Cloud Infrastructure

Hi folks! Welcome to our April Cloud Native London meetup! Join us to hear from our three great speakers and network with your fellow techies over pizza and drinks, or alternatively chat and following along on Youtube or LinkedIn! 6:00 Pizza and drinks 6:30 Welcome 6:45 From "Trust Then Verify" to "Verify Then Trust": Securing the AI-Accelerated Software Supply Chain (Meghan McGowan, Cloudsmith) 7:15 Keeping Up: Testing in the Age of AI and Cloud-Native (Ole Lensmar, Testkube) 7:45 Wrap up See you there! Cheryl (@oicheryl) **From "Trust Then Verify" to "Verify Then Trust": Securing the AI-Accelerated Software Supply Chain (Meghan McGowan, Cloudsmith)** With AI accelerating code generation and GitOps driving continuous deployments, testing is under more pressure than ever to keep up. Ole will take a step back to see what’s driving the evolution of testing as adoption of Cloud Native technologies and AI for code generation attempts to drive velocity through the roof. How can engineering and platform teams deliver on the need for continuous testing as a scalable approach to quality assurance across the enterprise? And how can DevOps teams leverage AI in testing pipelines for root-cause analysis, automated remediation and intelligent test scheduling - to help push the AI-infused velocity of their dev teams all the way into production? *Ole started building with XML APIs in the late 90:ies and has since then worked with multiple technologies and startups, most notably as creator of SoapUI in 2004 and Chairman of the Swagger / OpenAPI Initiative in 2015. He joined Testkube at its inception in 2021 and is now entirely focused on ensuring its success at bringing continuous testing to the cloud-native space. When not at his laptop he can be found playing a guitar or riding a bike, but rarely both at the same time.* **Keeping Up: Testing in the Age of AI and Cloud-Native (Ole Lensmar, Testkube)** AI has made software teams faster than ever, but it's also quietly outpacing the security and infrastructure built to support them. Drawing on findings from Cloudsmith's 2026 Artifact Management Report, a survey of 505 engineering practitioners across technology, finance, healthcare, and retail, this session examines the compounding challenges that come with near-universal AI code adoption: expanded attack surfaces, hallucinated dependencies, fragmented AI model governance, and the growing operational tax of manual security remediation on top of aging infrastructure. The session moves from data to diagnosis to direction, challenging teams to rethink a foundational assumption — that you can trust code first and verify it later. At AI scale, that posture is no longer safe. Attendees will leave with a clear picture of where the industry's most critical gaps are, how their peers are investing in 2026, and three concrete questions they can bring back to their own teams to identify where to act first. *Meghan McGowan is Principal Product Marketing Manager at Cloudsmith. Before joining Cloudsmith, Meghan spent nearly a decade in the cybersecurity industry focused on security integrations and automation, helping teams operationalize tooling that actually fits their workflows.* *Based in London, she also worked closely on how threat intelligence can be applied to meet specific regulatory requirements, particularly NIS2 and DORA, giving her a grounded understanding of both the technical and compliance dimensions of modern software security.*
 *About Cloudsmith: Cloudsmith is a fully managed, cloud-native artifact management platform that gives engineering teams a single, secure source of truth for all their software artifacts: packages, containers, binaries, and AI/ML models. Built for the scale and speed of modern software delivery, Cloudsmith provides universal repository support, automated security scanning, and policy enforcement at ingestion needed to meet today's compliance requirements.* *[https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghan-mcgowan-4b6bb81b/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghan-mcgowan-4b6bb81b/)* ***Check out [https://www.oicheryl.com/cloudnativelondon](https://www.oicheryl.com/cloudnativelondon) if you're interested in speaking or sponsoring.***

