So to be cloud native you environment need to be:

• Loosely coupled
• Scalable
• Resilient
• Manageable and Observable

Why are organizations adopting cloud native

Why Cloud Native according to the CNCF

One of the benefits that catches my eye is:

Cloud native infrastructure enables higher development velocity – improving your services faster – with lower risk

Any organization that develops software, which is most companies, will be attracted to this benefit. BUT when you look at the cloud native landscape you begin to understand that it is easier said then done.

Cloud Native Landscape

Let’s have a look at the cloud native landscape

Cloud Native Landscape

As we can see we are spoilt for choice with cloud native technologies and the question is how do you control this in your environments.

Can you quantify developers impact on your business? By the technology choices that they make.

Why developers are key

As most companies are becoming software companies. They count on the people developing software to make the right technologies chooses. Developer have been coined as the new kingmakers. You need to rely on the people using the technology, once coined the new king makers

• Cloud skill shortage
  • There have been a number of articles and posts over the year about cloud skills shortage.
  • A recent survey by HashiCorp, State of Cloud Strategy, has highlighted that 57% of their respondents say skills shortage is a top cloud challenge.
  • Hashicorp state of Cloud
• For me, I believe certifications are a great way to address this.
  • ebookValueCerts
  • ACloudGuru a leading cloud training platform has cited that certification help get everyone onto the same page. By ensuring that all employees are working off the same base knowledge.
  • A Global Knowledge 2019 IT Skills and Salary report says that IT professionals, overwhelmingly report better job effectiveness after achieving a new certificaitons.
  • Here are a few of the numbers they reported from job effectivenes.
  • In the same report it was highlighted that certified employees add value to an organisation.
  • Personally I have completed a number of certifications and have found them extremely valuable. On any particular topic they expose you to information that is invaluable to the success of working with technology.
• If we look back at the Accelerate research and focus on the activities that contribute to job satisfaction which in turn contributes to organisational performance.
  • These are all things that also contribute to the success of working in the Cloud.
  • Deployment pain of software is negatively correlated with job satisfaction, the harder it is to deploy a piece of software the lower the developer morale.

Are your teams designed for success

According to Conway’s Law

Any organisation that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organisation’s communication structure.

• Here is a graphical representation of that.
• So if an organisation is looking to produce a microservices styled application then it needs to ensure that the teams are structured in a way that supports this.
• A great book that unpacks the concept of team structures is Team Topologies.
• Again the concept here is that you need to design for success and not hope that it happens.

Research

CloudSkills Gap

Old

Developers Role - 6mins

• Architecture and System Design
• Conway’s Law
• Developers approach
  • Test Driven Development

Security is everyone’s responsibility - 6mins

• Cloud Native Security Failures
  • S3
  • CosmosDB
• Cloud Native Security Best Practices

What are the take-aways (As it is time for lunch) - 5mins

• Cloud Native
• Organization Structure dictates design
• Developers are key
  • Security
  • Training

This page was last updated at 2021-09-29

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