IT Training

Expert Meetup at Microsoft Build 2026

by

The energy around Microsoft Build is always unmatched, but this year’s event holds a special place for me. I am excited to share that I will be attending Microsoft Build 2026 for the first time not just as an attendee, but as one of the Microsoft Experts in the Expert Meetup!

If you are heading to San Francisco, you can find me and a fantastic group of Microsoft Full-Time Employees (FTEs) and fellow Microsoft MVPs over in the Festival Pavilion. This dedicated area is designed for deep dives, unfiltered technical discussions, and collaborative problem-solving.

What is the Expert Meetup?

The Expert Meetup is all about direct, one-on-one connection. It’s a space where you can get dedicated time with folks who live and breathe this technology every day. Whether you want to see live demos, explore highly specific real-world use cases, or literally dive into code from foundational models all the way to production deployment this is where it happens.

My Focus Areas: Cloud Native, Open Source, and Beyond

While the entire expert area spans an incredible lineup of modern technology domains including Azure Application Services, AI-Ready Infrastructure, Governance & Compliance, and Agentic Modernization but my primary focus will be centered on Cloud Native architectures.

I’ll be on hand to chat about everything from Kubernetes, Azure Kubernetes Service, and container strategies to microservices scaling and the modern developer expericience. Additionally, we can talk about the following technical areas including:

  • Cloud Native & Open Source: Integrating OSS tooling seamlessly into your enterprise ecosystem.
  • Artificial Intelligence: Bridging the gap between cloud-native infrastructure and AI-ready workloads.
  • General Azure Architecture: Best practices, optimization strategies, and landing zone foundations.

Let’s Connect

Events like Build are fundamentally about the community. If you are a former Microsoft colleague, a fellow Microsoft MVP, a GitHub Star, an enterprise developer, or an cloud/cloud native enthusiast lets connect! Stop by the Festival Pavilion, grab me for a coffee, or ping me ahead of time so we can sync up.

Let’s talk code, AI, Cloud Native share what we are building, and figure out how to solve your toughest engineering challenges together. See you in the Festival Pavilion!

Read more

Quoted in Dice.com Article on Model Context Protocol: What Is It and How to Learn It

by

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Brian Horowitz at Dice.com to share my thoughts on why MCP is a game-changer for developers and organizations alike. The article, titled “Model Context Protocol: What Is It and How to Learn It”, explores how MCP is helping transform AI systems from isolated chat experiences into connected systems that can interact with real-world tools, services, and enterprise platforms.

As part of the article, I shared some thoughts on how MCP is becoming the connective layer between AI agents and enterprise systems:

“It’s like an API but for AI.”

That simple comparison captures why MCP matters so much. Traditional APIs allow applications to communicate with each other. MCP extends this idea into the AI world, enabling AI systems and agents to securely connect to tools, data sources, SaaS platforms, and operational systems in a standardized way.

One of the examples I shared in the article was how MCP enables AI systems to interact directly with enterprise collaboration and workflow platforms.

As I explained in the interview:

“You can connect a platform like ChatGPT to a common tool like Slack. And if you connect MCP to Atlassian Suite, Jira or Confluence, you can prompt AI to perform tasks with those systems.”

This is one of the reasons MCP is generating so much excitement across the industry. Instead of AI being limited to answering questions in isolation, MCP allows AI agents to interact with the actual systems teams use every day.

Imagine prompting an AI assistant to:

  • Create or update Jira tickets
  • Pull information from Confluence documentation
  • Summarize Slack discussions
  • Generate status reports across engineering systems
  • Trigger workflows and operational tasks

That shift moves AI from being simply conversational into becoming operational.

For engineering organizations, platform teams, and enterprise IT departments, this creates major opportunities to improve productivity, automate repetitive workflows, and build smarter developer experiences across existing toolchains.

At companies operating at scale, especially those managing cloud platforms, Kubernetes environments, DevOps systems, and SaaS operations, MCP has the potential to become a foundational integration layer for enterprise AI workflows.