Thank you to everyone who has joined the Agentic community so far and thank you to those who attended the launch event in January! Its exciting times as we now gear up for the 2nd meet up of the year once again hosted by the wonderful team over at Vorboss LTD! We have a stellar line up for you again so please RSVP and join us on 1st April! **Odhran O'Donoghue \| Co\-Founder & CTO @ Magentic** **Making AI with Enterprise-level Reliability** Making AI work in critical business use cases requires superhuman-level reliability. Achieving this with AI is non-trivial, and even advanced developers can find themselves chasing the wrong paths to success. This talk covers how to build genuinely reliable generative AI to meet the needs of the world's largest customers, drawing from learnings on real-world deployments covering billions of dollars in spend. Odhran O'Donoghue is CTO of Magentic, the AI agent platform for the world’s supply chains. The company is backed by Sequoia Capital, used across a range of Fortune 500 manufacturers. Odhran has previously worked with OpenAI and NASA, and led research at the Francis Crick Institute - Europe’s largest scientific centre. **Anastasia Kundush \| Head of Product @ Alpic** **Beyond the Chatbot: rethinking user flows in the agentic era.** Imagine apps that live directly inside ChatGPT or Claude. Instead of clicking buttons, you interact with agentic interfaces. We'll examine novel use cases where models seamlessly adopt complex roles and merge interactive visualizations with conversational insights. You'll learn how to design for this new paradigm and what doesn't work. Alpic provides the infrastructure and tools to turn your product into an AI-native experience. Our all-in-one MCP hosting platform offers easy one-click deployment, as well as MCP-specific evaluation, analytics, authentication, transport and security. A huge thank you to Odhran and the team at Magentic for sponsoring pizzas and also a big thank you once again to Vorboss for hosting and supplying drinks for all attendees on the night :)

Join OverBoard to play the brilliant social deduction game Blood on the Clocktower in person at the brand new board game cafe Otter Chaos in Brixton. If you haven’t heard of Blood on the Clocktower before it is an evolution of classic party games like Mafia/Werewolf where a hidden evil team takes on the good team by lying and killing. The good team has a few tricks up their sleeve but will have to work together to deduce who the evil doers are in their midst. **This is a beginner friendly event so no experience with the game is necessary.** Please note that a gaming cover charge of \~£5 will be payable by each attendee to the venue so that we can make use of the space. We also encourage you to buy food and drink from the bar so we are supporting the business (I can highly recommend their pizzas!) If you want to know more about the rules of the game check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-aZP47Nm9g

Its Springtime, and the gardens and landscape are bursting into life! To celebrate this in our digital world, 3D London has partnered with ITOOSOFT, the makers of ForestPack, to bring you an evening of 3D horticultural inspiration. **Headline Presentations** * **Paul Roberts**, Training and Content Manager - ITOOSOFT "The Craft of Parametric Thinking" https://www.itoosoft.com/ * **Karen Gazzard**, The Ruby Cube. "How I have taken the skills learnt in arch-vis and applied them to a different industry - visualisation for ecology." https://therubycube.com/ **First-time Presentation** **Alesandros Vounatsos** \- Alvo Headquarters Production Company "Presenting his short film, produced in Blender". https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandros-vounatsos-aa3b3175/ The ITOO team kindly sponsored April's meetup. Thank you! Thanks to our sponsors for supporting our monthly meetups. **[SiNi Software](https://www.sinisoftware.com/)** , **[Chaos](https://www.chaos.com/) , [ITOOSOFT](https://www.itoosoft.com/) , [NTI](https://www.nti-group.com/uk/) , [Heata](https://www.heata.co/)** #3dlondon #monthlymeetup

**FREE TO MEMBERS, BECAME A MEMBER WHEN YOU ARRIVE** Sometimes the best therapy is simply slowing down, using your hands, and sharing a moment with kind people. 💛 If life has been a little busy or stressful, why not take a small break in the middle of the week? Join us for our **free ceramic classes** — a relaxed and friendly space where we make simple clay pieces, chat, laugh, and meet new friends. You don’t need any experience. Just come as you are and enjoy the moment. 🎨 Playing with clay 💬 Friendly conversations 🌿 A little pause from everyday life 📅 Every Wednesday ⏰ 7–9 pm Everyone is welcome. It would be lovely to see you there. 😊 Any questions, call/text Rodrigo +44 7535 272361 or Rita +44 7454 044190

