Make It Work

About Make It Work

We talk about it, then we share our screen and show the practical side of CDNs, homelabs, CI/CD, DevOps & everything in between.

Publisher

Gerhard Lazu

Category

technology · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

29 Feb 2024

Latest episode

29 Jun 2025

Latest episodes

15 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   29 Jun 2025

   Pairing-up on a CDN PURGE with Elixir

   Jerod, a software engineer, demonstrates building a global CDN purge system in Elixir, replacing Fastly with his Pipedream implementation for improved performance and reliability.

2. 

   29 May 2025

   I LOVE TLS

   Host Adam Stacoviak interviews Nabeel Sulieman, a software engineer, about overcoming TLS challenges in building an open-source CDN, revealing clever engineering solutions.

3. 

   29 Apr 2025

   DevOps Sushi

   Mischa van den Burg discusses transitioning from nursing to DevOps, tackling technical challenges, and sharing wisdom on building modern infrastructure, including Kubernetes and GitOps tools in this interview.

4. 

   28 Feb 2025

   Fast Infrastructure

   Hugo Santos, founder & CEO of Namespace Labs, discusses building fast infrastructure and overcoming a major service degradation, offering insights into relentless curiosity and excellence.

5. 

   26 Jan 2025

   Keep Alert Chaos in Check

   Matvey Kukuy and Tal Borenstein, co-founders of Keep, discuss managing overwhelming alert systems and preventing major incidents in this interview.

6. 

   16 Dec 2024

   Let's build a CDN - Part 2

   Host James and guest Matt explore building a CDN, discussing Varnish and strategic reasoning in this interview episode.

7. 

   26 Oct 2024

   Ninjastructure - Move fast & break nothing

   Senior Software Engineer Matias Pan explains Ninjastructure, an Infrastructure as Code approach using Pulumi, discussing procedural versus declarative methods and state management for rapid, safe deployments.

8. 

   28 Sept 2024

   TalosCon 2024

   Vincent Behar and Louis Fradin from Ubisoft discuss building next-gen game servers on Kubernetes, David Flanagan shares his AI stack success and office fire story, and Justin Garrison and Gerhard Lazu explore cloud migration and Talos in this interview episode.

9. 

   12 Aug 2024

   Access your Kubernetes pods anywhere

   Michal Kuratczyk, Staff Software Engineer at RabbitMQ, demonstrates how Tailscale securely accesses Kubernetes pods from anywhere, offering a simple solution for remote workload management.

10. 

    7 Jul 2024

    Modern CI/CD

    Alex Sims interviews Tom Chauveau as they build a modern CI/CD pipeline from scratch using Dagger TypeScript Modules, exploring local execution and caching.

11. 

    27 May 2024

    Let's build a CDN

    This started as a conversation between James A Rosen & Gerhard in August 2023 (https://github.com/thechangelog/changelog.com/discussions/480#discussioncomment-6844844). Several months later, it evolved into a few epic pairing sessions captured in these GitHub threads: thechangelog#480 (reply in thread) (https://github.com/thechangelog/changelog.com/discussions/480#discussioncomment-6889082) thechangelog#486 (https://github.com/thechangelog/changelog.com/issues/486) The last pairing session eventually lead to 🎧 Kaizen! Should we build a CDN? (https://changelog.com/friends/26) This is the follow-up to that. How far did we get in 1 hour? LINKS The 5-hour CDN (https://fly.io/blog/the-5-hour-content-delivery-network/) varnish - Docker Official Image (https://hub.docker.com/_/varnish) Introduction to Varnish (https://varnish-cache.org/intro/index.html#intro) Magento2 Varnish config (https://github.com/magento/magento2/blob/03621bbcd75cbac4ffa8266a51aa2606980f4830/app/code/Magento/PageCache/etc/varnish6.vcl) Magento Internals: Cache Purging and Cache Tags (https://abhishekjakhotiya.medium.com/magento-internals-cache-purging-and-cache-tags-bf7772e60797) Varnish modules (https://varnish-cache.org/vmods/) EPISODE CHAPTERS (00:00) - Intro (02:08) - The 5-hour CDN (03:44) - Varnish container image (05:00) - Varnish container image command (06:31) - Local-friendly Varnish container image (06:44) - Varnish command-line options (08:30) - Varnish parameters (09:45) - Experimenting with Varnish locally (12:36) - Varnish purging (15:22) - Backend fetch failed (16:20) - Varnish debug mode & logs (17:29) - Why can't we query the backend? (21:08) - Why is the backend sick? (22:49) - That's the problem!