Why MCP Matters

One of the biggest limitations of AI systems historically has been context and actionability. AI models could generate responses, but they often struggled to interact directly with the systems where actual business work happens.

MCP changes that.

Instead of building custom integrations for every AI interaction, organizations can expose capabilities through MCP servers that AI systems can discover and use dynamically. This creates a more scalable and interoperable ecosystem for AI tooling.

In the article, I discussed examples such as:

  • Connecting AI systems to tools like Slack, Jira, and Confluence
  • Enabling AI agents to work across DevOps and IT operations workflows
  • Allowing healthcare systems to connect AI to scheduling, insurance, and EHR platforms
  • Using MCP as the “glue” between AI agents and enterprise systems

This is where things get especially exciting for cloud engineering, platform engineering, and AI infrastructure teams.

MCP and the Future of Enterprise AI

I strongly believe MCP will become foundational infrastructure for enterprise AI adoption.

As organizations move beyond isolated AI chat experiences and toward AI agents that can actually perform work, interoperability becomes critical. MCP helps provide a standard way for AI systems to securely interact with tools and data sources without requiring endless custom integrations.

We are already seeing major momentum across the industry, including adoption and support around MCP-related tooling from companies and ecosystems tied to AI platforms, developer tooling, and cloud services.

For engineering leaders, cloud teams, and developers, this is a space worth paying attention to now, not later.

How to Start Learning MCP

One of the recommendations I shared in the article was to start hands-on:

  • Experiment with MCP servers locally
  • Use tools like Docker Desktop to simplify setup
  • Explore AI agents connected to MCP-enabled systems
  • Learn foundational skills in Python and debugging tools like Visual Studio Code
  • Focus on understanding how AI agents interact with external systems

The best way to understand MCP is to build with it.

Final Thoughts

It’s an honor to be included alongside other industry voices discussing where AI infrastructure and interoperability are headed next.

We are entering a phase where AI is no longer just about prompts and chat interfaces. The next wave is about connected AI systems, AI agents, and enterprise integration at scale.

And MCP is quickly becoming one of the most important standards enabling that future.

You can read the full article here:
Model Context Protocol: What Is It and How to Learn It

Read more

Exploring AI, Kubernetes, and Multicloud Cost Management: My Latest Pluralsight Articles

by

As cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes, AI, and multicloud strategies continue to evolve, I recently had the opportunity to publish several new articles on the Pluralsight Blog focused on some of the biggest operational and architectural trends happening right now.

These articles explore the growing role of AI in Kubernetes operations, the realities of multicloud cost management, and the rise of agentic tooling for cloud platforms.

New Blog Posts on Pluralsight.com

Agentic CLI for AKS: FAQs and how to use it

In this article, I break down Microsoft’s emerging Agentic CLI for AKS experience and explain what it actually is, how it works, and where it fits into Kubernetes operations. The post explores how the tool uses AI to assist with troubleshooting and diagnostics for Azure Kubernetes Service environments while still keeping humans in control of operational decisions.

You can read it here:

Agentic CLI for AKS: FAQs and how to use it

Best multicloud cost management tools and methods

Multicloud environments can create massive flexibility, but they also create significant operational and financial complexity. In this article, I explore practical multicloud cost management strategies, tooling approaches, and methods organizations can use to improve visibility and optimize spend across AWS, Azure, and GCP.

Read the article here:

Best multicloud cost management tools and methods

Understanding AI agents for Kubernetes

AI agents are quickly becoming one of the most interesting emerging areas in cloud-native operations. This article explores what AI agents for Kubernetes actually are, the problems they aim to solve, and some of the current tools and approaches appearing in the ecosystem. I also discuss where these systems may realistically help platform teams and where caution is still needed.

Check it out here:

Understanding AI agents for Kubernetes: Tools, use cases, and more

These topics sit at the intersection of AI, cloud engineering, Kubernetes operations, platform engineering, and FinOps, and they represent some of the biggest conversations happening across the industry right now. If you’re working in cloud-native infrastructure, platform engineering, DevOps, or AI-enabled operations, I hope these articles provide useful insight and practical perspective.

Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release new courses! 

Here is the link to my Pluralsight profile to follow me:

https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/steve-buchanan

Read more

Course 31 “Applying Terraform in Google Cloud Environments” Published!

by

Ready to Level Up Your GCP Skills? My New Terraform Course Is Live. I’m excited to share that my latest Pluralsight course, Google Cloud Environments: Applying Terraform, is now live!

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) has become a foundational skill for modern cloud engineering teams, and Terraform continues to be one of the most widely adopted tools for managing cloud infrastructure consistently and at scale. In this course, I focus on how to apply Terraform effectively within Google Cloud environments to help engineers move beyond basic concepts and into practical, real-world implementation patterns.

Whether you’re a cloud engineer, DevOps engineer, platform engineer, or someone expanding into Google Cloud, this course is designed to help you build confidence working with Terraform in GCP environments.

What You’ll Learn

In this course, we walk through how Terraform can be used to deploy and manage infrastructure in Google Cloud using Infrastructure as Code principles. Topics include:

  • Understanding Terraform workflows in Google Cloud
  • Configuring providers and authentication
  • Managing infrastructure declaratively
  • Working with state management
  • Deploying and updating cloud resources
  • Using reusable Terraform configurations and modules
  • Applying Terraform concepts to real Google Cloud scenarios

The course is designed to help bridge the gap between learning Terraform syntax and actually applying it in cloud engineering environments.

Why Terraform Matters

Terraform enables teams to define infrastructure in code, making deployments more repeatable, scalable, and reliable. Instead of manually configuring cloud resources through portals and scripts, teams can standardize infrastructure deployments and treat infrastructure similarly to application code.

As organizations continue adopting cloud-native and multi-cloud strategies, Infrastructure as Code skills are becoming increasingly valuable across engineering and operations teams.

Hands-On Cloud Engineering Skills

One thing I always try to emphasize in technical training is practical application. The goal is not just to understand Terraform conceptually, but to understand how engineers actually use it in day-to-day cloud operations and platform engineering work.

Google Cloud and Terraform together create a powerful combination for:

  • Automated infrastructure deployments
  • Consistent environment management
  • Scalable cloud operations
  • DevOps and platform engineering workflows
  • Repeatable infrastructure provisioning

Pluralsight also provides broader Terraform and cloud engineering learning paths that complement these skills with additional hands-on labs and cloud-focused training.

Who This Course Is For

This course is a great fit for:

  • Cloud engineers
  • DevOps engineers
  • Platform engineers
  • SREs
  • IT professionals transitioning into cloud engineering
  • Anyone looking to strengthen their Terraform and Google Cloud skills

If you already have some familiarity with cloud concepts and want to deepen your Infrastructure as Code knowledge in GCP, this course should provide a solid next step.

Check It Out

You can view the course here: Google Cloud Environments: Applying Terraform on Pluralsight

I hope this course serves as a valuable resource in your IaC journey. Thank you for your continued support, and Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release new courses! 

Here is the link to my Pluralsight profile to follow me:

https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/steve-buchanan

Read more

My 30th Course: Google Firebase Studio Foundations (Vibe Coding)

by

Ive reached a milestone with my 30th course recently published on Pluralsight. This course is titled Google Firebase Studio Foundations. This was a course topic I suggested to the teams at Pluralsight since Vibe Coding is seeing so much growth and this solution is used for that. It is my 6th AI related course. Firebase Studio is Google’s full stack AI-powered development environment that streamlines the process of prototyping and building apps from idea to deployment.

In this course, Google Firebase Studio Foundations, you’ll start by learning the basics of vibe coding with Firebase Studio. First, you’ll explore how the Gemini AI Agent fits into the development workflow. Next, you’ll discover how to speed up backend, frontend, and mobile app development with AI assistance. Finally, you’ll take an app idea from concept to a working deployment on Firebase App Hosting. By the end of this course, you’ll have the skills needed to confidently use Firebase Studio to build and run modern apps.

