Leverage Serverless for a Better Tomorrow

Over at this podcast, we hear Johnny Boursiquot, Site Reliability Engineer at Heroku tell how he has found Go to be a useful language for building Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) style applications -- an extension of microservices. In an interview, he expounds on the capability to build Go applications into a static binary -- and reduce the need for dependency management. With rapid application startup, another benefit is runtime speed and scaling.

Focusing on a development toolchain focused on the cloud means programmers benefit from flexibility. For example, many cloud providers provide local runtimes such as AWS SAM Local, and service simulators. Testing in production is facilitated by the ability to do on-channel launches and test deployments with a "canary in a coal mine" approach.

One can develop “serverless” applications while not avoiding the need for operational expertise on a DevOps team. Designing systems appropriately and getting the most out of the runtime (with minimal cost) requires knowledge of the underlying infrastructure components.

An emerging role is that of the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), often an expert who can adapt well-established patterns and practices into their activities. They act as “go-betweens,” working closely with product teams to share knowledge around operational best practices.

One under appreciated skill is the ability to teach or mentor, regardless of the job. Knowledge transfer to coders or setting as SOPs important operational principles is extremely valuable.

Listen to the podcast here...

Huawei - Security Threat For Many Reasons

The Chinese firm Huawei is the world’s largest manufacturer of networking gear such as base stations and antennas that mobile operators use to run wireless networks. Those networks carry data that are used to help control power grids, financial markets, transport systems, and other parts of countries’ vital infrastructure. The fear is that China’s military and intelligence services could insert software or hardware “back doors” into Huawei’s gear.

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