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How to Lean into the Good and Mitigate Risk When Adopting Front-Edge Technology

Over the course of my career, I’ve primarily worked with front-edge technology. It can be a thrilling experience — thrilling good, and thrilling scary! The common thread is a willingness to try new things, learn, and iterate accordingly. Finding a way to lean into the good while mitigating the risk of the scary is the sweet spot. 

I love working with people who love front-edge tech — they tend to be curious, creative, and open-minded, and are always on the lookout for new ideas and new ways of doing things. Working with these folks is incredibly inspiring, as they challenge your assumptions and help you see things from new perspectives. That mindset permeates our entire organization at Fairwinds. 

Lowering risk while leveraging front-edge tech

The best model I’ve seen for leveraging front-edge tech in a low-risk way is to create parameters and partnership. The practice of try-learn-iterate in a controlled environment mitigates inherent risk while creating a paved-road model and company ethos of testing and integrating new tech —- and the related new processes. 

Fairwinds operates this way, in both our software and services. And while our software — both paid and open source software — has hundreds of articles and blog posts written about it, our services have taken more of a quiet back seat. 

Stable, secure services

Our services aren’t flashy or loud. They are stable, secure, and quiet — like our infrastructure pager. Our services customers have trusted us to architect, build, and manage their production Kubernetes infrastructure across hundreds of clusters. They partner with us because we are excited to get into the weeds with them on those big problems, to figure out how to create the best outcome for their business — both today and for the extensible future. 

Working with front-edge technology is often dynamic and fast-paced. Because things are always changing, you are constantly learning and growing, and you have to be adaptable and flexible in order to keep up with the pace of change. This can be challenging, but it can also be incredibly rewarding, as it can lead to personal and professional growth that might not have been possible in a more static environment. 

Empowering customers in Kubernetes 

We know that our customers — especially larger customers who might have a big legacy stack — want a partner who has the deep Kubernetes expertise to show them the way, chart a path together, or validate their thinking — creating confidence that compounds in all directions. 

Partnering with our customers as they take these leaps creates huge upside — both for our customers, and for us. We have the motion down — we know how to try new things while mitigating risk, and to capitalize on the upside. 

“Fairwinds has saved us time and money by providing expert cloud services guidance, consulting, and implementation. Every step of the way, they’ve trained our team and increased our knowledge base, allowing us to focus on building services instead of maintaining infrastructure.”
- Arun Jacob, Senior Vice President, Software, Zonar Systems

Of course, working with leading-edge technology also comes with its own set of challenges. There is often a steep learning curve, and you may need to invest a lot of time and energy in order to stay up-to-date with the latest developments. There is also a risk of failure, as not every new idea or technology will be successful. However, for those who are willing to take these risks and put in the effort, the rewards can be significant. Working with a partner like Fairwinds can mitigate those risks by increasing the breadth of experience at the table and drawing on it as a force multiplier across our customers. 

Plus, when the pager does (rarely) go off, we’re the ones who answer it in the middle of the night. 

Need help managing your Kubernetes journey? Fairwinds can help.