// Platform Engineering

Introduces GitHub push rulesets, a governance feature that restricts what can be pushed to a repository based on the attributes of changed files—including path, extension, and size. The video demonstrates protecting sensitive files such as GitHub Actions workflow files, configuring bypass rules for designated roles, viewing blocked-push and bypass insights, and explains that push rules are enforced across the entire fork network of a repository.

Introduces enterprise repository policies in GitHub, a governance feature that lets administrators restrict repository operations—including visibility changes, creations, deletions, transfers, and naming—across all organizations in an enterprise account. The video also demonstrates repository properties defined at the enterprise level, giving organization admins consistent, inherited property values and requiring them at repository creation time to enforce compliance from day one.

The gap between raw Kubernetes and a developer-friendly platform is where the most interesting tooling is being built today. GitOps gives teams a declarative, version-controlled way to manage their clusters — but the YAML expertise and infrastructure knowledge required can be a steep barrier for developers. In this episode, Chris is joined by Laszlo Folgas, founder of Gimlet.io, to explore ClickOps over GitOps: a UI-driven deployment approach where developers click their way to production while the platform silently generates GitOps manifests and commits them to a Git repository. They cover Flux CD, how Gimlet's opinionated platform works end-to-end, and why developer experience has become the defining battleground in the cloud-native ecosystem.

Software architecture is not just the domain of dedicated architects — the tools, practices, and communication patterns it relies on apply to every engineer on every team. In this episode, Chris is joined by John Kilminster, a software architect and Azure MVP, who walks through the essential toolbox he has built up over years in the role. Covering C4 diagrams, Architecture Decision Records, Tech Radars, Docs as Code, and Spotify's Backstage developer portal, this episode delivers practical guidance for any team looking to improve how they document, communicate, and align on technical decisions.

A decade after Patrick Debois coined "DevOps," the landscape looks radically different. In this episode, Daniela Fontani — CTO at Central Consulting and long-time open source contributor — breaks down the most important DevOps trends reshaping the industry today: DevSecOps, GitOps, NoOps, automation-first pipelines, and the growing role of platform engineering. Plus, the honest truth about which buzzwords actually matter and which you can safely ignore.

Chris Reddington is joined by Thomas Thornton — DevOps specialist at Kainos — for a practical deep dive into real-world DevOps. They cover CI/CD pipeline design, Git branching strategies (including trunk-based development), pull request workflows, Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, Kubernetes, and GitOps. Thomas draws on experience managing 83 Azure subscriptions and 120+ GitOps-driven applications in production.

Ever thought about what it takes to host a multiplayer game in the cloud? In the second episode of Cloud Gaming Notes, Chris and Lee Williams go hands-on with Halo 5 Guardians to explore the engineering behind matchmaking services. They cover the Actor model and Azure Service Fabric, skill-based matchmaking algorithms, the critical role of latency in competitive gaming, and how live ops and DevOps principles keep a game-as-a-service continuously updated without downtime. Real-world cloud architecture through the lens of AAA gaming.

What exactly is an Azure Landing Zone, and why does every cloud architect keep talking about it? In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by Karim Fahmy — an Azure Solutions Architect with over 12 years of IT experience — to demystify Azure Landing Zones and their place within the Cloud Adoption Framework. Learn how landing zones provide the structured foundation covering networking topology, identity, governance, subscriptions, and security that your workloads need to succeed in the cloud. The episode also covers Azure Blueprints, Terraform automation, and real-world strategies for incrementally building and evolving your cloud foundation over time.