Blog Posts

·2022·

Git ‘Er Done!

Git Workflows That Help You Move Faster

10 minute read

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...

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

11 minute read

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...

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·2021·

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...

Sidecar Containers

Sometimes Your Container Needs Friend

11 minute read

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...

Integrating AWS IAM with Kubernetes (EKS)

6 minute read

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

5 minute read

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...

Getting Started With Kubernetes

7 minute read

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.

Redis L2 Cache Integration Using Jedis

9 minute read

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

7 minute read

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

7 minute read

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

5 minute read

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

8 minute read

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

8 minute read

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)

4 minute read

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...

Batteries Included Build Automation

7 minute read

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

11 minute read

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?

6 minute read

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...

Disaster Recovery for Terraform State

5 minute read

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...

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