Makura no Soshi

On tools …

• Setting the Record Straight: containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs
  Solaris Zones, BSD Jails, and VMs are first class concepts. [..] Containers on the other hand are not real things.
• CPU Utilization is Wrong
  The metric we all use for CPU utilization is deeply misleading, and getting worse every year. What is CPU utilization? How busy your processors are? No, that’s not what it measures. Yes, I’m talking about the “%CPU” metric used everywhere, by everyone.
• Practical jq
  I really love jq, the JSON processor. It has changed my life and pretty much replaced Perl and Ruby as my ETL and data-munging go-to tools.
• Reshaping JSON with jq
  Working with data from an art museum API and from the Twitter API, this lesson teaches how to use the command-line utility jq to filter and parse complex JSON files into flat CSV files.
• A Visual Guide to What’s New in Swagger 3.0
  Over the past few years, Swagger 2 has become the de facto standard for defining or documenting your API. Since then, it’s been moved to the Linux foundation and renamed to OpenAPI Spec.
• A plan for open source software maintainers
  As I envision it, a solution would look something like a cross between Patreon and Bugzilla: Users would be able sign up to “support” projects of their choosing […] and would be able to open issues.

When I worked on IPv6 implementations I used tcpdump(1) on a daily basis. — Those times are long gone, but even today it is an extremely helpful tool. Just last week it helped me to debug a database connection problem.

To quote the great Rachel: “tcpdump -e can resolve a great many mysteries.”

If you never used tcpdump (or Wireshark) before then Julia Evan’s zine “let’s learn tcpdump” is a great place to start and to learn the 3-7 important command line parameters.

More stuff on cloud and service architecture.

• A dissection of our favorite folk architecture
  I’m fascinated by the lore and mystery behind microservices. As a concept, microservices feels like one of the most interesting folk architectures of the modern era. It’s useful enough to be applied widely across different usage patterns and also vague enough to mean many different things.
• DevOps vs SRE: delayed coverage of the dumbest war
  I’m not personally pissed off by the google SRE book, actually, just a little bemused at how legitimately unaware they seem to be about … anything else that the industry has been doing over the past 10 years.
• Stack Overflow: A Technical Deconstruction
  One of the reasons I love working at Stack Overflow is we’re allowed encouraged to talk about almost anything out in the open.
• The Children’s Illustrated Guide to Kubernetes
  Introducing Phippy, an intrepid little PHP app, and her journey to Kubernetes.
• So You Wanna Go On-prem Do Ya
  If you run a successful SaaS platform, at some point someone is going to come to you with the question: can I run it myself? If you’re considering offering a private version of your SaaS, this post might be for you.
• PCI Compliance in the Public IaaS Cloud: How I Did It
  Over the past few years, I have heard many folks assert that one can be a PCI-compliant merchant using public IaaS cloud, and I have heard just as many state that it’s not possible. In retrospect, I have found most of them – including myself – to be misinformed.
• Video, Keynote NDC Sydney 2016: “If I knew then what I know now…” – Scott Hanselman
  Do you know there are actually more Javascript frameworks than there are apps that use Javascript frameworks?

Thoughts and recipes to build and run systems and services.

• How to build stable systems
  The first decision is easily the most important. It is one of ideology: the developers are in control of the software. Not the other way around. Managers are not in control of the software. Product Owners are not in control of the software. Developers are.
• The 15-point DevOps Check List
  The checklist could help you proceed with setting up a DevOps culture but don’t consider it as a unique way to proceed with your organization transformation.
• 10 Philosophies for Engineers
  In this post and podcast episode, I convey some loose philosophies about modern software engineering. These are strong opinions weakly held. I welcome debate and discussion.
• 3 Reasons AWS Lambda Is Not Ready for Prime Time
  When I first sat down to write my microservice using Lambda, I really wanted it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. […] Sadly, it was too good to be true.
• Microservices & Einradfahren
  Zu meiner großen Enttäuschung muss ich nun feststellen, dass die Leute in der IT, bzw. Developer wie sie heute genannt werden, mit den gleichen Denkmustern arbeiten wie die Business Kasper.
• Creating a Microservice? Answer these 10 Questions First
  Microservices appear simple to build on the surface, but there’s more to creating them than just launching some code running in containers and making HTTP requests between them.

I finally attended my first DevOpsDays in Kiel. I cannot compare to other events in the DevOpsDays series, but in any case it was a wonderful small one-track IT conference. One with the cosy atmosphere because with less than 200 attendees you can talk to everyone. We had two great days with a beautiful venue on the science campus, good catering, several sponsors, competent speakers, and last but not least a professional and dedicated organizing team.

One interesting observation: DevOps certainly has become mainstream already; because even IBM tells us how to do it.

To see more impressions take a look at the flickr albums. For summaries of the talks read Manuel Pais’ articles on InfoQ (Day 1, Day 2).

This year was my second OSDC, and the first one as a speaker. Thanks to Netways for organizing this great conference (and also for inviting me to talk there). The conference archive for 2016 with all presentation slides is now online.
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Und noch ein kleiner Hinweis: Bei den Chemnitzer Linux-Tagen sind nun seit einigen Tagen die Audio-Aufzeichnungen der Vorträge online.

Getreu dem Motto „Es ist Dein Projekt“ fand ich viele Vorträge recht kleinteilig und bastelig (à la „Meine drölfzigste Raspberry Pi Lampensteuerung“). Meine persönlichen Highlights waren dann auch zwei Vorträge, die mehr zu meinem eigenen Arbeitsbereich passen: Valentin Haenels Vorstellung des AWS Federation Proxy (leider noch ohne Audio) und René Kochs Übersicht zu oVirt.

A few good articles on cloud development and operations.

• Sort out deployment first, Lars Wirzenius
  It is tempting to start a new project with the interesting bits, but it’s often a mistake. One of the first steps in a new project should be to sort out deployment: getting the software installed and configured so it can be used.
• 5 AWS mistakes you should avoid, Michael Wittig
  Useful to evaluate your own AWS web application.
• 12 Fractured Apps, Kelsey Hightower
  Once Docker hit the scene the benefits of the 12 Factor App (12FA) really started to shine. […] Unfortunately legacy applications, including the soon-to-be-legacy application you are working on right now, have many shortcomings, especially around the startup process.
• Moving a team from Scala to Golang, Jim Plush
  You can jump into any Go project and know immediately what it’s doing. Do I miss immutable types and some of the great features of Scala? Sure do, but I think the maintainability side of the story is too great to overlook with Go.
• Ansible 2.0 Has Arrived
  After a year of work, we are extremely proud to announce that Ansible 2.0 (“Over the Hills and Far Away”) has been released and is now generally available. This looks like a big step forward. Finally Ansible gets a usable parsing/error reporting and with the new execution strategies you no longer have to update all hosts in lockstep.
• What’s in a Name?, Geoff Huston (ISP Column Dec 2015)
  What’s the difference between .local and .here? Or between .onion and .apple?