Category Archives: Technology

Blog Post on Oracle.com and more

19 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by in General, Oracle, Technology

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We recently received an invite to write a guest blog post for Oracle. We’re please to say it has gone live, and can be found at https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-logging-and-alert-rapid-smoke-testing-of-config-and-alerts. A little different to my typical posts. Hope you find it interesting.

Opening of the blog post on blogs.oracle.com
my Author Profile on blogs.oracle.com

World Festival Conference

We’ve also scored another success, this time we’ve been invited to speak at WorldFestival in August, this is an online conference organized by the same team behind DeveloperWeek. This is the first time outside of an Oracle linked event where I’ve been amongst the first few named speakers, so proud of that. The conference looks really interesting as it looks beyond just core developer themes with conference tracks on Space & Transportation, Smart Cities, Robotics, Digital Health to name a few of the 12 streams. Worth checking out.

WorldFestival Conference
World Festival Conference Themes

DeveloperWeek Europe 2021 – APIs more than just a Payload definition

27 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by in APIs & microservices, General, Technology

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DeveloperWeek Europe 2021

So this week the big Developer Week Europe conference is running online at the moment. I got to present today. It was a relatively short session, with an unfortunate brief interruption of a smoke alarm. My presentations is here …

OraWorld Magazine – Latest Edition

09 Tuesday Mar 2021

Posted by in APIs & microservices, General, Oracle, Technology

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The latest edition of OraWorld has become available to today. With its blend of insight into the Oracle community, and Oracle technologies from database to modern apps. I have to own up and say, I mention the magazine not only because of the beautifully crafted independent insights, but also it includes an article from myself. Taking a look at GraphQL what it is and how recent new Oracle product features could make a big difference to the GraphQL adoption opportunities.

The next edition should include a follow up article to this focussing on API security considerations.

Extracting Dependencies and Versions for a Node Solution

15 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by in development, NodeJS Cloud, Technology

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We have had a requirement from a customer to be able define every package including dependencies within a Node solution (as it happens Apollo GraphQL), not only the complete download path but the version numbering as well. There are many ways to solve this problem. But here is an elegant(?) and portable answer. To ensure that we don’t get pollution from a global node space we created a project package in an empty folder using:

 npm init --yes

This defaults all the package,json settings which for our requirements is fine. Then in the same location its npm install <product from the npm registry to pull> e.g. for Apollo GraphQL: 

npm install apollo-server graphql

This will bring down to your npm project all the dependencies putting them in the node_modules child folder. We’re now in a position to retrieve all the details of the packages, their dependencies and version information. This can be done by using the command:

npm list --json
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Unified Logging with Fluentd becomes Logging in Action using Fluentd, Kubernetes and more

08 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by in Books, Fluentd, General, manning, Technology

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The book has had a title change as Manning found that links the book was clashing with other solutions using the term ‘Unified Logging’. With the name change it helps bring the book inline with the Manning naming with their In action series. This means the book website is now https://www.manning.com/books/logging-in-action.

With the name change we’ve agreed that there should an additional chapter added. As I’d written the book with a view that everything we cover applies to both modern solutions such as Microservices coming from the CNCF camp but equally relevant to more traditional IT landscapes. Within the book we have explianed how things are positioned and can be used in Kubernetes, but it was agreed with our editorial team that not tackling the configuration of Fluentd with Kubernetes and Docker was to an extent ignoring a key community that will be using Fluentd. So the new chapter will be introduced to address this aspect.

In terms of progress we’re into the 1’s – 1 Chapter to start (the new one), 1 Chapter back from the Technical Editor (Logging Best Practises) – some edits to be done, 1 Chapter now with the editor (How To Create Custom Plugins), 1 Chapter being finished (Logging Frameworks) and finally 1 peer review cycle to go.

Given the lovely review comments that have been quoted on the book’s page. I can only recommend if you have an interest in logging and monitoring then check it out through Manning Early Access Programme (MEAP).

Adventures in DevOps – Fluentd

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Fluentd, General, Podcasts, Technology

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I was fortunate enough to record a podcast with the team at Adventures In Dev Ops just before Christmas. The recording has been fine tuned and now available on their web site here. From my perspective, the discussion was really interesting and explored a wide range of areas around the challenges of monitoring.

As the podcast is linked to the book we’re writing for Manning (Unified Logging With Fluentd), there is a discount code currently running – poddevopsadv20.

Thanks to Charles Wood and Jeffrey Groman for having me on as a guest.

Other news …

I will be presenting at the online conference Blueprint LDN, check out the subjects being covered, looks very interesting.

Oracle Developer Meetups – Gone Virtual

21 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by in Dev Meetup, General, Technology

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I’ve not posted about the developer meetups for a little while, perhaps because with everything being virtual these days things blur together too much. But its time to put that right (at least a little). So over the last couple of month’s we’ve been fortunate enough to have a couple of Oracle’s guru’s from the A-Team covering some pretty interesting topics.

November saw Chris Peytier exploring the process management side of Integration Cloud and how process management and more traditional integration can come together to offer a very effective solution with example use cases such as the idea of when conditions are not valid for an integration to be executed Chris’ slides are here.

