News AggregatorWorking With Multiple testng.xml FilesAggregated on: 2024-09-09 20:06:09 While working on an open source GitHub project that was created to showcase the working of Selenium WebDriver framework with Java, as the project grew, there was a need to create multiple testng.xml files for running different tests. These multiple files were created to segregate the tests and place all the tests related to a respective website in a single testng.xml (I have used different demo websites to demo different actions that can be automated using Selenium WebDriver). View more...Model-Driven Development and TestingAggregated on: 2024-09-09 19:06:09 The Meta of Design With several decades of experience, I love building enterprise applications for companies. Each solution requires a set of models: an SQL database, an API (Application Programming Interface), declarative rules, declarative security (role-based access control), test-driven scenarios, workflows, and user interfaces. The "meta" approach to design requires thinking of how each of these components interacts with the other. We also need to understand how changes in the scope of the project impact each of these meta-components. While I have worked in many different languages (APL, Revelation/PICK, BASIC, Smalltalk, Object/1, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Python) these models are always the foundation that influences the final integrated solution. Models are meta abstractions that describe how the shape, content, and ability of the object will behave in the running environment regardless of language, platform, or operating system (OS). Model First Approach Starting with an existing SQL Schema and a good ORM allows the abstraction of the database and the generation of an API. I have been working with ApiLogicServer (a GenAI-powered Python open-source platform) which has a command line interface to connect the major SQL databases and create an SQLAlchemy ORM (Object-Relational Model). From this model, an Open API (aka Swagger) for JSON API is created, and a YAML file (model) drives a react-admin runtime. The YAML file is also used to build an Ontimize (Angular) user interface. Note that the GenAI part of ApiLogicServer lets me use a prompt-driven approach to get this entire running stack using just a few keywords. View more...The Pre-Mortem: Preventing Product Failure Before It StrikesAggregated on: 2024-09-09 17:06:09 TL; DR: The Pre-Mortem: A Non-negotiable Part of Your Product Development Toolbox Do you want to build products that avoid costly mistakes, meet customer needs, and drastically enhance your career prospects? The the pre-mortem is your secret weapon! By imagining how a project might fail before it even begins, teams can identify and mitigate hidden risks early, ensuring a more resilient, successful outcome. This article explains why pre-mortems are a brilliant tool for risk mitigation, improving your team’s decision process, and how they can transform your product development process. Learn how to apply this proactive strategy and create bulletproof products. View more...What Are Logging Levels?Aggregated on: 2024-09-09 15:51:09 Logging is one of the most important parts of the distributed systems. Many things can break, but when the logging breaks, then we are completely lost. In this blog post, we will understand log levels and how to log efficiently in distributed systems. Logging Levels Whenever we log a message, we need to specify the log level or log severity. It’s an indicator of how important the message is and who should be concerned. View more...Data Storage Formats for Big Data Analytics: Performance and Cost Implications of Parquet, Avro, and ORCAggregated on: 2024-09-09 14:06:09 Efficient data processing is crucial for businesses and organizations that rely on big data analytics to make informed decisions. One key factor that significantly affects the performance of data processing is the storage format of the data. This article explores the impact of different storage formats, specifically Parquet, Avro, and ORC on query performance and costs in big data environments on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This article provides benchmarks, discusses cost implications, and offers recommendations on selecting the appropriate format based on specific use cases. Introduction to Storage Formats in Big Data Data storage formats are the backbone of any big data processing environment. They define how data is stored, read, and written directly impacting storage efficiency, query performance, and data retrieval speeds. In the big data ecosystem, columnar formats like Parquet and ORC and row-based formats like Avro are widely used due to their optimized performance for specific types of queries and processing tasks. View more...Mastering Tailwind CSS: Overcome Styling Conflicts With Tailwind Merge and clsxAggregated on: 2024-09-06 23:08:09 People have been emailing and asking me to write something on some soft topics for beginners, as I write mostly for mid-level or seniors. So, here is a new article for beginners, especially for UI developers. Today, let's explore the common challenges developers face when working with Tailwind CSS and how to overcome them using the powerful combination of Tailwind Merge and clsx. View more...Mainframe Modernization: A Comprehensive Technical BlueprintAggregated on: 2024-09-06 21:08:09 Mainframe systems have been the backbone of enterprise computing for decades, renowned for their reliability, performance, and security. However, the evolving business landscape demands