Eric (0:15) Hey there, and welcome to the office of the IT guy, the show where we celebrate the people and talk about the technology that's changing our world. (0:21) I am your host, Eric, the IT guy, Hendrix, and my mission here is to share a love for open source and help build a stronger community. (0:28) I'm so thankful that you tuned in because the office is now open. (0:52) Hey there, and welcome to the IT guy show. (0:54) I'm your host, Eric, the IT guy Hendrix, and this is episode five. Eric (0:58) We've already filled up an entire hand. (1:00) I cannot believe how quickly the show has grown. (1:03) I really appreciate all of you for supporting the show, for sharing with a friend. (1:07) Really excited because we've got we've got more episodes coming your way. (1:12) I've got the next, like, four or five already on the books. Eric (1:15) So stay tuned. (1:17) We release every two weeks on YouTube or on your favorite podcast player. (1:22) If there's a place you haven't been able to find the show, let me know. (1:26) I'd be happy to make sure that we get a publishing link, for that platform. (1:31) All that said excuse me. Eric (1:34) Goodness. (1:35) We are in the midst of summer, and I don't know. (1:40) As you get older, things just stop working. (1:42) My my lungs just decided, you don't need to breathe. (1:46) Anyway, all that said, I'm really excited. Eric (1:49) Today is episode two in our in our brief series of prerecorded interviews from DevOpsDays Kansas City twenty twenty four. (2:00) I was I was I had the honor of joining as a media sponsor. (2:05) I had a few audio podcast interviews while I was on-site. (2:10) It tells me that I need to invest in a video camera to take with me to these events. (2:15) So apologies again to our video viewers, but stay tuned because here in a couple of episodes, we've got more live interviews right here in the studio. Eric (2:28) So it'll be talking heads instead of prerecorded audio. (2:32) But today, I am joined by Laura Santa Maria. (2:35) She is a developer advocate at Dell Technologies, and she has been absolutely everywhere it seems. (2:41) She's involved in just about everything. (2:43) I got to meet her at DevOps days. Eric (2:44) She's she's just one of those people that just exudes energy, and and you can tell she has a real passion for people. (2:53) And so Laura and I sat down at DevOpsDays at at at the conference, we talked a little bit about how, especially myself as a systems administrator, my first thought is, we have a problem. (3:06) Let's add a tool. (3:07) If you add a tool, you can fix a problem. (3:09) Well, not always. Eric (3:10) There's so much more that goes into it from culture to people, and and how do you balance this this processes, versus tools versus people, mentality. (3:20) So without further ado, here is my interview with Laura Santa Maria. (3:26) Alright. (3:27) So I am joined with Laura. (3:29) She and I met at DevOpsDays Kansas City here in 2024. Eric (3:33) And, whatever year this is. Laura (3:36) It is 2024. (3:37) No. (3:37) You are correct. (3:38) I'm just having this moment. Eric (3:41) So we we we got to talking after I I guess we'll call it a keynote. Laura (3:46) It was first. (3:48) Maybe not keynote, but it was first. Eric (3:50) So we got talking, and I I really enjoyed the your energy and just the ideas and the thoughts you had behind DevOps and people. (3:59) And I'll admit to being a long term systems administrator. (4:02) And it concepts and anything that might seem marketing or sales y is just like, yeah. (4:08) I need that. (4:09) Yeah. Eric (4:09) But I read the Phoenix Project years ago and was sold on the idea of DevOps. (4:14) Mhmm. (4:14) So why don't why don't we kind of dive into your experiences, Ben? (4:17) Tell us a little bit about yourself first. Laura (4:18) Sure. (4:19) So my name is Laura Santa Maria, and I am a lead developer advocate at Dell Technologies. (4:25) But I have been the core organizer co core organizer for DevOpsDays Austin for the past few years. (4:31) So the Austin version of the very conference we're talking about. (4:35) And I I have a very print background. Laura (4:40) I came to tech through science and then research and then education and then technical writing. (4:45) And then in I came and became a developer and an operator both, for a project at Red Space. (4:51) So