Tag: testing

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Learning Infrastructure as Code: What You Need to Know for Cloud Native Engineering

As a new engineer, understanding Infrastructure as Code (IAC) is important for several reasons.

First, IAC is a key component of cloud native application development. It is the practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure using code, rather than manual configuration. By understanding how IAC works, you can build, deploy, and manage cloud-native applications more effectively.

Second, IAC allows for greater consistency and reproducibility. By using code to manage and provision infrastructure, it ensures the same configuration is used across different environments and that the infrastructure can be easily recreated if necessary. This makes it easier to handle increasing demand for computing power and storage.

Third, IAC promotes better collaboration and a DevOps culture. By using code to manage and provision infrastructure, it becomes easier for different teams and developers to work together on the same application.

Fourth, IAC allows for better tracking and version control of infrastructure changes. By keeping the infrastructure definition in code, it allows for tracking changes in the same way as code changes and reverting to previous versions if necessary.

In summary, understanding IAC is important because it is a key component of cloud native application development, allows for greater consistency and reproducibility, promotes better collaboration and DevOps culture, and allows for better tracking and version control of infrastructure changes. It is a powerful tool for building and deploying applications in a cloud environment and is essential for any engineer working in the field today.

Learning Materials

Here’s a list to get you started learning about Infrastructure as code (IAC). Note that some of these links may not be free and may require a subscription or payment. I receive no affiliate payments for these links.

Beginner:

Intermediate:

Advanced:

Videos to Watch

Cloud Native Summit – Five ways to manage your Infrastructure as Code at Scale / Ryan Cartwright

This document provides an overview of the challenges of cloud native engineering and the solutions available, such as remote state management, avoiding manual state changes, using CI tools, and implementing a reliable SAS offering. It also covers the features and security essentials that must be included in a terraform CI platform.

Possible Learning Path

Hands-on experience: Start by setting up a simple Kubernetes cluster and experimenting with different IAC tools such as Terraform, Ansible, and Helm. This can be done by following tutorials and guides and deploying these tools on a cloud platform like AWS, Azure, or GCP.

Theoretical learning: Once you have a basic understanding of IAC, you can begin to explore the underlying concepts and technologies such as configuration management, version control, and automation. This can be done through online resources such as tutorials, courses, and documentation provided by IAC tools, as well as books and blogs on the topic.

Understanding the principles and best practices: IAC is an important aspect of modern infrastructure management, so it’s important to understand the key principles and best practices of IAC, such as versioning, testing, and rollback.

Joining a community: Joining a community of IAC enthusiasts will help you connect with other people who are learning and working with IAC for Kubernetes. This can be done through online forums, meetups, and social media groups.

Practice, practice, practice: As with any new technology, the best way to learn is by doing. The more you practice deploying and using IAC tools in a Kubernetes cluster, the more comfortable and proficient you will become with the technology.

A Note from the Architect

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is one of the most exciting developments in cloud deployments. It is a way of describing and provisioning infrastructure using code, instead of manual configuration. This makes it easier to manage and maintain over time, as well as enabling faster scaling, testing, and deploying of cloud native solutions.

Version control is essential for modern operations teams, as it allows them to track changes to the infrastructure over time and roll back to a previous version if something goes wrong. Developers should also learn it, as it allows them to collaborate more easily with operations teams and to understand the infrastructure that their code is running on.

IaC helps to ensure quality by allowing for automated provisioning and configuration of infrastructure. It also helps to ensure security, as it enables more controlled and automated access to infrastructure, making it easier to identify and isolate any malicious activity.

In conclusion, IaC is a great way to deploy cloud native solutions, as it makes it easier to manage and maintain over time. Version control is essential for modern operations teams, and developers should also learn it. Writing IaC helps to ensure quality and can help with security by allowing for more controlled and automated access to infrastructure.

Connect with Shawn
Connect with Shawn

Connect with me on LinkedIn. It’s where I’m most active, and it’s the easiest way to connect with me.

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An Introduction to Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): Understanding the Benefits, Learning Materials, Videos to Watch and a Possible Learning Path

As a new engineer, understanding the concept of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) is important for several reasons.

First, CI/CD is a key component of cloud native application development. It is the process of automatically building, testing, and deploying code changes as soon as they are committed to the code repository. By understanding how CI/CD works, you will be able to build, deploy, and manage cloud-native applications more effectively.

Second, CI/CD allows for faster development and deployment. By automating the build, test, and deployment process, it enables developers to make changes to the code and have them deployed to production faster. This facilitates faster innovation and time-to-market for new features.

Third, CI/CD promotes better collaboration and DevOps culture. By automating the process of building, testing, and deploying code changes, it becomes easier for different teams and developers to work together on the same application.

Fourth, CI/CD allows for better quality and reliability of the software. By automating the testing process, it ensures that code changes are tested as soon as they are made, which helps to catch any bugs or errors early in the development cycle.

In summary, as a new engineer, understanding the concept of CI/CD is important because it is a key component of cloud native application development, allows for faster development and deployment, promotes better collaboration and DevOps culture, and allows for better quality and reliability of the software. It is a powerful tool for building and deploying applications in a cloud environment and is essential for any engineer working in the field today.

Learning Materials

Here’s a list to get you started learning about CI/CD. Note that some of these links may not be free and may require a subscription or payment. I receive no affiliate payments for these links.

