News Aggregator

Healthcare’s Digital Accessibility Problem

Aggregated on: Wed Jun 21 2023 15:00:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

The push for digital accessibility aims to ensure equal access and inclusion for all individuals. So why are healthcare companies failing to keep up? In this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted, we sit down with Plum Ertz, Director of Engineering at Ro, to dissect healthcare’s digital accessibility problem. Following explosive growth in telemedicine due to consumer behavior changes brought on by the pandemic, the healthcare industry has struggled to provide accessible healthcare services on the Internet, regardless of the technology or disability someone may have. Plum sheds light on the work being done at Ro to address these challenges, emphasizing the simple steps that teams can take to enhance their digital accessibility.

Distributed Tracing: Past, Present, and Future

Aggregated on: Wed Jun 21 2023 14:45:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Distributed Tracing is a divisive topic. Once the doyen of every KubeCon, the technology was expected to revolutionize observability. Fast forward five years, and the hype has subsided somewhat. There's a lot more talk about the pain, and adoption is moderate. Meanwhile, there continues to be steady activity around expanding and standardizing the technology — Open Telemetry (based on OpenTracing) is the 2nd largest CNCF project after Kubernetes. So, what is the deal with Distributed Tracing? Should one implement it right away or wait and watch? In this article, let's explore Distributed Tracing in depth:

Real-World Cyberattacks Targeting Data Science Tools

Aggregated on: Wed Jun 21 2023 14:15:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

As the move to the cloud accelerates, organizations increasingly rely on large data teams to make data-driven business decisions. To accomplish their jobs, data professionals work with dedicated tools that are often deployed to development and production environments and are frequently given high privileges. Threat actors are innovators, constantly looking for new ways to penetrate organizations, and the expanded attack surface data science tools present is a prime opportunity. In order to identify currently existing threats and help organizations improve their security posture, Aqua Nautilus extensively researched the threats targeting cloud data science tools. We found that many data tools are exposed to threats and are being actively attacked in the wild. In this article, we’ll detail the attacks on Jupyter Notebooks and other popular open-source tools that data practitioners use to analyze and manipulate data.

APIs Under Attack: How To Prepare for and Respond to Breaches

Aggregated on: Wed Jun 21 2023 14:00:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

APIs are a critical part of modern software development, as they allow developers to build more powerful and efficient applications by reusing existing code and functionality. However, the very openness and accessibility of APIs also make them vulnerable to attack. Because APIs provide a way for different systems to communicate with each other, they are often exposed to the public internet and can be accessed by anyone with the right credentials. This makes them a popular target for attackers looking to steal sensitive data or gain unauthorized access to systems.

Querydsl vs. JPA Criteria, Part 4: Pagination

Aggregated on: Wed Jun 21 2023 13:15:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Let's move forward in our journey of discovering and comparing JPA Criteria and Querydsl approaches. This post demonstrates a pagination feature in a custom query. This series consists of these articles:

Use Sidecar Pattern in AWS Lambda To Optimize Your Microservices Architecture

Aggregated on: Wed Jun 21 2023 13:00:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Microservices architecture is becoming increasingly popular as it enables organizations to build complex, scalable applications by breaking them down into smaller, independent services. Microservices architecture is a software development approach that structures an application as a collection of small, independent services that are loosely coupled and communicate with each other through APIs. Each microservice performs a specific function within the application and can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently. This approach offers several benefits, including improved modularity, scalability, and flexibility, as well as easier management and maintenance. The sidecar pattern is a design pattern that involves attaching a secondary container or process to a primary container or process to provide additional functionality. In the context of microservices architecture, the sidecar pattern can be used to handle cross-cutting concerns such as security, configuration, and communication. The secondary container or process is referred to as the sidecar container or sidecar process.

Building Better dapps with Infura’s Polygon WebSocket

Aggregated on: Wed Jun 21 2023 12:30:57 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Web3 dapps are often slow and clunky. But WebSockets on Ethereum L2s can help solve this problem by bringing real-time, bidirectional, client-server communications to the world of web3. 3rd party offerings (such as Infura’s WebSockets on Polygon) can help you create dynamic, low latency, next-gen dapps. In this article we’ll look in detail at WebSockets—what they are, how they compare to traditional HTTP, and some use cases where they shine brightest. Finally we’ll write a script that uses Infura’s Polygon Websocket to get real-time updates of all pending transactions associated with our crypto wallet.

Optimizing API Resource Utilization With Rate Limiting and Throttle Controls

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 23:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

APIs are a vital component in the modern digital landscape, enabling applications to interact with each other and access data from various sources. However, as the number of applications relying on APIs continues to grow, it's increasingly crucial to ensure that APIs can handle the load and perform effectively. This is where optimizing API resource utilization comes into play. API resource utilization refers to the utilization of resources like CPU, memory, and network bandwidth by APIs to handle incoming requests. If the utilization of these resources is not optimized, it can lead to poor performance, stability issues, and a poor user experience.