I spent a lot of time working in that general area and moved into developer advocacy because everybody said that that sounds like the right job. (4:59) But, you know, making communities so my accents with DevOps first was the idea that I heard about it, and I went to first meet up as a diver and as someone running SysTrackspace. (5:14) And so I went, well, this makes sense. Laura (5:17) This is what everyone else is. (5:18) Why doesn't it happen here? (5:20) So I have a little bit of a different point, I think, than most people just because having come from so many other industries, the idea that you're collating and that it's all about people Eric (5:28) Mhmm. Laura (5:29) Is kind of built in. (5:30) Whereas in tech, we're we always wanna play with the tools first. (5:34) So I met a lot of the original people in the dev world, heard a lot of different thing. (5:39) And one of the really comms is that the talk you're talking about was focused on is called people process over tools. Eric (5:47) Mhmm. Laura (5:47) And it's really the heart of what it says to me because it's looking at how do we people problems. (5:53) How do we have these comments break down the silos with the wall? (5:56) All different things. (5:58) And then we fix those people problems. (5:59) It gets a lot to fix the process we have. Laura (6:02) And once process issues matter what tool we end up with, whether stuck with Jenks. (6:07) Maybe you all like Jenkins. (6:08) Stuck with Hudson. (6:10) Maybe you're stuck with Hudson, stuck with Jenkins, or maybe wanna change to it. (6:15) It doesn't really matter because it doesn't. Laura (6:17) And it doesn't quite matter you you or the other, you will still get to the result if all of your processes are fit. (6:23) So Eric (6:23) So I had similar first reaction to I I actually came to a dev ops meeting meetup. (6:28) Mhmm. (6:28) And eventually this conference, my gosh, like five years ago. (6:32) And I was sitting in in Austin taking notes, this is I I was like, people have it figured out. (6:38) This is conceptually, this makes why are we not doing that? Laura (6:41) Right. Eric (6:42) And as this admin, I'm techno my my knee jerk is to fix a problem, then worry about the people later. (6:49) So this this is kind of its head of the right tool for the right job, you know, we'll fix our process. (6:54) I'll have it if we didn't have the right people. (6:57) Right. (6:57) Trying to fix it from reverse order just out. Eric (7:00) That's kinda why I bounced around from from job because I couldn't find a cult. (7:04) Embraced fail. (7:05) Love experimenting new things. (7:06) And when something break, I was debugging, stack exchange and and that's how it was always done. (7:12) But there's many different cultures out there that embrace this concept of people over processes. Eric (7:16) Kinda puts things in the right or Laura (7:18) Yeah. (7:18) It's a I like saying that failure I like that. (7:22) Act is is that if you if you can fail safely, learn how to fail quickly. (7:26) And, you know, it's flip side of the move things mentality that from the I call them cowboy devs mentality, which I know, I mean, any kind of ops work at scale and think about all of the systems, it's that you just cringe. (7:40) Someone just cobbled something deep in and they're gonna run prod on. Laura (7:43) Everyone cringes not the way to move fast. (7:46) But really understanding that to scale, we have to be able to fail. (7:50) You have to be able to do things and find out how it didn't work and work. (7:53) Can learn something, do something with what you learn, innovate, and I'm putting that air quotes that no one can see. (7:59) Testing is a visual medium. Eric (8:01) Can I can confirm quotes? Laura (8:03) Yeah. (8:03) Okay. (8:03) We're we're good. (8:04) That's a long running podcast. (8:06) It's a visual medium. Laura (8:08) The idea behind seeing all of this, it doesn't really matter. (8:10) You're coming from background, you know, the hardware yourself Mhmm. (8:14) Everything to a cloud that you're just have everything abstracted away on, have a hybrid system somewhere in between. (8:21) It's all the same same picture. (8:23) And it's all about being able to say that it's safe. Laura (8:26) And then you can try something new new and try something new, and there's safety involved in that and the communication that