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.

Rob Hirschfeld is the CEO and co-founder of RackN, founded in 2014, focused on "addressing the messy challenge of operating at scale in physical data centers," according to his LinkedIn profile. Hirschfeld has had a front-row seat to the last decade of conversations in enterprise IT ops about bare-metal server operations and cloud repatriation, topics that remain hot as some enterprises look to move AI inference workloads on-premises.

Featuring: Rob Hirschfeld, CEO and co-founder of RackN

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• The recent history of cloud repatriation
• The VMware factor in enterprise bare metal decisions
• How generative AI workloads change the dynamics of self-hosted infrastructure for enterprises
• Why going back to self-hosted infrastructure in 2025 doesn't mean going back to 2005 IT management practices

and more!

References:

• AWS AI Factories target hybrid cloud AI infrastructure | TechTarget
• Top 9 bare-metal cloud providers of 2025
• New VMware private AI infrastructure rethinks Tanzu, again
• Cloud repatriation vs. multi-cloud: IT seeks cost relief

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.

Yuval Fernbach has more than a decade of hands-on experience in the realm of data and machine learning, and served as the co-founder and CTO of Qwak from 2020 until it was acquired by JFrog in 2024. Fernbach is now vice president and CTO of JFrog ML, a subset of the JFrog software supply chain management toolset focused on AI and machine learning operations, or MLOps. In this interview, he discusses the unique challenges generative AI poses in software supply chain security, and what enterprise developers and platform engineers need to know about this new frontier in technology.

Featuring: Yuval Fernbach, vice president and CTO of JFrog ML

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• Increased risks and governance issues due to generative AI's widespread use among software engineers
• JFrog's platform extensions for managing AI models and Shadow AI detection
• The importance of maturing AI adoption practices
• JFrog Fly, an agentic artifact repository designed for small teams

and more!

References:

• JFrog integrates with Hugging Face, Nvidia; intros JFrog ML
• JFrog extends DevSecOps playbook to AI governance
• JFrog connects key software supply chain management dots
• JFrog buy bolsters MLOps combo with DevSecOps

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.

Enterprise service management platform vendor ServiceNow has been one of the most assertive in the industry in developing its AI agent products over the past 14 months. Our guest, Dorit Zilbershot, has been with ServiceNow for six years, serving in various product management leadership roles focused on AI. In this interview, she shares recent ServiceNow AI model development news with Nvidia, how enterprise AI agent adoption has developed in 2025, and how IT organizations can get past the 'trough of disillusionment' with agents.

Featuring: Dorit Zilbershot, Group Vice President of AI Experiences & Innovation, ServiceNow

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• ServiceNow and Nvidia's Apriel 2.0
• Which IT discipline has led AI adoption this year
• The connection between AI project failures and governance

and more!

References:

• ServiceNow shops share AI copilot results, prep for agents
• ServiceNow expands AI governance, emphasizes ROI
• ServiceNow makes the case to users for AI management
• How AI governance manages risk at scale for enterprises

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.

The director of engineering for a Fortune 20 automotive company shares his thoughts on the latest in cloud-native technologies for platform engineers during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025. He also discusses ways platform engineering can address common cybersecurity risks, including software supply chain security. Finally, Saxena gives his insights on the opportunities and challenges AI presents for platform engineering pros and the developers they serve.

Featuring: Gaurav Saxena, director of engineering, Fortune 20 automotive company

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• Cloud-native infrastructure automation tools for platform engineering including Crossplane, OpenTelemetry and KubeVela
• Software supply chain security tools including Sigstore
• AI agent networking and the Envoy AI Gateway project

and more!

References:

• Kubernetes AI progress in 2025 and the road ahead
• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2025 news coverage
• OpenTelemetry adapts to AI observability

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.

Bob Killen, senior technical program manager at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), shares highlights from two survey reports released this week during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025: The 2025 State of Cloud Native Development report and AI Tech Radar Report. According to Killen, the results show that cloud-native technology has become more accessible to back-end developers, and that AI development is closely tied to cloud-native infrastructure – even though AI engineers might not be aware of it.

Featuring: Bob Killen, senior technical program manager, CNCF

In today’s episode, we’ll cover…

• How many back-end developers and AI engineers consider themselves "cloud-native," and what that means
• What's behind increased hybrid cloud usage compared to previous years
• The relatively young AI projects organizations are already using in production

and more!

References:

• OpenTelemetry adapts to AI observability
• Model Context Protocol fever spreads in cloud-native world
• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2025 news coverage
• CNCF: AI is the new workload, cloud-native is the new OS

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.