How to Get Started With Istio in Kubernetes in 5 Steps

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 22:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Applications nowadays are distributed as microservices all over the cloud. Organizations use Kubernetes to manage these applications at scale, which has brought great flexibility and agility for development teams. However, microservices and multicloud applications have given rise to new challenges. Now, it is harder to configure communication between distributed services and secure the data in transit. So it is inevitable for organizations to use service mesh, specifically Istio. In this article, we will briefly look at what Istio is and then see how to install Istio in Kubernetes in just 5 steps.

Modern Access Control Explained

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 22:30:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

There is a lot of confusion around modern authorization. In this post, I lay out the differences between authentication and authorization and review the evolving challenge of application authorization. I then describe the two approaches to cloud-native access control and introduce an open-source project that marries the best of both. Authentication vs. Authorization There is a common misconception about authorization and authentication. People tend to use the two terms interchangeably, or lump them up as “auth,” but they are two distinct processes.

Data Governance – Data Privacy and Security – Part 1

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 21:30:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In every organization, there may be multiple source systems for various needs. Depending on how big the organization is, the source systems may vary from one to more than 1,000. Organizations often centralize their data in one place, integrate it, and derive value out of the data, such as a 360-degree view of customers, products, and so forth. To achieve this, a good data governance framework needs to be in place. The Data Governance framework helps organizations to group the data in the appropriate way, manage the data, ensure the quality of the data, verify the consistency of data, and completeness of data, all to improve decision-making abilities and secure the data in an apt way.

Scaling Quality Engineering: Embracing End-to-End Testing for Agile Success in SAFe

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 20:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In today's fast-paced software development environment, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) has emerged as a leading methodology for organizations to scale Agile practices. One crucial aspect of software development in SAFe is end-to-end testing. This article aims to explore the significance of end-to-end testing within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and its role in ensuring high-quality software delivery. The article discusses various types of end-to-end testing, including functional automation, early performance testing, user acceptance testing, and web accessibility testing. It delves into the process of writing acceptance criteria for SAFe user stories, features, and epics and explains how these are tested within SAFe ceremonies. The article highlights the key stakeholders involved in end-to-end testing and their responsibilities for successful implementation. Furthermore, it maps the activities associated with end-to-end testing to SAFe ceremonies, providing a comprehensive understanding of the testing process. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of end-to-end testing in achieving Agile success within the SAFe framework, ensuring seamless functionality, integration, and customer satisfaction. End-to-End Testing in Scaled Agile Framework End-to-End testing in SAFe Agile is a critical aspect of ensuring the seamless functionality and integration of software systems across the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Unlike other forms of testing, such as unit testing, integration testing, and system testing, which focus on specific levels or components, end-to-end testing in SAFe Agile examines the entire system flow within the SAFe context. It aims to validate the end-to-end functionality, performance, and integration of software systems across multiple teams and value streams within the SAFe framework.

Choosing the Right Functions in C Programming: Strcpy vs. Strncpy

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 20:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

C continues to be one of the most relevant programming languages despite the presence of more modern options. One of the reasons for this sustained popularity is C's functions. From 'fgets' to 'toupper,' C provides a variety of ways for string manipulation and other common operations, which make coding easier. However, with the threat of more advanced and relentless cyber-attacks, developers need to be careful with these C functions. They can create vulnerabilities in apps or systems that cybercriminals are itching to find and exploit. These vulnerabilities can be difficult to spot (for the owners) and rectify, especially if they are in disparate devices and shadow IT.

Node.js: Architectural Gems and Best Practices for Developers to Excel

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 20:30:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Let me tell you about Node.js —it's fantastic! In the world of web development, you often need to handle tons of things—like serving web pages, processing data, or even chatting with users in real time. Here Node.js comes in to save the day! “Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that lets you run JavaScript code outside a web browser” It's like having a superpower that empowers JavaScript to do amazing things on the server side.

CI/CD Best Practices: Top 10 Practices for Financial Services

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 16:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

As you probably already know, creating and releasing software has become challenging as teams, applications, and deployment infrastructure gets more sophisticated. Developers and organizations have come up with three interconnected but independent ways to organize and automate the processes involved in software development, testing, and release so that they can be done quickly and consistently. Furthermore, these techniques involve little or even zero human implication while creating new code and subsequent deployment. We are referring to the three primary approaches: Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Deployment. This article won’t go into the details of CI/CD but will rather take a look at CI/CD Best Practices.

