Systems engineering conference: O’Reilly Velocity – Conferences

Date : June 19–22, 2017:

Location : San Jose, CA

Venue : San Jose McEnery Convention Center

Four days focused on systems engineering, operations, and performance.

The systems you’re building are complex and distributed, made up of numerous applications and services. They’re hard to build and harder to manage. Creating them is a collaborative effort full of interdependencies between teams and technologies. With so many moving pieces, it’s nearly impossible to predict the potential impact one part will have on other parts of the system under various conditions—until one fails, that is.

Join us at the O’Reilly Velocity Conference as we step back for a full-stack, holistic view of our applications and services and explore how to improve end-to-end performance. We’re expanding our program to include resilience engineering and delving deeper than ever into how to build the fastest and most durable systems.

Together, we’ll learn from failure—which we see as inevitable (and educational) given the complexity of our systems—and see how resilience engineering can help you and your team build the best possible products and services. We’ll explore topics related to building and maintaining complex systems, site reliability engineering, infrastructure as code, chaos engineering, and more:

Automation
Cloud
Containerization
Continuous Delivery
Databases
Deployment
DevOps
Distributed Data
Distributed Systems
Networking
Orchestration and Scheduling
Organizational optimization
Performance
Security
Serverless computing

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Best Cloud Services

Choosing the best cloud service comes down to personal preference based on whether you want to access files on the go, back up your files for security or collaborate with colleagues on projects.

As ethereal as cloud computing sounds, it simply refers to an external server where you store data. It’s essentially a hard drive on which you lease space. Cloud computing has improved over the past several years, which has extended to storage space, software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

For our buying guide, we chose the best cloud services that let you store all your data, including media files, documents, emails, contacts and calendar information. They also let you access those items through the cloud service’s desktop and mobile app, and via browsers, which is important whether you’re running a small business, you’re an entrepreneur or you’re an individual who simply wants more space.

Some cloud service providers in our guide are made for Mac lovers, and some are great for any device. A handful let you edit files in the cloud, whereas others require you or your client download files first. All the services we included here let you store music, photos, videos and documents, while others offer broader storage options.

Choosing the best cloud service comes down to personal preference based on whether you want to access files on the go, back up your files for security or collaborate with colleagues on projects. Many of these services are excellent choices, regardless of your storage needs, but if you’re running an enterprise-level business, you may require a business cloud storage service. For more information on what the cloud is and how it can change how you do business, read our articles on cloud computing. Read more..

Top 9 Open Source DevOps Tools You Must Know

devops-tools
There was a time when developers and operations were always gnawing at each other’s throats. The production code was never updated on time, while the administrators always got irked over the ever piling server requests. As the battle ensued, it became all the more necessary to come up with an appropriate tool box, which could help rid both the parties of these battle lines.

This is where DevOps comes into the picture. DevOps is well configured to provide services which range from application portability to configuration management. While the list of services doesn’t end, it definitely makes life much easier for the end users. However, without the right kind of tools, even DevOps can’t make it to their destined uses.

Here are some of the names which stand out amongst the list of DevOps tools:

Chef:
Like the gourmet world, Chef is synonymous with the term recipes. It is a system and Cloud infrastructure, which automates an entire building, by deploying and managing infrastructure through short repeatable scripts, often termed as recipes. But the real power comes into play, when pluggable configuration modules are employed. Chef can be used to ease out complex tasks, perform automations, which can often prove to be heavy on resources, efforts and time.

Docker:
With Docker, you can expect portability, which is made possible through its unique containerization technology, often found in self contained units. The tool consists of a Docker Engine, a lightweight runtime and packaging tool and Docker Hub, which is essentially a cloud based service application, encompassing the concept of application sharing and workflow automation.

Puppet:
Puppet Enterprise, a unit of Puppet Labs, allows data orchestration by providing automation configurations and machine management. The latest version, Puppet 3.7, features Puppet Apps, and Node Manager, which helps manage large number of variable, dynamic systems. Puppet is also available as an open source software.

Jenkins:
Being an open source standard for managing DevOps, Jenkins allows everything, right from delivering code to production to source code management. Since it is a pluggable, de facto engine, it proves to be an ecosystem with more than 1100 plugins for the users. Jenkins has proved to be a continuous delivery and a continuous integration for developers.

ELK:
ELK, by Elastic, is a NoSQL database that is made on the Lucene search engine. ELK Stack is not just one tool, but a combination of 3 different tools rolled into one. ELK stands for Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana; all three are open source projects, which are individually maintained by Elastic.

Cassandra:
Apache Cassandra is considered to be a good choice, when you need scalability, availability without worrying about performance. Through this tool, data is automatically replicated between multiple nodes. While single system replication is supported, one can also perform multiple systems replication. Thankfully, there are no single points of failure, which makes it a great devops tool.

Ansible:
Conceived by Michael Dehaan, Ansible was released in the year 2012. It is a configuration management platform which leverages Python to configure systems. The systems are expressed in the YAML format, which is a construct, commonly known as a Playbook. A Playbook has been tweaked to provide configurations for single and multiple systems at the same time.

Splunk:
If real time issue fixing is what you are looking for, then Splunk is your first time solution. It allows visualization of data, while taking cues from production environments. All this can be done without requiring access to production machines. With Splunk, users can access and embrace processes, which include successful integration and deployment.

