2025-03-30 –, The Nash
Explore the complexities and solutions involved in setting up a secure, air-gapped Control Plane for Novo Nordisk, a leading pharmaceutical company. Discover how architectural decisions tailored to industry demands, overcoming security challenges, and replicating GitOps workflows in disconnected systems have redefined infrastructure management within a highly regulated environment.
Operating in air-gapped environments imposes strict limitations on connectivity, security and compliance. This session tells the story of designing and implementing a secure, air-gapped control plane setup for Novo Nordisk, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, leveraging Crossplane for declarative infrastructure management and ArgoCD for GitOps workflows.
We’ll share how Novo Nordisk adopted and scaled the setup within their highly regulated environment:
-Architectural decisions tailored to the demands of the pharmaceutical industry
-Overcoming challenges related to security, scalability, and operational efficiency
-Strategies to replicate GitOps workflows in disconnected systems while maintaining the integrity of continuous delivery pipelines
The talk will dive deep into the technical challenges and solutions, focusing on how open-source tools like Crossplane and ArgoCD can be adapted for highly controlled environments without compromising functionality or flexibility.
Antonela has a background in the finance and pharma industry with experience in SRE, cloud, and automation. She has demonstrated success in effectively leading and implementing intricate infrastructure and automation projects, fostering collaboration across cross-functional teams, and architecting scalable solutions. In her current role at Novo Nordisk, she serves as a tech lead for Control Plane, leveraging Crossplane and Argocd workflows.
Yury is an experienced software engineer who strongly focuses on open-source, software quality and distributed systems. As the creator of k8gb (https://www.k8gb.io) and active contributor to the Crossplane ecosystem, he frequently speaks at conferences covering topics such as Control Planes, GSLB, and the experience of running reliable and testable infrastructure at a huge scale. He enjoys his role in Upbound, helping organizations worldwide to revolutionize their infrastructure with Crossplane.