Safeguard Your Cloud Native Applications: Empower Development With IBM Cloud App ID

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 16:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In application development, achieving a fast time-to-value for developers is vital. However, it is equally crucial to ensure that valuable data is accessible only to the right individuals while keeping unauthorized users out. In the current landscape, application developers require robust security capabilities to protect their applications. Incorporating IBM Cloud App ID into your applications can provide a solution by enabling swift resource security and authentication, even for developers without extensive security expertise. What Is IBM Cloud App ID? IBM Cloud App ID is a cloud service that simplifies the process of adding authentication and authorization capabilities to applications. The service handles all operational aspects, allowing developers to focus on building secure applications.

Quantum AI: Unraveling the Potential of Quantum Computing in Machine Learning

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 15:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

What Is QML? Quantum Machine Learning is a research area that combines quantum physics and machine learning. It uses quantum computing's potential for fast and complex computations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of machine learning algorithms. This could speed up data processing and potentially reveal new insights from data. Challenges of QML Data encoding schemes: We have plenty of classical data which needs to convert into quantum states to have them as inputs to a quantum machine learning model. This step is crucial because an accurate data encoding scheme ensures that the quantum states are represented properly in the Bloch sphere as amplitudes, basis, or rotations. QML model design: This consists of designing parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs), which learn the latent patterns in the data and extract useful information from it. Usually, Pauli rotation gates are used for building the PQCs. However, better hybrid quantum-classical architectures need to be identified to increase the generalizability of the circuits. The fundamental unit of Quantum Learning: In classical machine learning, there is a fundamental unit of computation known as the neuron, which computes the weighted mean of all the inputs and gives a single numerical value as the output. A similar computational unit called the quantum neuron is required, which inherently uses the quantum mechanical properties to perform computations. Quantum Hardware limitations: The quantum computers available today are in the NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) era, which means that they have a few hundred noisy qubits which are only capable of executing quantum circuits up to a certain depth and do not provide accurate results. It also implies that the ability to retain information is limited. Quantum resource management: Due to the NISQ era, there is a limitation on the number of quantum gates that can be run, which indicates that a larger depth circuit will have more noisy results. Also, building fault-tolerant qubits and quantum gates is another challenge. Standardized Evaluation and Benchmarking: With rapid progress in QML research, it is important to set benchmarks for the models, for optimizers, cost functions, and architectures so that standardization can occur in this emerging field. This will aid in the process of evaluating and comparing different QML Algorithms/models for varying datasets. QML Opportunities Data encoding schemes: Efficient and optimal data encoding techniques need to be searched upon such that they accurately represent the quantum state vectors. For example, variational encoding schemes can be one of the approaches. Another could be designing an encoding system based on a given problem; an example could be encoding molecules using graph networks since they capture the essence of molecular structure for quantum chemistry computations. QML model design: There is a huge potential in developing quantum circuit architectures for efficient ansatz design and tailoring them to problem-specific applications. One of the avenues of research is to explore adaptive ansatz design, which can change its width and depth according to the problem size. There exists adapt-VQE, which is used for chemistry, but we need more such kinds of techniques for other areas as well. The fundamental unit of Quantum Learning: Very little work has been carried out to efficiently construct a neuron utilizing the quantum properties. Quantum complexity theory could be studied in detail to address this challenge. It provides tools and techniques to measure the complexity of quantum circuits and even search for optimal ansatz. Additionally, novel architectures could be constructed using the theories of condensed matter physics to search for materials more suitable for quantum computations. Quantum Hardware limitations: Several qubit modalities are currently available for executing quantum computations, such as superconducting, photonic, ion-traps, spin-based, and topological, and significant research is each being carried out to address the challenges they pose. However, it is still undecided which modality will be universal and suit all applications. Furthermore, no standard benchmarks exist that can describe the different hardware compatibility for certain applications. Quantum resource management: Several research groups worldwide are taking inspiration from abstract mathematical fields such as group theory and ring theory to define novel circuit reduction and optimization strategies to reduce the depth of circuits for NISQ devices. Furthermore, better quantum error correction schemes and fault-tolerant procedures are required to optimize resources. Standardized Evaluation and Benchmarking: Developing a standardized framework for evaluating quantum machine learning algorithms that include guidelines for problem description, algorithm implementation, hardware platform, and evaluation metrics. Creating diverse benchmark datasets and defining evaluation metrics that consider accuracy, training time, resource usage, and robustness to noise. QML Assessment Quantum Complexity theory: Applying quantum complexity theory to evaluate QML algorithms involves assessing the efficiency of these algorithms in terms of the required quantum resources, such as the number of qubits, the depth and complexity of quantum circuits, and the number of quantum gates. This analysis can provide valuable insights into the scalability and feasibility of QML algorithms for solving practical problems. Robustness to noise and errors: Evaluate the algorithm's performance in the presence of noise and errors, which are common in current quantum hardware. A successful QML algorithm should demonstrate resilience against these imperfections, maintaining its performance or providing error-correction mechanisms. Resource efficiency: Assess the algorithm's efficiency in terms of required quantum resources, such as the number of qubits, quantum gates, and circuit depth. A successful QML algorithm should minimize resource requirements, allowing for implementation on near-term and future quantum hardware. Accuracy: For supervised and unsupervised learning tasks, prediction or classification accuracy is crucial. The higher the accuracy, the better the QML algorithm performs. It is essential to compare the QML algorithm's accuracy with its classical counterpart to assess any potential advantages. Training and inference time: Evaluate the time required for training and inference using the QML algorithm. Faster training and inference times can provide a competitive advantage over classical algorithms, particularly for large-scale problems or real-time applications. Scalability: Assess the algorithm's scalability with respect to the size of the problem or dataset. A successful QML algorithm should maintain performance as the problem size increases, given the limitations of available quantum hardware. Timeliness or Maturity of QML Quantum machine learning is gaining traction due to recent advances in quantum hardware with companies like IBM, Google, and Rigetti, etc. developing increasingly powerful quantum processors, the development of hybrid quantum-classical algorithms such as QAOA and VQE, which allow for the practical application of QML on existing hardware, despite its limitations, theoretical developments in the understanding of quantum computing's theoretical foundations, such as quantum complexity theory and quantum error correction, has paved the way for designing more efficient and robust QML algorithms and increased interdisciplinary research. The growth in data complexity and limitations of classical computing also contribute to the timeliness of QML.

