Building Infrastructure with Python Based Tools

This month, we'll have a lightning talk from Jai Purandare about Django Rest Framework and a full talk from Glen Jarvis about Infrastructure as Code. Come join us!

Lightning Talk: Django Rest Framework for Beginners by Jai Purandare

DRF is library on top of Django. Basic components of DRF. Build a simple REST API with DRF. https://www.django-rest-framework.org/

Bio
I am Application Developer with 6 years experience. Currently, I am volunteering for WomenWhoCode-SV to build web-app for the chapter. We are using Python + Django + DRF + Postgresql to build APIs.

Main Talk: Building Infrastructure with Python Based Tools

The Infrastructure as Code (IaC) landscape changes regularly (As does Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), etc.). With such a rapidly changing landscape, where do we focus our time to be effective without always chasing the "shiny"?

It's easy go glom onto a new tool and think it is the "silver bullet" that will solve all of our problems with building infrastructure from scratch. But, like many difficult problems we need to go deeper to understand the best tools for the situation.

Glen will start with a customer problem that he encountered; show how the "Silver Bullet" (this time Pulumi) didn't work and why. And, then, we will look at how to best solve Infrastructure As Code (IaC) with Python code bases. We will need to dig into problems such as: Should IaC be Declarative or Imperative, and Why? Should we avoid Vendor Lock-in? etc.

As we follow this journey, we will discuss:
* What is programmable infrastructure (e.g., Amazon Web Service EC2)
* What infrastructure choices are there (e.g., Containers vs VMs)
* What are the different ways to represent this as Code (e.g., boto Library)
* Are there declarative ways to specify infrastructure (e.g., YAML)
* Should the entire model be turned on its ear (e.g., Containers and pip tools)

The goal is to arrive at a re-usable pattern that can be used in many situations and projects.

Bio
Glen Jarvis has been a DevOps / SRE / Infrastructure engineer for over 8 years and held titles such as DevOps Manager.

He has worked in companies such as IBM, Pandora and SiriusXM as well as helping to build several startups in the Bay Area that are still running today.