agility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, prompting organizations to explore cloud-based solutions. Major technology companies, including cloud providers and system integrators, have invested heavily in mainframe migration practices, recognizing the significance of this transformation. Mainframes and cloud computing each have their strengths and specific use cases. It's not fair to generalize either, and in practice, a hybrid approach is common. This post will explore a practical solution for mainframe workload migration using a hybrid pattern, where certain workloads move to the cloud while still interacting with on-premises applications and data sources. View more...Comparison of Apache Astro and AirflowAggregated on: 2024-09-06 19:08:09 Effective workflow orchestration is the key to creating automation around complex process-oriented activities in the modern landscape of software development. Considering data engineering and data science, Astro and Apache Airflow rise to the top as important tools used in the management of these data workflows. This article compares Astro and Apache Airflow, explaining their architecture, features, scalability, usability, community support, and integration capabilities. This should help software developers and data engineers in selecting the right tool for their specific needs and project requirements. Astro Overview Astro is a fully Kubernetes-native platform designed to easily orchestrate the workflows in cloud-native systems. It uses Kubernetes itself to handle container orchestration, which adds fault tolerance and elasticity out of the box. Hence, Astro works effectively in scenarios that require microservices and containerization to be essential to the architecture. View more...Principles of Modern Data InfrastructureAggregated on: 2024-09-06 17:08:09 The evolution of the internet over the past few decades has undeniably impacted how our societies function. From facilitating globalization to making new technology like social media and consumer apps available to nearly every person on the planet, the web has seeped into most aspects of our day-to-day lives. However, this ubiquity comes with an ever-growing need to manage enormous amounts of data, which requires better and better data infrastructure. Back in the Web 1.0 era, we could really only read static content on the internet. A decade later, with Web 2.0, it became possible to read and write on online social networks. Now, with Web 3.0 and the dawn of AI and blockchain, a single person generates around 1.7 MB of data every second. That adds up to approximately 146.88 GB of data per person per day. Such demanding workloads mean that data infrastructure is now mission-critical for most businesses. Modern data infrastructure supports everything from daily operational workloads (OLTP) to strategic decision-making workloads (OLAP). View more...DRY Your Apache APISIX ConfigAggregated on: 2024-09-06 15:08:09 DRY is an important principle in software development. This post will show you how to apply it to Apache APISIX configuration. The DRY Principle "Don't repeat yourself" (DRY) is a principle of software development aimed at reducing repetition of information which is likely to change, replacing it with abstractions that are less likely to change, or using data normalization which avoids redundancy in the first place. View more...Product Vision vs Technical Strategy: Bridging the Product-Engineering GapAggregated on: 2024-09-06 13:08:09 In the world of software engineering, a conflict between a product manager's vision and the engineering team's technical strategy is a recurring obstacle for many teams. While product managers strive to create disruptive and innovative products, engineers need to ensure that these visions can be implemented into successful realities either within the constraints of current technology or discover a breakthrough themselves. The gap between the product vision and the technical realities can be a daunting challenge, but balancing these two aspects is crucial for the success of any project. This article explores the dynamics between product vision and technical reality and how taking an iterative approach can help navigate the gap between the aspect and the feasibility. Understanding the Product Vision Imagine you are a builder (software developer) and are hired by a family (product manager) to build a house. The family will have an image of a dream house in their mind — a beautiful, large, comfortable home that will fulfill all their functional and lifestyle dreams (vision). Now, for the builder to do their job well, they need to understand the family's vision and then build upon it. But at the same time, the family's vision also needs to be well crafted and decipherable for the builder to comprehend it. Along similar lines, a well-defined and well-constructed product vision is essential for guiding a successful technical strategy. View more...Ember.js vs React.js: Comparing JavaScript TechnologiesAggregated on: 2024-09-05 23:08:08 Frontend technologies are integral to web development as they determine how users interact with a website or app. For this reason, picking the right front-end technology is essential for optimal user engagement and subsequent project success. React.js and Ember.js are among the most popular front-end technologies used in modern web development. Although both fall under the JavaScript umbrella, these technologies differ significantly. In this article, we will compare React.js vs Ember.js and explore their strengths and weaknesses to