LISA17: Scaling the Future

Posted on October 3, 2017October 18, 2019 by Idexcel Technologies

Date : October 29–November 3, 2017
Location : 5 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA

Event Details

LISA: Where systems engineering and operations professionals share real-world knowledge about designing, building, and maintaining the critical systems of our interconnected world.

Why Attend

LISA is the annual vendor-neutral meeting place for the wider system administration community. The LISA17 program will address the overlap and differences between traditional and modern IT operations and engineering, and offers a highly curated program around three topics: architecture, culture, and engineering.

Industry leaders will speak on incident response, performance monitoring, container architecture, continuous improvement, infrastructure automation, and more.

[Know more about the Conference]

About Idexcel: Idexcel is a global business that supports Commercial & Public Sector organizations as they Modernize their Information Technology using DevOps methodology and Cloud infrastructure. Idexcel provides Professional Services for the AWS Cloud that includes Program Management, Cloud Strategy, Training, Applications Development, Managed Service, Integration, Migration, DevOps, AWS Optimization and Analytics. As we help our customers modernize their IT, our clients should expect a positive return on their investment in Idexcel, increased IT agility, reduced risk on development projects and improved organizational efficiency.

Allolankandy Anand Sr. Director Technical Sales & Delivery will be attending this event. For further queries, please write to anand@idexcel.com

Doing DevOps Right

Posted on October 3, 2017October 18, 2019 by Idexcel Technologies

DevOps has become the talk of the town these days. With a lot of organizations beginning to employ the tactics on a day to day basis, there are a lot of options to explore from. While DevOps provides organizations an edge over the competition, the transition is not painless or easy.

How Can a Company Know if They are Doing DevOps Right?

Define Strategies: Strategies related to infrastructure use will help an organization gauge their resource requirements, thereby helping them capitalize on their needs and wants.

Implementation in Stages: In order to make DevOps a success story for your organization to live by, it is best to avoid implementing the techniques in the whole organization in the same go. Do it in pieces to measure the success in a step by step situation.

Cost Management: Define a process which showcases the costs involved in the deployment phase. Expenses need to be mapped to each process, so that there is a detailed costing procedure available to every process, making DevOps clear and concise.

Rapid Release Cycles: Release management encompasses the process of managing, scheduling and controlling software’s production phase and guiding it through the various stages, which includes software testing and software deployment.

Seamless Integration on Different Platforms: Software development is all about seamless integration and deployment. This is not limited to cross platform integration only. This includes maintaining uniformity in all possible stages, from beginning to end, wherein the software has to be tested effectively in order to achieve operational excellence.

Application Life Cycle Management: The software production cycle begins with requirements gathering, and ends with the software hitting the market post production. The whole procedure is dependent on rigorous testing using effective tools, which helps accelerate the operations process.

Performance Monitoring: Through performance testing and monitoring, a product’s functionality can be gauged, to achieve the desired results. Performance monitoring includes making sure no external factors are able to influence the working of the product or software.

Continuous Delivery: The process of continuous delivery can be manual as well as automated. User acceptance testing enables automation, which can ease out the product delivery.

Helping Organizations Develop DevOps the Right Way

Using Social Media: Employees can grasp the various nuances of DevOps through social media, which makes it all the easier to be abreast of the changes and the upcoming trends.

Conference Sessions and Events: DevOps themes can go a long way in educating employees of the trends prevailing in the technical industry. Companies and organizations should concentrate on bringing employees together to make sure the concepts of DevOps are done right.

Leverage Log Analysis: It’s important to notice a trend of failures and follow it to make amends. This trend would often involve a common point between users, decision makers as well as developers and implementers.

Working in Tandem with Operations and Developers: Understand the problem, and develop the solution. This is the key to successful implementation. When operations provide the problems, the developers need to find the solution and make sure it is implemented in the right manner. While ops have the burden of maintaining the up time, their focus can dwindle from the right approach, which is why it’s essential to let the developers work on what’s important.

Use Data for Analysis and Feedback: Log analysis data should be the common point for all people out there in an organization. Since data talks majorly about the loopholes in a process, it can go a long way in simplifying the problems and helping implement the solutions effectively.

