Beyond the Cloud: Observability & Self-Hosted Kubernetes Strategies

Join us for an exciting evening at Cloud Native Copenhagen!

Cloud native technologies are evolving rapidly, and staying ahead means embracing both better observability and more flexible infrastructure strategies. In this meetup, we bring you two insightful talks covering:

🔍 Smarter Observability with Open Standards – Learn how to cut through the noise and extract real value from your telemetry data.

🏦 Breaking Free from Cloud Lock-In – Discover how Saxo Bank built a self-hosted Kubernetes platform, cutting costs while enhancing security and performance.

Agenda

16:30 Door open, finding seat, enjoying snacks and networking
17:00 Welcome by the Cloud Native Copenhagen
17: 05 Welcome by our host Novo Nordisk
17:15 Talk 1 - Introducing SIFT: The Next Dimension of Observability with Open Standards
18:00 Break with food and drinks
18:45 Talk 2: Breaking Free From the Cloud: Banking on Self-Hosted Kubernetes
19:30 Break with snacks, networking
20:00 Thank you for today

Talk Detail

Introducing SIFT: The Next Dimension of Observability with Open Standards

Speaker: Mirko Novakovic, CEO @ Dash0

Observability has evolved rapidly, but the core challenge remains the same—how do we extract meaningful insights from an overwhelming amount of telemetry data? Simply collecting more logs, traces, and metrics isn’t enough. Engineers need better ways to understand their systems, not just more data to sift through. This talk introduces SIFT (Spam removal, Improve telemetry, Filtering and grouping, Triage), a framework designed to help engineers take control of their observability pipeline.
By eliminating noisy data, enriching telemetry for better context, enabling intuitive filtering and grouping, and accelerating root cause analysis, SIFT provides a more practical and scalable approach to working with OpenTelemetry data.
We’ll explore real-world challenges in observability, discuss the trade-offs of different strategies, and share concrete techniques for improving signal quality without increasing complexity. Whether you’re building with OpenTelemetry or looking for ways to refine your observability practices, this session will provide insights and approaches you can apply directly in your own environment.

Breaking Free From the Cloud: Banking on Self-Hosted Kubernetes

Speakers:
Per Hedegaard Christiansen, Head of Container Platform
Engineering @ Saxo Bank
Kārlis Akots Gribulis, Senior Container Platform Engineer @ Saxo Bank

What drives a global investment bank to transition from managed cloud Kubernetes service to self-hosted on-premises solution? While managed Kubernetes in the cloud can simplify deployments they do often come with significant trade-offs. At Saxo Bank, we made the decision to regain control by shifting to a self-hosted, on-premises Kubernetes platform. This session will unpack our motivations, such as decreasing costs by 80%, reducing cluster creation time fifteenfold, and improving our CIS benchmark standing by 30%. We’ll dive into the architecture we adopted, the lessons learned from overcoming performance and resilience challenges, and how this change has impacted our infrastructure into positioning Kubernetes as Saxo Bank’s cornerstone for the future.