Best Practices for Exchange Server 2019 Storage

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 15:30:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

There are several best practices when it comes to storage configuration in different setups of Exchange Server. In this article, we are going to discuss some best practices you can follow when it comes to the storage configuration in Exchange Server 2019. The Ideal Setup The ideal setup (see the below image) with the required storage depends on the needs of the business.

Front-End Development Trends

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 15:30:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

The constant evolution and ever-changing trends characterize software development. As a software developer, staying up to date with the latest advancements is crucial. This is vital for front-end development in creating a seamless and engaging user experience. The front end is part of an application that users directly interact with, making it imperative to prioritize a smooth and enjoyable user experience. From ensuring well-structured layouts to incorporating captivating animations, front-end developers hold the key to crafting memorable user experiences.

The AI Adoption Barrier: Key Challenges and How To Overcome Them

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 15:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become quite important in recent years to drive up business performance. Enterprises across various industries have started adopting AI to increase efficiency and productivity.

Seamless Feature Release Without Deployment Using IBM Cloud AppConfiguration: An Alternative to LaunchDarkly

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 15:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In today’s fast-paced software development landscape, releasing new features quickly and efficiently to meet user demands is crucial. Traditional deployment processes often involve downtime and complex release cycles. However, with IBM Cloud AppConfiguration, you can seamlessly release new features without the need for deployment, minimizing disruptions and maximizing user satisfaction. In this article, we will explore how you can leverage the power of IBM Cloud AppConfiguration to effortlessly release features. What Is IBM Cloud AppConfiguration? IBM Cloud AppConfiguration is a feature management service provided by IBM Cloud. It allows developers to easily control the release of features in their applications without the need for complex deployment processes. With AppConfiguration, developers can toggle feature flags, manage configuration parameters, and target specific user segments for feature rollouts. This flexibility enables agile development, seamless feature releases, and a personalized user experience.

The Great Data Mesh Debate: Will It Sink or Swim?

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 14:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Data Mesh has been gaining attention in the industry as a new approach to managing data. However, amidst the excitement, there are concerns about its complexities and whether it can deliver on its promises. In this article, we will dive into the intricacies of Data Mesh, address the great debate around its obsolescence and explore the opportunities and challenges it presents. We will also discuss what the industry might be missing and the potential roadblocks that could hinder its successful implementation. Data Mesh: A Paradigm for Democratized and Scalable Data Architecture So, what does the prominently used term "data mesh" mean, and why should one consider implementing one?

Software Quality Management: A Comprehensive Guide With Examples and Best Practices

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 14:15:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Software quality management involves keeping a close eye on software development and maintenance to ensure that it meets customer expectations and is bug-free. It includes activities like quality assurance, testing, and continuous improvement. With quality management, you can deliver software that is reliable, efficient, and easy to use. To build an app, developers should work on many factors, such as choosing their front-end framework and the limitations of app size. Testers have to ensure that they do their job with a near-perfect notion to ensure there are no bugs or defects.