Beginner:

Intermediate:

Advanced:

Videos to Watch

The Foundations of Continuous Delivery

Continuous Delivery is a revolutionary approach to software development that focuses on efficient feedback, strong engineering discipline, reducing the amount of work, and cycle time reduction. Automation is essential to reducing cycle time and the deployment pipeline is used to prove that changes are fit for production.

Possible Learning Path

Hands-on experience: Start by setting up a simple Kubernetes cluster and experimenting with different CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, Travis CI, and GitLab CI/CD. This can be done by following tutorials and guides and deploying these tools on a cloud platform like AWS, Azure, or GCP.

Theoretical learning: Once you have a basic understanding of CI/CD, you can begin to explore the underlying concepts and technologies such as pipeline management, version control, and testing. This can be done through online resources such as tutorials, courses, and documentation provided by CI/CD tools, as well as books and blogs on the topic.

Understanding the principles and best practices: CI/CD is an important aspect of modern software development, so it’s important to understand the key principles and best practices of CI/CD such as automation, testing, and deployment.

Joining a community: Joining a community of CI/CD enthusiasts will help you connect with other people who are learning and working with CI/CD for Kubernetes. This can be done through online forums, meetups, and social media groups.

Practice, practice, practice: As with any new technology, the best way to learn is by doing. The more you practice deploying and using CI/CD tools in a Kubernetes cluster, the more comfortable and proficient you will become with the technology.

A Note from the Architect

I’m about to tell you how I used to publish my websites way back in the day. You see, back then, many of us actually kept a really powerful server under our desks. I had such a server. This server had a network card with two different IP addresses bound to it. One was a Public IP address. Yes, I had a public IP address bound directly onto the network card of the server sitting under my desk. I also had a private IP address so that I could share the website’s folder on the network for the whole company.

Ok, stop laughing, you’re making me feel bad. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that I edited my Active Server Pages directly from that folder. That’s right, changes went directly from development to the internet with no steps in between. I had lots of files that were named things like, “about-us.asp.old, about-us.asp.older, about-us.asp.donotuse.’

Well, luckily those days are behind us. Today we use CICD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment).

CICD is a software development practice that involves automatically building, testing, and deploying code changes. The basic idea behind CICD is to catch and fix errors as early as possible, which helps to prevent bugs and other issues from making it into production. This is accomplished by integrating the code changes into a central repository and then running a series of automated tests and builds.

It’s more popular now because it helps to improve software quality, increase collaboration among developers, and reduce time to market for new features. It also helps to ensure that software is always in a releasable state, which makes it easier to roll out new features and bug fixes.

One of the key enablers of CICD is version control. Version control is a necessity for modern development because it allows developers to track changes to the codebase over time, collaborate with other developers, and roll back to a previous version if something goes wrong. There’s no longer a need to append extra extensions onto files you might want to keep as backup.

Pipelines help to ensure quality by automating the process of building, testing, and deploying code changes. This makes it easier to catch and fix errors early in the development process, which helps to prevent bugs and other issues from making it into production. It can also help with security by establishing a software supply chain. When code changes are automatically built, tested and deployed, it’s easier to track, identify and isolate any malicious code that may have been introduced in the codebase.

Basically, CICD is a software development practice that involves automatically building, testing, and deploying code changes. It helps to improve software quality, increase collaboration among developers, and reduce time to market for new features. Version control is a necessity for modern development, and pipelines help to ensure quality and can help with security by establishing a software supply chain.

Connect with Shawn
Connect with Shawn

Connect with me on LinkedIn. It’s where I’m most active, and it’s the easiest way to connect with me.

Shawn’s LinkedIn
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The Proof of Concept

One valuable tool I wish I had realized was at my disposal earlier in my career is the proof of concept. I remember jumping into large projects intent on implementing the latest and greatest library, only to discover that I couldn’t get it to work because I didn’t really grasp how it worked. Having a smaller space to work out the various ways to implement a framework or a new library is probably one of the easier ways to dive in and start getting your feet wet without the pain of an existing application’s overhead.

Ideally the proof of concept is small enough that you can really exercise the functionality you expect, but also non-trivial enough to prove out that it can meet your specific use case. For instance, I’ve bene playing with feature toggling lately because I need to plug it into an existing monolithic application. Feature toggling isn’t necessarily that difficult when you have a clean architecture and you’re starting from scratch, but when you’re approaching an older codebase that has built up over time and was never designed for feature-based development, you don’t want to just go in there without having first worked out a good plan. In my opinion, the best way to do that is with a proof of concept.

Additionally, it can serve as a roadmap or testing ground when you do finally dive into that larger codebase to start implementing the library or framework. If you get stuck in the big codebase, go back to your POC and play with it. Experiment until you can recreate the roadblock, and then using the POC work your way out of it.

A POC is also an excellent way to communicate your technical intent. You can usually get one created in less than a week (sometimes less than a day) and because it’s small and focused, it gives you an excellent basis for discussion with your development team. It’s usually ideal for a team review because it does exactly what you intend, without all the overhead of the existing solution.

Next time you consider trying out a new framework or library in your existing codebase, think about creating a proof of concept. Even if it is a throwaway program, implementing it will add to your technical knowledge and give you something to reference for the future.

Happy coding!