Brett Smith, distinguished software developer at AI and data management software and services company SAS, has spent nine of his 13 years with the company focused on software supply chain security, managing DevSecOps and compliance for a 3,000-developer organization. He shares the good, the bad and the ugly of the journey to date, and his outlook for the future.

Featuring: Brett Smith, distinguished software developer, SAS

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• Focusing on software artifacts to secure the supply chain
• Getting developer buy-in for cybersecurity
• The role of Executive Order 14028 and the road ahead in compliance
• AI and "security amnesia"

and more!

References:

• Black Hat 2025: Navigating AI and supply chain security
• Software supply chain security tools take on toil for users
• Software supply chain security AI agents take action
• IT pros revise pipelines for software supply chain security

To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.

To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

You might recognize Rob Strechay from his appearances on TheCube livestreaming videos during industry conferences, but he's worn many hats in the industry over the years. In this wide-ranging discussion, he looks back at how AI data management evolved in 2025, and predicts that AI "governance, security and data quality are going to be all the rage in 2026."

Featuring: Rob Strechay, managing director and principal analyst at TheCube Research

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• The Open Semantic Interchange (OSI) project
• AI data management, data gravity and the persistence of data silos
• AI security, governance and sovereign AI
• AI agents and the future of business workflows

and more!

References:

• New consortium to aid AI by standardizing semantic modeling
• MCP OAuth update adds security for personalized AI
• Nutanix sovereign cloud hits Broadcom with multi-cloud hook
• 2026 will be the year data becomes truly intelligent

To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.

To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.

As it rolled out AI and AIOps, Salesforce shunned the cloud repatriation route and instead expanded its public cloud presence with Hyperforce. Paul Constantinides, an engineering leader at Salesforce for more than 21 years, currently leads engineering for Hyperforce. In this episode, he details the evolution of the Salesforce internal platform over the years, what was behind the decision to launch Hyperforce, his team's extensive use of AIOps and his "NoOps" goals in the age of AI agents.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: IT Ops Query will be on a holiday break the next two weeks, returning Jan. 8 with all-new episodes.

Featuring: Paul Constantinides, executive vice president of engineering, Salesforce

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• Trust as a core value in infrastructure management at scale
• How cloud-native principles improve resilience for AI applications
• How internally developed AIOps tools perform automate incident remediation and response
• The role for human engineers in a NoOps future

and more!

References:

• What Salesforce’s AI agents can do for nonprofits
• A+E Global Media boosts AIOps with deterministic AI
• GenAI tools set to exceed past waves of AI automation
• Salesforce workflow automation tools, Hyperforce debut

To learn more about software development and platform engineering, check out Search IT Operations.

To watch clips from our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube channel, @EyeOnTech.