This is a smallish-group, quiet-ish meetup for ADHD brains who want to connect with their tribe without their nervous system going, 'Aiiight, I'm outta here!' Everyone welcome. You don't need a diagnosis, you don't even need ADHD. We’re meeting at **Picturehouse Central - upstairs cafe** (Piccadilly) because it’s one of those places where you can actually hear yourself think. Mostly. This is more of a tea/coffee and cake kinda venue. Sorry, booze hounds! **The environment is**: relaxed, validating, welcoming It won't be like whispering to each other at the back of the class, more less sensory Armageddon. **What to expect** A small group (human-scale, not “who are all these people” scale). A quiet-ish venue where you don’t have to shout your personality into existence. Conversation that can be normal (well, probably far from normal 😅. There is no need to worry about trying to fit in, no need to mask. A soft landing. Come late, ease in, do a gentle hello, no one’s timing you. Low-pressure hanging out. If you want to chat, great. If you want to sit and decompress near other people, also great. **The unofficial theme** How to be social without being assaulted by: fluorescent lighting overlapping conversations surprise music that one table doing a full volume podcast recording next to you. **Important Note:** If you cannot make it, please put 'Can't go'. This ensures there's space for others who want to attend 🙂 ‐------------------------------------------------------ Boundaries (quick, clear, important) Yay!-DHD is a consent-led space. Some people are chatty, some are quiet, some are pacing themselves. Please don’t push for personal details, contact info, or continued connection if someone isn’t offering it. This isn’t a dating event. ‐------------------------------------------------------- For you robots out there: ADHD | Low sensory meetup | Inclusive | AUDHD |

Welcome to our second London meetup of 2026, where we discuss Gen AI and Kubernetes! Details below: **Location:** Civo Tech Junction, First Floor, 32-37 Cowper St, London EC2A 4AW **Time:** Doors open at 6PM **Drinks, snacks, talks, and networking.** We’re excited to invite you to our second in-person **DevOps Society Meetup** of 2026, proudly **sponsored by Cast AI**. This event is focussed around Gen AI and Kubernetes, with two really exciting speakers lined up for this one in Carly and Kunal. Format of the Meetup: 6:00pm – 6:30pm — Networking on arrival, with food and drinks provided by CastAI 6:30pm – 7:10pm — First speaker + Q&A 7:10pm – 7:20pm — Break for refreshments and networking 7:20pm – 8:00pm — Second speaker + Q&A 8:00pm onwards — More networking at the venue, then at a nearby pub. *Timings can vary slightly depending on Q&A.* We’re excited to welcome everyone to our next DevOps Society London meetup, where we’ll be diving into two incredibly relevant topics in modern infrastructure: observing GenAI applications in production and optimising Kubernetes clusters. We’ll be joined by two brilliant speakers from the ecosystem who are working at the forefront of developer tooling and cloud infrastructure. As always, expect a relaxed evening of technical learning, discussion, and networking with fellow engineers from across the London tech community. *** ## 🎤 Speaker 1 - Carly Richmond **Developer Advocate Lead @ Elastic** ### Observing AI Applications with OpenLit and OpenTelemetry Observability is the ability to measure the current state of a system. With the rapid emergence of LLMs and GenAI applications moving into production, teams now need deeper insight into how these systems behave in real-world environments. In this talk, Carly will explore best practices for observing production AI applications, covering how engineers can capture logs, traces, and metrics to better understand how LLMs interact within their application ecosystem. She’ll walk through a real example of instrumenting an AI agent application written in TypeScript, using OpenLit to generate OpenTelemetry signals. The session will show the types of telemetry data teams can capture to identify usage patterns, detect errors, and troubleshoot issues commonly seen in production GenAI applications. ### About Carly Carly Richmond is Developer Advocate Lead at Elastic, based in London. She’s a UI developer who also writes backend services, a keynote speaker, and a tech writer who is passionate about helping developers build better systems. Outside of tech, Carly enjoys cooking, photography, drinking tea, and chasing after her young son. *** ## 🎤 Speaker 2 - Kunal Kushwaha **Senior Developer Advocate @ CAST AI** ### Optimizing Kubernetes and Unlocking Blockers with Container Live Migration Kubernetes promises automation, yet most clusters run at around **10% CPU utilisation**, leaving large amounts of infrastructure sitting idle. With endless instance types, constantly shifting prices, and the complexity of modern workloads, maintaining efficient clusters can quickly become a full-time job. In this talk, Kunal explores the real-world challenges teams face when running Kubernetes in production. He’ll cover where Kubernetes automation works well, where it falls short, and why optimisation remains difficult for many teams. Topics include: * Why most Kubernetes clusters are underutilised * The realities of autoscaling in production environments * Challenges around instance types and Spot capacity * Common mistakes teams make with HPA and VPA Once these challenges are laid out, Kunal introduces Container Live Migration as a way to overcome some of these long-standing blockers. To bring the concept to life, he’ll run a live technical demo where Pods running a small video game are migrated across nodes in real time, while the audience participates. The game continues running without downtime, demonstrating how live migration can improve cluster efficiency without disrupting workloads. Please register below to secure your spot. Spaces are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. We’re really looking forward to getting the community back together again for our first event of 2026. [Our slack community](https://join.slack.com/t/devopssociety/shared_invite/zt-3mswuylw7-MhJg1IZ70rX_GpJTluG2Cw) \- join in and introduce yourself\! [Our Youtube Channel ](https://www.youtube.com/@DevOpsSociety)for regular podcasts with DevOps professionals + more DevOps content. [Website](https://thedevopsociety.com/) [To partner with us](https://thedevopsociety.com/partnerships) CAST AI website - https://cast.ai/ Thanks! From the DevOps Society team [Ben](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwhitmarsh/) and [Vytas](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vytasdevops/)