12. 

    30 Apr 2024

    KubeCon EU 2024

    For our 4th episode, we have four conversations from KubeCon EU 2024. We talk to Jesse Suen about Argo CD & Kargo, Solomon Hykes shares the next evolution of Dagger, and Justin Cormack dives into Docker & AI. We also catch up with Frederic Branczyk & Thor Hansen on the latest Parca & Polar Signals Cloud updates since our last conversation. Each conversation has a video version too: Jesse Suen: 🎬 GitOps & ClickOps beyond Kubernetes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--fz1Hkftaw) Solomon Hykes: 🎬 Pipelines as Functions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzsH42VO8wA) Justin Cormack: 🎬 Works on my Computer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5NVLujnk_k) Frederic Branczyk & Thor Hansen: 🎬 always BPF (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0wPiBRcgRI) LINKS 1. Jesse Suen - What's New in Kargo v0.5.0 (https://akuity.io/blog/whats-new-kargo-0.5.0/) - 🎬 Navigating Multi-stage Deployment Pipelines via the GitOps Approach (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj9Td-JU3k8) 2. Solomon Hykes - Introducing Dagger Functions (https://dagger.io/blog/introducing-dagger-functions) - A Keynote heard around the world - KubeCon EU 2024 Recap (https://dagger.io/blog/kubecon-eu-2024-recap) - 🎬 Local & open-source AI Developer Meetup (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c4pMnPXjTQ&t=981s) 3. Justin Cormack - AI Trends Report 2024: AI’s Growing Role in Software Development (https://www.docker.com/blog/ai-trends-report-2024/) - Building a Video Analysis and Transcription Chatbot with the GenAI Stack (https://www.docker.com/blog/building-a-video-analysis-and-transcription-chatbot-with-the-genai-stack/) 4. Frederic Branczyk & Thor Hansen - Correlating Tracing with Profiling using eBPF (https://www.polarsignals.com/blog/posts/2024/03/05/correlating-tracing-with-profiling-using-ebpf) LET'S MAKE IT BETTER If you enjoyed this episode, I will appreciate your feedback on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If there is something that would have made it better for you, let me know: makeitwork@gerhard.io (00:00) - Intro (00:39) - Jesse Suen (JS) (00:56) - JS: Hardest ArgoCD question that you got today (01:54) - JS: Rendered YAML branches (04:06) - JS: What is top of your mind? (06:12) - JS: Kargo beyond Kubernetes (08:20) - JS: Trusting Kargo with production (09:49) - JS: GitOps for leadership, UIs for app devs (12:11) - JS: How is this KubeCon different? (12:55) - JS: Anything that you will do different after this KubeCon? (14:58) - Solomon Hykes (SH) (15:10) - SH: What are you most excited about? (16:12) - SH: What is different about functions this time? (16:40) - SH: What makes functions fun for you? (18:01) - SH: Anything significant that happened at this KubeCon? (19:38) - SH: Thoughts on Dagger in production (20:21) - SH: What does Dagger 1.0 mean? (21:28) - SH: Asks for the Dagger Community (23:04) - SH: How do Dagger SDKs work with Modules? (25:02) - SH: Thoughts on the tech industry (27:19) - Justin Cormack (JC) (27:35) - JC: Docker & AI (32:14) - JC: Docker Build Cloud (35:30) - JC: Web Assembly & WASM (39:37) - JC: KubeCon Community (42:01) - Frederic Branczyk (FB) & Thor Hansen (TH) (42:23) - TH: Excited to announce Polar Signals Cloud (42:47) - FB & TH: Most exciting feature since launch (45:24) - FB & TH: How is this KubeCon different? (47:14) - TH & FB: What are you going to do different after this KubeCon? (49:06) - FB & TH: Plans for next KubeCon? (50:24) - FB & TH: Anything apart from AI that is exciting? (51:25) - TH & FB: Any hot takes? (52:12) - Outro

13. 

