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Building Smarter Systems: Architecting AI Agents for Real-World Tasks (Thu, 20 Nov 2025)
In modern software architecture, “AI agent” can mean an autonomous, intelligent component, not necessarily a machine-learning model. In this guide, we focus on building smart, event-driven, and rule-based agents that react to events, apply rules, and coordinate tasks without any machine learning. The goal is to design systems that are resilient, scalable, and maintainable, using tried-and-true patterns instead of AI complexity. Event-Driven Agents: Core Principles Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a design model where components communicate by producing and responding to events. In contrast to a traditional request/response model, where one component waits on another, an event-driven system allows asynchronous, real-time communication between decoupled components. The key idea is that when something of interest happens (an event), the system notifies all parts that subscribe to that event, letting them react immediately.
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Serverless vs. Containerized Applications: Which is the Best Choice? (Thu, 20 Nov 2025)
Choosing the best architecture for your application can be one of the toughest decisions if you want to achieve better performance, scalability, and cost efficiency. Two prominent methodologies, Serverless and Containers, both offer distinct functionalities and are powerful. But what is the right for you? In this article, we will explore technicalities, key differences, when to use each, and much more! About Serverless Architecture  As the term "Serverless" implies, it refers to developers developing and executing applications without managing infrastructure. Cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure manage maintenance, scaling, and provisioning themselves.
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Iceberg Compaction and Fine-Grained Access Control: Performance Challenges and Solutions (Wed, 19 Nov 2025)
Modern data lakes increasingly rely on Apache Iceberg for managing large analytical datasets, while organizations simultaneously demand fine-grained access control (FGAC) to secure sensitive data. However, combining these technologies can create unexpected performance bottlenecks that significantly impact query execution times. This article explores the technical challenges that arise when implementing FGAC on Iceberg tables and provides practical guidance for choosing the right processing engine for your use case. Understanding Iceberg Compaction Apache Iceberg is an open table format designed for huge analytical datasets. One of its core features is compaction — the process of combining smaller data files into larger, more efficient ones to optimize query performance and reduce metadata overhead.
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Zero Trust in API Gateways: Building Bulletproof Infrastructure With Istio and OPA (Wed, 19 Nov 2025)
APIs: The New Battlefield Every API endpoint is a doorway. Some lead to treasure vaults. Others? Straight into disaster. I've spent the last five years watching enterprises get blindsided by API attacks they never saw coming. Payment processors are losing millions through lateral movement. SaaS platforms are hemorrhaging customer data via misconfigured gateways. E-commerce giants are getting their product catalogs scraped by sophisticated bots.
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DevOps Cafe Podcast

DevOps Cafe Ep 79 - Guests: Joseph Jacks and Ben Kehoe (Mon, 13 Aug 2018)
Triggered by Google Next 2018, John and Damon chat with Joseph Jacks (stealth startup) and Ben Kehoe (iRobot) about their public disagreements — and agreements — about Kubernetes and Serverless. 
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DevOps Cafe Ep 78 - Guest: J. Paul Reed (Mon, 23 Jul 2018)
John and Damon chat with J.Paul Reed (Release Engineering Approaches) about the field of Systems Safety and Human Factors that studies why accidents happen and how to minimize the occurrence and impact. Show notes at http://devopscafe.org
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DevOps Cafe Ep. 77 - Damon interviews John (Wed, 20 Jun 2018)
A new season of DevOps Cafe is here. The topic of this episode is "DevSecOps." Damon interviews John about what this term means, why it matters now, and the overall state of security.  Show notes at http://devopscafe.org
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