SaltStack:
SaltStack helps in data automation, cloud building, server provisioning and application configuration. Since this tool is an event drive automation tool, it enables automation within the DevOps workflow. It features around 200 virtual machines, each of which is capable of running in the staging and production environment.

These were some of the top 9 DevOps tools which are helping bridge the gaps between production and development environments. Choose the one which suits your business needs and see the difference in your business operations instantly.

New AWS Training and Certification Portal

AWS Training and Certification can help you get more out of the AWS Cloud.

The new AWS Training and Certification Portal allows you to access and manage your training and certification activities, progress, and benefits – all in one place:

Previously, you had to rely on multiple websites to find and manage training and certification offerings. Now you have a central place where you can find and enroll in AWS Training, register for AWS Certification exams, track your learning progress, and access benefits based on the AWS Certifications you have achieved. This makes it easier for you to build your AWS Cloud skills and advance toward earning AWS Certification.

You can create a new account or simply log in with your existing Amazon account. If you already have an AWS Training account, you can migrate your existing AWS Training history into this new primary account. If you are an APN Partner, you can simply sign in using your APN Portal credentials. If you also had a Webassessor account, be sure to visit the Certification tab and merge this account too.

Once you are set up, you can rely on the AWS Training and Certification Portal to be your place to find the latest AWS training and certification offerings, built by AWS experts. Read more..

Cloud security faces the public sector test – a Q/A with Doug VanDyke of AWS

One highlight of the Infor Federal Forum was a view from AWS on the dynamics of public sector security. I missed him that day, but I tracked down AWS presenter Doug VanDyke to get his take on cloud security, and share the reactions to his keynote.

Few things bug me as much as an interview opportunity missed. I covered the Infor Federal Forum event from several angles, but I wasn’t able to sit down with an important piece of the puzzle: a guest keynote from Amazon Web Services on public sector cloud security. Read more..

The Benefits of AWS Certification

aws certification
AWS or Amazon Web Services Certification is quickly becoming the rage of the season. As of today, there are 5 certifications available, which include certifications on associate and professional levels alike. Along with the initial certification, there is a re-certification required every two years, which makes the certification sell like hot cakes currently.

Amazon is adding two more certifications to the existing list of certifications, which are yet to be introduced. These certifications are the “Security Operations on AWS” and “Big Data on AWS certification”. So the main question is, “Why go for the AWS Certification at all?”

Since individuals and employers can benefit from AWS Certifications, it all depends on how you tend to look at the certifications. Let’s split the benefits into two categories and take it on from there.

For individuals: No matter the type of certification, any individual would need to demonstrate the skills and prove his/her ability of handling the required tasks. The same is the case with the AWS Certification as well. After achieving the required credentials, the certification can open up various avenues for your growth in AWS related projects or you might even get a chance to present your knowledge before your clients.

This way, there will always be tons of opportunities available to you, post certification, which will declare you as an inherent subject matter expert in the AWS domain. This is not all; post certification, you also get the opportunity to surpass various interviewing preliminaries, and end up straight away into the interviewing round, which helps in cracking the aforesaid position in a more elaborate manner.

For employers: Companies which work regularly in Cloud computing environments often require people with the same skill set. However, since the concept of Cloud Computing is still relatively new, people with AWS Certification are a feather in the cap, especially for companies on the lookout for such skilled workforce. People trained and certified in the AWS skills often posses extensive knowledge with respect to handling and implementing Cloud based projects successfully.

On the other hand, if employers employ AWS certified employees, they too gain a progressive edge in their day to day operations, which makes the hiring all the more successful and worthwhile. At the same time, post hiring, employers are eligible to become a member of AWS Partner Network (APN), which helps employers access a series of benefits, ranging from training subsidies to availing market support to AWS usage support, amongst many others.

As technology is changing at a progressively fast pace, there is a lot to achieve in order to stay up to date with the times. In order to stay competitive, more and more aspirants are seeking certification as a way out to ensure better job opportunities.

Simultaneously, employers are taking a lot of advantage of the sudden developments, since Cloud Computing is becoming a thing of the day. For this very reason, AWS Certification can help individuals go a long way, especially with regards to getting well paying jobs and the much needed exposure in the technology industry.

9 Big Mistakes DevOps Teams Make

There are plenty of benefits to be gained from a move to DevOps, but here are some mistakes that you really want to avoid so you can get those benefits.

If organizations want to maximize the benefits they experience as a result of embracing DevOps, they’ll need to avoid these “gotchas”.

If you’re going to adopt DevOps, you better do it right.

According to the RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud report, 84% of enterprises and 72% of small to medium-sized businesses have adopted some DevOps practices. These organizations are attracted to DevOps benefits like greater agility, improved customer satisfaction, greater employee morale, greater productivity and business growth. Read more..

Agile Dev West conference – June 4–9, 2017- Las Vegas, NV USA

Date : June 4–9, 2017

Location : Las Vegas, NV

Discover the latest in agile methods, technologies, tools, and leadership rinciples.

Whether you’re new to the agile process and need to get up to speed quickly, or you’re experienced and ready to take your team or organization to the next level, our hands-on, in-depth workshops have you covered. Plus, all Agile Dev West is held in conjunction with Better Software West and DevOps West conferences, allowing you to choose from three distinct programs.

To register for the event, click here.