help you choose the most suitable one for your needs. View more...Lead a Successful Agile Transformation With the VICTORY FrameworkAggregated on: 2024-09-05 21:08:08 Agile transformations can be tough. They’re messy, time-consuming, and more often than not, they fail to deliver the promises that got everyone excited in the first place. That’s why it’s so important to approach an Agile transformation as a full-scale organizational change rather than just a shift in how our development teams work. In my years as a change management consultant, I have studied and applied various change management models, from John Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model to ADKAR and Lean Change Management by Jason Little. I have learned through these experiences and countless transformations that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. View more...The AI Security Gap: Protecting Systems in the Age of Generative AIAggregated on: 2024-09-05 19:08:08 The rapid adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) is transforming industries at an unprecedented pace. Nearly 90% of organizations are actively implementing or exploring LLM use cases, eager to harness the power of these revolutionary technologies. However, this enthusiasm is juxtaposed with a concerning lack of security preparedness. A recent GenAI Readiness report by Lakera reveals that only about 5% of organizations are confident in their GenAI security frameworks. This glaring disparity between adoption and security readiness raises a critical question: Is the market prepared for GenAI's potential security risks? View more...Keeping Two Multi-Master Databases Aligned With a Vector ClockAggregated on: 2024-09-05 16:53:08 In today's tech environment, there is a frequent requirement to synchronize applications. This need often arises during technology upgrades, where the goal is to transition a database and its processes from an outdated legacy system to a newer technology. In such scenarios, it's typically required to allow both applications to coexist for a period of time. Sometimes both applications, together with their own databases, must be maintained as masters because dismantling the processes dependent on the legacy one is not viable. Consequently, specific solutions for keeping the two master databases aligned are essential, ensuring that operations on one database are mirrored on the other one, and vice versa. In this article, we discuss a real case we dealt with by abstracting away from several technical details, but focusing on those decisions that shape the structure of our solution. View more...Setting Up a Data Warehouse for Starlight: A Comprehensive GuideAggregated on: 2024-09-05 15:08:08 In the rapidly evolving fintech industry, data is a cornerstone for driving innovation, ensuring compliance, and making informed decisions. For Starlight, a burgeoning fintech company, harnessing the power of data is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. A data warehouse serves as the backbone for such data-driven initiatives, providing a centralized repository where data from various sources is consolidated, analyzed, and made accessible. A data warehouse is a specialized type of database optimized for analysis and reporting. Unlike traditional databases designed for transactional processing, data warehouses are tailored for query performance and complex analytics. They enable businesses to store vast amounts of historical data, query it efficiently, and derive actionable insights. View more...How To Set Up Multiple JMS Pods With a Single jmsstore File per Queue in Maximo Application Suites (MAS8)Aggregated on: 2024-09-05 13:08:08 Problem Statement By default, the IBM Manage JMS setup creates a single JMS store file for all queues, which effectively places all queues in one repository. This approach poses a risk: if one queue becomes corrupt and a message is affected, you would have to delete the store file for all queues to resolve the issue. How To Overcome the Problem We developed a solution to configure the MAS 8 application with a distinct JMS store file for each queue. View more...Supercharging IaC With AI for Next-Gen Infrastructure EfficiencyAggregated on: 2024-09-04 21:08:08 In today’s technology landscape, it’s hard to overlook the impact AI is having across nearly every domain. As Infrastructure as Code (IaC) enthusiasts, we’ve been exploring how AI can drive the next evolution of the IaC ecosystem. As we have already seen, AI is playing a significant role in enhancing DevOps and platform capabilities, and it has become clear that AI will be central to the future of IaC practices. Below, we’ll explore some important areas where AI is reshaping IaC operations and discuss what the future may hold. View more...My Journey With AWS CDK and Java: What You Need To KnowAggregated on: 2024-09-04 20:08:08 One of the first decisions you’ll need to make when working with the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) is choosing the language for writing your Infrastructure as Code (IaC). The CDK currently supports TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, and Go. Over the past few years, I’ve worked with the CDK in TypeScript, Python, and Java. While there is ample information available online for TypeScript and Python, this post aims to share my experience using Java as the language of choice for the AWS CDK. Wait…What? Use Java With the AWS CDK? Some may say that TypeScript is the most obvious language to use while working with the AWS CDK. The CDK itself is written in TypeScript and it’s