DevOps Hustlers, Cloud-native Ops, Amazon + Whole Foods – Coté Memo – Issue #31

My column at The Register this month, how to find and rate a good consultant. Also, I finally get labeled a pill-popping stoner in the comments (FAKE NEWS!)

Looks like we’ll be getting cheaper organic food what with Amazon buying Whole Foods. What exactly is the strategy at play here, though? Other than the obvious thing of doing online groceries, how is Amazon advantaged here such that others (like Wal-mart), can’t simply do this themselves. We go over these questions and how they related to M&A in general. Plus recommendations and some podcast meta talk. 

If you want more highlights, context, and commentary on Amazon buying Whole Foods, check out my notebook on the topic.

Operating IT in a cloud-native mindset requires changes up and down the stack, especially in operations. The degree of automation in the stack changes the need for much of the manual work and process-driven checks and balances in IT ops as we know it. In this episode, we talk with Pivotal’s Tony Hansmann on what those changes are, how the technology pushes these changes, and some of the barriers.

Big-city and small-town Americans have vastly different views on issues like immigration and religion, helping to explain President Trump’s election

I made this recently and it’s fantastic. It’s got very little in it, and while it takes a long time to brown all the stuff (Eggplant, Zucchini, Squash, and Tomato Casserole), it’s not tedious and well worth it.

Summary of Disney’s experience doing the DevOps, with some good management-level ways of thinking listed at the end.

A little round-up of podcast market-sizing.

A nice overview of the slippery slope of good intentions that lead to legacy holding you back.

More for the file: banks, generally know what they’re doing with all that digital stuff.