4 de July de 2017

Automating AWS Infrastructure Setup with Terraform

by Chandrakant Rai July 4, 2017 In this blog post we will see how to setup a simple AWS infrastructure using Terraform. Any company moving their infrastructure to a Cloud provider, would like to setup their infrastructure as code which would give them immutable infrastructure and allow them to use deployment strategies like Canary Deployment or Blue-Green Deployment which are more apt strategies for deployment on Cloud. Terraform is a tool by HashiCorp which helps in achieving this goal. The same setup could be automated using Python & native AWS Boto library but Terraform has no cloud provider vendor lock […]
13 de June de 2017

Running Docker Container

by Chandrakant Rai June 20, 2017 In this blog series we are going to explore how to run Docker containers on different container orchestration service like Kubernetes, Docker Swarm etc. We will also explore the container service by different cloud providers like AWS ECS, Azure Container Service, and Google Container Engine. This article does not give any best practice to run Docker Swarm or Kubernetes in Production environments, it is just a simple orchestration setup for our internal DevOps practice. Initially we will explore setting up a simple NGINX container and orchestrate it using Docker swarm mode. Pre-requisite: A minimum […]
6 de June de 2017

IT Knowledge Management, The Key to Effective IT Support Operations

by Mohamed Aly June 6, 2017 Today’s business solutions have become increasingly powered by sophisticated IT services, in a way that makes it impossible to think that there can be any IT operation failure, big or small, that cannot dent the business bottom-line. The successful delivery of IT operations services relies on the availability of quick, reliable and ready-to-consume information enabling the IT service provider to take the right actions. These actions often need to be based on the intimate knowledge of the technology, environment, processes, and business context of the IT solutions supported. A typical enterprise IT operations support […]
30 de May de 2017

Company Culture, Maintaining What Matters

by Amanda Mallmes May 30, 2017 Company culture is a well-known buzz phrase, especially in the age of Emotional Intelligence, but why is it important and what does it mean? In the workplace today company culture is very important for both the employee and employer. A great candidate may be won or lost based on the ‘feel’ of the company. How the company operates influences the culture, and the culture determines how the company operates or; how a company does business. The ‘How’ of how a company does business impacts the profits it generates (or doesn’t) and influences its overall […]
11 de April de 2017

Three Data Strategy Oversights – Conclusion

by Ziko Rajabali April 11, 2017 A bridge is only worth crossing if it can hold strong while we cross. When we’re crossing the chasm on a bridge of data, it needs to have integrity. Last week, we discussed chilling the data: why it’s important to put operational data into long-term storage. Unfortunately, teams often pre-aggregate the data when chilling it, under the impression that storage is expensive or that the visualization will always be faster. But what about the questions we don’t know to ask yet? What happens when we don’t know what we don’t know? Avoid Destruction of […]
4 de April de 2017

Three Data Strategy Oversights – Part Two

by Ziko Rajabali April 4, 2017 We’ll cross that bridge when we get there only works if that bridge already exists. When that bridge is a strategic decision, it is a bridge of data. Last week, we talked about unconventional sources of data, like emails. In a way, it was like unearthing a new raw material for the bridge. But what about the refinement of known raw materials? How do we maximize the value of data that comes from conventional sources? In part 1 of this series, we mentioned how sensor measurements are often overlooked in data strategy. Sensors are […]
28 de March de 2017

Three Data Strategy Oversights – Part One

by Ziko Rajabali March 28, 2017 In the face of day-to-day operational concerns, it’s easy to adopt the mantra we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. There is wisdom to this philosophy: given limited resources, activities must be prioritized to attain success. But what do we do if the proverbial bridge doesn’t exist? Data is the raw material of the bridge to cross when we get there click to tweet that When that bridge is a strategic decision, it should be made out of data that spans successes and failures, seasonal changes, political and environmental cycles. This doesn’t undermine […]
21 de March de 2017

Why would IT need an old-time Puppet?

by Carlos Herrera March 21, 2017 In this ever-growing and ever-changing world of IT, one reoccurring question we ask is: How can we keep up with the constant changes in technology,  so we can focus our time where it matters most `for the organization? After spending countless hours troubleshooting in different technologies, operating systems, programming languages, etc. finding those nasty needles in all those haystacks, most often caused by human error, the same question kept coming back to my mind… why are we still depending on manual work when we are so deep into the so-called ‘Digital Era’? One of […]
7 de March de 2017

De-mystifying Recommender Systems

by Patrick Cloutier March 7, 2017. When I first heard about machine learning, I wondered what happened behind the scenes for this to function. In this blog I try to explain what my logic is as we create a custom recommender on relatively straightforward concepts. We will be using Scala, and more specifically using the shell to run our commands. We will be looking at the data gathered from a movie site with user ids, user ratings and movies ids. The idea here will be to create a system that will try to “guess” the rating that someone will give a movie they haven’t seen. The […]
28 de February de 2017

Interesting article from Software AG

Thoughts by: Dustin Goodyear February 28, 2017   Groundswell has been experiencing and participating in efforts towards a “Self Service/Specialists Not Required” model of integration for some time now. While providing our clients with solutions for non-technical developers and specialists is a common goal there are often hidden costs to having non-technical users implement and maintain a technical product/solution. It’s important when thinking about the benefits of the self-service model to plan for the many technical aspects that are still needed in these environments. Users without proper training invariably rely on the technical folks in IT to fix issues when […]