I brought this topic forward because I was excited about the opportunity to author a course that showcases what Firebase Studio can do in the vibe coding space. I also wanted to raise awareness about the platform since it can be used for free, and developers can expand to a generous number of workspaces at no cost through a Google Developers account. I packed this course with demos as we work through vibe coding an app.

This course is ideal for beginners and aspiring developers who want to prototype, build and deploy apps with Google Firebase Studio. Ideal learners include students, early-stage founders, and tech professionals curious about AI-assisted development.

These are the topics in the course:

Get Started with Firebase Studio

  • Intro and Overview
  • Introduction to Vibe Coding
  • Introduction to Firebase Studio
  • Demo: Exploring Firebase Studio

Development with Firebase Studio

  • Intro and Overview
  • Accelerating Development with Vibe Coding
  • Demo: Generating a Full App with the Firebase Prototyper

From Idea to Running App with Firebase Studio

  • Vibe Code to Deployment
  • What Is Firebase App Hosting?
  • Deploying the App | 6m
  • Demo Part 1: Deploy App to Firebase App Hosting
  • Demo Part 2: Deploy App to Firebase App Hosting

If you need to build a web or mobile app, whether you know how to code or not, you will want to check out my new course here: https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/google-firebase-studio-foundations.

I hope this course serves as a valuable resource in your Vibe Coding, AI, and app building journey. Thank you for your continued support, and Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release new courses! 

Here is the link to my Pluralsight profile to follow me:

https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/steve-buchanan

Update

I posted about this milestone on LinkedIn. Something really cool happened. The former CEO and founder of Pluralsight Aaron Skonnard commented on the post congratulating me. This means a lot coming from the founder of Pluralsight.

The link to the post is here if you want to check it out: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7436863573412335617.

Read more

Speaking at Open Source North 2025 on Multi-Cloud

by

I am excited to share that I will be speaking at this year’s Open Source North conference on May 29, 2025, at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

This year, I’m teaming up with my fellow Jamf, Levi McCormick (Director of Engineering at Jamf), for a session that is very close to our daily reality: Multi-Cloud Without the Marketing or Designing for Multi-Cloud Without Losing Your Mind.

Why this talk? In the cloud industry, “Multi-Cloud”, “Cloud Native”, and “Iac via Terraform” are often sold as magic pills for redundancy, cost savings, unifaction and more across clouds. But for the people actually building and maintaining these systems, it can often feel like a recipe for complexity and technical debt.

At Jamf, Levi and I work on our infrastructure efforts across AWS, Azure, and GCP. We’ve learned—sometimes the hard way—what works, what doesn’t, and where the “hype” version of cloud differs from the “production” version. We wanted to build a session that focuses on the practical:

  • How to design for portability without over-engineering.
  • Managing identity, networking, and security across different providers.
  • Avoiding the “lowest common denominator” trap.
  • Keeping your sanity while managing three different clouds.

Open Source North is a great local event to the MN Tech scene because of the high-caliber community and the focus on real-world engineering. Whether you are a cloud veteran or just starting to look at a second provider, we’d love to see you there.

The Details:

If you’re attending, please connect on LinkedIn or find us after the session. We’d love to hear how your team is tackling these same challenges!

Read more

Guest on Code To Cloud Podcast – AI, Cloud, Career Resilience, and Farming

by

I’m excited to share that I recently sat down again with former colleuage at Microsoft Kevin Evans on the “Code to Cloud” podcast for a conversation titled “AI, Cloud, and Career Resilience.” It has been a couple of years since I was on as a guest on his podcast. This discussion was super fun and goes all over the place from personal finance (Dave Ramsey we are coming for the top spot!), leaving tech to farm, to the recent layoffs at Microsoft, what AI means for all of us, and more.

You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch the full episode on YouTube.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1jMf7mRZNxew6trsWt8e96

Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-cloud-and-career-resilience-with-steve-buchanan/id1788423999?i=1000729123487

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmo7MdmGj-s

In this post, I wanted to share some of the highlights, key takeaways, and a few behind-the-scenes thoughts from recording.