also the most used language according to the 2023 CDK Community Survey. Java is coming in 3rd place with a small percentage of use. View more...Order in Chaos: Python Configuration Management for Enterprise ApplicationsAggregated on: 2024-09-04 19:08:08 Importance of Configuration Management In enterprise applications, configuration management is the most underrated operator that keeps everything integrated and running smoothly. It acts as a backstage manager ensuring all lights are in place, theatrical queues are ready, and the show can go on without a hiccup. Especially, while dealing with multi-environment deployments, with tight-knit CI/CD processes, one wrong configuration can pose an application-wide shutdown risk. Multi-environment enterprise applications carry their own set of challenges and managing configs is no exception. We all have heard the famous “But, it was working on my machine!” excuse more times than daily salutations. View more...Cutting the High Cost of Testing MicroservicesAggregated on: 2024-09-04 18:08:08 A specter is haunting modern development: as our architecture has grown more mature, developer velocity has slowed. A primary cause of lost developer velocity is a decline in testing: in testing speed, accuracy, and reliability. Duplicating environments for microservices has become a common practice in the quest for consistent testing and production setups. However, this approach often incurs significant infrastructure costs that can affect both budget and efficiency. Testing services in isolation isn’t usually effective; we want to test these components together. View more...Overcoming Alert Fatigue: A Team's Journey to Effective Incident ResponseAggregated on: 2024-09-04 17:08:08 The Night That Changed Everything Remember the days when your phone buzzed more often than a beehive in spring? That was us, drowning in a sea of alerts. Our Slack channels looked like Times Square on New Year's Eve, and our PagerDuty . . . well, let's just say it was living up to its name a little too enthusiastically. We were facing a classic case of alert fatigue, and it wasn't just costing us sleep — it was impacting our ability to respond to real incidents. Something had to give, and it wasn't going to be our sanity. View more...Mastering Test Automation: How data-testid Can Revolutionize UI TestingAggregated on: 2024-09-04 16:23:08 How Can I Implement This Approach? Implementing the data-testid approach in your front-end development process involves several steps, from setting up your project to best practices for using the attribute effectively. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to implement this approach. Adopt a Testing-First Mindset Plan for Testing Before diving into coding, ensure that testability is a key consideration in your UI component design. Discuss with your team how elements will be tested and where data-testid will be applied. View more...5 Steps To Integrate Istio With OPAAggregated on: 2024-09-04 15:23:08 Authentication and Authorization are big parts of the security puzzle that need to be solved by cloud architects and DevOps engineers. In this blog, we will specifically look at how to achieve authorization/access control; i.e., what actions the authenticated entity can perform in the Istio service mesh. It helps to secure the infrastructure by preventing actions with malicious intent. Authorization in a service mesh can be defined using OPA policies. OPA is a mechanism that helps DevOps folks define and enforce authorization policies for Kubernetes workloads. In this piece, we will see: View more...A Comprehensive Guide to Access and Secrets Management: From Zero Trust to AI Integration — Innovations in Safeguarding Sensitive InformationAggregated on: 2024-09-04 14:23:08 Editor's Note: The following is an article written for and published in DZone's 2024 Trend Report, Enterprise Security: Reinforcing Enterprise Application Defense. Access and secrets management involves securing and managing sensitive information such as passwords, API keys, and certificates. In today's cybersecurity landscape, this practice is essential for protecting against breaches, ensuring compliance, and enhancing DevOps and cloud security. By implementing effective secrets management, organizations can reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and respond to incidents more quickly. For developers, it provides a secure, convenient, and collaborative way to handle sensitive information, allowing them to focus on coding without worrying about the complexities of secure secrets handling. View more...How To Conduct Effective Data Security Audits for Big Data SystemsAggregated on: 2024-09-04 13:23:08 Big data systems are an increasingly common aspect of many business operations. As helpful as such a wealth of information is, these projects can dramatically impact an organization’s cybersecurity posture. Consequently, any company embracing this trend must also embrace the big data security audit. Why Big Data Security Audits Are Necessary The sheer size of big data necessitates proactive cybersecurity. Global volumes could reach 181 zettabytes by 2025, leaving businesses with massive amounts of information to safeguard. Failing to secure big data systems could expose countless consumers’ personal details to cybercriminals, incurring significant costs. View more...MLOps: How To Build a Toolkit To Boost AI Project PerformanceAggregated on: 2024-09-03 22:23:07 Numerous AI projects launched with promise fail to set sail. This is not usually because of the quality of the machine