comes with it. (8:32) So to me, that's real is now. (8:34) DevOps is an idea. (8:35) Balls. (8:36) And all originally, it was the idea of just tether, but it was really more about operations work being done. Laura (8:42) It wasn't Right. (8:43) About the dev team. (8:44) It was about the idea and is working to from the very beginning. (8:47) You kind of look at that and go, all of that. (8:49) Yes. Laura (8:50) It was involved. (8:50) You forgot product manage, forgot project, you forgot sales, marketing, you forgot security. (8:56) There's been Harvey, one of one of, like, the original in my head. (9:01) It's on the Dora project, which is research and assessment, though he wants this Dora. (9:05) But not Dora the explorer. Laura (9:07) Right. (9:07) Have a little bit of Eric (9:08) I'm sure if you look at a minor stroke. Laura (9:11) Something like that. (9:12) But he talk, that was let me see if I get this right. (9:16) DevSec mark q, enter sec op. Eric (9:20) That sounds about right. Laura (9:21) It was it was shoving all of and he used to do that talk, and I used to give him. (9:25) So, again, I always as when we get an idea and, we call Parmanto, someone was trying to do marketing quick, missed some things of trying to mark. (9:35) So, anyway, I'm going Eric (9:36) about DevOps. (9:37) Marketing people. Laura (9:38) Marketing peeps. Eric (9:39) I like to think decent things. (9:41) So back on topic because I I can do real quick. Laura (9:45) That's true. Eric (9:47) I I can remember after that first DevOps going back to work, having all the making the we've gotta change every Yep. (9:53) Everything we've the point is wrong. (9:55) Just assume we need to change all these things. (9:57) Mhmm. (9:58) The this thing here from the newest guy. Laura (10:00) No. (10:00) No. (10:01) I'd actually argue the problem. Eric (10:03) A little little bit. Laura (10:04) Learning how to give feedback Eric (10:06) Right. Laura (10:06) And without, like, maybe someone did something wrong. (10:11) Sad. Eric (10:12) Mhmm. (10:12) You kinda get where I'm going then. (10:14) Be to ask, how does especially if you're an individual contributor, especially ops role. (10:18) Development seems are open to this kind of thing. (10:21) They're in different terms. Eric (10:22) Uh-huh. (10:22) I think ops is typically more stopping something like this, although you might have said dev. Laura (10:27) So it depends on the history of the development team and what language. (10:31) I'll be honest. (10:31) This is not anything against out there just to be I found Java. (10:35) I just don't like to because they're working with this monolithic legacy that no one quite knows. (10:42) They just know you can't delete line 49, otherwise, the heart. Eric (10:45) Very fair. (10:45) So they Laura (10:45) get a little you trying to change what they're doing. (10:48) But it's changing an organization, especially if you are will contribute. (10:51) I'd say again, the people over process over tools is going to be you have who the people are that you need to convince. (10:57) You find out what drives them business wise. (11:00) Find out what drives them. Laura (11:00) Mhmm. (11:01) And I think you can explain your idea. (11:04) We'll under sometimes metrics. (11:06) Sometimes that's hey. (11:07) We've got this smaller side that my team is working on. Laura (11:10) Can we process that? (11:11) It's under it's clear that you understand production has to stay up. (11:15) You have to stay solid, and you need to new solution. (11:19) Don't change that sti mean, often, you driven by bonuses, times they have, whether you can meet the things along that line. (11:27) And because you often end up in this situation where if it was anything new, if I had to change something because it could money goes down Eric (11:34) their pocket. Laura (11:34) Say that if you've ever worked with sales, I know people are gonna be like, I people who work in sales. (11:42) And so you have to learn how to talk in terms of is. Eric (11:44) Right. Laura (11:45) So was this conversation where and this is how it line. (11:49) I want to process team needs to do. (11:52) This is how it's gonna fix science problem that we have, you know, in terms of there's an uptime that may holiday season. (11:58) None of us know why. (12:00) Of course, it's because you've got this on and this, that, the