Cloud Native Aarhus Summer Party with Digital Sovereignty
AGENDA
16:30: Doors open
17:00: Welcome by Cloud Native Aarhus
17:10: Welcome by our hosts Trifork
17:15: Inside Saxo Service Blueprint: Implementing Kubernetes Operators for Legacy Enterprise Infrastructure by Oskar Kristiansen, Platform Engineer @ Saxo Bank
17:45: Short break
18:00: Digital Sovereignty in real life by Lars Shakya Buch-Jepsen @ Aeven
18:30: Short break
18:45: We Broke Free From Cloud-Managed Kubernetes: Now What? by Per Hedegaard Christiansen, Head of Container and Cloud Platforms and Kārlis Akots Gribulis, Senior Container Platform Engineer @ Saxo Bank
19:15: Networking with food and beer
22:00: Doors close
Talk#1: Inside Saxo Service Blueprint: Implementing Kubernetes Operators for Legacy Enterprise Infrastructure
At Saxo Bank, we built Saxo Service Blueprint as a set of Kubernetes operators that manage critical infrastructure dependencies such as DNS, certificates, load balancers, and access controls for applications running on traditional virtual machines outside Kubernetes, and for provisioning dependencies for cloud-native workloads.
This session focuses on the technical implementation of the system. We will walk through how legacy infrastructure is modeled using Custom Resource Definitions, how reconciliation logic coordinates Kubernetes state with external systems, and how the operators handle idempotency, ordering, failure recovery, and partial state across multiple infrastructure domains. The talk covers key architectural decisions, controller patterns, and the use of Git as a strict source of truth for driving infrastructure changes.
Attendees will gain practical insight into designing and operating Kubernetes operators that interact with existing enterprise platforms, and into the challenges of running these controllers reliably at scale in complex environments.
Bio: Oskar Kristiansen is Platform Engineer. Passionate about Cloud Native open source technologies, and their application in business. Kubestronaut.
Talk #2: Digital Sovereignty in real life
In this talk we will try cut through the theory and show how digital sovereignty is tackled in practice. We will dive into Aeven’s approach to securing data for enterprise and on-prem customers, and look under the hood of out toolings called OnePlatform running on Kubernetes.
Bio: Lars Shakya Buch-Jepsen is a Coding AI, Data & Software Architect and Cloud Engineering Manager who specializes in designing secure, scalable enterprise systems. A advocate for European digital sovereignty where it make sense, Lars focuses on DevSecOps, Compliance-as-Code, and building GDPR-compliant AI architectures for highly regulated and secure on-premise environments.
Talk #3: We Broke Free From Cloud-Managed Kubernetes: Now What?
Have you ever wondered what happens after moving from cloud-managed Kubernetes to self-hosted clusters? One year into Saxo Bank’s journey, we’re sharing the full story: what worked, what surprised us, and what we would do differently.
In this talk, you’ll hear about:
- Did things just work?
- Was it possible to migrate large-scale workloads?
- Did we actually manage to get 80% cost reduction?
- Lessons learned around resilience, automation, and lifecycle management with kubeadm + Cluster API.
Attendees will leave with a realistic understanding of the trade-offs, risks, and benefits of self-hosted Kubernetes at scale, plus actionable insights for planning and operating their own clusters.
Bio: Per Hedegaard Christiansen is passionate about container technology and always eager to explore new tech stacks. With extensive experience in Docker, Kubernetes, and microservices, he design and optimize scalable, secure container environments.
Kārlis Akots Gribulis has hands-on experience working across various companies in the cloud-native space. Throughout his career, he has been deeply involved in deploying, managing, and optimizing Kubernetes clusters, helping organizations harness the full power of cloud-native technologies.
