Day Two Cloud 134: Simplifying Infrastructure Access With StrongDM (Sponsored)

Today’s Day Two Cloud is a sponsored episode with StrongDM. StrongDM focuses on infrastructure access; that is, helping engineers and IT professionals get access to databases, servers, Kubernetes clusters, switches, Web apps, and more from a desktop or laptop. StrongDM takes a proxy approach to the challenge of access and authentication. It uses a local client that can run on a Mac, Windows, or Linux device; a gateway to mediate access; and an administration layer for setting policies and permissions and auditing access. Our guest is Justin McCarthy, StrongDM’s co-founder and CTO. We discuss: * The problems StrongDM aims to solve * How it differs from other access and authentication systems * Integrations with directories and identity stores * The ability to audit and play back events * Pros and cons of the proxy model * Use cases * More Show Links: StrongDM.com/packetpushers StrongDM on YouTube StrongDM Blog @strongdm – StrongDM on Twitter StrongDM on LinkedIn Transcript: [00:00:04.250] – Ethan Welcome to Day Two Cloud. We got a sponsor here today with a brand new sponsor. A brand new sponsor. StrongDM. StrongDM is in the world of authentication, but not just authentication to anything, because there’s lots of solutions like that. This fits a really interesting niche, doesn’t it, Ned? [00:00:19.200] – Ned It really does. They are really focused on empowering people to access their infrastructure. So engineers, IT professionals, folks like us that need access to their Kubernetes cluster or their database or SSH access into a machine, that’s what they’re focused on. And they want to make it convenient to grant that access and use that access on your desktop or laptop. [00:00:41.790] – Ethan But this is not just like a simple little proxy that like a bastion host jump box kind of a thing. It is so far beyond that. You’ve got to listen to this show. Our guest is Justin McCarthy. He’s the co founder and CTO, the one who got all passionate. And it’s like this is a problem I have to solve. And you’re going to hear it in his voice as he gets right down in the weeds with us. Please enjoy this conversation with our sponsor, StrongDM and Justin McCarthy. Justin, welcome to Day Two Cloud. Man, it’s the first time you’ve been on the show. First time StrongDM has been a sponsor. We are delighted to have you. In a sentence, would you tell us who you are and what you do? [00:01:20.100] – Justin Sure. My name is Justin. I’m the co founder and CTO here at StrongDM. So as you can imagine, what I do is think all about building a product that hopefully people get to use and love every day. [00:01:32.000] – Ethan Then tell us about the product. Give us the elevator pitch. Describe StrongDM as a company and what you guys are doing. [00:01:39.580] – Justin Okay, sure thing. So StrongDM the product is all about access. But really the audience that’s doing that access is always somehow a technical audience. So we are an access product for that technical audience, getting access primarily to infrastructure. So this is your data engineers, your software engineers, your DevOps folks that need access to that cluster, that server, that database every day.