Author headshot

David Sandilands

Principal Solutions Architect and Community & DevRel Lead

David Sandilands was the Principal Solutions Architect and Community & DevRel Lead at Perforce Puppet, connecting open source innovation with enterprise automation. He played a key role in shaping Puppet’s developer ecosystem, integrations, and community engagement, working closely with both the open source community, and internal product and engineering teams. 

David was a co-author of the 2024 State of DevOps Report, including the 2024 Platform Engineering Edition, and the sole author of Puppet 8 for DevOps Engineers. He regularly contributed technical blogs, tutorials, and presentations that helped organizations modernize infrastructure, adopt platform engineering best practices, and strengthen security and compliance through automation. 

A multiple award-winning innovator in DevOps and infrastructure engineering, David’s work at Puppet provided actionable insights for IT leaders and DevOps teams worldwide. 

Latest Content from David Sandilands

Blog

Our Plans for Open Source Puppet in 2025

In early 2025, Puppet will ship new binaries & packages developed by our team to a private repository. Read on for details & insight on this important change.
Community & Open Source, Products & Services
Blog

Developer Self-Service: The Benefits for DevOps & How Platform Engineering Makes It Happen

The main purpose of DevOps self-service is to let developers code, build, test, and release software without needing to work with specialists from other departments. In this explainer blog, we explain how developer self-service can make DevOps better.
DevOps, Platform Engineering
Blog

7 Ways Self-Service Automation Speeds Up DevOps & Empowers Platform Users

Self-service automation is a collection of tools that lets almost anyone automate common IT tasks. Here are seven ways it boosts DevOps productivity & satisfaction.
Platform Engineering, Ecosystems & Integrations
Blog

Puppet 8: The Biggest Changes & How to Get It Now [with Video]

Puppet 8 is out and available in Puppet Enterprise and Open Source Puppet. In this blog, we'll explain the highlights, updates you should know about, and how to upgrade from Puppet 7 to Puppet 8.
Products & Services, Ecosystems & Integrations
Blog

Why Move from Open Source Puppet to Puppet Enterprise? Here are 10 Reasons

Considering moving from Open Source Puppet to Puppet Enterprise? In this article, we'll cover typical use cases for the enterprise version of Puppet, why businesses that moved from Puppet's open source version to Puppet Enterprise made the switch, and how customers drive time to value with Puppet Enterprise faster than Open Source Puppet.
How to & Use Cases, Products & Services
Blog

Platform Engineering Metrics & KPIs to Measure Whether or Not Your Platform is Working

Platform engineering metrics can answer the question: how effective is my platform? We’ll show you how to measure KPIs for success.
Platform Engineering, How to & Use Cases
Blog

The State of DevOps Report 2024: The Evolution of Platform Engineering is Live – Get Your Copy Now

The State of DevOps Report 2024 continues to focus on the topic of platform engineering and is available to download for free now!
DevOps, Platform Engineering
Blog

Where Are We Headed Next? A Platform Engineering Roadmap

Using the latest industry trends and survey data, explore where organizations are headed next with a platform engineering roadmap.
Platform Engineering
Blog

How to Run Puppet in Docker

Want to get started running Puppet software in Docker containers? Start here.
Ecosystems & Integrations, How to & Use Cases