Sameer Dholakia

🚨 Heading to #ObservabilityDay on Nov. 12? Be sure to stop by Altinity #Developer Advocate Josh Lee's talk "Where's the auto in auto-instrumentation? A look at current automation strategies with #OTel." He will do a deep dive on how to achieve end-to-end #observability coverage with no custom code and minimal setup. 😎 https://hubs.la/Q02VG70t0

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Kafka is reborn cloud-native! Confluent acquired Warpstream. But Confluent also has Kora. Which one will be the successor, and what’s next? History has some lessons. I honestly did not expect this so soon. Confluent still moves as fast as Kafka. For those of you who don’t know Warpstream, you’ll know it soon. it’s cloud-native Kafka made simple. Just bring your own cloud (BYOC) and drop Warpstream in. Its pricing and simplicity made Kafka REALLY cost-effective. It’s a bold, great acquisition by Confluent. What’s next? If history tells us anything, and it does, here’s what we might expect to happen. 1. Kora will “evolve” into Warpstream. And that’s OK. Confluent now has two cloud-native Kafkas. Confluent has already made it clear that Warpstream is their new Kafka BYOC solution. That’s usually acquisition-speak for Warpstream is becoming part of the new foundation. So what happens to Kora? It probably evolves into managed Warpstream behind the existing UI and API. This isn’t the first time Confluent has built something and then acquired a better alternative. Think Flink. This change really shouldn’t matter much for existing customers because it will be hidden. 2. Bento must die. Warpstream committed to keeping a version of the original Benthos alive and open source. Will Confluent back it now? Is that part of the strategy? This one is a little harder. My guess is standalone Bento is done. There aren’t a lot of Warpstream customers. But many people depend on Connect and Flink. Let’s hope Flink gets a Bento box. 3. New messaging protocols will continue to emerge. The Warpstream acquisition adds fuel to the fire. People want lower cost Kafka, and “Confluent BYOC” will most likely become more expensive. Higher costs will continue to drive companies to look for alternatives for messaging and integration. This is good for other vendors: - RedPanda and other Kafka-compatible solutions will continue to grow - Estuary Flow is built on Gazette, which is cloud-native exactly-once delivery with stream store and replay. It already supports the Kafka consumer API for compatibility. - IoT vendors like NATS continue to grow. It’s a different market. - We’re also long overdue for new messaging vendors to replace JMS, RabbitMQ and others. 4. Kafka will become hidden plumbing. The question is, for what? The acquisition doesn’t change this at all. Data integration, real-time analytics, AI, and other technologies will hide Kafka and other messaging protocols. Estuary Flow hides Gazette. ELT vendors that use Kafka hide it. Even Confluent is innovating on top of Kafka. What do you see coming next? What will Confluent do next? Estuary Confluent WarpStream Apache Kafka Redpanda Data Synadia

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Great article on how San Francisco is leaning in and leveraging its vast wealth of innovative thinkers, tech intensity, and vast learning and funding resources. San Francisco Chamber of Commerce is doing an amazing job embracing the next wave! Rodney Fong Anita LW Huang Katy Brown #Microsoft #AzureAI #Startups #AI

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Did you miss catching up with Starburst at Google Next? Check out this interview with Ravit Jain and Jay Chen on The Ravit Show all about the powerful #Trino and #Iceberg combination, the importance of a data lakehouse foundation, and our latest #Icehouse announcements 🤩 Watch more here 👇👇

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Last April I gave a talk at Palo Alto Networks about AI's impact on enterprise software. I didn't know Satyam Sinha, their VP of Engineering, was in the audience—and he'd been thinking about this for months. He soon resigned and shifted focus to building a startup that would push AI innovation forward instead of simply adapting to it. Fast forward to today: My partner Jaya and I are thrilled to announce that Acuvity, the company born from Satyam's vision, has raised a $9M seed round led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Jonathan Siddharth (CEO of FC portfolio company Turing) and other angels. Acuvity tackles one of the most pressing issues in enterprise AI adoption—security. Companies rushing to leverage AI are exposing themselves to unprecedented risks of data leaks and compliance violations. Samsung's recent AI-related data breach is not an anomaly. Satyam and his co-founder Antoine Mercadal have developed a novel approach using AI models to monitor AI usage, combining elements of classical machine learning with LLMs. It's an elegant solution to a complex problem, providing enterprises with the visibility and control they desperately need. This investment combines two of Foundation's deep convictions: the transformative power of AI and the critical importance of data security. We've been investing at this intersection for over a decade, from MobileIron to Fortanix to Skyflow. We're excited to lead this round and partner with Satyam, Antoine, and the entire Acuvity team on their journey to secure AI-powered enterprise! Read more: https://lnkd.in/gPiiutpD

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When you know how to create meaningful value, and then deliver that value to users with the lowest friction possible, you control your future.