Building the Best Kubernetes Test Cluster on MacOS

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 14:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

As a platform engineer of many years now, Kubernetes has become one of those ubiquitous tools that are simply a must-have in many of our clients’ tech stacks. Considering that the big three cloud vendors (AWS, GCP, and Microsoft Azure) all now offer their own flavor of managed Kubernetes services, it is easy to see how it has become ever more prolific in the “cloud-native architecture” space. Like all cloud-native technologies, Kubernetes can be a challenge to test locally. On many of our projects, developers often use Docker-compose instead of Kubernetes to test their applications locally, which inevitably causes some friction when deploying them to a cloud environment. Platform engineers also need to test their Kubernetes infrastructure and manifests and often resort to using dedicated cloud environments to do so, which can be quite expensive. What was needed was a way to get as close as possible to a cloud-based managed cluster on a laptop.

Kafka: Navigating GDPR Compliance

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 14:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Navigating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) maze might be daunting. If you’re using Kafka for your data storage and processing, you might be wondering if you’re GDPR compliant, particularly with respect to the Right to Erasure or “Right to be Forgotten” (RTBF). In this post, we’ll delve into what this means for your Kafka deployment and explore potential solutions. Understanding GDPR and Kafka’s Challenge The GDPR is a regulation put in place to safeguard the privacy of individuals in the European Union (EU). It impacts anyone collecting or processing personal data within the EU, irrespective of their geographical location.

How WeBank Reduced Their Batch Processing Time by 58% With a Scale-Out MySQL Alternative

Aggregated on: Tue Jun 20 2023 13:00:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

WeBank is China’s first privately-owned online bank backed by Tencent. WeBank offers accessible and high-quality financial services to underbanked individuals as well as small- and medium-sized enterprises. So far, WeBank has served over 250 million individual customers, 20 million individual business customers, and 1.5 million corporate customers. This case study explores WeBank’s successful use of PingCAP’s TiDB, an advanced, open-source, distributed SQL database, to clear its technical hurdles and accommodate business growth.

Build a Serverless Application for Image Label Detection

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 20:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In this blog post, you will learn how to build a Serverless solution to process images using Amazon Rekognition, AWS Lambda and the Go programming language. Images uploaded to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) will trigger a Lambda function which will detect labels (using the AWS Go SDK) and persist the image label data to an Amazon DynamoDB table. You will be using the Go programming language for the business logic (thanks to the AWS-lambda-go library) as well as the infrastructure component (Go bindings for AWS CDK) to deploy the solution.

Mastering Proactive Defense: The Changing Face of Threat Hunting

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 18:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In today's rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape, traditional reactive approaches to cybersecurity are no longer sufficient. As attackers become more sophisticated, organizations must adopt proactive defense strategies to stay one step ahead. This article will delve into the changing face of threat hunting in 2023 and explore how cybersecurity professionals can master aggressive defense to combat emerging threats effectively. The Evolution of Threat Hunting Threat hunting has evolved from a reactive approach to a proactive one. Traditionally, organizations rely on security tools that detect known threats or anomalies after an attack. However, aggressive defense has become essential with the increasing complexity and frequency of attacks. Threat hunting now involves actively searching for signs of compromise within an organization's network and systems before an attack occurs.

Secure Coding Best Practices

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 18:15:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Every single day, an extensive array of fresh software vulnerabilities is unearthed by diligent security researchers and analysts. Many of these vulnerabilities emerge due to the absence of secure coding practices. Exploiting such vulnerabilities can have severe consequences, as they can severely impair a business's financial or physical assets, erode trust, or disrupt critical services. For organizations reliant on their software for their operations, it becomes imperative for software developers to embrace secure coding practices. Secure coding entails a collection of practices that software developers adopt to fortify their code against cyberattacks and vulnerabilities. By adhering to coding standards that embody best practices, developers can incorporate safeguards that minimize the risks posed by vulnerabilities in their code.

Web Application Testing Tutorial: A Comprehensive Guide With Examples and Best Practices

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 17:45:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Web application testing is an approach to ensure the correct functioning and performance of the web application by following a structured process. With web application testing, bugs or errors are detected and ensure that all such are removed before the web application goes live.

