1. Messages
  2. Application Delivery SIG looking for co-chairs and tech leads

Re: Application Delivery SIG looking for co-chairs and tech leads

Alex Jones
 

Hi Matt!

Firstly, thank you for reaching out - these are great questions and certainly ones I should be able to answer right.


Where do you see the line between breathing new life into projects and pushing to archive projects that need new life? Projects may be early stage or experiments that don't pan out. Isn't that ok?

I’ll paraphrase here but, essentially I am of the opinion the SIG serves the community and as such it is instantiated from end-users with real challenges and needs for innovation. With that said, it stands to reason that the activity within a project should be function of how relevant the domain area is to the lives of those within our cloud native tribe - but also acknowledging areas that can help to provide innovation, which is partially a responsibility of the technical counsel within the SIG.


Projects are also self governed. SIGs do not sit in a management spot above them. How do you see being able to breathe new life into projects from a technical sense?

I believe there are two potentialities of technical capabilities within the SIG, firstly to provide lateral enablement of projects - connecting community members to proliferate knowledge and technical capabilities, but also to be a forcing function to ask ourselves honestly is the project held back by technology or is it solving for a problem that doesn’t exist?


In my career I've seen entirely different paths take root and be useful. For example, Chef used a pull based model while Ansible often used a push based model. Both can and have been used effectively. How do you think about standardization compared to providing tools that enable a variety of models to accomplish things?


I am having a similar conversation in SIG Observability and I think as we all probably know, it is not about providing a prescriptive set of techniques - rather guidance on a critical path to success and interoperability with the cloud native ecosystem. 

Push/Pull is a great example of paradigms that are both viable in edge computing or super high scale infra ( I am thinking of how we used to run 10,000 rp/s telemetry systems at AMEX). Ultimately though these implementations would come under a standard of how the data is collected and the outcomes this facilitates.

I would think in a similar vein to your example, with IaC you are more invested in helping end-users to understand and benefit from patterns than implementations.


People disagree on best practices. Even those at different vendors or "industry leaders". How would that be incorporated to your work on best practices?

Discourse is healthy and the root of genuine collective progress. 

I would see myself form part of a rational counsel that acknowledges difference in opinion and weighs that against a criteria that is aligned with end-user benefits. It is completely normal for vendors to want to participate in SIG’s but we need experience and oversight; there should be a robust decision making process ( as per the CNCF due diligence ) to ensure fair and inclusive participation.



Happy to jump on zoom/slack if you want to talk further.

Alex


On 25 Mar 2021, at 16:26, Matt Farina <matt@...> wrote:

Alex,

As a maintainer of a couple projects that fall under SIG App Delivery, I have some questions about your thoughts on tech leading...

believe I could help breathe new life into projects from a technical standpoint

Where do you see the line between breathing new life into projects and pushing to archive projects that need new life? Projects may be early stage or experiments that don't pan out. Isn't that ok?

Projects are also self governed. SIGs do not sit in a management spot above them. How do you see being able to breathe new life into projects from a technical sense?

This has given rise to the personal belief that there is a clear need for a level of community work to explore the space of standardisation and opinion on best practice ( whether that is operator life cycle management, application & infrastructure specs or advanced deployment paradigms). 

In my career I've seen entirely different paths take root and be useful. For example, Chef used a pull based model while Ansible often used a push based model. Both can and have been used effectively. How do you think about standardization compared to providing tools that enable a variety of models to accomplish things?

People disagree on best practices. Even those at different vendors or "industry leaders". How would that be incorporated to your work on best practices?

Thanks,
Matt

On Thu, Mar 25, 2021, at 11:44 AM, Alex Jones wrote:
I would like to self nominate to for a tech lead role within the SIG.

In the short time I have been involved, I have emphasised a bias towards action and believe I could help breathe new life into projects from a technical standpoint.

I currently work as a VP of SRE at JPMC and am moving into a principal engineer role at an extremely ambitious cloud computing company.
This affords me ample time to spend investing energy into this space.

Throughout my career, the domain of App Delivery has had a gravity that I have operated within. 
My roles have often been to enable thousands of engineers to deploy workloads with just-enough-infrastructure, architecting complex poly-tenancy multi-cloud solutions or designing specification for delivery that is governable. 

This has given rise to the personal belief that there is a clear need for a level of community work to explore the space of standardisation and opinion on best practice ( whether that is operator life cycle management, application & infrastructure specs or advanced deployment paradigms). 

What I lack in tenure within the SIG,  I will make up for in dedication and expertise.

Thank you for your consideration,

Alex Jones

Github: https://github.com/AlexsJones
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonesax/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexJonesax




On 24 Mar 2021, at 18:47, Reitbauer, Alois via lists.cncf.io <alois.reitbauer=dynatrace.com@...> wrote:

Hello everyone. 
 
A lot has happened in the application delivery SIG since it started. As times changes people’s obligations change as well. Bryan is busy in his new and exciting role and Harry was voted into the TOC. This leaves two open seats for co chairs in the app delivery SIG.
 
Just as a refresher you can find the charter of the working group here [1]
 
If you are interested what chairs are doing, I recommend the to read this [2]. Basically, chairs are ensuring the smooth operation of the SIG. This includes:
 
  • Ensuring proper meetings with agenda, engaging with projects, …
  • Steering and directing discussion between members.
  • Identifying new needs – for example for working groups – and helping to establish them
  • Supporting the TOC on project due diligence for projects in the scope of the SIG.
 
For SIG App delivery we are looking for co-chairs that also bring a strong technical expertise and good understand of how open source and cross company collaboration works. This is not an organizational role only. We are also looking for co-chairs from end user organizations. We also believe that the SIG profits from a wide area of expertise and an inclusive mindset.
 
If you are interested or want to nominate somebody, please reply to this thread and introduce them/yourself. We will close the nomination on April 9th.
 
If you want to take a leading role but want to focus more on a technical level without organizational responsibilities you can also apply for a tech lead role.
 
If you have any questions feel free to also reach out to me directly either via email (might take a bit longer) or Slack (CET++ business hours)
 
Alois for the SIG App Delivery chairs. 
 
 
[1] https://github.com/cncf/toc/blob/main/sigs/app-delivery.md
[2] https://github.com/cncf/sig-security/blob/master/governance/roles.md
This email may contain confidential information. If it appears this message was sent to you by mistake, please let us know of the error. In this case, we also ask that you do not further forward the content and delete it. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. Dynatrace Austria GmbH (registration number FN 91482h) is a company registered in Linz whose registered office is at 4020 Linz, Austria, Am Fünfundzwanziger Turm 20.
Join {cncf-tag-app-delivery@lists.cncf.io to automatically receive all group messages.