Launch Party's Over - Now What? A Guide to Real-World Ops with Crossplane and ACK

Explore the critical operational challenges that emerge after implementing Kubernetes-native infrastructure management tools in this 25-minute conference talk from DevOpsDays Tel Aviv. Discover how the shift from traditional Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform to declarative, continuously-reconciling systems using Crossplane and ACK creates a fundamentally different operational model where familiar safety nets no longer exist. Learn from real-world failure patterns, including how seemingly minor commits can lead to cascading failures in "plan-less" environments where traditional pre-flight checks are absent. Examine architectural anti-patterns that commonly emerge in production environments and gain access to field-tested solutions for operating these systems at scale. Master practical strategies including GitOps-native pre-flight check patterns, developer portal dashboard design for safe self-service infrastructure management, and step-by-step approaches for migrating existing brownfield resources without downtime. Walk away with a comprehensive playbook derived from hard-won community lessons for solving the most critical "Day 2" operational challenges in modern platform engineering environments.