This segment grounds the idea in practice. We’ll examine how embedded engineers have helped product teams go beyond reactive fixes — from automating post-mortems to co-designing self-healing infrastructure and predictive testing frameworks. The focus is on what changes when teams own reliability together: faster iteration, fewer handoffs, and more precise success metrics. We’ll close with […]
Demonstrating AI-Assisted Development for Leading European Streaming Service with SOUTHWORKS
A Cloud Scou is a forward-deployed engineer who joins the product team to co-own reliability, scalability, and evolution. Drawing from the Forward-Deployed Engineer for SR and AI-Managed DevCrew models, Scouts act as both architectural advisors and implementers — blending human judgment with AI-driven companions to build, test, and tune cloud-native systems. We walk through how […]
Cloud Scouts are Embedded (Human) Builders for the Cloud Native Frontier with SOUTHWORKS
Most SRE teams were designed to ensure uptime, not to evolve products. They monitor systems but often lack the context to influence architecture or design. This segment examines why proximity — being part of the product team — is what transforms reliability into progress. When engineers operate as embedded partners, they surface deeper insights, close […]
Cisco AI Networking Vision and Operational Strategies by Arun Annavarapu
Arun Annavarapu, Director of Product Management for Cisco’s Data Center Networking Group, opened the presentation by framing the massive industry shift towards AI. He noted that the evolution from LLMs to agentic AI and edge inferencing creates an AI continuum that places unprecedented demands on the underlying infrastructure. The network is the key component, tasked […]
Run Traefik Anywhere with Traefik Labs
Sudeep Goswami highlights Traefik’s ability to run in diverse environments, addressing the growing trend of multi-environment deployments. Traefik is not limited to Kubernetes, but can operate on Linux, within Docker containers, HashiCorp Nomad, and across any certified Kubernetes distribution. Sudeep demonstrated the ease of installation using a consistent Helm chart across different environments, including AKS, […]
Accelerating AI In the Enterprise with Traefik Labs
Sudeep Goswami from Traefik Labs presented at Tech Field Day at KubeCon North America 2025, focusing on accelerating AI in the enterprise using Traefik Labs’ runtime gateway. Given the rapid proliferation of AI models, decoupling applications from specific models becomes crucial to avoid constant refactoring. Traefik Labs advocates for decoupling at the gateway layer, providing […]
Run Your AI and APIs Anywhere with Traefik Labs
Sudeep Goswami, CEO of Traefik Labs, began the presentation by introducing Traefik Labs and outlining three main topics. The first was the concept of unified application intelligence. Second, the acceleration of AI in the enterprise. Finally, running applications anywhere, emphasizing freedom of choice, including public cloud, edge environments, and air-gapped environments. All growing themes at […]
The Advantages of Running vSphere Kubernetes Service in a Private Cloud with VMware by Broadcom
This session will emphasize the tangible benefits of running vSphere Kubernetes Service in a private cloud environment. We’ll reinforce how VKS simplifies operations within a private cloud context, highlighting minimal networking expertise required, self-service capabilities, and the powerful synergies with VCF services for an optimal private cloud solution. Jeremy Wolf introduced VMware’s approach to bringing […]
Deploying Your Apps in vSphere Kubernetes Service is Easy with VMware by Broadcom
This session showcases vSphere Kubernetes Service’s compatibility with existing setups, its Kubernetes-first API, and a rich ecosystem of Out-Of-The-Box (OOTB) services, such as ArgoCD. See a comprehensive, automated workflow in action, from provisioning a new VKS cluster with Terraform to deploying a sample microservices application via ArgoCD, and viewing metrics with integrated Prometheus and Telegraf. […]
vSphere Kubernetes Service for Platform Engineers – What You Didn’t Know with VMware by Broadcom
This session will highlight the robust capabilities of VKS for platform engineers, focusing on deep technical insights and real-world value. Discover how VKS offers a fully conformant Kubernetes runtime, simplified lifecycle management with 2-click cluster deployment, and built-in guardrails to ensure stability. We’ll address common pain points and demonstrate how VKS directly solves them, leading […]