    29 Feb 2024

    80ms response SLO

    Alex Sims, Solutions Architect & Sr. Software Engineer at James and James Fulfilment, talks about their journey to 80ms response SLO with PHP & React. Alex shares how they optimised API performance, specifically highlighting improvements made by altering interactions with Amazon S3 and Redis. Key points include the transition from synchronous to asynchronous S3 processes, the impact of Amazon's SLO on write speed, and the significant runtime reduction achieved through JIT compilation in PHP 8. We conclude with insights into decision-making in technology architecture, emphasising the balance between choosing cutting-edge technology and the existing skill set of the team. 🎬 View the video part of this episode at 80ms response SLO with PHP & React (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRPR3XFEPSY) 🎁 Access the audio & video as a single conversation at makeitwork.gerhard.io (https://makeitwork.gerhard.io) EPISODE CHAPTERS (00:00) - Introduction (00:50) - 2023: A Year of Productive Chaos at James & James (02:43) - Alex's Journey throughout our Conversations (03:33) - What does James & James do? (04:29) - What does Alex do at James & James? (05:33) - Technical Challenges in 2023 (06:37) - Who is James? (08:21) - Why do you - Alex - do what you do? (10:52) - 2023 Highlights (16:22) - Where does Kubernetes fit? (18:03) - LESSON 1: Be aware of the different EC2 node type behaviour (21:05) - instances.vantage.sh (22:46) - LESSON 2: Understand the time cost of AWS S3 writes (24:19) - LESSON 3: Connecting to Redis is expensive (25:58) - Be careful when mixing persistent connections and transactions in Redis (26:41) - LESSON 4: Always check for SELECT * (28:15) - Lessons recap (29:35) - OODA (30:24) - SCREEN SHARING (31:02) - Wrap-up (35:58) - Planning for the next conversation

14. 

    29 Feb 2024

    Automation Engine

    Today we delve into BuildKit and Dagger, focusing on their significance in the development and deployment of containerized applications, as well as Kubernetes integration. BuildKit's Role: Essential for anyone using Docker Build, facilitating efficient, dependency-aware container builds with advanced caching mechanisms. It's not just for Docker but serves as a versatile execution engine across various projects, including Dagger. Eric's Attraction to BuildKit: The power of BuildKit's DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) execution model and its parallelization and deduplication capabilities drew Eric to maintain and contribute to the project. First BuildKit Project: Eric's initial project, bincastle, aimed to build a development environment from source, highlighting BuildKit's ability to handle complex builds. Introduction of Dagger: Dagger builds on top of BuildKit, enhances automation by allowing developers to use familiar programming languages without being confined to a specific domain-specific language (DSL). It aims to simplify and optimize automation tasks, particularly in CI/CD environments. Dagger's Enhancements over BuildKit: Dagger introduces a language-agnostic layer, making automation more accessible and scalable. It incorporates features like remote caching and a services layer, potentially positioning it as a simpler alternative to Kubernetes for certain use cases. Future Directions: The podcast touches on ongoing developments, such as modules for sharing automation code within Dagger, aiming to foster an ecosystem where developers can easily reuse and contribute to collective automation solutions. The conversation highlights the evolving landscape of development tools, where BuildKit and Dagger play pivotal roles in making containerized development and deployment more efficient and user-friendly. Eric and Gerhard discuss the potential for these tools to simplify and enhance automation, reflecting on past projects and future possibilities. 🎬 View the video part of this episode: Deploying and Experimenting with Dagger 0.9 on Kubernetes 1.28 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sogSICwyg0Y) 🎁 Access the audio & video as a single conversation at makeitwork.gerhard.io (https://makeitwork.gerhard.io/) LINKS sipsma/bincastle (https://github.com/sipsma/bincastle) moby/buildkit (https://github.com/moby/buildkit) dagger/dagger (https://github.com/dagger/dagger) dagger --mod github.com/sipsma/daggerverse/yamlinvaders@8071646e5831d7c93ebcd8cca46444250bf25b8c shell play EPISODE CHAPTERS (00:00) - Intro (01:43) - What attracted you to BuildKit? (03:23) - What was the first project that you used BuildKit for? (06:03) - Four years later, do you still want to see that idea through? (06:44) - What is Dagger? (08:18) - How much does Dagger add on top of BuildKit? (10:42) - How does Gerhard think of Dagger in relation to BuildKit? (12:48) - Dagger Modules - a way to share automation code (14:01) - If someone installs Dagger today, what happens under the hood? (14:47) - Why is the Engine distributed as a container image? (16:02) - If the Dagger Engine was a single binary, how would you run it? (17:05) - Thoughts on BuildKit caching? (18:15) - What about remote caching? (20:53) - Let's run Dagger on K8s on this Latte Panda Sigma (21:43) - SCREEN SHARE (22:06) - As we approach KubeCon, what is on your list? (23:19) - An idea for next time when we get together

