Reda Benzair, STREAMROOT, sat down with Kim McMahon, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), to talk about cloud native, trends in the industry, and being an Ambassador. Below is their interview. You can also view the video.
Kim: Hello Reda, thank you for joining me for this ambassador interview for Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Can you please introduce yourself?
Reda: Thank you so much. My name is Reda Benzair and I’m VP of Engineering for STREAMROOT, a startup created in 2013. We build a new video delivery peer-to-peer based technologies used by tier-1 broadcasters and Fortune 500 companies around the world.
Kim: Let’s get to know you a bit. On a Sunday, what do you like to do?
Reda: On Sunday, I like to spend time with my three boys. They are twelve, eight, and six. We usually go to the swimming pool in the morning. The afternoon is spent doing homework and the rest playing with LEGOs or playing. It’s quite a nice time with the kids.
Kim: Can you talk about one of your Cloud Native projects?
Reda: I was a head of engineering at smart jog, building an OTT video solution for TV Broadcaster, and we decided to approach it differently with cloud native. It was very great; discovering this new way, how we build solution cloud, to exchange with the people contributing, and to involve more of the community. We contributed on this project, and now is one of important projects in the community. It’s quite incredible to see how the project has grown very fast, how the community grew around this, and the people involved.
Kim: Excellent. So this feeds into cloud native. What does cloud native mean to you or how would you explain that to somebody in the community?
Reda: Cloud native is how we manage a cloud-based application. Before when you run any application for cloud, from a VM or hardware. Cloud native is how we build an application and how we can scale on the cloud. on top of that, It is an open source with many collaborative people.
Kim: I believe you have a pretty large Cloud Native meetup in Paris?
Reda: Yes. We decided to create the first cloud native meetup in France. It’s one of the most active today and we are very proud. We have around 1,060 people involved who meet every month. We set the target to create a place where people would like to know, would like to share their experiences with the cloud native, and can join and come to the meeting. We give the opportunity to the French contributors to talk about their contribution on this cloud native system, or to share their experiences. We also give opportunities to companies to talk about their initiatives, and their contributions to cloud native. This is wonderful because today the community grows around cloud native.
Kim: Why did you want to be a part of the Ambassador Program?
Reda: I’m very addicted to an open source philosophy since beginning of my career. Open source is how a collaborative model can work. How people from different country contribute for one project. Some of them commit the code. Some of them right the doc. Some of them answer the questions. To be part for Ambassador as the beginning of CNCF, preparing, spending the time to organize meetup, is my contribution.
Kim: Thank you so much for talking with me today.
Reda: Thank you so much.