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🎲 Vegas is calling! If you’re at Amazon Web Services (AWS) #reInvent, swing by Booth 447 to chat with us at CloudZero. We’ve been crunching data for eight years to build a solution that goes beyond cutting costs—it’s about aligning cloud spend with your business goals like margins, profitability, and resilience. Let’s talk shop—whether it’s about turning chaos into order, using AI as the cheat code for smarter engineering decisions, or how every line of code is a buying decision. Got questions? Bring ‘em. Curious about what we’re building? We’ll show you. Just need to talk cloud over some good swag? We’ve got that, too. Check out everything CloudZero is doing at this year’s re:Invent here:  👉 https://lnkd.in/e89fna9X Let’s make it an event to remember. See you there! #AWSreInvent #CloudZero #CloudEconomics

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imagine each #enterprise having their own #virtualcloud above all the #hyperscaler #clouds - some call it an Internal Developer Platform ( #IDP ) - Upbound is about to unveil some groundbreaking enhancements...this can probably only work if it's based on the #Kubernetes ecosystem, with the support of the hyperscalers, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), a big community (11k members now) and major #technology companies (+hundreds now). I love #investing in #extraordinary #founders!

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At #OffsetSymposium2024, and couldn’t agree more with Corey Jaskolski that wide-spread #cloud adoption across #DOD allows startups to scale more broadly, lowers their costs, allows them to move faster, and ultimately delivers more, saving the limited taxpayer dollars we have for #nationaldefense.

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LLMs like GPT and Llama offer broad AI understanding, but creating them is costly and complex. AI inference with a distributed cloud platform enables rapid, tailored responses. Watch the full webinar. https://ow.ly/NrYy50TiYF6 #CloudComputing

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Why IBM's Acquisition of HashiCorp is a Game-Changer for Investors IBM's $6.4 billion acquisition of HashiCorp significantly bolsters its hybrid and multi-cloud capabilities, positioning it as a leader in the AI era. HashiCorp’s expertise in cloud infrastructure, lifecycle management, and security automation complements IBM’s strengths, creating an end-to-end cloud platform. This strategic move enables IBM to offer enhanced solutions for managing complex cloud environments and generative AI workloads, providing investors with robust growth potential and a competitive edge in the evolving tech landscape. #IBM #HashiCorp #CloudComputing #AI #InvestmentOpportunity #PINCommunityAdvocate #IBMPartner

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The Forbes 2024 Cloud 100 List is live ☁ Congrats to all the honorees – the world's top 100 private cloud companies –including the 3 healthcare and life sciences companies featured this year: • Benchling - biotech R&D platform • Komodo Health - healthcare data analytics • Abridge - AI for clinical documentation For more on how AI is colliding with cloud computing, check out Bessemer Venture Partners's 2024 Cloud 100 report. Personally I'm focused on advancements in multi-modal AI, as applied to biomedical applications (Trend 3!): https://lnkd.in/euzurvQV

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🎉 Today marks a very special milestone in our journey with #ApachePulsar – we’re celebrating 6 years as a top-level Apache Software Foundation project! 🚀 It’s been an incredible experience watching Pulsar evolve from an idea into one of the most unique and advanced messaging and data streaming platforms out there. What started as a vision to build a system that could handle the complexity of real-time data at scale has grown into something beyond what I could have imagined. The innovation and dedication of the community, the contributors, and everyone who believed in Pulsar's potential have been the true driving force behind its success. From its unique multi-tenancy, geo-replication, and no-data-rebalance capabilities to its ability to power everything from small startups to large enterprises, Pulsar is a testament to what can be achieved through collaboration and open source. Looking back on the journey, I’m beyond proud of what we’ve accomplished, and excited about what’s next. With Pulsar 4.0, #Ursa Engine, UniConn (Universal Connectivity), and even bigger ideas on the horizon, the future is brighter than ever. 🌟 Thank you to everyone who’s been a part of this ride, and here’s to many more years of innovation and community building! 🙌 Check out the latest blog from Matteo Merli and me reflecting on this incredible milestone: https://lnkd.in/gV5W8rQy #ApachePulsar #OpenSource #DataStreaming #Messaging #Queuing #Community #Anniversary #Ursa #UniConn

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Earlier this year, I moderated a panel at TiE Silicon Valley's annual conference on #LLMs in the #enterprise. Joining me were three senior executives from NVIDIA (Rama Akkiraju), Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Kavitha Prasad) and Meta (Sy Choudhury). Three interesting learnings from our conversation: 1. Agentic systems will be a feature of all applications We started with web applications, then mobile applications then SaaS applications and the future will be AI applications powered by agents. Agents will understand the intent of users and route a query to the right agents. 2. Build flexible architectures and datasets Given the pace of LLM innovation, things are changing in 1-2 sprints so you want the ability to easily swap out one model for another. Remember that compute is expensive so each approach needs to be use case-oriented. 3. Cross-domain analysis areas are ripe for innovation with LLMs LLMs can extract reasoning and are very good at search and retrieval. But this advantage also means that data security is a new concern. In the past we had "security through obscurity" - while documents were exposed, it was much harder to find them. You need to solve this technical debt before leveraging LLMs in the public domain. Thanks to Murtuza (Matt) Haryanawalla and Anita Manwani for hosting us! If you're a #founder working at the intersection of AI and IT infrastructure or cybersecurity, I'd love to connect. I'm actively investing, please reach out! #TiECon2024

