DevOps Special: Banks, Brains, and Factories: Thinking in Promises for a Future World

Mark Burgess is a theoretician and practitioner in the area of information systems, whose work has focused largely on distributed information infrastructure. He is known particularly for his work on Configuration Management and Promise Theory. Mark Burgess was CTO, Founder and original author of CFEngine. He was senior lecturer and then professor of Network and System Administration at Oslo University College from 1994-2011. He was the first professor with this title.

Mark obtained a PhD in Theoretical Physics in Newcastle, for which he received the Runcorn Prize. His current research interests include the behaviour of computers as dynamic systems and applying ideas from physics to describe computer behaviour. Mark was the principal author of the popular configuration management software package CFEngine for 20 years, and was the founder, chairman and CTO of the Cfengine company. He has led theoretical and practical contributions to the theory of automation and policy based management, including the idea of Operator Convergence and Promise Theory. He is the author of numerous books and papers on Network and System Administration and has won several prizes for his work.

Chander Dhall, CEO of Cazton, is a 11 time awarded Microsoft MVP, Google Developer Expert, Microsoft Regional Director and world-renowned technology leader in architecting and implementing solutions. He's not only rescued software development teams, but also implemented successful projects under tight deadlines and difficult business constraints. His company has a proven track record of not just saving the client millions of dollars, but also providing an expedited delivery time. His clients include Thomson Reuters, AT&T, Dell, Bank of America, Thomson Reuters, NBC Universal, American Express, Fandango, LinkedIn, VMware and many other Fortune 500, mid-size and startup companies.

As an Azure Advisor, ASP.NET Insider, Web API Advisor, Cosmos DB Advisor, and an MVP for Visual Studio and Development Technologies, Chander has insight into new releases on technologies used by millions of developers. His critical advice, impeccable vision, futuristic strategy backed with creating and establishing best practices in the industry are some of the reasons for his unparalleled success. He has a breadth of experience in multiple different technologies: Cloud (Azure, AWS and GCP), Full-Stack Web Development (.NET Core, Java, Angular, Blazor, React and Node.js) and Big Data and AI (TensorFlow, Spark, Hadoop, Ignite etc.).

At the same time, he's a voracious and highly-respected speaker. He has keynoted and delivered hands-on workshops at top conferences including Microsoft TechEd, Google DevFest (US, Europe, Asia and Africa), Azure Dev Days, NDC London, DevSum Sweden, BuildStuff Lithuania, MVP Mix (Toronto, San Francisco and Dallas). He has been invited as a technical judge and mentor at top universities like MIT, Harvard and UT Austin. He is the author of two books: Scalability Patterns and Building Single Page Application Using ASP.NET Core & Angular. He has utilized his amazing business sense having started Cazton with zero funding and turned it into a multi-million-dollar company in less than two years.

Chander has been trained in the rare Himalayan style of Yoga, Pranayama and Ayurveda since the age of four. He has written books on improving immunity and incorporating ancient eastern wisdom in a western lifestyle. When he's not working, he enjoys traveling the world with his wife and three kids. When in Austin, they spend their time hiking, kayaking and boating with their dog, Friday.