15. 

    29 Feb 2024

    How much CPU & Memory?

    This episode looks into the observability tool Parca & Polar Signals Cloud with Frederic Branczyk and Thor Hansen. We discuss experiences and discoveries using Parca for detailed system-wide performance analysis, which transcends programming languages. We highlight a significant discovery related to kube-prometheus and the unnecessary CPU usage caused by Prometheus exporter's attempts to access BTRFS stats, leading to a beneficial configuration change for Kubernetes users globally. We also explore Parca Agent's installation on Kubernetes 1.28 running on Talos 1.5, the process of capturing memory profiles with Parca, and the efficiency of the Parca Agent in terms of memory and CPU usage. We  touch upon the continuous operation of the Parca Agent, the importance of profiling for debugging and optimization, and the potential of profile-guided optimizations in Go 1.22 for enhancing software efficiency. 🎬 Screensharing videos that go with this episode: First impressions: Parca Agent on K8s 1.28 running as Talos 1.5 (https://youtu.be/l8OriAtrni4) See where your Go code allocates memory (https://youtu.be/vGQ0XLVe2eQ) How to debug a memory issue with Parca? (https://youtu.be/41nrXmPj7F8) See which line of your Go code allocates the most memory (https://youtu.be/Dny69FMCykM) 🎁 Access the audio & all videos as a single conversation at makeitwork.gerhard.io (https://makeitwork.gerhard.io) LINKS Go Profile-guided optimization (https://go.dev/doc/pgo) View Profiling Data within Code (https://www.polarsignals.com/blog/posts/2023/08/31/view-profiling-data-within-code) Announcing Continuous Memory Profiling for Rust (https://www.polarsignals.com/blog/posts/2023/12/20/rust-memory-profiling) EPISODE CHAPTERS (00:00) - Intro (02:21) - kube-prometheus discovery & fix (06:29) - Parca Agent on K8s 1.28 running as Talos 1.5 (06:49) - How to capture memory profiles with Parca? (08:42) - pprof.me (10:42) - Data retention in Parca (11:42) - A real-world memory issue debugging example (16:05) - How much memory is Parca Server expected to use? (17:39) - How much memory is the Parca Agent expected to use? (19:42) - What about Parca Agent CPU usage? (21:57) - Is Parca Agent meant to run continously? (23:03) - Other Parca stories worth sharing (25:19) - What are the things that you are looking forward to in 2024? (27:23) - Golang Profile Guided Optimisations with Parca (30:22) - Frederic's surprise screen share (34:02) - Wrap-up

Who has been a guest on Make It Work

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Nabeel Sulieman
• Mischa van den Burg
• Hugo Santos
• Matt
• Matias Pan

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

121,169

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 52 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

60

Social presence

0

YouTube

82

Engagement

27

Contact Make It Work

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.