Fast Infrastructure

28/02/2025 45 min Episodio 12
Fast Infrastructure

Listen "Fast Infrastructure"

Episode Synopsis


Hugo Santos, founder & CEO of Namespace Labs joins us today to share his passion for fast infrastructure. From sharing childhood stories & dial-up modem phone line wiring experiences, we get to speed testing Hugo's current home internet connection: 25 gigabit FTTP.We shift focus to Namespace, and talk about how it evolved from software-defined storage to building an application platform that starts Kubernetes clusters in seconds. The underlying infrastructure is fast, custom built and is able to:Spin up thousands of isolated, virtual machine-based Kubernetes clustersRun millions of jobs concurrentlyControl everything from CPU/RAM allocation to networking setupDeliver exceptionally low latency at high concurrencyA significant portion of the conversation centres on a major service degradation Namespace experienced in October 2024. Hugo shares the full story, including:How a hardware delivery delay combined with network issues from a third-party provider created problemsThe difficult decision to rebuild the network setup rather than depend on unreliable componentsThe emotional toll of not meeting self-imposed high standards despite working around the clockThe surprising customer loyalty, with no customers leaving despite an impact on their build systemHugo emphasizes taking full responsibility for this incident: "That's on us. We decide which companies we work with..."The episode concludes with Hugo sharing his philosophy on excellence: "I find that it's usually some kind of unrelenting curiosity that really propels people beyond just being good to being excellent... When we approach how we build our products, it's with that same level of unrelenting curiosity and willingness to break through and change things."🍿 This entire conversation, including all three YouTube videos, is available for members only as a 1h+ long movie at makeitwork.tv/fast-infrastructureLINKSPost mortem: Oct 22, 2024 outage🐙 namespacelabs/foundationGoogle's Boq (mention)🎬 Open-source application platform inspired by Google's Boq🎬 Why is this 25 gigabit home internet slow?🎬 Remote Docker build faster than local?EPISODE CHAPTERS
(00:33) - Weekend projects

(03:16) - Love for all things infrastructure

(09:58) - Hugo's 25 gigabit home internet connection

(13:33) - How does this love for infrastructure translate to Namespace.so?

(15:28) - What does it mean for a Kubernetes cluster to spin up fast?

(20:24) - What does a job mean in infrastructure terms?

(23:12) - Let's talk about your last major outage

(37:15) - What does Namespace.so look in practice?

(39:51) - Namespace Foundation - Open-source Kubernetes app platform

(40:54) - Complex preview scenarios

(42:37) - One last thought