SAN FRANCISCO-- April 08, 2022 -- Tetrate, the enterprise service mesh company founded by creators and maintainers of Istio and Envoy, today announced that Nicolas Chaillan will serve as a strategic advisor to the company. Chaillan became the first U.S. Air Force and Space Force Chief Software Officer in 2019 and served in that role through 2021. He also has held IT leadership roles in the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, where he developed cloud, cybersecurity, DevSecOps and software initiatives.

In the business world, Chaillan is a C-level executive and serial entrepreneur who has launched and managed 12 successful companies, creating and selling over 180 innovative software products to the Fortune 500 and other corporations. He hosts In the Nic of Time, where guests discuss urgent issues around cybersecurity, DevSecOps, digital transformation and turning new ideas into successful businesses.

“Service meshes are the most important foundational security and architecture enablers of this decade, and I’m excited to become an advisor for Tetrate at this pivotal time,” said Chaillan. “If you‘re moving to DevSecOps and microservice architecture, and you do not use a mesh in 2022, there’s little chance of success. You won’t scale, and implementing zero trust will be pretty much impossible. Tetrate offers enterprise-grade application connectivity to organizations on the journey from monoliths to cloud. I’m also thrilled about the new certification coming out of Tetrate around Istio and Envoy, key open source technology for a modernized networking layer.”

“We’re honored to have Nicolas on our advisory board and we welcome his deep DevSecOps and cloud expertise, as well as his strategic vision around meeting enterprise computing needs,” said Varun Talwar, CEO and co-founder of Tetrate. “Nicolas recognizes the pivotal role of service mesh in application development and modern cloud deployments, and his experience-driven, forward-thinking instincts informed by public and private sector leadership help us analyze where computing is truly headed in an uncertain world.”

As co-lead for the U.S. Department of Defense Enterprise DevSecOps Initiative with the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer and as the Air Force’s senior software officer, Chaillan was responsible for enabling Air Force programs in the transition to agile and DevSecOps processes—working to establish force-wide DevSecOps capabilities and best practices, including continuous Authority to Operate (ATO) processes and faster streamlined technology adoption. Chaillan designed the robust, innovative and holistic .gov cybersecurity architecture (Cyber.gov) that mitigates cyberthreats by leveraging best practices and implementable solutions with minimal impact to workforce efficiency.

Chaillan has earned multiple certifications and honors, including recognition as an (ISC)² Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and as a recipient of CompTIA Security+ Certification and the IHRMS Editor Choice Award for Best New Product in Technology with his former company anyGuest.com. Chaillan was recognized as one of France’s youngest entrepreneurs after founding WORLDAKT at 15 years of age. He is also a noted pioneer of the computer language PHP.

Chaillan is a sought-after adviser and speaker, with regular participation in multiple industry conferences and experience working in close collaboration with many Fortune 100 companies and the U.S. government.