Cisco AI Cluster Networking Operations DLB Demo with Paresh Gupta
Paresh Gupta concluded the deep dive by focusing on the most complex challenge in AI networking: congestion and load balancing in the backend GPU-to-GPU fabric. He explained that while operational simplicity and cabling are critical, the primary performance bottleneck, even in non-oversubscribed networks, is the failure of traditional ECMP load balancing. Because ECMP hashes flows […]
Cisco AI Networking Cluster Operations Deep Dive
Paresh Gupta’s deep dive on AI cluster operations focused on the extreme and unique challenges of high-performance backend networks. He explained that these networks, which primarily use RDMA over Converged Ethernet (ROCE), are exceptionally sensitive to both packet loss and network delay. Because ROCE is UDP-based, it lacks TCP’s native congestion control, meaning a single […]
Introduction to Cisco AI Cluster Networking Design with Paresh Gupta
Paresh Gupta, a principal engineer at Cisco focusing on AI infrastructure, began by outlining the diverse landscape of AI adoption, which spans from hyperscalers with hundreds of thousands of GPUs to enterprises just starting with a few hundred. He categorized these environments by scale—scale-up within a server, scale-out across servers, and scale-across between data centers—and […]
The Age of Operations: Third Party Views of DCF Innovation
Scott Robohn of the consulting firm Solutional provided a third-party, operational perspective on data center innovation, based on a collaboration with The Futurum Group and Nokia. He introduced his background as a former network engineer and Tech Field Day delegate, now focused on NetOps and AI adoption. Robohn’s central thesis is that with AI driving […]
Root Cause Analysis with Nokia AI Operations Automation
Clayton Wagar introduced Nokia’s AI-driven approach to root cause analysis, focusing on solving difficult day-two operational challenges. The presentation highlighted the chronic pain of hidden impairments or gray failures, where traditional monitoring systems fail because physical links appear active while protocols or services are down. The goal of Nokia’s deep RCA tool is to move […]
Delivering Nokia Enhanced AIOps with the Right Foundations
Bruce Wallis pivoted the discussion to Nokia’s AIOps capabilities, centered on a new natural language interface called Ask EDA. This feature, which resembles a ChatGPT for the network, allows operators to interact with the EDA platform through a simple chat box. The core idea is to abstract the complexity of network operations, enabling users to […]
Nokia Event-Driven Automation (EDA) Multi Vendor – Deliver on the Promise
Bruce Wallis, Product Manager for Nokia’s EDA (Event-Driven Automation) platform, began by revisiting the core assertions made when the product was unveiled a year prior. He reiterated that EDA was built on the same successful principles as Kubernetes: abstraction and a declarative model. The goal was to apply this logic to networking, creating a ubiquitous […]
Exploring the Power and Potential of Enhanced AIOps with Nokia
Clayton Wagar, leading the AI practice for Nokia’s IP division, framed his presentation as creating a “through line” connecting the history of network operations to its AI-driven future. Recalling his own start managing a 911 data center with manual, CLI-driven processes, he traced the evolution of the industry as operators moved from mastering workflows in […]
Introduction to Nokia with Andy Lapteff
Andy Lapteff, a network engineer who became a product marketing manager for Nokia Data Center, introduced his presentation by sharing his personal journey. He admitted that, like many, he previously only knew Nokia for its indestructible cell phones and was unaware of its significant presence in the data center market. It was at a previous […]
Graphiant Demos with Vinay Prabhu
Chief Product Officer Vinay Prabhu demonstrated the Graphiant infrastructure, first focusing on the network for AI. He framed AI as a massive publisher-subscriber problem and demoed a B2B data exchange where services, like GPU farms, can be published to a personal marketplace. This allows partners (both on and off-network) to be securely connected in minutes, […]