Commitment to DevOps can really pay off, if implemented correctly. Since people form the backbone of DevOps strategy, they should be kept in focus at all times. Developers are needed to take onus of their product development so that quality does not take a hit. Once all the strategies are in place, companies and organizations alike can define and measure their DevOps procedures and identify the gaps which need to be plugged in eventually.

AWS Lambda Serverless Computing

Posted on October 3, 2017October 18, 2019 by Idexcel Technologies

Imagine a world where there are no servers, yet data management is also being performed with ease. This is the future of Cloud Computing, all thanks to AWS’s Lambda Serverless computing. With AWS Lambda, you can run your code without having to bother about servers. In simple terms, Lambda is an event driven computing platform which runs through event triggers and further runs the code to provide the output. In other words, instead of putting your code into a container or a virtual machine, you just load it into Lambda, sit back and let Lambda do the work for you. Just specify the triggers and you are set.

For example, an image which is uploaded into Amazon’s Simple Storage Service can be resized automatically through the Lambda feature. The Seattle Time uses this service extensively to resize mobile based images. Once companies create apps, they deploy them on services in order to run them extensively. However, for purposes of app deployment, it’s necessary to figure out the server space, database power needed and the storage space.

With Lambda in place, you can get rid of the possibilities of employing massive large applications and deploy an application with single action triggers. Fortunately, you only pay for the database computing power you use, which is priced at 100 millisecond increments of usage. Being the user, you have the power to choose the triggers you would like to employ, and how you would like to run them as well. As soon as the conditions are met, the triggers are deployed and the programs are executed.

When Does Lambda Come into Force?

Lambda works best in two situations. One situation involves the use of infrequent actions whereas the other situation comes into play when you want to build something efficiently and scale it quickly in terms of deployment. In both the cases, Lambda will provide a serverless approach, making it convenient for users to scale up, as and when required.

With Lambda, developers can concentrate on developing applications which involve heavy lifting in terms of application building.

At the same time, AWS has its own set of competitors, who have their own version of Lambda. For example, Google has Functions; IBM has an open sourced platform by the name of OpenWhisk, while Microsoft has invested in Azure recently. Being a trendy new platform technology, there is a lot of innovation which has gone into building the concept of serverless application deployment, making it the future of technology.

Technological Advancements

Lambda features can be used extensively with Amazon’s mobile based applications, commonly known as Amazon Mobile Hub. While this application is not being used to connect to the existing Lambda functions, it nevertheless is being used to create functions to equip them with API Gateway endpoints, which form an integral part of mobile apps.

However, there is one major drawback of serverless application deployment. With third parties in place, there are ways to free AWS Lambda workloads from lock in problems. Nevertheless, with the features’ in place, there is a lot of good technology and innovation which has gone to make this dream a true reality.

5 Ways DevOps and Automation Bolster Software Security

Posted on September 11, 2017October 18, 2019 by Idexcel Technologies

The fusion of DevOps and security goes hand in hand; a well groomed DevOps structure ensures faster and smoother software releases. Multiple releases might have been a farfetched dream 10 to 15 years ago; however, the true reality of today is that many software companies are functioning differently now.

DevOps has changed the very existence of how companies develop apps. However, what is important to note is that in the quest to get the software ready for deployment, the security of the launch should not be compromised. Fortunately, DevOps takes care of all the security nuances, since it has been fine tuned to provide risk free deployment, provided the right measures are taken at all times.

By fusing security measures into the working of DevOps, companies can ensure that maximum security measures are taken at all times. At the same time, it is also important to note that as developers and operations people start working together, there are a lot of security controls which can be affected or compromised in the long run. This show why DevOps tools are often met with resistance during the implementation stages.

