Cloud Native London February 2026: SUSE, Mirantis, and Urban Care Community
Three speakers from SUSE, Mirantis, and Urban Care Community joined us at the February Cloud Native London meetup at Monzo, as well as via the YouTube/LinkedIn livestreams.
We are immensely grateful to SUSE, Cloudsmith and TechShack for their generous support and sponsorship.
Overview
Kicking off our evening was Jeroen van Erp from SUSE discussing how to Stop Running Mystery Meat in Production(starting at 11:42). He talked about:
- The “Convenience vs. Security” Debt: Why using FROM node:latest or unverified upstream images creates an immediate security deficit that Platform Engineers must eventually pay off.
- Deconstructing the “Black Box”: A look at the hidden risks inside public registries—from critical CVEs and bloated libraries to unauthorized binaries that violate Zero Trust principles.
- Hardening the Pipeline: Practical strategies for moving away from “random” upstream maintainers toward verified, minimal, and auditable base images for a more secure Kubernetes environment.
Following this, we had Prithvi Raj from Mirantis describing Platform Wars: The Battle Between Golden Paths and Spaghetti Pipelines(starting at 44:40). His takeaways explained that:
- Golden paths only work if they stay “paved”: Your internal developer platform succeeds when it reduces cognitive load and friction, not when it becomes another layer of complexity. The moment the golden path turns into a maze of YAML, tickets, and exceptions, Developer Experience suffers.
- Tooling isn’t the villain, tool sprawl without strategy is: OSS and cloud-native tools can accelerate platform engineering, but unmanaged toolchains create fragmented workflows, inconsistent standards, and hidden maintenance costs. The real win is a curated, opinionated stack with clear ownership.
- The real “Darth Vader” is platform democracy without decision-making: The biggest platform failure mode isn’t technical, it’s governance: too many opinions, no alignment, and endless customization. Successful teams balance autonomy with each stakeholder getting priority in the platform space.
And wrapping up our evening was Akshya Prakkash from Urban Care Community exploring Beyond Chatbots: How AI Agents and Humanoids Are Shaping a New Era(starting at 1:36:24). She described how:
- AI agents represent a shift from conversational AI to systems capable of taking actions: Understanding the difference between traditional AI models and AI agents is critical, as agents are designed to execute tasks, coordinate workflows and operate across systems that could make them far more impactful in real-world use cases than chat-based interaction alone.
- The most effective use of AI agents comes from solving real problems, not just showcasing intelligence: In practical environments, AI agents create value by handling structured, repetitive tasks and supporting human decision-making, highlighting the importance of designing AI around real workflows rather than abstract capabilities.
- Humanoid and embodied AI demonstrate how physical AI systems can create meaningful impact in care settings today: A practical glimpse into the development and use of an interactive robotic system shows how embodied AI can support engagement, improve resident experience and complement human care, highlighting the importance of designing technology around real human needs.
And of course, our usual group photo!
Cloud Native London March
Our next meetup will be on Wednesday 4th March, when we’ll be joined by speakers from Aerospike, HAProxy, and Boxxe! RSVP and save the date now!.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and see you in a month!
Cheryl (@oicheryl)
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