Speaker Interview: David Boucha

SaltStack's David Boucha is giving a talk on "Beyond Configuration Management with SaltStack for Event-Driven Infrastructure" on SCALE Saturday at 6. The SCALE Team caught up with David for this brief interview.
 
Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?
 
A: I have a background in managing technical infrastructure for various US government agencies and the US military. I got involved with Salt very early on before SaltStack, inc existed and was one of the original four SaltStack engineers at its founding.
 
Q: You're giving a talk on "Beyond Configuration Management with SaltStack for Event-Driven Infrastructure." Without tipping your hand on the actual talk, can you give us an idea of what we might expect?
 
A: SaltStack is often only known for its configuration management capabilities, but it is so much more. My talk will be about all the other powerful capabilities of SaltStack, with a focus on event-driven automation. My demo will showcase Salt's data event bus, real time beacons and Salt's REST api to show off how easy it is to make Salt do amazing things.  The audience will get to participate in this one. Bring your cell phones!
 
Q: Is this your first visit to SCALE? If so, what are your expectations? If not, can you give us your impressions of the event?
 
A: This will be my second visit to SCALE. SCALE is one of my favorite conferences. It's just a fun place to learn and meet people.
 
Q: What other SCALE talks are you looking forward to?
 
A: Christer Edwards of Adobe is giving a talk on infrastructure security hardening. I've heard a version of this talk before and it is impressive to learn how it is done at massive scale. His talk is on Saturday at 1pm
 
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
 
A: The next best conference after SCALE 14x is SaltConf16, the third annual SaltStack user conference. It will be held in Salt Lake City, April 19-21, 2016. We just announced many of the speakers including presentations from Adobe, Aetna, Dun & Bradstreet, Dutch Government data centers, Lyft, Pure Storage, National Instruments, TD Bank, USDA, and your's truly. Discounts are available for a limited time at www.saltconf.com/register
 
SCALE Team interview by Sean McCabe.