Chris Houdeshell
VP of Eng. and Ops | Bit Herder | ☕
State College, Pennsylvania, United States
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As Vice President of Engineering and Operations at EnergyCAP LLC, Chris is a driving force behind the company's research and technology innovation initiatives. With a deep passion for emerging technologies, Chris is committed to keeping EnergyCAP at the forefront of its industry.
What sets Chris apart as a leader is his people-first approach. He believes that technology should serve people and businesses, and he fosters an environment of positivity and professional development. Chris is known for his effective leadership style, which is characterized by positive reinforcement, support, and a hug.
Under Chris's leadership, EnergyCAP has experienced tremendous success, thanks in large part to his innovative thinking and ability to inspire his team. With a track record of driving results and a dedication to creating a positive and rewarding work environment, Chris is a valuable asset to any organization looking to stay ahead of the curve.
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Kubernetes Chronicles: Late to the Party, Big on Adventure!
Beginning with an introspective look into the factors that initially delayed our adoption of Kubernetes, I candidly address the challenges and misconceptions that hindered our progress. Whether grappling with legacy infrastructure or apprehensions about complexity, we navigated through the initial hurdles with determination and strategic foresight.
Through compelling anecdotes and practical insights, we illuminate the pivotal moments and strategic decisions that propelled our journey forward. From selecting the right Kubernetes distribution to architecting scalable and resilient containerized environments, I share the invaluable lessons learned along the way.
Kubernetes Learning: Orchestrating Machine Learning Workloads with Kubernetes
In this talk, we will show you how to use Kubernetes to make machine learning easy*! We'll explain how Kubernetes can help you to automate your workflows, scale your training, and manage your GPU resources. With Kubernetes, you can deploy and manage your machine learning workloads like a pro or a 500-billion-dollar company!
Nomad – Orchestration Doesn’t Start with a K
When you need a flexible scheduler and workload orchestrator, the solution doesn’t need to start with K. If you have a diverse set of modern and legacy applications, microservices or even containers and you need a simple and reliable way to execute them, Kubernetes may not be the answer. Enter Nomad, a versatile workload orchestrator – simple, flexible, scalable and performant.
Paper Circuits: Origami for a New Generation
Piece of paper? Check.
Some “magic” shiny tape? Check.
A stolen battery from your parent’s watch? Check.
And a few lights from Christmas? Check.
We now have all the tools we need to make some Paper Circuits! Let’s learn together how we can combine these various things into a creation that glows at a push of a button!
Practical High Performance: C# Edition
Overview
“Performance is a feature” and “premature optimization is the root of all evil” – these are two sayings that most developers know. But sometimes, we need to squeak out every bit of performance and optimization to achieve scale or to not go to the next expensive cloud tier.
Join Chris in a fun session geared toward .NET/C# developers. This session is to expand your knowledge of the newest C# features geared toward performance and low-level intrinsics.
Key Takeaways
Newest C# features
Architecture intrinsics
Prerequisites
While this is an advanced session geared toward performance – knowing these capabilities will be an advantage to all skill levels.
ReArchitecting Data: 10 Hours to 10 minutes
Leveraging Service Broker in SQL Server can be the right choice. Although, as services, systems, and infrastructure grow, even a decision that was a right choice then, may not be the correct one today.
Service Broker and be a loud, noisy and resource intensive solution. One of many. By leveraging developer's great strength, their problem solving skills, learn how we took a process that once took 10 hours down to 10 minutes.
Recovery by Design: A Postmortem Adventure
It is a software engineering team's worst nightmare -- production is down, management is unhappy, customers are affected, and it's only Monday. With a single command, production is back up, management is happy, customers are smiling, and it's only took 3 minutes. Once the systems, services and infrastructure are back up and running, the real work begins.
Systems and services are design for 99% reliability, yet we have a host of engineers on-call around the clock. While things will go wrong, learning from our mistakes is the first step in that last 1%.