Then this week we had Angelo Santagata complete with Santa hat talking about Serverless as a means to enable SaaS extensions and integrations through the use of Oracle Functions (the cloud-deployed version of Project Fn). You can get the presentation here.

If the slides aren’t enough then you can catch the presentations as videos, Angelo’s is here and I’m sure we’ll see Chris’ made available as well.

2021

I’m excited to say that we have a coyuple of presentations lined up for 2021 already so keep an eye on the London Oracle Developer Meetup. So watch out for the updates in the new year.

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Latest on book and APIs

15 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Books, Fluentd, General, manning, Technology

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My blogging is way down compared with only a post about OKit – OCI Design (on Windows). It largely comes down to lots of work on our Fluentd book. Chapter 6 is now available in the MEAP. As the promo info says …

What’s new?

Chapter 6, “Filtering and Extrapolation”

Gain control and insight!

Last chapter, we touched on the use of the Filter directive. But that was just the tip of the iceberg! In Chapter 6, we’ll plunge below the surface, exploring the when, why, and how of applying filters to give us more insight and precise control over events.

Promo Email from Manning

Earlier chapters have been tweaked, with some additional improvements which will make the live reading experience better.

Another chapter and an appendix should be finding their way to MEAP very soon as it was handed over by our project editor. That will make it seven chapters available, and all the appendices.

Whilst the peer review is taking place the chapter covering plugin development is progressing. The development work has got the basics of the output plugin with log events being stored in Redis and the input being worked on as well. If you want a peak, keep an eye on my GitHub repository (here).

But is isn’t all writing…

I presented on Twitch – you can catch that at https://m.twitch.tv/videos/809295979 I’ve been offered the opportunity to present again, so keep an eye out for something next year.

We recorded a podcast with the excellent guys over at Adventures In DevOps. We don’t have the exact date for the podcast to be released, but I imagine it will sometime during Jan 2021. I’d recommend checking out the podcasts. I’ve been dipping into their back catalogue of recordings and the team ask some really thought provoking questions.

If that wasn’t enough, we’ve been fortunate enough to have some time to talk with leading members of the Fluentd and Fluent Bit projects which was a real pleasure. Hopefully, as we leave this horrendous year behind we’ll get to talk and possibly collaborate some more.

OKit – OCI Design (on Windows)

08 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Cloud, General, Oracle, Technology

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OKit is a tremendous tool for the visual design and development for your Oracle Cloud environment. Visualizing your networks, positioning of service gateways and so on makes it a lot easier than filling in web forms or writing Terraform files as you can see the relationships between the different parts far more easily. For the same reason really that a lot of people use Visio and other tools for this work. The real beauty is that OKit can generate the Terraform and Ansible scripting that can then be used to deliver the implementation.

Okit for visual design of Oracle Cloud

The tool isn’t currently an official Oracle product, but something built by the Oracle A-Team (a small team of gurus who have a role blending developer advocacy, architect supporting customers for the special edge cases and providing thought leadership). But we can hope that someone brings it into the fold and perhaps even incorporates it securely into the cloud dashboard. In the mean time, the code in its entirety is available on GitHub.

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Fluentd Book Update

02 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by in Books, Fluentd, General, manning

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Things have been very hectic, so much so we’ve not really had much time to write a blog. Most of which has been related to my Fluentd book, so what has been happening (and keep an eye on my Twitter account for a promo code 🙂 ) …

  • Several virtual conferences (Open Source Summit, SPOUG and Oracle APAC Groundbreakers to name just a few)
  • Perhaps the biggest bit has been the book:
    • First 4 chapters went through a rigorous peer review, as a result a number of improvements have been made,
    • with Chapter 5 having been reviewed by our technical editor, and little bit of refinement applied it should be reaching MEAP very very soon along with updated appendices,
    • Chapter 6 has been reviewed by our development editor, so some revisions to apply and then onto the technical editor,
    • Chapter 7 writing in progress, with about 1/3rd complete including examples of applying scaling configuration that can be run on a desktop

So what is to follow:

  • We’re on Manning’s Twitch channel to do a session, which will cover Fluentd, some examples, the book and what it will cover,
  • Once Chapter 7 is done, then we go through a comprehensive review with external input. Depending on the feedback from this, we make another sweep through the existing chapters to make further improvements,
  • Chapter 8 I suspect will be the hardest to write, as we actually get into creating our own Plugin. So I it maybe a little while before this gets completed. The subsequent chapters will come more easily as we’ve got them part written in a rough draft already,
  • We have another round of external peer reviewing to come which will cover everything, so I’m sure we’ll be doing some refinements
  • A podcast recording is scheduled in December.

Talking of Manning on Twitch, this looks like a bit of a hidden Gem – worth looking at not only because of the live stream, but all the previous recordings with other Manning authors are available to watch.

If that isn’t enough with a day job, we have had some major work done on our house. Now we’re moved back in, there are lots of DIY jobs to do, get all the furniture back from storage. Every room apart from the kitchen needs to be painted. But that is my sob story.

I’m hoping to find time to experiment with Oracle’s new cloud native Log Management as this is built on Fluentd foundations and a little bit with API tech – but this is likely to be the Christmas break.