Happy Easter, enjoy some egg-rolling. Returns as normal next week.

**PLEASE NOTE:** The location is: **The People's Letters Bookshop** Address: **395 Cambridge Heath Rd, Cambridge Heath, London E2 9RA** ✨Hi all, Let's Get Crafty is back! ✨ Join us for an afternoon of arts and craft at The People's Letters Bookshop. We will provide yarn, needles, hooks, clay, colouring pencils and books, origami paper, etc, or you can buy a colouring book from the store. You're also welcome to bring your own projects along. The bookstore provides a separate and private space for us which is perfect for us auties and ND folk. The store also provides free hot drinks. Accessibility: the store has an accessible entrance and toilet. The People's Letters is a worker-led, cooperatively run bookstore and community event space in East London. Help support what they do: https://peoplesletters.org/support https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/VyYX6pPn Support us: Please support us on Kofi so we can keep providing more free events in the future! https://ko-fi.com/neurodissidentcafe *Please only RSVP if you can make it.* If you cannot make it anymore, please be sure to update your RVSP so we can adapt accordingly. Please do not come if you have not RSVPed.

We are excited to announce our upcoming Spring Community Showcase. This event is an opportunity for individuals at all skill levels to come together and share their experiences with Rust. Whether you’re working on a personal project, contributing to an open-source initiative, or teaching a concept related to Rust, we invite you to present your work and insights. Take this opportunity to build your confidence and share what you are doing. Speakers === If you would like to give a presentation, please send Ernest a direct message with your talk title and a brief abstract of approximately 60 words. Each presentation will last about 25 minutes, followed by 5 minutes for questions and answers, for a total of 30 minutes. We have four slots available this month. **Dan Groshev** Okmain Library: You have an image, but you want a colour How do you pick a colour that represents an image but also looks good? Dan will talk about his Okmain library, colour science, auto-vectorisation, SIMD, and his experience building it in Rust and PyO3. **Jérôme Étévé** Mockapot: A percolator library in Rust Jérôme is the author of the Mokcaccino library, which started as a way to marry my interests for Rust and for search technology. He will discuss the design, the tricky aspects of Rust he learned along the way, and how Rust and Python complement each other. **Evadne Wu** JavaScript Sandboxing using Deno on top of Elixir & Erlang/OTP. Intelligent AI agents can write code that calls existing APIs in secure sandboxes, allowing higher token efficiency, better performance, and lower per-turn latency. Deno’s primitives in Rust can be integrated into such an agent harness, utilising the Elixir programming language and the Erlang/OTP runtime, which allows you to construct agentic systems that are massively concurrent and fault-tolerant.