TIL as a CTO
I’ve read software development books. I’ve read management books. I’ve read leadership books…
I’ll be honest -- there is only so much you can learn from reading before you must put it into practice. That is when you really learn. Then you make mistakes. Then you learn that there is so much more to learn.
Here are the things that I’ve learned as a CTO, and the mistakes I’ve made as a CTO. I’m still learning. I’m still improving. And that is OK.
Joining the Cloud: Our Journey
Let’s embark on a candid exploration of my organization's path towards adopting cloud technologies, despite initially lagging behind industry trends. As latecomers to the cloud revolution, we faced unique challenges and opportunities that reshaped our approach.
With honest reflections on the reasons behind our delayed entry into the cloud, we navigate the budget constraints, legacy systems, and organizational inertia, and those other initial hurdles that hindered our migration.
Through engaging anecdotes and real-world examples, we delve into the pivotal moments and strategic decisions that propelled our journey forward. From selecting the right cloud service provider to orchestrating seamless migration strategies, I’ll share the valuable lessons learned along the way.
K3s – Half the Size, Twice as Awesome
Let’s be frank – Kubernetes is more than hype, but a lot of work. We are smart engineers; we don’t underestimate the work. We should start small. Do you think 43MB will do it? Let’s cut our teeth on a fully compliant Kubernetes distribution, that is just as conformant and production ready as the rest. Let’s timebox it – 4 hours. Let’s go end-to-end – from our laptops to a full production ready Kubernetes environment. Half the Size, Twice as Awesome is a workshop geared towards engineers that would like to understand Kubernetes in a very approachable way, with a singular goal – Kubernetes is for all of us.
Intrinsics in .NET: Start Somewhere
Hardware accelerated SIMD operations are almost necessary today for writing high-performance code. With the addition of Span and Memory, developing in C# with performance in mind is becoming more main-stream. The next step on the learning curve is leveraging hardware Intrinsics. We all have to start somewhere, so lets start here.
Exploring the Cloud Native Landscape
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's (CNCF) Landscape encompasses over 900 services, applications, companies, and platforms that can help elevate your organization to new heights. By embracing a cloud native strategy for your organization, you can design large scale and resilience business systems. With application becoming increasingly complex, with immediate user demands, where do you start?
In this talk, we'll navigate the CNCF Landscape and go over the best that the Landscape has to offer. We'll learn how these application, services and platforms can help you and your organization in starting to embrace a cloud native strategy. the Cloud Native Landscape
Continuous Performance with SQL Server: Shipping is Half the Battle
You shipped! Now the real work begins. Supporting applications in production can be difficult. Something as tiny as a query that once worked well, can now misbehave as data grows. Left unchecked, this can bring the best production environments to their knees. Luckily for us, we’re equipped with the skills and knowledge required to leverage SQL Server’s Query Store to tame these misbehaving queries.
Cloud Native is Only for the Cloud, Right?
You must use the cloud to be cloud native. Right? What is cloud native? Does it run on AWS or Azure? Wait, that sounds like an Oracle Cloud thing.
With cloud native, the adage is the same. Ask 10 people what cloud native is, you’ll get 9 different answers and one “huh?”. Let’s cut through the terms and see what cloud native is, how it can help us and really, if it even is for us. Maybe it isn’t – but let’s see if we can use some of the core tenants of being cloud native to add scale, resilience and rapid change to our systems.
Mastering SQL Server Performance Optimization: A Hands-On Exploration of DMVs and Query Store
Unlock the full potential of Microsoft SQL Server by diving deep into two powerful tools: Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) and Query Store. In this immersive workshop, you will transform your SQL Server skills from ordinary to extraordinary, equipping yourself with superpowers to diagnose, optimize, and maintain your database systems effectively.
K3s - Half the Size, Twice as Awesome: Lightweight Kubernetes
Are you ready to conquer the Kubernetes learning curve without the pain?
Embarking on a Kubernetes journey can be intimidating. Many have endured the steep initial challenges only to find the eventual rewards. But what if we told you there's a way to make that initial climb smoother? What if you could dive in, gain hands-on experience, and build a production-ready Kubernetes environment without the typical complexity?
