Max Körbächer
Founder & Technology Advisor @ Liquid Reply
Munich, Germany
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Max is Founder and Technology Advisor at Liquid Reply. He is Emeritus Lead of the CNCF Environmental Sustainability TAG, CNCF Ambassador and Linux Foundation Europe Advisory Board member. Max focuses on platform engineering to simplify the current challenges of complex systems in the cloud native space and recently published about Platform Engineering for Architect. Besides, Max organizes Kubernetes Community Days in Munich & Ukraine, and Kubernetes & Cloud Native Meetup in Munich.
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With WasmEdge to new shores
WebAssembly aka WASM is migrating from a portable enclosed browser runtime to process serious backend tasks. What makes it so interesting is the fact that the WASM container is secure, efficient, portable and fast - at least on the paper it looks like the better implementation of containers. However, this abilities make WASM very attractive to be utilized in environments with limit capabilities on security isolation, resources and computing power.
We will look into how to get started with WasmEdge and implement a simple application to talk to. Then we will discover the behavior of WasmEdge, and which use cases we can derive from it. And finally where are the limits and critically question if implementations like WasmEdge are really the future.
The state of Green Washing - or how to build sustainable systems with Kubernetes
Kubernetes is not the answer to everything, but where it is, it is a great companion to designing systems and putting environmental sustainability into your mind. But being eco-friendly invites people to greenwash their intentions, so let us start the story from the end and clarify some myths. Saving money on infrastructure may reduce your Carbon impact, but we can do more.
The Explorer's Guide to Cloud Native GenAI Platform Engineering
The rapid evolution of generative AI has introduced a complex ecosystem of tools, but many conversations focus narrowly on isolated features and solutions. This can leave engineers wondering: What does a complete, functional GenAI platform actually look like?
This talk provides a practical roadmap for building generative AI infrastructure from the ground up. We’ll guide you through three key phases starting with a Thinnest Viable Platform (TVP), demonstrating the minimal setup needed for LLM inference on Kubernetes. Moving to MVP, we'll explore essential platform components: LLM gateways, vector databases, and KServe deployments. Finally, we'll dive into advanced platform features: intelligent load balancing for LLMs, observability patterns, and performance optimization techniques.
This session is more than a showcase of tools — it’s a roadmap for navigating the AI platform landscape. Join us for practical insights and lessons learned from real-world GenAI platform engineering.
Sustainability is eating IT - What we can/t do today
Carbon-aware computing is in its very early stage. Many different activities in the open-source community and enterprises are on their way to changing that. But we don't need to wait until this development delivers its fruits.
In this session, we will look at the challenges we have to face, and actions that can be taken to optimize your computing and infrastructure. Without being carbon aware we have to target efficiency, utilization and reduction of resources. Yet, it also includes process changes and the pipelines that deliver those. Let's move sustainability into the responsibility of everyone, like security, this is fun to do with Kubernetes, so let us have some fun together!
Stil doing DevOps? Platform Engineering is the next big thing
DevOps is Ops, not offending anyone, but this is how it looks in most larger enterprises and corporations. And the more those teams realize it, the more difficult it gets to find new talents on the market. On the other side, Kubernetes is taking over, CI/CD approaches passed script-based automation years ago, and dev teams have to be brought onto the same table of scaling complexity. That is the home of Platform Engineering. It creates a developer-friendly environment with fast feedback cycles, Kubernetes utilization and simplification, and fun security and observability integrations. Here is how this role is doing where it takes the cherries from DevOps on the right and SRE on the left and makes something new from it.
Reflections on a decade of Kubernetes. How it has been and what the future is holding for us
It’s undeniable that Kubernetes changed the Tech industry. It changed the way we build and deploy workloads. True there are still organizations out there doing it the old school way. But almost everyone is looking at containers and Kubernetes as a potential way forward. When Kubernetes was released a decade ago it was built to run APIs and backend. But things took a drastic shift with the emergence of AI, ML, Games, Edge... The community supported by various vendors worked hard on implementing new features to meet the requirements of these new use cases. And as we move forward in this new space of GenAI and with WebAssembly creeping up as a contender to containers. Kubernetes will play a key role in enabling people to build and run apps even faster. In this talk Abdel will reflect on what happened in the Kubernetes and Containers space in the last decade and what the future looks like for the project and the community as whole.
