In this short interview, Paylocity CPO & CTO Rachit Lohani talks about autocon/23 and his point of view on autonomous cloud management for the industry and Paylocity.Suresh Mathew, Founder & CEO at Sedai asks Rachit three questions:1) What were Rachit's top takeaways from autocon/232) What level of cloud operations autonomy is the industry at today and where will it be in 3 years?3) What is your strategy for autonomous cloud management at Paylocity?This interview took place at the end of autocon/23, the autonomous cloud conference, held in November 2023 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
00:07.04 Introducing the Panelists14:55.83 Autonomous Systems and State Management18:40.05 The Impact of Autonomous Systems on Workloads19:35.93 Potential for Change in Real Estate Transactions21:39.34 Autonomy, Compliance, and Safety22:37.57 Challenges of Automation in the Physical World23:28.34 Standardization and Automation26:54.60 Adoption of Autonomy at Talkdesk29:50.78 Discussion on Centralized vs. Decentralized Systems33:26.71 The Swinging Pendulum34:25.75 Broad Application of Concepts
00:10.19 Introduction01:42.03 Significance of VMs in Modern Infrastructure03:46.15 Simplified Management of VMs on Cloud04:23.18 Role of Platform Team in Autonomous Journey04:40.26 Manned-Unmanned Teaming in Autonomous Operations06:54.55 Autonomous System Optimization Process09:22.91 Autonomous Actions for VM Availability and Optimization12:53.90 Support for VM-Based Applications in Clouds
00:33.12 The Rise of FinOps06:53.98 Executing FinOps Recommendations08:26.60 The Need for Automation in FinOps09:24.06 The Impact of Autonomous FinOps09:45.29 Building Autonomous FinOps Capabilities
00:22.41 Introduction to Autonomous Systems01:03.74 Benefits of Continuous Integration02:32.43 GitOps and Infrastructure Management03:55.27 Autonomous System's Key Advantages07:45.77 Strategies for Integrating Sedai with Systems10:32.13 Nate's Experience with Sedai Integration
00:50.00 The Era of Big Data03:59.33 Optimizing Dataflow Architecture06:13.82 Strategies for Dataflow Optimization07:49.21 The Autonomous Approach09:04.56 Introduction to Sedai's Autonomous Optimization10:05.48 Conclusion
00:30.75 Introduction and Company Overview01:51.51 CTO Toolbox and Customer-Centric Approach02:51.14 Financial Management and Gross Margins06:23.47 Performance Impact and Page Load Goals08:07.05 Availability and Failed Customer Interactions11:07.94 Sustaining Engineering and Budget Allocation18:01.85 Cloud Expense Management and Value to Cost Ratio
00:32.37 Introduction to Autonomous Platform04:02.22 Key Challenges and Goals for Autonomous Platform08:51.70 Architectural Principles and Framework Goals14:30.98 Integration of Sedai for Cost Management15:40.85 Challenges and Results in Serverless Optimization18:32.69 Challenges and Approach for Kubernetes Optimization23:44.76 Cost and Performance Impact24:49.02 Customizing Backstage
01:41.01 Understanding Cloud Storage Solutions03:57.81 Amazon S3 and Its Use Cases05:37.64 The Need for Autonomous Management06:35.44 Announcing Autonomous Storage Optimization08:42.24 Understanding Cloud Storage Classes11:58.44 Observing Access Patterns for Optimization13:24.79 Cost Benefits of Autonomous Management
00:06.09 The Journey of Transformation01:56.46 Overview of Company and Growth02:33.90 The Unequally Distributed Future04:48.83 Platformization and Backend Implications05:37.04 Challenges of Building Autonomy06:29.52 Limitations and Transformational Thinking07:44.28 Criticality of Service and Trust with Customers08:26.63 Real-Time Security Measures and Latency Management09:33.50 Digital Experience Monitoring10:46.19 Application Acceleration and Telemetry Analysis11:35.10 Managing False Positives and AI Integration13:47.04 Support Automation with Copilots15:06.76 Internal vs. External Use Cases16:19.07 Building Autonomous Systems17:48.49 Engaging with Customers and Backend AI Infrastructure21:39.14 AI Learning and Responsible Application23:16.16 Natural Language Interface and Summarization