Simplify Data Processing With Azure Data Factory REST API and HDInsight Spark

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 17:45:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In today's data-driven world, organizations often face the challenge of processing and analyzing vast amounts of data efficiently and reliably. Azure Data Factory, a cloud-based data integration service, combined with HDInsight Spark, a fast and scalable big data processing framework, offers a powerful solution to tackle these data processing requirements. In this blog post, we will explore how to leverage Azure Data Factory and HDInsight Spark to create a robust data processing pipeline. We will walk through the step-by-step process of setting up an Azure Data Factory, configuring linked services for Azure Storage and on-demand Azure HDInsight, creating datasets to describe input and output data, and finally, creating a pipeline with an HDInsight Spark activity that can be scheduled to run daily. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a solid understanding of how to harness the potential of Azure Data Factory and HDInsight Spark to streamline your data processing workflows and derive valuable insights from your data. Let's dive in! Here's the code and detailed explanation for each step to create an Azure Data Factory pipeline for processing data using Spark on an HDInsight Hadoop cluster:

Guide: How to Mask Sensitive Information Using Fluent Bit

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 17:15:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Fluent Bit is a popular open-source log processor and forwarder that allows you to collect data from different sources, filter, and transform it before forwarding it to different destinations. In some cases, the data collected may contain sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other personally identifiable information (PII). To protect such information, you need to mask or obfuscate it before forwarding it to the destination. In this document, we will discuss how to mask sensitive information using Fluent Bit. The goal of this guide is to convert structured logs that contain PII information like (mobile numbers, identity information, names, etc.){"timestamp":"2023-06-05T17:04:33.505+05:30","requestURI":"/api/user","message":"Sending SMS to mobileNumber=1234512345 registered on aadhaarNumber=1234512345"}to a format where this information is masked.{"@timestamp":"2023-06-05T17:04:33.505+05:30","requestURI":"/api/user","message":"Sending SMS to mobileNumber=******** registered on aadhaarNumber=********"}

Architecture and Planning for Integration

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 17:15:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is one of the most critical areas in IT today. EAI technologies available today can greatly ease the task of integrating disparate systems. However, if not backed by a solid architecture and plan before beginning to deploy them, these technologies will not yield the hoped-for results of enabling organizational responsiveness to rapidly changing market conditions. It’s critical that the use of EAI technologies is seen as a decision about creating a platform of flexible, reusable services that support rapid reconfiguration of business processes. The goal must be about enabling enterprise business processes. In this article, I highlight three common pitfalls that companies fall into when they try to deploy EAI technologies without a solid architecture and a clear plan in place.

Why Employing Agile Coaches Next to Scrum Masters Is Unnecessary

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 17:00:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Often, when organizations employ Agile coaches and Scrum Masters, we can observe that Agile coaches work at an organizational level. In contrast, Scrum Masters work in a tactical role at the team level in a “delivery manager capacity,” which defies the Scrum Guide’s concept of accountabilities. However, if you take Scrum seriously, this approach has no upside. Here are eight reasons for empowering your Scrum Masters to work with the organization.

Software Development Is the Backbone of Productivity

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 17:00:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Whether you’re a developer actively looking for work or are just thinking about where your career might take you, keep a broad perspective on your options. You might initially think it makes the most sense to primarily work for companies that are seemingly most in need of your core skills — such as tech and app development businesses. However, in today’s highly digitalized and online-centered world, most companies eventually need software development expertise to achieve their goals. Hiring Growth Is Happening at Nontech Companies Recent tech layoffs have made international news. It’s easy to begin believing things are getting tough for software developers if you only focus on that. However, a 2023 Bain & Co. report showed nontech companies hired more tech team members during the second and third quarters of 2022 than their technology business counterparts.

Disrupting the AI Scene With Open Source and Open Innovation

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 16:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

When I discovered OpenAI on the 23rd of December 2022, I became obsessed. I hadn't had this much fun coding since I started 40 years ago. After playing with "fine-tuning" for a month and miserably failing, I found a YouTube video by Dave Shapiro that explained how to create a Q&A chatbot using OpenAI's "embeddings" API. Dave has since removed the video, but it explains how to use OpenAI's embeddings API and combine it with their chat/completion API to create a Q&A chatbot that knows "everything" about the problem domain. Tage's reaction best sums up my findings, as he told me one day.

Vulnerability Management in DevSecOps

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 16:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

DevSecOps means including security in the DevOps delivery pipeline. This model integrates security tenets as early as possible and in all applicable phases of the software development lifecycle. The diagram below showcases the security aspect's integration in the later stage of DevOps but wherein DevSecOps security is integrated into all stages of the lifecycle. IT security leaders should adopt effective vulnerability management practices in their organizations to implement proper DevSecOps.

Which One Gives You Higher ROI: API Automation or UI Automation?