Setup and empower your Linkerd Service Mesh
Linkerd is the cloud-native, easy to install and zero-config service mesh. However, Linkerd offers you more than fast encryption of your network communication. In this workshop we will have a look at the details of setting up Linkerd to getting it ready for serious workload, doing some operational tasks and what else you can do with it (for your developers and others) beside mTLS.
You will need to have access to a Kubernetes cluster with cluster-wide rights.
Past & future of containerization
This talk covers the current perspective of WebAssembly and its drive within the cloud native community, the changes it implies, and the differences not everyone is aware of. I will go through some high-level examples of when WebAssembly (as of now) is very useful and when not. In addition, we will scribble some potential developments and what this means for developers, DevOps and infrastructure engineers.
A short spoiler: You maybe will change your current implementation strategies and most likely discover a scenarios which suits better to your needs.
Is WebAssembly the next gen version of Docker?
The cloud native market is continuously evolving. While it feels like yesterday when the first docker containers were executed and Kubernetes took over the world, the following innovations are right ahead. We constantly take steps towards higher abstraction, away from bare metal, VMs, cloud providers and the next big step is awaiting. WebAssembly enlarges its presence in any corner of the IT, from frontend and web3, down to the cloud native ecosystem. But how exactly can you use it as of today? Will WebAssembly free us from any dependencies? Is it going to replace container runtimes or even Kubernetes? Let's see where we are today and look into the glass ball for tomorrow.
How to grow and handle distributed systems
Gall's law says that all working complex systems evolved from simpler systems that also worked. Containers and, in the following more significant step, Kubernetes, apply this law, growing sometimes complex systems over time. Yet, there are realistic chances of failing this evolution. So in this talk, I will share our lessons learned from many projects with different customers and industries and how we overcome over-engineering and manage technical debts. We will dig down on the natural appearing steps from container to container orchestration, how to take on uncertainties, tell you how you will fail for sure, and give you helpful tools and techniques on your hand to be successful.
Green Cloud Computing - from top to bottom
By leveraging efficient infrastructure management, innovative technologies and platform engineering as centre of excellence we are able to define a strategic approach to minimising the environmental impact of digital systems. Let's explore which practices, such as containerization/Kubernetes, distributed ledger systems (ICP), and cloud computing, can improve resource utilization, reduce energy consumption, and lower overall carbon emissions.
In this talk, I will show you why and how you need to implement sustainable practices from architecture and procurement; How this will become reality in the implementation of the CICD, infrastructure scaleability and the synergy between application and platform; and I will highlight the role of platform engineering and the mindset of platforms as a product in reducing carbon emissions and promoting environmental sustainability.
From IDP to AIDP: Evolving Your Platform for the Machine Learning Age
Internal Developer Platforms are facing a new challenge: supporting teams that need both traditional and AI development capabilities. Based on practical experience building enterprise platforms, this talk explores how to evolve your IDP to support AI workloads without breaking what already works. We'll examine approaches to managing specialized hardware resources, implementing efficient CI/CD for ML models, and creating developer experiences that support both traditional and AI development workflows. You'll learn strategies for implementing GPU sharing, managing model deployments, and creating self-service capabilities that work for all developer personas. The session includes patterns for platform evolution, real examples of AI-ready IDPs, and frameworks for measuring platform effectiveness in the AI era.
Getting started with GenAI on Kubernetes
In this workshop we will build our first internal environment to run, orchestrate and integrate LLMs and required components for RAG and performance improvements.
Layer by layer we will setup LiteLLM, OpenWebUI, and langfuse. As it is not enough to just handle managed LLMS we will then extend the environment mit vLLM and kserve to run our own oss-gpt.
The given platform not only allows you to have fun with LLMs and provide a unified API for your teams to work with LLMs, but we will also show you how you can fulfill compliance and governance requirements with the given platform.
GitOps with Flux and Flagger - managing fast and safe releases
GitOps is a way of managing Kubernetes and application delivery with Git as a single source of truth. It is an operating model providing best practices to unify deployments and support development and operation in a full end to end CICD experience.
We will have a look at how to implement GitOps with Flux and how to set up a self-managing canary deployment with Flagger. This allows you to safely release new versions of your application and increase the traffic depending on the behavior of the application.
