May 12, 2023
211: The Cloud Pod finally Groks observability
Welcome to the newest episode of The Cloud Pod podcast! Justin, Ryan, Jonathan, and Matthew are all here this week to discuss the latest news and announcements in the world of cloud and AI - including New Relic Grok, Athena Provisioned Capacity from AWS, and updates to the Azure Virtual Desktop.
Titles we almost went with this week:
None! This week’s title was SO GOOD we didn’t bother with any alternates. Sometimes it’s just like that, you know?
A big thanks to this week’s sponsor:
Foghorn Consulting, provides top-notch cloud and DevOps engineers to the world’s most innovative companies. Initiatives stalled because you have trouble hiring? Foghorn can be burning down your DevOps and Cloud backlogs as soon as next week.
News this Week:
01:27 - Quick reminder - Finops X Foundation Conference is almost here!
* This is the annual FinOps Foundation Annual User Conference, and it is taking place June 29th through the 31st in Beautiful San Diego, California.
* Hundreds of your fellow practitioners will be sharing their FinOps knowledge, collaborating in chalk talks and networking together.
* Why should you attend? Great question. Let me tell you. 1) There’s a party on an aircraft carrier. Need more? You got it. 2) You can learn best practices when it comes to FinOps and save your company lots of money - you’ll be a hero! (Look at the economy and current interest rates. Heroic is an understatement.) Need another reason? Look no further! Justin will be there! We know you’ve always wanted to chat with him in person. No? How about free stickers? Free stuff is good. Everyone loves stickers.
02:47 New Relic is back on the pod - and they’ve got something new
* New Relic just launched Grok, their new AI observability assistant
*
* If you remember a few weeks ago, we had someone from New Relic on the pod, and they told us **something** was coming, but weren’t quite ready to tell us what it was - and now, it’s here!
* New Relic is throwing their hat into the AI ring - Grok.
* Grok will allow engineers to use large language models to help utilize natural language when performing many of the routine tasks in New Relic, like setting up instrumentation, building reports, or managing accounts.
* Engineers can sift through the data more easily and come through their unified telemetry data without having to write complex queries.
* From New Relic: “Observability tools exist to serve the DevOps and DevSecOps movements. Engineers use observability tools to get the data they need to operate and secure the software they build,” said New Relic Chief Product Officer Manav Khurana. “The reality, howeve r, is that it’s hard for every engineer to translate a question they have into a data model, sift through their tools to find the right data, and then translate data back to an insight in natural language. That’s why DevSecOps practices are lagging behind all the innovation in Observability tooling. Now with Generative AI, there will be an explosion of new software developed in a completely different way, creating even more complexity to operate and secure software.”
04:28 Jonathan - “It's funny they called out specifically the DevSecOps, though, as a team tha