Articles

Managing configuration information in a complex, cloud-native application can be daunting. There is seemingly configuration everywhere.

• There’s configuration describing the network interconnections in your system, including routing rules and port blocking.
• There’s configuration for your load balancers, determining where to send traffic destined for your service.
• There’s configuration for security permissions needed for databases, caches, servers, third-party applications, and other systems.
• There’s configuration for your application itself, describing database connections, service connections, and …

Software architects hold a unique and influential position in the product development lifecycle, guiding technical decisions that shape the product's future.

Let me be clear - architects aren't just technical decision makers, they're risk managers who shape your entire product's future. I've seen this firsthand in my years at AWS, New Relic and other enterprises. When you're operating at scale, every architectural decision carries both opportunity and risk. Technical debt isn't just a burden - it's a strategic …

Ready to pull the ripcord on VMWare? On Nov 6, join my friends over at CAST and AWS to learn how software intelligence can speed up and derisk the move to best-fit cloud services. Register today!

In the complex ecosystem of software development, the role of a software architect is critical in shaping the direction and success of product development. Software architects wield significant influence that extends well beyond writing code …

In world of software development, the role of a software architect often appears to stand at the top of the technical leadership ladder. With that responsibility comes an even greater need for continuous learning and adaptation. As someone who's spent years in the trenches of cloud architecture, I can tell you that the moment you stop learning is the moment you start becoming obsolete.

The Shifting Sands of Technology

Let's face it: the tech landscape is changing …

Migrating to the cloud can be daunting, especially when dealing with complex applications, which can have a life of their own. These applications can act in seemingly random ways when exposed to unexpected stimuli, such as moving from a stable data center environment to a more chaotic cloud environment. This inherent complexity makes migrating to the cloud risky, but there are ways to mitigate the risk.

Piecemeal Migration

Proper pre-migration preparation is critical to a successful cloud migration. …

As the world of software development continues to evolve at a rapid pace, organizations are increasingly turning to tools such as Kubernetes to deploy, scale, and manage their containerized applications. Kubernetes and containers have, in particular, revolutionized how we build and deploy applications, but with this power comes the responsibility of ensuring our systems' health, performance, and reliability. This is where effective monitoring comes into play.

I've spent years working with companies of all sizes, helping them navigate …

As someone who has spent decades at the forefront of the tech industry, I've seen firsthand how emerging technologies can disrupt the status quo. With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), it's natural to wonder about its potential impact on the job market, particularly for roles that rely on uniquely human skills. However, I believe that most human-centric jobs, including writers, actors, and lawyers, will not only survive but thrive in the age of AI.

The recently …

In the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI), getting caught up in the hype is easy. After all, computer intelligence appears poised to surpass human intelligence in every domain.

However, despite the remarkable progress AI has made in recent years, there are still areas where humans maintain a clear advantage. According to Stanford University's AI Index report for 2024, AI systems continue to lag behind human performance in tasks that require complex cognitive abilities, such as …

The world of artificial intelligence (AI) is undergoing a profound transformation, and at the heart of this change is the rise of open-source AI models. According to Stanford University's AI Index report for 2024, a remarkable 65.7% of the 149 foundation models released in 2023 were open-source, up from 44.4% in 2022 and 33.3% in 2021. This shift towards open-source AI is not just a passing trend; it's a movement that is redefining the very nature of AI …

In all the different ways we know in order to migrate an application to the cloud, the lift-and-shift strategy is often the first method organizations attempt. It’s a simple concept: take your existing applications and move them, as is, to the cloud. But simplicity can be deceptive. I’ve seen firsthand how this approach can lead to a host of issues, particularly when it comes to the underutilization of dynamic cloud resources.

Migrating to the cloud using lift-and-shift may be the …

GitHub has published research on the growth and impact of AI on software development. Among their findings is that developers write code “55% faster” when using the GitHub Copilot code automation tool.

But this finding doesn’t tell the whole story. Is this code high-quality? Is this code necessary? Is the code contributing to the long-term value of our applications? Does the code contribute to the operation of the application in a clear and concise manner? …

Consider the following story:

“I went into my CEO’s office. Our CEO is a very driven, technical, hands-on CEO. All technical decisions have to go through him before the company goes forward with a plan. Today, the discussion was the cloud. The problem? The CEO said we couldn’t move our application to the cloud because it was too expensive. His evidence? ‘If you compare the cost per hour of a cloud-based server instance, to the monthly costs …

In the dynamic world of software development, complexity is often viewed as the arch-nemesis of productivity and efficiency. Yet, here lies the paradox: embracing complexity can actually pave the way to simplicity.

How can this be the case?

Let’s focus a bit on complexity in software development. We can often think of complexity as a big, tangled ball of yarn. The more you pull on one thread, the messier it gets.

Now imagine breaking up that big …

Don’t be fooled into thinking your site is highly available when it isn’t.

Planned and regular maintenance involving unavailable applications still counts against availability for those applications. After all, from your customer’s viewpoint, your application is still unavailable. The fact that you planned that it would be unavailable is not important to your customers.

I often hear companies using routine maintenance windows as an excuse. Usually, the argument goes like this:

“We have fantastic availability — our application never …

Are you planning an application migration? Perhaps you are moving your on-premise application to the cloud, or perhaps you are modernizing an older application to a more appropriate application architecture.

Migrations such as these are commitments. Commitments of time. Commitments of resources. Commitments of mindset and corporate energy. They can involve long and evolved transitions. They involve lots of effort—an effort that does not directly, immediately correspond to a realized benefit. Instead, the benefit often comes much later than the …

Your application is large. You have many customers, and they make good use of your many features and capabilities. You have a large catalog of products, and your store is big and feature-rich. You are doing well.

Except, you are having problems.

Your application crashes too often. Your developers are always on it when it fails, and they are very fast at fixing your site, but it takes time and energy. You are down at least once a month or …

Cloud computing has changed the fundamental structure of the enterprise IT department. While the benefits of cloud computing are well understood, effectively integrating the fundamental changes required to support cloud-native architectures properly is not as universally well-known.

Enter the Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE). The CCoE is an organizational structure designed to drive acceptance and adaptability of cloud constructs into the enterprise IT processes. The CCoE is a fundamental restructuring of how we think about IT in an …

In the dynamic landscape of modern business, the adoption of cloud-native technology has become a cornerstone for achieving unprecedented scale and agility. For organizations devoted to harnessing the full potential of cloud-native applications, the establishment of a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) is a common first step in this cloud-native journey. In the past, I’ve written about why building a CCoE will help your organization perform the necessary transformations. But once you’ve decided to build a CCoE, how do …

In the past few years, cloud computing has become a dominant trend in enterprise IT. The benefits of moving to the cloud are clear: lower costs, increased flexibility, and improved scalability. But as more companies move their infrastructures into public clouds such as AWS or Azure, they face a challenge that is often overlooked: How do they transform an organization from a typical on-premises company to a cloud-native, cloud-centric organization?

A cloud center of excellence (CCoE) is an organizational …