Extending the IDP Reference Architecture
The IDP reference architectures are exemplary but missing one part: their inner capabilities. It might be too Kubernetes-opinionated, but the platform is more than dev portals, CICD & infrastructure.
Creating an IDP for AI Engineering
What couldn't be more hyped than AI? But where is such hype, some organizations struggle with the changes in their IT landscape and find new challenges in people, processes and the technology.
Platform Engineering has proven its value in the past years, allowing organizations to scale almost unlimitedly while enabling product development flow.
So, why don't we bring our decades of experience in automation, scaleability and reliability to AI? Well, it is already there. Every tool needed to train, deploy and use AI is cloud native. But it adds up to a completely new complexity on top of existing structures.
That's where the AIDP comes in. Leveraging the known, integrating it with the existing solution, to provide a unified entry point for organizations ramping up their AI Engineering capabilities. Think of it like Backstage, just on steroids, platform and end user-friendly, with a dedication to be the one-stop shop for getting started with LLMs. It's the platform, not the model.
Build your own Internal Developer Platform with CNOE
Using CNOE's all-in-one binary, is transforming how we build internal developer platforms, leveraging Kubernetes' native features directly on our local machines. This talk introduces IDPBuilder, a tool that sets up the CNOE framework in minutes using just Docker. Discover how IDPBuilder simplifies platform development and maintenance while ensuring API compatibility across all environments, from local to production. We'll explore its role in powering automated tests within our CI pipelines, eliminating the delays of cloud setup and the hassle of fixing fragile scripts. With IDPBuilder, you get a comprehensive solution for internal development and Kubernetes capabilities, making it easier than ever to manage your development lifecycle.
Application Delivery to Kubernetes - a 101 to a fast-evolving ecosystem
Kubernetes as a target platform comes with many challenges, not only for administration but also for the software or bundle of services that have to run on it. Projects commonly face questions about how to deploy an application to Kubernetes, should it be done through a CICD pipeline, how to version it, how to test a deployment?
In this talk, Max will highlight approaches for delivering software to Kubernetes (yes, there exists more than Helm & kubectl), give you an introduction to various tools, and some examples of how to start with them. When leaving this talk, you will know all about cloud native application delivery and which tool may best fit your use case.
A guide to AI API Gateways and Semantic Routers
AI Engineering taking over fast the hype around GenAI and the cloud native landscape very fast adapts to this trend.
Through the complexity of providing product ready LLMs, the options for managed services and multiple other providers who participate in this market; the demand and interest for routing request and handle the traffic of AI enhanced solutions has spiked.
Let us see what is out there on solutions, for which use cases are those good and when they might make no sense.
We will compare them side by side to unfold the differences between solutions such like Envoy AI Gateway, LightLLM or vLLM semantic routers, to just name the prominent ones.
With this guide you are equipped to find your right communication handler.
50 Shades of Platforms
While the promises of platform engineering are frequently highlighted, this panel will dive into the messy realities that practitioners face daily—from organizational resistance and integration hurdles to adoption challenges and technical debt.
Our distinguished panel of platform engineering veterans will share candid experiences, failed experiments, hard-won lessons, and practical strategies for navigating the difficult terrain between platform vision and operational reality. Rather than presenting a sanitized success story, this discussion will illuminate the genuine struggles and solutions that define effective platform engineering in today's enterprise landscape.
ContainerDays Conference 2025 Sessionize Event
Cloud Native Summit 2025 Sessionize Event
PlatformCon 2025 Sessionize Event
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 Sessionize Event
CNCF-hosted Co-located Events Europe 2025 Sessionize Event
Civo Navigate Europe 2024 - Berlin, Germany Sessionize Event
KCD Munich 2024 Sessionize Event
PlatformCon 2024 Sessionize Event
Swiss Cloud Native Day 2023 Sessionize Event
PlatformCon 2023 Sessionize Event
DeveloperWeek Europe 2023 Sessionize Event
WeAreDevelopers Live 2022 Sessionize Event
Developer Week '22 Sessionize Event
WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2022 Sessionize Event
DeveloperWeek Europe 2022 Sessionize Event
Developer Week '21 Sessionize Event
ContainerDays 2020 Sessionize Event
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