ChefConf is just a few short weeks away. This will be my 3rd trip but my first as one of Shadow-Soft’s Practice Managers. Looking back, the talks that interested me the most were the ones that really dug in on specific technologies. As a consultant, I looked to hone my craft, become intimate with Chef, and learn how to implement it effectively. As a Practice Manager, my view has shifted. While I still love to get my hands dirty, I now look at things from a 20k foot view and this year I’m looking forward to talks that have a connection to Shadow-Soft partnerships.
Here are the top 4 talks that I’m looking forward to. We will be there and I hope you will be too.
1. CHEF ON AWS: INTEGRATION AND COMPLIANCE
Jonathan Weiss, Managing Director, Amazon Web Services
Shadow-Soft is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, and we have helped clients leverage both AWS OpsWorks and Chef Automate to manage AWS infrastructure. It’s great to see companies like AWS embrace Chef and integrate it into their world. Jonathan Weiss will be talking about how to integrate Inspec and Compliance with AWS Security Hub, finally reporting!, and AWS Config.
2. DEVOPS’ SEVEN DEADLY DISEASES
John Willis, Vice President of DevOps and Digital Practices, SJ Technologies
Co-Author of the DevOps handbook, John Willis will be putting his own spin on W. Edward Deming’s 7 Deadly diseases of management. Deming’s book, Out of Crisis, is a must-read for leadership in all organizations. I’m really excited to hear the insight John has gleaned from applying Deming’s ideas to DevOps.
3. YOUR CHEF RUN DEMYSTIFIED. COMPILE TIME VERSUS RUN TIME.
Aaron Kalin, Site Reliability Engineer, DNSimple
Aaron has been a fixture at ChefConf as long as I have been attending. He is a brilliant engineer w/ a knack for demystifying complex technical issues. The Chef run has always been something of a dark art and I’m super excited to see that his talk will focus on explaining the differences between the two parts.
4. NETWORKING HABITAT APPS WITH CONSUL
Erik R. Rygg, Sr. Enterprise Architect, HashiCorp
Lastly, I’m extremely excited to see Hashicorp at ChefConf. As an early Hashicorp adopter and services provider, Shadow-Soft has been integrating Packer, Vault, and Terraform into Chef workflows for many organizations. I’m particularly excited to see my good friend Erik Rygg presenting on how to leverage Consul with Chef Habitat.
As a strategic consulting partner, Shadow-Soft will be on hand with Chef to talk about the successes we have seen with Chef, and how we have leveraged the Hashi stack to augment it.