SE Radio 709: Bryan Cantrill on the Data Center Control Plane

SE Radio 709: Bryan Cantrill on the Data Center Control Plane

Author: SE-Radio Team February 26, 2026 Duration: 1:05:02
Bryan Cantrill, the co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer company, speaks with host Jeremy Jung about challenges in deploying hardware on-premises at scale. They discuss the difficulty of building up Samsung data centers with off-the-shelf hardware, how vendors silently replace components that cause performance problems, and why AWS and Google build their own hardware. Bryan describes the security vulnerabilities and poor practices built into many baseboard management controllers, the purpose of a control plane, and his experiences building one in NodeJS while struggling with the runtime's future during his time at Joyent. He explains why Oxide chose to use Rust for its control plane and the OpenSolaris-based Illumos as the operating system for their vertically integrated rack-scale hardware, which is designed to help address a number of these key challenges. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

For developers who think deeply about their craft, Software Engineering Radio-The Podcast for Professional Software Developers offers a steady, thoughtful conversation about building software. This isn't about chasing headlines or quick tips; it's a deliberate exploration of the principles, patterns, and hard-won insights that define lasting work in the field. The SE-Radio Team creates each episode as original, standalone content, ensuring you get focused depth rather than recycled conference talks. Every ten days, a new installment arrives, alternating between detailed tutorial-style deep dives on specific technologies or methodologies and candid interviews with influential voices and practitioners from across the industry. Tuning in means joining a continuous learning journey where complex topics are broken down with clarity, from system architecture and language design to team dynamics and career development. This podcast serves as a reliable educational archive, a resource you can return to as your experience grows, always anchored in the realities and challenges faced by professional developers every day.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Software Engineering Radio - The Podcast for Professional Software Developers
Podcast Episodes
SE Radio 686: François Daoust on W3C [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:36
François Daoust, W3C staff member and co-chair of the Web Developer Experience Community Group, discusses the origins of the W3C, the browser standardization process, and how it relates to other organizations like TC39,…
SE Radio 685: Will Wilson on Deterministic Simulation Testing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:14
In this episode, Will Wilson, CEO and co-founder of Antithesis, explores Deterministic Simulation Testing (DST) with host Sriram Panyam. Wilson was part of the pioneering team at FoundationDB that developed this revoluti…
SE Radio 679: Wesley Beary on API Design [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:51
Wesley Beary of Anchor speaks with host Sam Taggart about designing APIs with a particular emphasis on user experience. Wesley discusses what it means to be an "API connoisseur"— paying attention to what makes the APIs w…
SE Radio 678: Chris Love on Kubernetes Security [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:36
Chris Love, co-author of the book Core Kubernetes, joins host Robert Blumen for a conversation about kubernetes security. Chris identifies the node layer, secrets management, the network layer, contains, and pods as the…