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Exabeam, the leading security intelligence and management solutions provider, has formed a strategic partnership with cloud security firm Wiz. Integrating Exabeam's AI-powered analytics with Wiz's cloud security insights, the partnership offers organizations a unified platform to enhance threat detection, investigation, and response across cloud and hybrid environments. Key Announcement Highlights: Unified Threat Visibility: The integration offers security teams a consolidated threat view, enabling more effective pattern detection and risk prioritization. By combining behavioral analytics with cloud insights, organizations can identify and mitigate complex attack paths across on-premises and cloud infrastructures. Accelerated Incident Response: A preconfigured Wiz tile on the Exabeam New-Scale Platform streamlines onboarding and integration, accelerating access to critical insights and reducing the time required to secure cloud assets and respond to incidents. Enhanced Detection Capabilities: Addressing the surge in cloud-based threats from increased cloud adoption, the partnership leverages AI-driven analytics and cloud security intelligence. Security teams can detect toxic risk combinations and observe remediation trends over time, enhancing overall security posture. Value to CISOs: Improved Efficiency: The unified platform simplifies cloud asset security, enabling more efficient allocation of security resources and faster decision-making. Robust Security Strategy: Integrating Exabeam and Wiz solutions creates a more robust cloud security strategy, essential for defending against evolving cloud-based threats. Strategic Advantage: Advanced detection and response capabilities help organizations stay ahead of threats, providing a competitive edge and protecting organizational reputation. Market Implications: This partnership follows Exabeam's recent merger with LogRhythm Inc., after which it introduced a new product: LogRhythm Intelligence—a solution that enhances behavioral detections and escalates anomalous activities within its SIEM user experience. The continuous innovation signifies Exabeam's commitment to advancing security solutions that meet the growing demands of modern cyber threats. Expert Commentary: Oron Noah, VP of Product Extensibility and Partnerships at Wiz, stated, "By combining our capabilities with advanced threat detection tools from Exabeam, we're giving security teams the ability to see potential risks more clearly and respond faster." “As organizations embrace cloud environments, the surge in cyberattacks is unprecedented, and visibility alone is not enough. Exabeam and Wiz are coming together to deliver what has been a missing piece in enterprise security,” said Steve Wilson, Chief Product Officer at Exabeam.

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In an interview conducted by Index Ventures, Ami Luttwak, the Co-Founder and CTO of Wiz, provided invaluable insights into #cloudsecurity. Among the insights shared, one particularly resonant notion emerged: it's important to understand customer needs to deliver a service/product that offers genuine value. With today's quote, let's reflect on where we are on this journey and evaluate how we can better address customer pain points and continue to evolve. View the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/gkfenpX6 On a similar note, recently, Wiz secured $1 billion in Series E funding at a $12 billion valuation. This latest round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and Thrive Capital. — At AXIS Capital Markets, we specialize in global #debtplacement and private market #secondaries for VC- and PE-backed companies. Learn more about us here: www.axisgroupventures.com. #MondayMotivation #ValueAddition #CustomerUnderstanding #EmpatheticSolutions

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I am incredibly proud of everything MongoDB has achieved in the AI realm. We've integrated our advanced vector search capabilities with frameworks like LlamaIndex and LangChain to offer seamless access to top LLMs. And through strategic alliances with cloud giants and innovative AI startups, we're delivering amazing generative AI capabilities to customers across industries from personalised healthcare to intelligent document management. In this article, Gregory Maxson, our global AI lead talks about how we are delivering the solutions and inspiration that can turn our partners' most ambitious visions into reality. #MongoDB #ArtificialIntelligence #GenerativeAI

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Watch this highlight from #theCUBE’s John Furrier at Anyscale #RaySummit, as he talks with their CEO Keerti Melkote about how Anyscale Ray’s managed services enable partners to engage with customers and create enterprise intelligence. “We are frankly very early in this whole decade of AI. For partners, it's the opportunity to go and talk to customers. There's a ton of proprietary data. It's not just foundation models; it's proprietary models built on proprietary data. How do you build that and create real enterprise intelligence? Enterprises have the imagination. They don't have the people to do it for them,” Melkote explains. “That’s where the opportunity is for partners to come in, get trained on the one hand on tools like Ray and our managed service, and on the other hand, understand what the customer use case is and put it together. It requires expertise and skills, and we are here to help them get trained,” he adds. 📺 Catch the full episode: https://lnkd.in/eQjnMEXC

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