When it comes to security, DevOps can be configured to secure all the phases of software development:

Security right from the start: Security, as a measure, does not have to be implemented at the last development stage only. It can be embedded from the initial stages itself, since it is a quality requirement. Through DevOps, one can incorporate automated security testing procedures efficiently and effectively to achieve compliance listed norms.
Automation security: As more and more tests are automated using DevOps, there are lesser risks of security flaws caused by human errors. With automation in place, the tests are more secure and efficient, making the development process more predictable and consistent.
Through security – through and through: DevOps security is implemented at every stage, which makes the process all the more consistent and useful. Right from development and testing to ops and security, everything is taken care of by DevOps, making the process simpler yet efficient.
Fix things quickly: Unfortunately, even DevOps implementation is not 100% security breach proof. However, since the deployment accelerates the lead time, it helps reduce the errors, since everything is following a consistent setup approach.
Enhanced governance for developers: DevOps is all about securing the governance for the developers involved in the production capabilities. Through consistent development, testing and release practices, developers are able to control the governance policies and provide utmost security to the software development and deployment. When everyone is aligned on the procedures and policies, a strict governance regime can be followed, in order to make the production stream more productive and conclusive.

Through DevOps, there are a lot of opportunities which can be explored with respect to software security. Automation, emphasis on software testing, feedback loops, collaboration and consistent release practices, companies are able to secure their software testing lines and provide faster

PuppetConf 2017

Posted on August 23, 2017October 18, 2019 by Idexcel Technologies

Date : October 10-12, 2017
Location : Hilton San Francisco Union Square
San Francisco, CA

Event Details

PuppetConf is coming back to San Francisco! You don’t want to miss two-plus days jammed packed with sessions presented by the industries top leaders. Enjoy ample networking with the Puppet community and 35+ sponsors from around the world. If you missed PuppetConf 2016, you won’t want to miss 2017. A lot changes in a year, especially in a fast-paced, thriving and increasingly complex technology world.

Why Attend

Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced user of Puppet technologies, PuppetConf 2017 will offer a great experience. Sessions will cover topics IT professionals care about most: DevOps, cloud management, next-generation infrastructure, application delivery, security and compliance, career and personal development, continuous delivery and more. With several ticket options to choose from, you have the opportunity to attend in-person training (separate registration required), the one-day Puppet Contributor Summit, PuppetConf 2017 and more!

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Allolankandy Anand Sr. Director Technical Sales & Delivery will be attending this event. For further queries, please write to anand@idexcel.com

Everything you Need to Know About Docker on Amazon ECS

Posted on August 21, 2017October 18, 2019 by Idexcel Technologies

ECS is all about building a production scale, auto scaling as well as monitoring the platforms to run different types of containers. In this guide, we will take some time to discuss the different components of EC2 Container Service (ECS) and how they fit in together like the pieces of a puzzle.
The main motive is to understand how to host, scale and load an application using Docker and ECS.

What is Amazon ECS?
Amazon’s ECS service is a container management service, which is not only easy to run, and stop, but also assists in managing Docker containers on a cluster of Amazon EC2 instances.
ECS integrates well with the AWS infrastructure, thereby allowing the users to operate their own cluster of Amazon EC2 instances. ECS is a managed service, which helps assist the deployment of containers without worrying about the infrastructure.

Components of ECS Docker:
• Cluster
• Container Instances: A container instance is ideal for running containers
• Container Agent
• Task Definition
• Service
• Task

How ECS components are connected?
Outside the main components, there are a series of supporting components, which makes it easier to fit in the puzzle.
• Elastic Application Load Balancers
• AutoScaling Groups
• Launch Configurations
• CloudWatch Alarms (for Auto Scaling)

Deploying your first task effectively
• Creating an ECS task
Within ECS, the Docker workloads are often categorized as tasks, which further contain multiple containers. All these task containers are usually located on the same machine.
• Define the service
By defining a service, one can understand how many task instances need to be run within the cluster.
• Create an ECS Cluster
Since tasks run on a container, these instances need to be registered within a cluster. This way, a cluster can be used to scale the cluster up and down, especially when it comes to running more containers.
• Create the stack
The final stack is the final screen of the wizard, which is just a summary of the task created, the service which was defined and the cluster configuration.

DevOps Tools Training Sparks IT productivity

Posted on August 16, 2017October 18, 2019 by Idexcel Technologies

Enterprises have a new weapon to combat the IT skills shortage where new hiring and training practices fall short.

Most IT pros agree the fastest path to IT burnout is what Amazon engineers have termed “undifferentiated heavy lifting,” which is repetitive and uninteresting work that has little potential for wider impact beyond keeping the lights on. DevOps tools training, which involves IT automation practices, can reduce or eliminate such mundane work and can compensate against staff shortages and employee attrition.
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