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 16:45:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In the world of software testing, organizations are continually seeking ways to optimize their testing processes, improve efficiency, and enhance overall product quality. One effective strategy gaining traction is shifting the testing focus from User Interface (UI) automation to Application Programming Interface (API) automation. This shift brings numerous advantages, including faster execution, increased test coverage, improved stability, enhanced reusability, earlier bug detection, and improved maintainability. Let's delve deeper into how emphasizing API automation can significantly enhance testing efficiency. Faster Execution: API automation tests outpace UI automation tests in terms of speed. By eliminating the need for rendering and interacting with UI components, API calls are lighter and execute more swiftly. Consequently, this leads to shorter test execution times, facilitating quicker feedback cycles and expediting the overall testing process. Increased Test Coverage: APIs expose a broad range of functionalities and endpoints that can be independently tested. By shifting the focus to API automation, testers can achieve comprehensive coverage of the application's functionality. This includes testing scenarios that may be challenging to replicate or test solely through the UI. As a result, the testing efforts become more thorough, uncovering potential issues that could have been overlooked by relying solely on UI automation. Improved Stability and Reliability: UI automation tests often suffer from fragility due to UI layout changes, CSS modifications, or browser-specific issues. Conversely, API automation focuses on the backend functionality, which tends to be more stable. By relying more on API automation, testing efforts become more resilient to UI changes, resulting in improved stability and reliability of the tests. This stability allows testers to focus on true application behavior rather than being distracted by superficial UI changes. Enhanced Reusability: APIs provide standardized interfaces for interacting with applications, enabling the creation of reusable automation code. With well-designed API automation frameworks, testers can build libraries and modules that can be easily leveraged across multiple test scenarios and even different applications with similar APIs. The reusability of API automation code significantly reduces redundancy, effort, and maintenance costs associated with UI automation scripts. Earlier Bug Detection: API testing can be initiated at an early stage of the development process, as APIs are often available before the full UI implementation. By shifting the testing weight towards API automation, organizations can identify and rectify issues related to data validation, request/response handling, and business logic earlier in the development cycle. Detecting bugs at an early stage reduces the likelihood of these issues cascading to the UI layer, saving time and effort in later stages. Improved Maintainability: Maintaining UI automation tests can be challenging, particularly when the UI undergoes frequent changes. UI modifications often require corresponding updates to test scripts, leading to increased maintenance efforts. By emphasizing API automation, which is less affected by UI changes, organizations can achieve a more stable and maintainable test suite. This streamlined maintenance process allows testers to focus on actual functional changes rather than constantly updating UI automation scripts. Conclusion The paradigm shift towards emphasizing API automation in software testing offers a multitude of benefits, including faster execution, increased test coverage, improved stability and reliability, enhanced reusability, earlier bug detection, and improved maintainability. By leveraging the power of APIs, organizations can optimize their testing processes, allocate resources more efficiently, and deliver higher-quality software products. Striking the right balance between UI automation and API automation will enable testing teams to achieve comprehensive and efficient testing, resulting in robust and reliable applications.

Redefining Incident Response

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 16:15:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

If you think your org doesn’t have any incidents, it’s time to change your definition of an incident. This week we’re joined by Nora Jones, Jeli's founder, and CEO, to simplify incident analysis and explain why so many incidents go underreported. Before beginning her journey as a founder, Nora helped pioneer chaos engineering at companies like Netflix and Slack, where she developed a passion for understanding the intersection of software and people.

How To Install TestNG in Eclipse: Step-By-Step Guide

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 16:15:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Test automation involves the use of specialized tools and frameworks to enhance the quality of the application by writing and executing tests to verify the functionality of the application. By automating the regression tests that help in checking the stability of the application, plenty of time can be saved, and overall efficiency, accuracy, and speed in the testing process can be improved. TestNG is one such powerful testing framework that helps to write and execute automated tests.

Mastering Database Unit Testing: A Full Guide and 5 Essential Tools

Aggregated on: Mon Jun 19 2023 15:15:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Database testing is an essential component in the software development lifecycle. Conducting unit and schema testing when dealing with database testing is imperative, and stress testing is equally crucial. However, determining the necessary tests for your database and identifying those that can be skipped can be challenging. Let's delve deeper into the importance of unit testing in database testing and explore how to effectively carry out unit testing on databases. When it comes to database testing, data integrity, and consistency are paramount. Our goal as QA engineers is to ensure that every application component maintains data integrity, from server-side tasks to client-side interactions. So, let's take a closer look at the types of database testing that can help us achieve this.

How Does GDPR Impact the App Development Workflow?

Aggregated on: Sun Jun 18 2023 03:30:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) marks a new era in cybersecurity laws. It’s one of if not the most comprehensive and far-reaching data privacy regulations today, so it affects app development significantly. GDPR fines can be hefty, so you want to do all you can to comply with it. Here’s how that will impact the app development workflow.