There will be some very interesting characters dressed in period clothing strolling the streets of London. Some may have handlebar moustaches as well! Join us and build your portfolio with colourful portraits at this walk inspired by the NYC Easter Parade. The walk will be a mix of historic London locations and hopefully introducing you to some hidden gems that are off the beaten track. EXPERIENCE Complete beginners or those who would like a refresher. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: * Shooting people * Candid or posed and how to approach people * Camera settings EQUIPMENT: * Any camera * A standard 18-55, 24-70 etc * A 70-200 for candid shots or close ups OTHER ESSENTIALS * A fun and experimental attitude! PAYMENT OPTIONS * PayPal via RSVP - Meetup transaction fee will be added. and you'll automatically be added to attend * Send £25 via PayPal to \*\*[creativebeansproductions@gmail.com**](http://creativebeansproductions@gmail.com%2A%2A/) with no extra fee. * Text Alex on 07956264049 and we will add you to the event attendee list. TRAVEL * As usual check TFL website for any issues that may delay your journey. CONTACT Alex 07956 264049 VENICE PHOTOGRAPHY WEEKEND - Oct 2026 [https://www.meetup.com/londonphotographicopa/events/313109095](https://www.meetup.com/londonphotographicopa/events/313109095) UPCOMING EVENTS [www.meetup.com/londonphotographicopa/events](http://www.meetup.com/londonphotographicopa/events)

Weekly cycling club open to members of that club only. Membership enquiries to creativewellnesswon@outlook.com

The global Azure community is coming together again, and Columbus is officially on the map. View the session lineup and speakers at [Global Azure Columbus 2026](https://coazure.github.io/cbus-global-azure-2026/) On **Saturday, April 18, 2026**, the Azure Columbus Meetup, DevOps Meetup, and Code and Coffee Meetup are hosting our local edition of Global Azure 2026. This is a free, community-driven event packed with learning, networking, and all things Microsoft Azure. Whether you’re building modern cloud-native apps, experimenting with AI agents, deploying containers, automating infrastructure, or just beginning your Azure journey, this event is for you! **What to Expect** * Engaging technical sessions * Real-world Azure architecture & cloud-native patterns * AI, agents, automation, and modern DevOps * Food and drinks (because learning burns calories) * Time to connect with fellow engineers, architects, and cloud enthusiasts **Who Should Attend?** * Software engineers (any language, any stack) * Cloud architects * DevOps engineers * Data professionals * AI explorers * Platform builders * Anyone who loves solving hard problems with great tools If you build, deploy, automate, scale, monitor, or optimize in Azure, you’ll feel right at home. **Why Global Azure?** Global Azure is a worldwide community event where Azure user groups host learning sessions on the same day across the globe. It’s grassroots. It’s technical. It’s practical. And it’s powered by people who genuinely love sharing what they’ve learned. And yes, it’s free to attend!

Topic to be announced. **CALL FOR SPEAKERS** Learn more: https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/ **THANK YOU** *VEEAM* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Veeam*, please visit their website: https://www.veeam.com/ **DIRECTIONS** 8800 Lyra Dr #450 · Columbus, OH go to 4th floor. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Topic to be announced! **CALL FOR SPEAKERS** Learn more: https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/ **THANK YOU** *Leading EDJE* for hosting our meetup! Leading EDJE specializes in helping organizations innovate and solve complex problems. EDJE does this with their "A" player team of professionals using agile methodologies and SCRUM management techniques to give organizations a competitive advantage that sets them apart. Learn more at https://www.leadingedje.com/ **THANK YOU** *Amazon Web Services* for sponsoring pizza! Learn more at https://aws.amazon.com/. **DIRECTIONS** 6515 Longshore Loop, Suite 300 Dublin, OH 43017 (3rd floor) **FREE PARKING** at the Endres Garage across the street, 6540 Riverside Dr, Dublin, OH **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab for a future meetup?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

