Monthly Archives: February 2025

Scott Nichols is a Principal Cloud Solutions Architect at Microsoft. He works for the commercial enterprise division serving the high-tech division out of Silicon Valley. He is also the leader of the .NET and the Azure user groups in Boise, Idaho. He started his career in the IT profession in 1993 as a mainframe and web developer. Since then, he has served as a Lead Software Engineer/Solution Architect, a Software Development Engineering Manager, a Sr. Cloud Software Solution Architect, and a Sr. Enterprise Solution Architect. When not at the keyboard, he loves the outdoors hunting, camping, fishing, archery, and working in the yard.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:03] Generative AI's turning point.

[5:52] Bridging the AI coding gap.

[6:39] Scott explains the shift in project workloads to generative AI-based projects, both customer-facing and internal.

[7:25] Networking companies using AI to analyze telemetry data and create new products.

[8:49] Azure AI Foundry is a web portal that allows developers to spin up Azure Compute and access over 1800 models.

[13:00] Although a "Cloud Guy," Scott values his on-prem hardware as a playground for learning and experimenting with AI tools.

[15:04] The benefits of using open source or on-prem tools to start working with AI without incurring cloud costs right away.

[15:40] The rapid pace of innovation.

[20:41] An example of Khan Academy using AI to create an online tutor, requiring significant prompt engineering to ensure accurate responses.

[27:12] AI agents monitoring AI agents.

[27:59] AI's limitations and opportunities.

[31:56] Testing strategies for AI-Integrated systems.

[35:37] The future of AI and how it's a great time to be in AI.

[39:35] Great advice for the next generation of developers and software engineers.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo

The Five Pillars: Leadership For Effective Custom Software, by Jeffrey Palermo

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Ep 116 with Scott Nichols

Scott Nichols LinkedIn

Scott Nichols Twitter

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Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

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Shaun Walker is the founder and CEO of Devessence, a global technology consultancy with a boutique approach. He's also the founder of the Oqtane and DotNetNuke web application frameworks, which have earned the recognition of being amongst the most pioneering and widely adopted open-source projects native to the Microsoft platform. He has over 30 years of professional experience in architecting and implementing enterprise software solutions for private and public organizations.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:38] While AI can be a useful tool, it won't replace the need for traditional programming.

[8:32] The gap between mainstream AI messaging and the reality of digital transformation.

[9:22] While AI is a significant advancement, it should be seen as just another tool in a developer's toolkit.

[9:39] The history and evolution of Blazor.

[13:31] The versatility of Blazor and its ability to adapt to various hosting models make it a powerful tool for different types of applications.

[14:06] Challenges and best practices in Blazor development.

[16:26] The decision to make Blazor official and its impact on the .NET ecosystem.

[18:12] The evolution of Blazor Server vs. Blazor WebAssembly and why both are still relevant.

[21:06] When to use Blazor Static, Blazor Server, or Blazor WebAssembly, based on project needs.

[24:17] The tendency for technologists to be critics without actually using the technologies.

[34:36] The advantages of Octane and why it streamlines Blazor development.

[39:56] The TrailBlazor Conference.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Devessence

Shaun on X

DNN Software

GitHub

Oqtane Philosophy

ErrorBoundary and Logging in Blazor

Oqtane

TrailBlazor Conference

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Download this episode (MP3, 42:12, 41.3 MB)

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This episode on the AI DevOps Podcast site

Matt McCleary is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft working on observability tools to empower developers to be successful. Matt started his career in engineering and has worked in tech for 10 years, the latest 8 at Microsoft. He's been on the Azure Monitor team for most of that time. His passion is listening to customers and finding ways to make the product better. In his spare time, he finds himself coaching his 8-year-old son's basketball team and playing in an adult men's basketball league.

Topics of Discussion:

[3:26] Matt recounts his early interest in engineering and a pivotal moment during a college tour, along with his transition from civil engineering to business intelligence consulting, which led him to telemetry.

[6:29] The strategy around Azure Monitor.

[10:04] The three pillars of logs, traces, and metrics.

[15:02] Recording custom metrics.

[17:29] What is a distributed trace?

[24:08] The concept of a custom event.

[27:29] Future plans for Azure Monitor.

[31:04] Integration with .NET Aspire.

[34:04] Guidance on the best practices for Azure Monitor.

[36:40] Application insights resources.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Matthew McCleary LinkedIn

Matt McCleary Twitter

Matt McCleary Github

Announcing Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry Distro

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Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

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This episode on the AI DevOps Podcast site

Chris Ayers is a Senior Site Reliability Engineer on Microsoft's AzRel Risk SRE team, drawing on years of experience in cloud architecture, software development, and DevOps practices. He's passionate about continuous improvement, driving reliability, and sharing industry best practices. Outside of work, Chris is a devoted father, technology enthusiast, and avid gamer. Connect with him online to explore insights into cloud operations, agile methodologies, and more. He also organizes DevOpsDays Tampa Bay.

Topics of Discussion:

[2:50] Chris Ayers's career journey and formative moments in site reliability engineering.

[3:33] The importance of being open to learning and stepping outside your comfort zone.

[8:53] Chris's talk on Aspire, Azure, and Open AI.

[9:30] How Chris is improving Azure's reliability through internal innovation.

[10:16] Benefits of Aspire: orchestration, integration, and abstraction for infrastructure.

[12:29] AI extensions in Aspire: how they enable developers to work with different AI models like OpenAI and local models.

[14:09] Using OpenTelemetry for seamless integration and monitoring in Azure.

[18:38] Prompt engineering: crafting prompts as part of business logic.

[20:50] Exploring agentic AI development and multi-agent chatbots.

[21:05] AI use cases in healthcare and responsible AI principles.

[29:22] Simplifying Azure resource management with Aspire and opinionated defaults.

[32:35] Using Honeycomb and other tools for effective telemetry and logging.

[33:39] Hugging Face and KAITO: enabling access to a marketplace of specialized AI models and Kubernetes AI integration.

[34:10] Running Olama models locally: balancing scale, cost, and use cases.

[39:38] AI as a tool to enhance productivity rather than replace people.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Clear Measure Way

Architect Forum

Software Engineer Forum

Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net.

Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Chris Ayers Speaking

Chris Ayers Speaker Profile

Build with Aspire

Want to Learn More?

Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Download this episode (MP3, 41:07, 40.3 MB)

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This episode on the AI DevOps Podcast site