Database Deadlocks: Reasons and Resolution

Aggregated on: Sun Jun 18 2023 03:15:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Understanding Deadlocks in Databases In the context of databases, deadlocks are situations where two or more transactions are unable to proceed because each is waiting for the other to release a resource. This can be likened to a circular chain of transactions, where each transaction is waiting for the next in the chain to release a resource. Here’s a visual representation of a deadlock scenario:

Virtualization Security Risks and Solutions

Aggregated on: Sun Jun 18 2023 02:45:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Virtualization technology is being increasingly adopted by organizations across the globe for its numerous benefits such as cost savings, improved efficiency, flexibility, scalability, and disaster recovery. However, the increased adoption of virtualization technology has also led to increased security risks. Virtualization security risks are caused by various factors such as vulnerabilities in virtualization software, attacks on virtual machines (VMs), and hypervisor attacks. This article discusses virtualization security risks and the solutions to mitigate them. Virtualization Security Risks Vulnerabilities in Virtualization Software Virtualization software is the core of virtualization technology. It is responsible for managing the VMs, hypervisor, and other virtualization components. The vulnerabilities in virtualization software can be exploited by attackers to gain unauthorized access to the virtualization environment. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities to take control of the virtualization environment, steal sensitive data, and launch attacks on other VMs in the virtual environment.

Spring Cloud: How To Implement Service Discovery (Part 2)

Aggregated on: Fri Jun 16 2023 20:15:54 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In the previous part of this article, Spring Cloud: How to Implement Service Discovery (Part 1), we saw the basics of Service Discovery in the context of Spring Cloud. We have seen that the Netflix OSS Eureka component is still the main choice. In this post, we are going to discuss some Eureka additional topics, such as: Java client API REST API Secure the discovery server and the client services Combine Service Discovery with Distributed Configuration Service Discovery: Client Java API In the examples in the first part of this article, the registering and fetching features were running under the hood and we have only seen the results of testing the whole architecture by calling a client REST endpoint. There is also a way to interact with the Eureka API programmatically, by using Java method calls. A possible choice would be to use the EurekaClient class. For example, if we want to get all the instances of a service identified by a particular ID, we could write the following code, supposing we have a client implemented as a Spring Boot application exposing REST services:

The Power of Template-Based Document Generation with NLP and AI in Python

Aggregated on: Fri Jun 16 2023 16:45:54 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In today's digital age, document generation plays a crucial role in various industries and sectors. The efficiency and accuracy of document generation significantly impact business processes, productivity, and customer satisfaction. One powerful approach to streamlining document creation is template-based document generation.

Getting Started With Prometheus Workshop: Relabeling Metrics in Prometheus

Aggregated on: Fri Jun 16 2023 16:45:54 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Are you interested in open-source observability but lack the knowledge to just dive right in? This workshop is for you, designed to expand your knowledge and understanding of open-source observability tooling that is available to you today. Dive right into a free, online, self-paced, hands-on workshop introducing you to Prometheus. Prometheus is an open-source systems monitoring and alerting tool kit that enables you to hit the ground running with discovering, collecting, and querying your observability today. Over the course of this workshop, you will learn what Prometheus is, what it is not, install it, start collecting metrics, and learn all the things you need to know to become effective at running Prometheus in your observability stack.

Using AWS DMS for Data Migration From On-Premises Oracle 19 to AWS DynamoDB: Insights From Practical Migration

Aggregated on: Fri Jun 16 2023 16:30:54 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

The first article on the insights from Data Migrations using AWS DMS focused on on-prem Oracle source to AWS RDS PostgreSQL target. In this article, we look at the AWS DynamoDB as the target for the on-prem Oracle 19 database. The examples presented in this article are modeled on practical migration challenges for clients where this migration path was followed. The challenges in the migration to DynamoDB are closely related to the inherent DynamoDB design and how radically it differs from RDBMs like Oracle. The laser-sharp focus that AWS has on scaling DynamoDB at any volume to provide consistent throughput means certain restrictions in how the model works. And so, the schema-less-ness of DynamoDB makes migration from RDBMS a unique challenge.

Unlocking the Power of Data Integration: A Guide to Success

Aggregated on: Fri Jun 16 2023 15:45:54 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In today's digital age, organizations generate and store massive amounts of data across multiple systems and platforms. However, without proper integration, this data can be siloed, inconsistent, and difficult to access. That's where data integration comes in. Data integration is the process of combining data from different sources into a single, unified view, enabling organizations to better understand their data and make informed decisions. Whether you're looking to streamline your data management, improve data quality, or make real-time data available for analysis, this guide will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the data integration process, including the different methods for integration, the challenges you may face, and best practices for success. "Every company has big data in its future, and every company will eventually be in the data business." — Thomas H. Davenport, co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics.

How To Implement Image Segmentation

Aggregated on: Fri Jun 16 2023 15:30:54 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Changing an image/video background has always been a hassle, whereby the most tricky part is extracting the element other than the background. Traditionally, it requires us to use a PC image-editing program that allows us to select the element, add a mask, replace the canvas, and more. If the element has an extremely uneven border, then the whole process can be very time-consuming.