On the podcast, Kevin and I dug into several topics, especially in today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape. Some of the themes we touched on are:

Leadership & owning your narrative
I shared lessons I’ve learned in leadership like how to set vision, how to manage through change, and how leaders can help their teams navigate ambiguity.
We also talked about taking control of your narrative rather than letting circumstances or others define it for you.

My journey in tech
We walked through my career path over the years. The ups, the challenges, the moments of uncertainty. And I shared about recently being laid off from Microsoft, pivoting roles, and how those moments shaped and continue to shape my approach to owning my career.

Career resilience and mindset
One of the things I emphasized is that resilience is not just bouncing back, it’s proactively preparing, adapting, and taking charge of your trajectory. We talked about strategies to stay relevant: continuous learning, building a network, personal branding, and leaning into uncertainty instead of resisting it.

AI + Cloud: Opportunities and disruption
We explored how AI is weaving into cloud-native infrastructure and application stacks, and what that means for technologists.
We also addressed how to stay grounded amidst hype and understanding what’s real, what’s emerging, and how to plug into it in a practical, impactful way.

Key Takeaways and Advice for You

If you are reading this, here are a few of the ideas I hope will stick with you:

Do not wait for perfect context. The ideal job or environment might not exist yet. Instead, start shaping it yourself. Build the skills, forge relationships, and create momentum where you are.

Be purposeful in how you show up. Your personal brand is not about vanity. It is a vector for opportunities, trust, and alignment. Share your journey, your thinking, your work, even when it feels vulnerable.

Stay curious with humility. In fields like AI and cloud, change is constant. Curiosity keeps you relevant and humility keeps you open to learning when you do not know the answer.

Focus on bridges, not walls. Whether you are navigating careers, organization changes, or technical disruption, build bridges between peers, between domains, and across teams. Avoid insulating yourself.

Your resilience is in your habits. It is not just how you react in a crisis. It is how you cultivate consistency, reflection, incremental growth, and adaptability.

Behind the Mic; A Few Reflections

Recording with Kevin is always fun. His questions push guests to think more deeply than just the “what happened” stories. It was gratifying to revisit earlier chapters in my career after recently being laid off and exploring themes like uncertainty, adaptation, and ownership recurred over time.
I always find it special when conversations like these inspire me as much as I hope they inspire listeners and the host as well! Preparing, sharing, and telling stories helps us all get a little more confident in this unknown tech market.

If you have 45 to 60 minutes to spare, I encourage you to give the episode a listen! You will find not just stories from me but hopefully a few ideas or sparks you can take into your own path!

You can also watch the episode right here:

Read more

Im Speaking at BITCON 2025 – Easiest Way to Run LLMs Locally: Meet Docker Model Runner

by

🎤 I’m excited to share that I’ll be returning to BITCON in a week! I will be speaking at BITCON 2025, a gathering focused on Black voices in technology, innovation, and community. You can check out the full speaker lineup here: BITCON 2025 Speakers. The conference this year is virtual and its free. You can check out the site here: https://bitcon.blacksintechnology.net

The conference has a ton of great speakers lined up from some of the largest tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, and more. And to top it off the keynote this year is Kelsey Hightower! You dont want to miss this one.

My Session: “The Easiest Way to Run LLMs Locally: Meet Docker Model Runner”
Docker Captain: Steve Buchanan DMR session

At BITCON, I’ll be presenting “The Easiest Way to Run LLMs Locally: Meet Docker Model Runner”. In this session, I’ll look at:

  • Why run LLMs locally? The benefits in terms of cost, privacy, latency, and control
  • How Docker Model Runner simplifies things — containerizing large models, managing dependencies, and lowering friction
  • Demo and walkthrough — showing you step by step how to get a model up and running on your own machine or server
  • Best practices, pitfalls, and tips — what I’ve learned building and deploying these systems
  • Q&A / hands-on help — to get you started with your own setup

My goal is that attendees leave with a concrete, reproducible process they can apply right away.

