Principal Architect
CurrentI lead a small team of software engineers that develop next generation solutions with the goal of applying implementation and best practices from this work to advance Ciena's products such that we can better serve our customers' needs.This work changes over time, but for the past few years it has centered on new and innovative ways to apply the tools, technology, and best practices that have evolved as part of the cloud native initiatives to the networking domain.My daily work is a mixture of team leadership, future planning, software architecture / design, and implementation. The primary technologies I currently leverage include:Kubernetes - the deployment and management of multiple clusters, the deployment of cross cluster applications, as well as the development and extension of Kubernetes via custom resource definitions and custom controllers / operators. The deployment of distributed workloads via containerized network functions (CNFs) and virtualized network functions (VNFs), as well as chaining of these workloads both inter- and intra- cluster/node. This work utilizes several key cloud native technologies such as KubeVirt, Multus, and custom networking implementations and automations.Git/Dev/Ops - leveraging the tools and practices around automated, controlled deployment and operations for network centered capabilities.I have led this team to develop innovations on top of Kubernetes including the ability to perform day 2 configuration and reconciliation of a desired state configuration via cloud native intent documents or manifests. This work is leading to innovations in the area of intent based networking, where the network configuration is specified as a set of intents. The intents are realized in the network, influenced by operational topology / telemetry and operator specified policy.