learning (ML) models. Poor implementation and system integration sink 90% of projects. Organizations can save their AI endeavors. They should adopt adequate MLOps practices and choose the right set of tools. This article discusses MLOps practices and tools that can save sinking AI projects and boost robust ones, potentially doubling project launch speed. MLOps in a Nutshell MLOps is a mix of machine learning application development (Dev) and operational activities (Ops). It is a set of practices that helps automate and streamline the deployment of ML models. As a result, the entire ML lifecycle becomes standardized. View more...Implementing an IaC Platform With Terraform, Ansible, and GitLabAggregated on: 2024-09-03 21:23:07 Given the need to create infrastructure across multiple environments while ensuring standardization and effective monitoring, it becomes crucial to provision these environments securely. To achieve this, adopting an immutable infrastructure approach, where environments are provisioned as code, is essential. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a possible approach to achieving this by using GitLab’s structures to enforce templates and standards, Terraform to apply and maintain standards across servers, and Ansible for software provisioning and configuration, utilizing a shared roles model across repositories. To manage the state of machines with Terraform, we use MinIO, as it enables this implementation on-premises. View more...How We Optimized Read Performance: Readahead, Prefetch, and CacheAggregated on: 2024-09-03 20:23:07 High-performance computing systems often use all-flash architectures and kernel-mode parallel file systems to satisfy performance demands. However, the increasing sizes of both data volumes and distributed system clusters raise significant cost challenges for all-flash storage and vast operational challenges for kernel clients. JuiceFS is a cloud-native distributed file system that operates entirely in user space. It improves I/O throughput substantially through the distributed cache and uses cost-effective object storage for data storage. It’s hence suitable for serving large-scale AI workloads. View more...Automating Cucumber Data Table to Java Object Mapping in Your Cucumber TestsAggregated on: 2024-09-03 19:23:07 As a Java developer, using Cucumber for Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) can be a great way to ensure that your code meets business requirements by writing tests in plain language. One of the most powerful features of Cucumber is the ability to use Data Tables in feature files. However, manually mapping these tables to Java objects can be repetitive and error-prone. To streamline this process, the library cucumber-datatable-to-bean-mapping aims to automatically map Cucumber Data Tables to Java objects. In this article, I will walk you through the library's functionality and how you can easily integrate it into your Cucumber projects to save time and reduce boilerplate code. View more...Configuring a Connection PoolAggregated on: 2024-09-03 18:23:07 A connection pooler is a software component that manages database connections. This can help in multiple ways to improve resource utilization, help with load balancing or failover, and can greatly reduce transaction times. In this blog post, we’re going to see what a connection pooler is and how to configure it. What a Connection Pooler Is and Why It’s Useful Opening a connection to the database takes many steps. We need to connect to the server and perform the initial handshake, agree on the encryption and connection settings, and then keep the new connection resource across all the layers (network driver, OS layer, database layer, etc.). Each connection consumes memory which size depends on the database engine. For PostgreSQL, this can be even 1.3MB of memory for one connection. Opening a connection also takes time as we need to negotiate the settings of the new connection. View more...Open Standards for Data Lineage: OpenLineage for Batch and StreamingAggregated on: 2024-09-03 17:23:07 One of the greatest wishes of companies is end-to-end visibility in their operational and analytical workflows. Where does data come from? Where does it go? To whom am I giving access to? How can I track data quality issues? The capability to follow the data flow to answer these questions is called data lineage. This blog post explores market trends, efforts to provide an open standard with OpenLineage, and how data governance solutions from vendors such as IBM, Google, Confluent, and Collibra help fulfill the enterprise-wide data governance needs of most companies, including data streaming technologies such as Apache Kafka and Flink. What Is Data Governance? Data governance refers to the overall management of the availability, usability, integrity, and security of data used in an organization. It involves establishing processes, roles, policies, standards, and metrics to ensure that data is properly managed throughout its lifecycle. Data governance aims to ensure that data is accurate, consistent, secure, and compliant with regulatory requirements and organizational policies. It encompasses activities such as data quality management, data security, metadata management, and compliance with data-related regulations and standards. View more...Bridging the Gap: How Developers and Security Professionals Can Collaborate for Better CybersecurityAggregated on: 2024-09-03 16:23:07 In the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity, the relationship between developers and security