What's covered:00:43: Introduction to KnowBe402:15: KnowBe4's Cloud Strategy03:37: Challenge of 58% YoY Growth in ECS, Lambda Usage04:54: Need to support AI workloads06:10: KnowBe4 uses a central SRE team07:22: Use cases for an autonomous platform08:54: Why go autonomous?10:33: Facing fears of autonomous operations11:39: Mitigating fears with small scale prod use case13:03: Rolling out individual capabilities14:10: Results: 50%+ cost savings, 90K days of latency saved15:03: Achieved ROI from Sedai in 5 months15:23: Example gains in resource usage16:56: What's next: feedback loops with developers17:40: Recommendation to teams on going autonomous - "Just Do It"18:52: Q&A: KnowBe4's scale ($4.6B company value, 34K customers, >3B emails sent)20:28: Q&A: How has SRE role changed with Sedai's AI?21:11:Impact of Automation on Customer Experience22:04.10: Success with Automation Implementation
00:19.83 Panel Introduction and Company Scale05:21.42 Assessing Infrastructure Readiness for Autonomous Technology18:02.81 Adoption of Autonomous Frameworks and the Need for a Framework19:15.03 Defining the Framework20:22.39 Vertical Stack Differences21:29.82 Maturity Levels and Automation23:08.08 Autonomous System Tools27:01.49 Risk Aversion and Autonomy28:16.78 Autonomy at Scale29:23.40 Incremental Autonomy Implementation31:16.42 Pharmaland's Autonomous Journey33:54.72 Guardrails and Risk Management36:54.57 Nonfinancial Gains of Autonomy38:30.00 Positive Impacts of Autonomy on Experimentation39:31.69 Autonomy and Business Enabler52:12.92 Closing Remarks and Q&A
00:19.52 Panel Introduction00:58.10 Realism of Autonomy01:52.08 The Cost of Autonomy05:27.71 Adopting Autonomy at Efficient Organizations07:10.63 Board-level Discussions on Autonomy07:50.84 AI Autonomy in Conversational Analytics09:51.02 Building Co-Pilots for Risk Management11:21.57 Balancing False Positives and Negatives13:43.43 Cost Pressure and ROI of AI Infrastructure20:12.28 Productivity and Stress in DevOps Teams21:58.47 Autonomy and Relief in Workload24:00.09 Business Strategy and AI Revenue25:03.75 Value Creation with AI
0:11.08 Understanding the Numbers1:14.04 The Importance of Autonomy1:36.06 Preventing Incidents2:29.26 The Role of Technology3:06.71 The Journey with Cloud Services4:42.37 Enabling Change Control with Sedai
00:44.95 The Edge of Chaos and Innovation02:54.50 Reliability as a Priority04:52.19 Automation for Infrastructure Challenges07:27.44 Vision of Autonomous Infrastructure21:29.06 Advantages of Autonomy24:01.23 Advice for Mid-Size Organizations25:43.16 The Importance of Autonomy in Transformation26:23.92 The Next Step: Autonomy
00:26.69 Understanding Well Architected03:04.51 Building a Well Architected Application04:22.61 Benefits of Well Architected08:31.15 Introduction to AWS Well Architected Framework11:28.47 Overview of the Pillars and Lenses19:17.39 Operational Excellence Pillar40:25.27 Understanding AWS Sustainability
00:07.81 Introduction to Autonomous Optimization01:02.54 Different Compute Models in Amazon02:25.49 Challenges in Managing Compute Models03:13.63 Provisioning and Management of ECS Clusters04:56.48 Challenges in ECS Usage05:53.83 Over Provisioning Challenges07:24.50 Complexity of Application Optimization08:46.99 Autonomous Optimization Benefits09:23.49 Considerations for Autonomous Systems09:58.94 Goals of Service Optimization10:53.98 Service, Instance, and Purchasing Optimization11:31.75 Spot Instances and Cost Savings12:10.07 Rightsizing ECS Services13:15.74 Optimizing ECS Services with Auto Scaling14:11.49 Auto Scaling Benefits15:07.04 Dev and Pre-Prod Test Optimization15:59.92 Rightsizing and Spot Instances Example16:34.99 Continuous Service Optimization19:42.01 Autonomous ECS and Toil Reduction21:39.12 Progressing Through Autonomous Optimization23:32.74 Realized Savings and Highlights26:23.58 Optimizing Database Storage
00:22.59 The Power of the Right Tools03:14.62 Optimizing Kubernetes Development at Bill05:15.06 Creating Isolated Development Environments09:14.99 Developer Portal and Command Line Interface17:47.84 Velocity Global: Serverless by Default20:39.07 Advantages and Challenges of Serverless23:24.79 Development Life Cycle25:08.96 Deployment Challenges26:26.88 Paved Roads Concept27:22.81 Measuring Paved Road Success34:21.72 Monitoring in Production35:33.38 Choosing Development Tools