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Securing Production Debugging at Hyperscale#

@Scale: Systems & Reliability 2026 digest Program Adjacent pick 25 June 2026

Recording

Shridivya Sharma (Microsoft), Luke Kelly (Microsoft)

Play the recording: Securing Production Debugging at Hyperscale

  • Why: The "how do humans (and now agents) safely touch production boxes" problem, worked at Microsoft's K8s fleet scale. Relevant to anyone operating Kubernetes estates where break-glass access is the default risk story.
  • What: Microsoft's approach to production debugging across a global fleet of Kubernetes clusters: SSH-based access integrated with just-in-time privilege elevation and task-based (rather than open-shell) execution, kept secure and auditable — then those same building blocks exposed to AI (Semantic Kernel) so on-call engineers get assisted resolution rather than raw shell. (from abstract only)
  • How: Structured, auditable debugging primitives (JIT elevation + task-scoped SSH commands) that double as a safe action surface for AI assistance — the same "give agents constrained, task-shaped interfaces" theme running through the Meta talks.
  • Where applicable: Microsoft's fleet, but the pattern is general for large K8s estates; the AI-assist portion is early-stage and Microsoft-stack-specific (Semantic Kernel).