professionals is crucial. At Black Hat 2024, industry experts shared their insights on how these two groups can work together more effectively to create more secure systems. This article explores key areas where developers and security professionals can improve their collaboration and practices. Shifting Left: Security from the Start Several experts emphasized the importance of integrating security earlier in the development process. Idan Plotnik, co-founder and CEO of Apiiro, suggests that "developers and security professionals need to focus on integrating AI security into their application security processes." This approach ensures that security is not an afterthought but an integral part of the development lifecycle. View more...Building Trust Through "Zero Trust:" Transforming Organizational Security CultureAggregated on: 2024-09-03 16:23:07 Editor's Note: The following is an article written for and published in DZone's 2024 Trend Report, Enterprise Security: Reinforcing Enterprise Application Defense. With organizations increasingly relying on cloud-based services and remote work, the security landscape is becoming more dynamic and challenging than ever before. Cyberattacks and data breaches are on the rise, with high-profile organizations making headlines regularly. These incidents not only cause significant financial loss but also result in irreparable reputational damage and loss of customer trust. View more...Confusion Matrix vs. ROC Curve: When To Use Which for Model EvaluationAggregated on: 2024-09-03 15:23:07 Model performance has to be evaluated in machine learning and data science in order to come up with a model that is reliable, accurate, and efficient in making any kind of prediction. Some common tools for this are the Confusion Matrix and the ROC Curve. Both have different purposes and knowing exactly when to use them is critical in robust model evaluation. In this blog, we will go into details of both tools, compare them, and finally provide guidance on when to use either in model evaluation. Understanding Confusion Matrix A Confusion Matrix is a table used for visualizing how well a classification model is performing. Generally, it breaks the predictions of the model into four classes: View more...Workload Protection in the Cloud: Why It Matters More Than EverAggregated on: 2024-09-03 14:23:07 The swift progress in cloud technology has made data and application security an important requirement rather than just a preference. As more customer businesses are moving their operations to the cloud, safeguarding their cloud workloads — referring to all deployed applications and services — has become increasingly essential. Cloud Workload Protection (CWP) is important in this area because it ensures that these workloads remain secure and resilient against a growing range of threats. Why CWP Is Essential CWP is a necessity that must not be ignored. As the adoption of cloud technology grows, the scale and complexity of threats also escalate. Here are the reasons why CWP is critical: View more...From Zero To AI Hero, Part 1: Jumpstart Your Journey With Semantic KernelAggregated on: 2024-09-03 13:23:07 GenAI and Coding: A Short Story When I first heard about the Semantic Kernel, I was confused by the term. As a former C++ guy who has worked with Operating Systems, I thought it had something to do with it. Though I have followed the Generative AI landscape, I felt most of it was the initial hype (Garner's hype curve). Predicting tokens was lovely, but I never thought it would influence and create usable bots that could integrate with existing applications. Then, there comes LangChain, which immediately became one of the fastest-growing open-source projects of 2023. LangChain is an AI orchestrator that helps developers sprinkle the magic of AI into their new and existing applications. LangChain came in Python, Java, and JavaScript, and there was a void for C# folks. Semantic Kernel filled this gap: although it differs from LangChain in principle and style, it was essentially built to make the .NET folks happy. Icing on the cake? It also supports Java and Python. View more...Revolutionize Your MuleSoft Deployments With GitOpsAggregated on: 2024-09-02 22:23:07 In the dynamic world of integration, MuleSoft stands out as a powerful platform that enables not only to unlock data across legacy systems, cloud apps, and devices but also to make smarter and faster decisions, and offer highly connected experiences for end-users. As organizations strive for faster and more reliable deployments, the adoption of GitOps is transforming how we manage and automate MuleSoft deployments. In this blog post, we'll explore how we can apply the principles of GitOps to our MuleSoft deployment process. What Is GitOps? GitOps is a new method of controlling infrastructure and application deployments by relying on a Git repository as the primary source of information. Teams can have more oversight, transparency, and tracking of their deployment processes by storing configuration files in a Git repository. GitOps principles prioritize declarative configurations and automated workflows to achieve consistent and reliable deployments. View more...Telemetry Pipelines Workshop: Integrating Fluent Bit With OpenTelemetry, Part 2Aggregated on: 2024-09-02 21:23:07 Are you ready to get started with cloud-native observability and telemetry pipelines? This article is part of a series exploring a workshop guiding you through the open source project Fluent Bit, what it is, a basic installation, and setting up the first telemetry pipeline