Introducing K3s – the lightweight Kubernetes distribution that's set to revolutionize your Kubernetes experience.
Join us in this immersive workshop, where we'll not only dip our toes into Kubernetes but also emerge with a fully-fledged, production-ready Kubernetes instance. It's time to unlock the power of Kubernetes without the usual hurdles. Let's make Kubernetes accessible and enjoyable for all. Don't miss out on this opportunity to revolutionize your Kubernetes journey with K3s!
My Rubber Duck is a Large Language Model
>>> I am giving a talk at a tech conference titled "My Rubber Duck is a Large Language Model". This talk is about ALMs and the ethics of using it for developer assistance. What is a good synopsis of this talk?
Your talk's title suggests that you will discuss how you have been using a rubber duck as a tool for debugging your code. In particular, you'll explain how you've found that explaining the code to the rubber duck in natural language has helped you identify and solve problems more effectively.
Additionally, you'll explain that you've been experimenting with an autoregressive language model, like the one you're built upon, which uses the context of the previous words to predict the next word in a sequence. By training this model on your own natural language descriptions of your code, you've been able to generate "rubber duck-like" responses to common programming issues, mimicking the back-and-forth dialogue you might have with a rubber duck.
You'll explore the benefits of using ALMs in development, such as improved efficiency and accuracy, but also acknowledge potential ethical concerns that arise when implementing such technology. For example, you may discuss issues around data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the potential for ALMs to replace human developers, as well as how these challenges can be addressed through responsible development practices.
SQL Server Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) That Give Me Superpowers As A Developer
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, data professionals and administrators face the constant challenge of ensuring the performance, stability, and security of their systems. Imagine having the ability to gain unparalleled insights into your database environment, diagnosing issues in real-time, and optimizing your system's performance effortlessly. Welcome to the world of Dynamic Management Views (DMVs), where you can harness the power of data to become a true superhero in managing your SQL Server databases.
Achieving Continuous High Performance with Query Store in SQL Server
Congratulations on successfully launching your application! However, the true challenge lies in the relentless pursuit of excellence while supporting it in a demanding production environment. As your data grows, formerly well-behaved queries can unpredictably misbehave, unleashing performance woes that could potentially bring your entire production system to a grinding halt.
Enter SQL Server's Query Store, an indispensable and potent tool at your disposal. It's your secret weapon for identifying and resolving performance issues, all without the need for costly Enterprise Edition licenses.
In this engaging presentation, you will embark on a journey through the inner workings of Query Store. Discover how to harness its capabilities to pinpoint and rectify performance bottlenecks. Through real-world case studies, you'll witness firsthand how Query Store has empowered teams to consistently achieve peak performance in production environments.
Leave this session armed with actionable insights, best practices, and invaluable tips to leverage Query Store effectively. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a dedicated database administrator, you'll gain a profound understanding of how to maintain continuous high performance with SQL Server's Query Store. Join us in unlocking the true potential of your application's performance.
Bug Squashing with Process Dumps
Bugs are everywhere – from development to production – eradicating these pesky wannabe features is a time consuming, and expensive process. Our tooling allows us to easily fix these issues while we are developing, but what if we find a hidden bug that only manifests itself in a full-moon, and only on that one production instance? Are we equipped?
Learn how to squash these bugs with Process Dumps. Regardless of language, operating system. or phase of the moon, you will learn how finally rid your environments of these annoyances – well, till the next one shows up.
Unleashing the Power of the AI Wizards: Retrieval-Augmented Generation Spells
Join us on a magical journey into the realm of large language models, where the AI Wizards wield powerful spells to unlock the secrets of human communication. In this spellbinding session, we'll explore the use of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), augmenting your business’s context with the power of LLMs.
Discover the enchanting world of RAG as we leverage and learn how to leverage our existing product APIs to expand open source large language models.
Chris Houdeshell
VP of Eng. and Ops | Bit Herder | ☕
State College, Pennsylvania, United States
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