other. Laura (12:02) And here's my propose to a chaos. (12:04) I'm gonna, like we're gonna do a chaos engineering where, we really program into ours, and it's going to ram. (12:10) I wanna see how fast everything comes up. (12:12) Doing that might seem terrifying measuring their nines Eric (12:15) Mhmm. Laura (12:15) And measuring their uptime, trying to figure out how to stay resilient. (12:18) But if you were to do half in the year, then you guessed when your executives are starting to how do we make have that issue like last where we lost a million deals because Right. (12:27) Our web for ten minutes. (12:29) You can come and say, well, let's experiment. (12:30) Is that we need this much and we need to provisioning now for this need. Laura (12:35) Mhmm. (12:36) They'll go, oh, what you're telling me is is that gave us a million dollars. (12:40) Because that's what they're thinking. (12:41) And you might have to say, well, think that promising something else. (12:45) Then you have to deliver it. Laura (12:46) But experiment you've already proved. (12:47) Oh. Eric (12:47) Right. Laura (12:48) That's kind of the case of where you try to does this not work? (12:51) How do I that I talk to people in the metrics thing too? Eric (12:54) Right. Laura (12:55) And I know this isn't what techies have to go and they have to talk wine and dine. (12:59) I mean, wine and dine. (13:00) You don't have to take, or dine. (13:02) Idea is have a conversation with them. (13:04) Get to even if you're kind of, like, thin feed and seeing what they're post, sometimes that helps more than anything else. Laura (13:09) But you're calling other people to help you. (13:11) How do I have this conversation with me and influence this idea? (13:16) New process. (13:17) The problem in DevOps. (13:19) That one of the things. Laura (13:21) If you can show that I off there's a grassroots bill to to really get done in an organization. (13:28) Any kind of transformation you have board. (13:29) We've all had that random tweet come and tell us how do they disappear in six months. Eric (13:34) Right. Laura (13:34) We've had that. (13:35) And then the next sees something else. (13:36) Okay. (13:37) What if I did? (13:38) And just wait for the next next turn over and the next turn it's all about understanding problem. Laura (13:43) Fix the people problem. (13:44) The change changes there. (13:45) Idea of change is then it's a lot easier to start thinking about the parts you need to make. (13:49) Just you need to make things like that. (13:51) That's my advice. Laura (13:52) Figuring out as an individual can do. (13:54) Change the topic. Eric (13:57) Appreciate your time today, Laura. (13:58) And it's getting to know you the last few days. (14:00) It's it's amazing how many of us have that sense of hum and Laura (14:04) Enough. (14:04) You've seen it. (14:05) You've taken down production and you can't count it anymore. (14:09) Times big lead on the database by act. (14:11) A I I never database and Eric (14:13) needed a one that a database before because I asked and oh, yeah. (14:19) No one uses great. (14:20) I can reclaim, like, three terabytes when they're Laura (14:22) already Never trust when someone tells anymore. (14:24) Because then this starts, and then you're like, oh, no. (14:26) I fixed this. (14:27) We didn't have backup suite? (14:29) Serious? Eric (14:29) Yes. (14:29) Oh, good. (14:30) Happen. (14:31) Far too often. (14:32) So it's to get into DevOps. Eric (14:34) And once you get those words, all the the go around it again. (14:40) For those of you wondering why I'm laughing marketing person. (14:42) But what how would you I Laura (14:45) say probably the best if you have a local community, go get involved in it. (14:48) I'm passionate supporter. (14:50) Every meetup that we have area, I think the best ways to get into an idea, your toes experience it, and meetups are more than happy to they love meeting new people in there. (15:00) It's really gonna be welcoming. (15:01) They succeed. Laura (15:02) If you're interested in getting into any DevOps, SRE, plotting, help us all AI ops, you'll be able to find a local meetup in your if you can't find one, could start one and see if it's nearby. Eric (15:13) There you go. Laura (15:14) There's there's a little bit of you can starting a meetup and nothing and just going, who wants to come in with