project. Learn how to manage your cloud-native data from source to destination using the telemetry pipeline phases covering collection, aggregation, transformation, and forwarding from any source to any destination. View more...Elevate Your Career: Three-Step Strategy to Advance Career in the IT IndustryAggregated on: 2024-09-02 20:23:07 Sometimes in our careers, we feel like we're not progressing from our current level. Well, who doesn't? The least said about it, it is an annoying place to be: working hard, putting in long hours, and feeling like our career is going nowhere. I was there too. So, after having navigated my way through it, here's advice I wish I could give my past self. The Reality Check: Why Hard Work Alone Isn’t Enough I’ve noticed a common myth at workplaces that working long hours will get you a promotion. The reality is that putting in extra hours is not a differentiator. While dedication and a strong work ethic are important, it may not take you to the next level. Any leadership looks for people who can tackle higher-level challenges and lead through influence rather than effort. You have more chances to move forward if you are a strategic thinker rather than a hard worker. View more...Part 3: Taste Testing and Fine-Tuning, Evaluating Your Meal Planning BotAggregated on: 2024-09-02 19:23:06 In Part 2, you poured your heart and soul into creating a cutting-edge AI meal planner. You've meticulously chosen the right ingredients (data!), carefully blended them through training, and now your LLM creation is poised to serve up culinary delights. But before you unleash it upon the world, there's one crucial step: a thorough taste test! This is where a robust evaluation framework becomes your most valuable tool. What Is an Eval? An "eval" refers to the process of evaluating or assessing (sometimes referred to as "challenging") the performance of an LLM, to make sure it behaves the way you expect it to. This involves systematically testing the model's ability to generate accurate, relevant, and coherent responses across a variety of tasks and scenarios. Evals often employ diverse datasets and metrics, capturing aspects like factual accuracy, contextual understanding, fluency, and even the potential for bias or harmful outputs. The insights gleaned from these evaluations guide ongoing development and refinement, ultimately shaping the LLM's ability to serve users effectively and responsibly. View more...Monolithic vs Microservices Architecture: Key DifferencesAggregated on: 2024-09-02 18:23:06 Architecture design is imperative to modern software development. It impacts application performance, development time, quality, and overall user experience. Monolithic and microservices are two popular architectural designs powering most software applications today. Monolithic design is a more traditional approach that treats the entire application as a single entity. On the other hand, microservices are a more modern approach that divides the application into smaller components, giving developers granular control. For most developers, currently, microservices stand out as the best approach since they are a novel concept and provide finer control. However, this is not necessarily true in all cases. View more...Best Practices for Salesforce Data Management and SecurityAggregated on: 2024-09-02 17:23:06 Effective Salesforce data management and security are crucial for organizations aiming to maximize their CRM potential while safeguarding sensitive information. As Salesforce continues to be a cornerstone for customer relationship management, ensuring data integrity, accessibility, and security becomes increasingly vital. This article explores best practices for Salesforce data management and security, covering essential strategies such as data governance, access controls, encryption, regular audits, and compliance with industry regulations. By adhering to these best practices, businesses can protect their data assets, enhance operational efficiency, and maintain the trust of their customers. In this article, we will discuss the top five Salesforce data management and security best practices you should consider implementing, if you have not done so already. View more...From Transparency to the Perils of OversharingAggregated on: 2024-09-02 16:23:06 TL; DR: Why Too Much Transparency Can Have a Detrimental Effect While transparency is often touted as essential in Agile, too much can have negative consequences. Oversharing can lead to micromanagement, misinterpretation, and loss of trust within the team. Examples include excessive scrutiny during Daily Scrums, misreading progress metrics, and creating a blame culture that erodes psychological safety. Strategic opacity may sometimes be necessary to protect the team’s autonomy and maintain a healthy dynamic. Be transparent, but not at the expense of the team’s independence and well-being. View more...Going on a Threat Hunt: Advanced Strategies for Defending the Digital FrontierAggregated on: 2024-09-02 15:23:06 Editor's Note: The following is an article written for and published in DZone's 2024 Trend Report, Enterprise Security: Reinforcing Enterprise Application Defense. Threat hunting is a proactive cybersecurity strategy that actively searches for hidden threats throughout an organization's entire digital environment. Unlike traditional security measures that primarily react to incidents, threat hunting assumes a breach has already occurred and aims to identify malicious activity before it escalates. By analyzing vast amounts of data from networks, endpoints, and