Why It Matters

Large language models (LLMs) are powerful, but running them locally has often felt out of reach for smaller teams, indie devs, or people in resource-constrained environments. With the right tooling (like Docker Model Runner), we can lower that barrier—unlocking more experimentation, more privacy, and more control over where and how inference happens.

I believe this aligns well with the mission of BITCON: elevating voices, demystifying advanced tech, and making it accessible. I hope this talk helps bridge a gap for folks who want to explore AI locally without getting lost in infrastructure.

I am excited to be speaking at BITCON again. To learn more about my session check it out here:

BITCon Session: The Easiest Way to Run LLMs Locally: Meet Docker Model Runner

BITCON is free! Be sure to register today: HERE

Read more

Recent Blog Posts: MCP Servers, Dev, Multi-cloud Mastery, and Cloud Engineer Resumes

by

This is a shorter post, but I wanted to take a moment to share what I’ve been working on lately. Over the past few months I’ve been publishing a steady stream of blog posts on Pluralsight, covering topics across cloud, AI, JavaScript, and beyond. There’s a lot happening in tech right now, and I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with the Pluralsight team to dive into some of these exciting areas:

Check out an overview the blog posts and use the the following links to read more:

Behind the Buzzword: What is MCP (MCP Server)?
A breakdown of MCP servers and why they matter in the evolving landscape of AI.
👉 Read the post

How to Run an LLM Locally on Your Desktop
Exploring why and how you might want to run a large language model on your own machine, with a closer look at Docker Model Runner.
👉 Read the post

What to Emphasize on Your Resume as a Cloud Engineer
Tips on showcasing the skills that make cloud engineers stand out in today’s job market.
👉 Read the post

Multicloud Mastery: How to Train Teams in AWS, Azure, and GCP
Practical advice on enabling engineering teams to work across multiple clouds with confidence.
👉 Read the post

6 Cloud Cost Optimization Strategies and Tools for AWS, Azure, and GCP
A set of proven strategies and tools to help control and reduce cloud spend.
👉 Read the post

How to Add User Authentication to Your JavaScript App
A straightforward guide to securing your JavaScript applications with simple authentication techniques.
👉 Read the post

I’ll be continuing to publish more content in the months ahead, so stay tuned for future posts on cloud-native engineering, AI, and practical developer skills. If you found these articles useful, I’d love for you to check them out and share them with your network.

Read more

Steve Buchanan on the SuperHuman Mindset Podcast

by

I recently had the honor of being a guest on the SuperHuman Mindset Podcast, hosted by my good friend and respected CISO and Cybersecurity expert Felix Asare. I have always loved the name of this show because it perfectly captures its mission.

About the Podcast

The podcast dives deep into the minds of extraordinary people who break barriers, push limits, and achieve what many might think is impossible. Each episode uncovers the mindset, habits, and stories behind their success, with the goal of inspiring you to unlock your full potential and elevate every aspect of your life.

Felix is intentional about the guests he brings on. Past guests have included:

  • Former Ghanaian President John Kufuor
  • CISO Amy Bogac
  • Physician Dr. Kambiz Farbakhsh
  • Team USA Gold Medalist Chrissy Holm
  • Many more inspiring individuals

To be invited among such an incredible lineup is something I really consider an honor.

What We Talked About

In this episode, Felix and I went beyond tech and had a wide ranging conversation that touched on:

  • Where AI is heading and how to stay plugged in
  • Authoring books and creating courses including how I overcame imposter syndrome to publish my first one
  • The Modern Developer Experience and Cloud Native trends
  • What it takes to reach the next level in tech
  • What drives me personally and professionally
  • Advice for those working their way to the top

It was one of those conversations that flowed naturally, blending personal stories with big picture insights.

Watch or Listen

You can check out the full episode here:

SuperHuman Mindset Podcast – YouTube

If you are interested in tech, mindset, or just hearing stories of pushing past limits, I think you will enjoy this one.

Read more