Git ‘Er Done!
Git Workflows That Help You Move Faster
Gitflow, Forking, Feature Branch, and Centralized are all Git workflows. But which one can help you deliver stable working software the fastest? In this post, we’re going to di...
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DevOps Automation Permalink
What it is, where it falls short and how we can fix it
If you are a software developer or if you work with software developers, chances are you have at least heard of DevOps. But, what does it really mean? What is the state of DevOp...
Continuous Integration (CI) Explained
What it is, what it does, and how to implement it
Software development automation != Continuous Integration (CI). However, the former is a component of the latter. Here, we focus specifically on CI: what it is, what it does, w...
Scaling Environments Up & Down Permalink
Don't forget to scale down for software development
Somehow we commonly forget about supporting the software developers who are responsible for the future development of the software product. We get so wrapped up in making sure ...
Managing Terraform At Scale Permalink
Techniques For Managing Terraform State and Modules
Terraform is a great tool for developing Infrastructure as Code (IaC). But it’s not without a few gotchas, specifically the management of Terraform state and reusable Terraform...
The Difference Between Jr, Mid-Level and Senior Software Developers Permalink
About a month or so back, a (self proclaimed) Junior Developer asked me, “In your opinion, what is the difference between a Junior Developer and a Senior Developer?” That was a...
Sidecar Containers
Sometimes Your Container Needs Friend
Sidecar containers can be a great way to provide atomic Deployments that bind containers together. But like all things, sidecar containers can have drawbacks, like increased dep...
The Microservices Train Permalink
Do you really need to jump aboard?
It seems like the entire software development world has jumped on the microservices train. But the decision to do so is not without its consequences.
Pizza Is For Winners Permalink
Celebrate success, not the appearance of success
Dressing failures up like successes or worse, not being able to tell the difference between success and failure is a recipe for disaster and a sign of a dysfunctional organizat...
What’s The Role of a Team Leader in the Software Industry? Permalink
Transitioning from individual contributor to a manager
Breaking into management can be a tough nut to crack for any professional. However, for technology workers, the path to people management comes with some unique challenges.
Integrating AWS IAM with Kubernetes (EKS)
Kubernetes has its own RBAC (Role-Based Access Control). But if you are in AWS, then there are also IAM roles with policies. If your Kubernetes containers need access to other A...
Managing React SPA Navigation
React Single Page Applications (SPAs) are great! But they do create a problem when you refresh a page on a path that’s different from the originating page or when you link direc...
Hibernate, Redis, and L2 Cache Performance Permalink
In this post we dive deeper into why L2 cache can help performance and why Redis is a good choice. We also discuss the limitations of the free version of Redisson and why we im...
Getting Started With Kubernetes
If you have heard of DevOps then you have probably also heard of Kubernetes. But what is Kubernetes? Why is it important and how can you get started with it? Read on to find out.
What AWS Doesn’t Tell You About Their Managed Kubernetes Service (EKS) Permalink
So, you want to run Kubernetes in AWS and it looks like Amazon’s Elastic Kubernetes Service is your golden ticket… Not so fast. There are a ton of gotchas. Let’s walk through a ...
Redis L2 Cache Integration Using Jedis
Redis is fast, easy to manage and quick to deploy. So, let’s build a Hibernate L2 cache integration with Redis using the popular Java client, Jedis!
It’s Time To Rethink How We Test
Unit testing, component testing, integration testing, acceptance testing, exploratory testing… You’ve heard the terms, maybe even practiced testing at various levels on the Test...
Code Quality, Not Test Coverage
It’s easy to look at a metric like test coverage and equate high test coverage with high code quality. But it’s just not that simple. Test coverage and other “code quality” metr...
Why You Need an ID Token and an Access Token
If you read our last post Secure Access Using SAML, OAuth and OIDC or if you have a decent understanding of OAuth and you’re looking at OpenID Connect like “Why do I need an ID ...
Secure Access Using SAML, OAuth and OIDC
Does your organization use a single sign-on solution? Do you need to hook into it? Or maybe you want to allow your users to sign on with their Google login? Heck, even if you wa...
Testing Terraform For More Than Just Compliance
We discussed automated Terraform testing using Spock. We discussed zero-downtime deployments with autoscaling groups. Now, we’re going to discuss implementing automated Terraf...
Mocking Service Endpoints (With Spring Boot)
Do you interact with external web services? Do you need to test in a controlled environment where those external services might not be available? If you answered “yes” then you...
Adding Capacity Matching to Terraform ASG Updates
A month ago, we discussed zero-downtime updates for autoscaling groups using Terraform. But we omitted capacity matching. This is the post that discusses how to do capacity matc...
Batteries Included Build Automation
Clone repository, run local build… build failure. It works on the build server. It also works on Grant’s workstation. But it doesn’t work for you. Does this sound familiar? If ...
Testing Terraform With Spock
For many modern programming languages, various levels of automated testing have been around for years. However, for Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and specifically Terraform, the...
The Rise of The Monorepo?
Conventional wisdom used to be that different projects should exist in different version control repositories. But maybe that shouldn’t necessarily be the case. Monorepos not on...
Zero-Downtime AWS Autoscaling Groups with Terraform
Hosting your own web application server? Then you may have heard that autoscaling groups are pretty great. But what happens when you need to update the AMI or replace the under...
What is Agile? (Hint: It’s not “Just Make Stuff Up”)
This past Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of the Agile Manifesto. And yet, 20 years later, there still seems to be a lot of confusion around what exactly it means to be “Ag...
Disaster Recovery for Terraform State
Anyone who has worked with Terraform knows the pain associated with managing Terraform state. Things get even more interesting when factoring in disaster recovery (DR) for Terra...