cloud environments, organizations can uncover suspicious patterns, neutralize threats, and significantly reduce their risk of a successful cyberattack. View more...Zero Trust and Its Impact on CybersecurityAggregated on: 2024-09-02 14:23:06 According to Forbes, 1 out of 5 people are working remotely. With a more distributed workforce, enterprises have significantly changed their operation style, encompassing shifts in company culture, meeting structures, and a surge in Virtual and Augmented Reality. Along with them, the approach to cybersecurity also evolved. To better understand, let's rewind to the early 2000s when employees were onsite, connected to the company's corporate network acting as a security perimeter. All the egress and ingress traffic went through the perimeter protected by firewalls. With the advancement in Internet infrastructure, employees started working from home but continued connecting to corporate networks using VPNs. As years passed, devices became smarter, and how we access work spread from company-issued devices to personal mobiles and tablets. Subsequent growth in Cloud and IoT moved the workloads from running on-prem to operating globally, effectively dissolving the concept of a security perimeter, and demanding a new approach to secure enterprises. View more...API-Led Example: MuleSoftAggregated on: 2024-09-02 13:23:06 This article gives an impression of API-led architecture using Mule4 APIs in order to give a clear understanding of the development process of an API-led approach. It covers all 3 of the API layers (System, Process, and Experience) using Salesforce and FIRST.org as the source. Additionally, we cover applying best practices in each layer of development. RAML: Common library, traits, data definition, reusable resources, health endpoint API: Externalize property files, encryption of properties, externalize dwl code, reusable http requester, common error handling, applying policies, applying loggings Requirements Create and get account details from Salesforce CRM Input has country code in the request for shipping and billing details tags, which needs to be looked up against FIRST.org open source REST API to get the country name Implement clientID enforcement policy with SLA-based rate limiting; limit 100 requests in a minute Follow the best practices: Reusable traits, library, and response code in RAML Define respective APIs with proper error handling, global connectors, logging, munit testcases Common Library Common Traits Client credentials headers: To re-use for APIs where the developer wants to secure the resources using the Client ID enforcement policy #%RAML 1.0 Trait headers: client_id: type: string description: Client Id for the respective consumer application client_secret: type: string description: Client Secret for the respective consumer application View more...Guide to Securing Your Software Supply Chain: Exploring SBOM and DevSecOps Concepts for Enhanced Application SecurityAggregated on: 2024-09-01 15:08:06 Editor's Note: The following is an article written for and published in DZone's 2024 Trend Report, Enterprise Security: Reinforcing Enterprise Application Defense. In today's cybersecurity landscape, securing the software supply chain has become increasingly crucial. The rise of complex software ecosystems and third-party dependencies has introduced new vulnerabilities and threats, making it imperative to adopt robust security measures. This article delves into the significance of a software bill of materials (SBOM) and DevSecOps practices for enhancing application security. We will cover key points such as the importance of software supply chain security, the role of SBOMs, the integration of DevSecOps, and practical steps to secure your software supply chain. View more...Full-Stack Security Guide: Best Practices and Challenges of Securing Modern ApplicationsAggregated on: 2024-08-31 12:08:05 Editor's Note: The following is an article written for and published in DZone's 2024 Trend Report, Enterprise Security: Reinforcing Enterprise Application Defense. Full-stack security protects every layer of a software application, including the front end, back end, infrastructure, and network. It integrates robust security measures to address vulnerabilities by employing tools and practices to maintain data integrity, prevent unauthorized access, and ensure compliance, especially as applications expand and integrate with various technologies and platforms. View more...The Chaos of Mismatched Ord and PartialOrd Implementations in Rust's BTreeSetAggregated on: 2024-08-30 22:08:05 Rust is known for its robust type system and powerful trait-based abstractions, which allow developers to write safe, efficient, and expressive code. BTreeSet in Rust is a powerful data structure for maintaining a sorted collection of unique elements. It provides the guarantees of log(n) insertion, deletion, and lookup times while keeping the elements in a well-defined order. However, when the Ord and PartialOrd trait implementations for a type differ, it can lead to unpredictable and chaotic behavior. This article explores this subtle pitfall using a practical example. Understanding Ord and PartialOrd The Ord Trait The Ord trait in Rust enforces a total order on elements. It’s used by collections like BTreeSet to maintain a consistent ordering. When you implement Ord for a type, you’re defining a complete ordering, which ensures that any two elements can be compared, and the ordering will always make sense. View more... |
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