Collin Newberry
Director of DevSecOps, Yahara Software LLC
Madison, Wisconsin, United States
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Collin Newberry, Director of DevSecOps at Yahara Software and author of The DevOps Problem, has been in the technology field for nearly two decades.
As a Sergeant operating under 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) in the U.S. Army Mr. Newberry’s experience encompassed the installation, maintenance, management and security of networking systems and satellite communications on a global scale.
Since joining the private sector Mr. Newberry’s experience has expanded to the management of international security and compliance initiatives for Fortune 500 companies, designing and securing DevSecOps pipelines and the modernization of traditional infrastructure to adopt cutting edge tactics and technologies leading to his current role where he oversees DevSecOps and IT strategy.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Adapting DevOps to AI, a Problem of Fundamentals
I hear too often the question of "How can I make AI work for my tools?". The short answer is by spending lots of money you don't have. The question we need to ask ourselves instead is "How do I adapt my tools to AI?".
We can answer this question by shifting our focus as far left in our support cycle as possible with the architecture of our codified playbooks. Through deliberate coding practices designed to support the ability of AI tools we can seamlessly integrate Large Language Models such as Github Copilot into our workflows.
This session will outline a framework for redesigning IaC to work with LLMs and demonstrate the speed of development that can be achieved by doing so.
AI and Digital Twins, New Frontiers in Threat Hunting
The rise of digital twins is revolutionizing the way we approach development, testing, and system modeling. These advanced virtual replicas open up a world of possibilities, especially when paired with the innovative power of AI. By harnessing these cutting-edge technologies, security engineers and researchers can explore new avenues for identifying potential threats like never before.
In this session, we’ll dive into:
- The concept of digital twins and their transformative impact on our ability to model complex environments.
- The latest advancements in AI and how we can seamlessly integrate them into our workflows.
- How the fusion of these technologies can enhance our threat hunting capabilities, empowering us to stay ahead of emerging risks.
The Strategy of Transformation
Most DevOps transformations fail to deliver on their promises, not because of technology shortcomings, but because organizations treat DevOps as an implementation project rather than an operating model. Collin Newberry, Director of DevSecOps at Yahara Software and author of The DevOps Problem, draws on two decades of technology experience leading transformations across the military, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and startups to explain why conventional approaches backfire and what actually works.
This session is designed for technology leaders, executives, and practitioners who are navigating, or recovering from, transformation efforts that haven't delivered expected results. Mr. Newberry introduces a practical framework for building transformation programs that survive leadership changes, budget cycles, and the inevitable organizational friction that derails most initiatives. He will also address where AI fits into the transformation journey and the critical mistakes organizations make when integrating AI too early or without clear purpose.
In this session you will learn:
- The four foundations that separate sustainable transformation from expensive theater
- Why stakeholder investment erodes and how to prevent it
- The most costly mistakes organizations make and how to recognize them before they compound
- Where AI accelerates transformation versus where it creates new failure modes
A Tale of Two Strategies: Vibe Coding vs. Pair Programming with AI
AI can be a polarizing topic among technology professionals. Some have dramatically accelerated their work, while others are stuck with mediocre results that leave much to be desired. So what separates these outcomes? How are some teams achieving 10x acceleration with impressive accuracy while others can't get an AI project off the ground without completely rewriting everything the AI produced?
This session follows two AI implementation journeys. One builds a program on best practices that enable developers to use AI as a powerful pair programmer. The other is an experiment in futility where vibe coding is allowed to run unchecked. The difference? One has a foundation built on knowledge management, context engineering, and well-crafted user stories. The other thrusts large language models into the hands of developers with no training on how to work with AI as a partner.
Collin Newberry, Director of DevSecOps at Yahara Software and author of The DevOps Problem, will demonstrate what separates successful AI implementations from expensive disappointments and show the contrast between structured pair programming and undisciplined vibe coding in real time.
In this session you will learn:
- The foundational components every successful AI implementation depends on
- How context engineering sets AI agents up for success
- Why prompt engineering remains a critical developer skill
- How well-written user stories help AI produce better code
- The measurable difference between AI pair programming and vibe coding
Next Gen IaC, Adapting to a No-Code Framework
The next evolution of DevOps is the adoption of no-code infrastructure for infrastructure as code. The decentralization of the codified infrastructure into remotely managed and versioned modules provides numerous benefits to the management and maintenance of the IaC playbooks and deployed infrastructure.
The use of no-code modules for IaC ensures complete compatibility of infrastructure across projects, allows versioning to manage dependencies within modules, prevents unwanted drift of the playbooks from the standard template, enables shift left and if written well can integrate seamlessly with large language models to allow code generation using AI tools.
In this session we will discuss an architecture for managing no-code terraform and how we can use style guides and release versioning to enforce dependencies and prevent code drift from standards. We will also give a brief demonstration of the no-code terraform modules being managed using AI with Github Copilot.
DevOps for Cloud Cost Management
This session will outline how to use IaC to provide release versioned infrastructure playbooks in a no-code framework. The goal of this is to reduce the cost of cloud infrastructure by maintaining multiple offline copies of the same infrastructure in codified playbooks with zero drift between online and offline environments.
We will outline an IaC architectural plan and style guide which will enable the adoption of this strategy and demonstrate the ability to build and deploy numerous environments from offline configuration with zero drift.
This framework provides many advantages over traditional IaC including:
- Cost reduction in cloud environments
- Ability to swing between environments seamlessly with minimal downtime
- Seamless DR testing and recovery operations with minimal passive costs
- Ability to automate BC tasks for cross regional cloud workloads
- Scalability of environments where traditional scaling options do not exist
Level up your Environment - Digital Twins in DevOps
Traditionally there have been certain aspects of an environment we just can’t replicate. Whether this is due to cost, complexity or the physical-digital crossover it has created a complexity that prevents us from being able to test new deployments in a true replica of production. Digital twins can help us overcome this.
The concept of the digital twin was introduced to create a digital representation of a physical object. The goal of this being to allow for simulated inputs and outputs which represent the interactions we have with the physical world. This is applied today in robotics, laboratories and other technology spaces where duplicating devices is cost-prohibitive. We don’t have to limit ourselves to just those high-tech, high-cost devices, we can create digital twins of an entire data center, factory or other environment.
This session will introduce you to the benefits of digital twins across industries and how we can take advantage of this emerging technology. Specific concepts we will explore include:
• What are digital twins and how do they work
• Current applications of digital twins
• Conceptualizing a digital twin in your environment
• Design considerations for digital twins
• Integrating digital twins with augmented reality
Agile + DevOpsDays Des Moines 2025 Sessionize Event
2025 AFCEA TechNet Mid-America Conference
Next Gen IaC, Adapting to a No-Code Framework
Atlanta Cloud Conference 2025 Sessionize Event
Madison Metropolitan School District
NIST Cybersecurity in Education Conference
Madison Metropolitan School District
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