me? (15:19) I as a coffee ops where Oh. (15:21) Just show up at this coffee shop and talk about it. (15:24) Why not? Eric (15:24) In Kansas City as well. Laura (15:26) Yes. (15:26) We're great if you're just trying to get involved. (15:28) Because thing is that you might not see it in your current com you probably already have it or what company it is. (15:32) Could always go to a meetup and find somebody company company to talk to. (15:36) Internally, depending your chat system is at your company, whether it's Slack with all the time teams. Laura (15:44) You might there. (15:45) The thing community of practice, which is a group of people that domain of knowledge that each other. (15:50) So you might but you'll always find it up. (15:52) And if you don't see a local meetup in your city or one of who you're gonna find. Eric (15:56) Zoom out. (15:57) If you do need to start your own meetup, the community is incredibly here from the Austin. (16:03) This is for for the Kansas City show. (16:04) Some of the Kansas City Fovevid would go out to Chicago. (16:07) So it's Oh, yeah. Eric (16:07) It's a knit community. (16:08) Of course, like like most good con I have my conference family, people at events. (16:12) I really have to travel halfway across the country to to stay live in my Yep. (16:15) But I Laura (16:16) mean, that's JJ is sitting right over here. (16:17) Thing. (16:18) Devopsdays.org. (16:20) You will find these near Yamas. (16:22) They are all over the world. Laura (16:23) They are. Eric (16:23) And one other end of that is if you want to look at what DevOps is designed to, you have a book called The Phoenix Prod. (16:29) This was this was my reduction to the DevOps community, and I could relate to so many of the character narrative fictitious companies that I'd all that fictitious, in fact. (16:37) Pretty sure some of that was businesses I've worked for. Laura (16:40) Yeah. (16:41) Suspicious about who this actually was. (16:43) They really will, though. (16:45) Well, whoever. Eric (16:46) Laura, thank you so much. (16:47) Have a good one. (16:48) Thank you so much. (16:49) Appreciate it. (16:54) Welcome back. Eric (16:54) I hope you enjoyed that conversation. (16:56) Like I said, Laura is one of the most energetic, passionate people that I've ever met, and and and as someone who excuse me. (17:06) And as someone who gets really excited about people and technology and and, going to events, I I was just in awe of Laura's energy and and her insights into things like DevOps and people. (17:19) So I hope you found this, this episode interesting. (17:23) You can catch all of Laura's links in the episode, guide or in the in the show notes below. Eric (17:30) Definitely reach out, connect with her. (17:31) She's very personable. (17:35) At least that's what she told me to tell you all. (17:38) I'm, of course, kidding. (17:39) Laura, thank you so much for being on the show. Eric (17:41) Really appreciated the chance to sit down with you a few weeks ago and chat. (17:45) Hope to have you on the show again soon. (17:47) Anyway, next week, we have an just an amazing conversation about AI, about IBM and Red Hat's partnership on a project called Instruqlab. (17:58) So if you're curious what AI is, where it's going, how it's going to impact the the, the industry and our world at large, do not miss, our next episode. (18:07) Episode six, we'll be talking to JJ from IBM, about AI, Instruqlab, and a whole host of other topics. Eric (18:15) So I'm really excited about that episode. (18:16) Please like and subscribe. (18:18) Share with a friend. (18:18) The show's still growing, so I'd really appreciate the the ability to, to reach your your network as well. (18:25) Anywhere you can give me a share, I'd really appreciate it. Eric (18:28) Also, in the show notes is a link to our Discord. (18:30) We've got a growing group of technologists that just kinda hang out, talk about home labs, talk about gaming, very laid back, very relaxed culture. (18:39) So I really appreciate all of you and the work you're doing to help me grow the show. (18:43) Until then, this has been the IT guy show episode five. (18:47) I've been your host, Eric, the IT guy Hendrix. Eric (18:49) And on behalf of Laura Santamaria, my guest this time, thank you so much for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you again real soon. (18:56) Thank you.