The global Azure community is coming together again, and Columbus is officially on the map. View the session lineup and speakers at [Global Azure Columbus 2026](https://coazure.github.io/cbus-global-azure-2026/) On **Saturday, April 18, 2026**, the Azure Columbus Meetup, DevOps Meetup, and Code and Coffee Meetup are hosting our local edition of Global Azure 2026. This is a free, community-driven event packed with learning, networking, and all things Microsoft Azure. Whether you’re building modern cloud-native apps, experimenting with AI agents, deploying containers, automating infrastructure, or just beginning your Azure journey, this event is for you! **What to Expect** * Engaging technical sessions * Real-world Azure architecture & cloud-native patterns * AI, agents, automation, and modern DevOps * Food and drinks (because learning burns calories) * Time to connect with fellow engineers, architects, and cloud enthusiasts **Who Should Attend?** * Software engineers (any language, any stack) * Cloud architects * DevOps engineers * Data professionals * AI explorers * Platform builders * Anyone who loves solving hard problems with great tools If you build, deploy, automate, scale, monitor, or optimize in Azure, you’ll feel right at home. **Why Global Azure?** Global Azure is a worldwide community event where Azure user groups host learning sessions on the same day across the globe. It’s grassroots. It’s technical. It’s practical. And it’s powered by people who genuinely love sharing what they’ve learned. And yes, it’s free to attend!

Colombus Code & Coffee is thrilled to partner with Central Ohio Azure to put on the global Azure community day! RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/central-ohio-azure/events/313484939/ View the session lineup and speakers at [Global Azure Columbus 2026](https://coazure.github.io/cbus-global-azure-2026/) On **Saturday, April 18, 2026**, the Azure Columbus Meetup, DevOps Meetup, and Code and Coffee Meetup are hosting our local edition of Global Azure 2026. This is a free, community-driven event packed with learning, networking, and all things Microsoft Azure. Whether you’re building modern cloud-native apps, experimenting with AI agents, deploying containers, automating infrastructure, or just beginning your Azure journey, this event is for you! **What to Expect** * Engaging technical sessions * Real-world Azure architecture & cloud-native patterns * AI, agents, automation, and modern DevOps * Food and drinks (because learning burns calories) * Time to connect with fellow engineers, architects, and cloud enthusiasts **Who Should Attend?** * Software engineers (any language, any stack) * Cloud architects * DevOps engineers * Data professionals * AI explorers * Platform builders * Anyone who loves solving hard problems with great tools If you build, deploy, automate, scale, monitor, or optimize in Azure, you’ll feel right at home. **Why Global Azure?** Global Azure is a worldwide community event where Azure user groups host learning sessions on the same day across the globe. It’s grassroots. It’s technical. It’s practical. And it’s powered by people who genuinely love sharing what they’ve learned. And yes, it’s free to attend!

Pay attention! We’re delaying a week for those of you who may be on Spring break and/or celebrating the holiday. Ok, no pancakes, but waffles-a-plenty. Join the local UX and Digital Design community for a casual monthly breakfast. Look for us upstairs!

The Fellowship of the Star Schema: Transforming OLTP Data for Power BI One does not simply build reports on OLTP data. Join us on an epic journey from the depths of raw, normalized tables to the shining halls of a well-modeled star schema fit for Power BI greatness. We will demystify the differences between OLTP and OLAP, walk through star schema vs snowflake (and why Power BI has a clear favorite), and show you the compression differences between normalized and columnar storage that will make you never look at an OLTP model the same way again. We will cover the different types of dimensions, when to use them, and how to handle Slowly Changing Dimensions without losing your mind. You will leave knowing exactly how to identify a bad model, how to convert OLTP data into a clean star schema, and how to forge relationships that rule them all. Whether you are a data wizard, a curious hobbit, or somewhere in between, your models will never be the same.