welcome to The long view– where we go through the week’s news and cut it down to the essentials. let’s work what really matters.
This week: more than 100,000 technicians leave Russia, Perforce acquires Puppet and Intel moves faster than expected.
1. Dev Flight from Russia
First this week: large numbers of tech workers have fled Putin’s Russia. No less than 170,000 have left or are about to leave, according to some estimates.
Analysis: Russian DevOps is DOA
And who can blame them, when quasi-military police patrol the streets, ready to “disappear” anyone who dares to hold up a white sign? The war in Ukraine has catalyzed a huge brain drain. What for many years has been a constant trickle is now a flood.
Cade Metz, Adam Satariano and Anton Troianovski: Russia’s tech industry faces ‘brain drain’ as workers flee
Early March… Konstantin Siniushin, a venture capitalist in Riga, Latvia, helped charter two planes out of Russia to help people flee. … The planes moved about 300 software developers, entrepreneurs and other tech specialists out of the country.
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On March 22, a Russian tech industry trade group estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers had left the country, and another 70,000 to 100,000 would soon follow. They are part of a much larger exodus [which] will fundamentally change the Russian tech industry. … It is losing many bright young minds who are building businesses for the future.
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[But] many will remain in Russia, working for state-affiliated companies. But they will face other obstacles.
They may need to rebuild many of the fundamental tools needed to build modern Internet software and services. Crucial computer equipment may become more difficult to find as sanctions limit availability.
It’s no big surprise to rsilvergun:
Yeah, anyone who can will get out of Dodge. Not just technicians, but also doctors, nurses and engineers. The entire Russian economy is about to refuel in North Korea.
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Meanwhile, the price of [natural] gas globally will go down as Europe pulls through. All so Vlad could have a midlife crisis.
But where will they live? Kevin Rothrock note a catch-22:
Airbnb… refuses to serve anyone who has verified their identity using Russian documents, regardless of their current location. This could be a major problem for people fleeing Russia. … Airbnb spox denies this policy [but] Airbnb has actually banned ruble transactions regardless of location.
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To sum up: being Russian/Belarusian is fine as long as you are outside of Russia/Belarus, but not rubles.
2. Puppet swallowed by Perforce
Puppet backed out of plans to go public. Instead of an IPO later this year, it will be acquired by Perforce.
Analysis: IaC IPO no-go
I guess competing with infrastructure-as-code giants like Terraform and Ansible was just too much. Translating MBA chatter, it sounds like the company is simply ran out of track.
Thomas Claburn: Perforce now pulls strings from Puppet
Perforce, a Minnesota-based DevOps software maker, on Monday announced the acquisition of Puppet, an Oregon-based configuration management tools maker. Puppet had planned to go public in 2021, [so] ending up in Perforce’s embrace feels like a plan B.
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The acquisition of Puppet leaves only a few standalone configuration management software makers, like CFEngine, still in business. Ansible was acquired by Red Hat… Chef was acquired by Progress… and Saltstack was acquired by VMware. … HashiCorp, meanwhile, with its configuration management tools Terraform and Vagrant, has successfully gone public.
Mark Ties, CEO of Perforce, described the combination as a way to extend Perforce’s products by bringing new capabilities to DevOps teams: “With Puppet, we will provide our customers with access to a portfolio of products that will allow them to stimulate innovation on a global scale.
Less meaningless corporate chatter, please. Meet the CEO of Puppet Yvonne Wassenaar:
Effective delivery required Puppet to stay ahead of rising trends impacting infrastructure and operations teams, and the broader DevOps market in general. … Staying on top has required Puppet to move into new areas to extend our value proposition into increasingly hybrid environments while delivering more prescriptive business value to customers in adjacent areas.
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Customers have to migrate to the cloud at a breakneck pace and they are drowning in a sea of DevOps tools. …Perforce’s mission is to help technology teams solve the toughest problems in DevOps. [It] is a trusted DevOps leader offering digital creation and planning, developer productivity tools, and automated testing and quality.
The missing link? Puppet’s sweet spot: infrastructure as code.
Could someone be a little more succinct? yuppie_scum shrugs and gives him the old college essay:
Is Puppet more of a power? Everyone moved to Chef, then to Ansible.
3. Intel’s ’18 Angstrom’ process is ahead of schedule
Intel’s “18A” process node – roughly 4nm before marketroids take over the naming – is now slated for late 2024. Intel has expanded its manufacturing facility in Oregon to accommodate the new lines.
Analysis: Faster, cooler chips sooner
So expect much faster single thread performance in 2025, using less energy and generating less waste heat. But, when it comes to horizontal scale workloads, will it be able to match ARM in the data center?
Stephen Shankland: Intel announces it will deliver 2025 chip technology a year and a half earlier
After years of problems and delays, Intel’s chip manufacturing business finally has some good news. … The most advanced manufacturing process the company has committed to will arrive … six months ahead of schedule.
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Intel detailed the progress as well as announcing the opening of its latest… fab, dedicated to the development of its next-generation manufacturing processes. [The] The news bodes well not only for Intel’s 2024 chips, but also for Intel’s business using the current milestones.
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[CEO Pat] Gelsinger had hinted earlier that his chip manufacturing improvements were on schedule or ahead of schedule, and he showed an 18A wafer with test chips in February. …Intel has taken several steps to ensure that it does not repeat the mistakes made when adopting its last two manufacturing processes. … On the one hand, he spends more money on test pads.
What does this mean for DevOps? Here is an optimist mikeiver1:
Apple bet on ARM to increase its profits and because the control of the processor, the operating system and some of the applications allowed a notable improvement in performance and an increase in battery life. Cray and HP are betting on AMD for the big performance boost over Intel this time around.
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But power consumption has never been an Intel strong point, and AMD is worse. But they are in the data centers and will stay there. …Intel has been faltering for quite a while now and hopefully they will find their footing and pose a real challenge to AMD in the next or subsequent processors. We win anyway.
But Reinforced door has already heard everything:
I’m not ready to believe Intel’s magical unicorns until I’ve seen an ordinary unicorn in real life. Let’s see chips made on the [“Intel 4”] process – formerly known as 7nm – manufactured in quantity and sold in products people want to buy.
The moral of the story:
Do not heat a furnace for your enemy to the point of burning yourself.
Have you read The long view by Richi Jennings. You can contact him at @RiCHi or [email protected].
Picture: David DM (Going through Unsplash; leveled and cropped)
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