June 07, 2023

The Design Patterns for Distributed Systems Handbook

Some people mistake distributed systems for microservices. And it's true – microservices are a distributed system. But distributed systems do not always follow the microservice architecture. So with that in mind, let's come up with a proper definition for distributed systems: A distributed system is a computing environment in which various components are spread across multiple computers (or other computing devices) on a network. ... If you decide that you do need a distributed system, then there are some common challenges you will face:Heterogeneity – Distributed systems allow us to use a wide range of different technologies. The problem lies in how we keep consistent communication between all the different services. Thus it is important to have common standards agreed upon and adopted to streamline the process.?Scalability – Scaling is no easy task. There are many factors to keep in mind such as size, geography, and administration. There are many edge cases, each with their own pros and cons.?Openness – Distributed systems are considered open if they can be extended and redeveloped.

Shadow IT is increasing and so are the associated security risks

Gartner found that business technologists, those business unit employees who create and bring in new technologies, are 1.8 times more likely than other employees to behave insecurely across all behaviors. “Cloud has made it very easy for everyone to get the tools they want but the really bad thing is there is no security review, so it’s creating an extraordinary risk to most businesses, and many don’t even know it’s happening,” says Candy Alexander, CISO at NeuEon and president of Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) International. To minimize the risks of shadow IT, CISOs need to first understand the scope of the situation within their enterprise. “You have to be aware of how much it has spread in your company,” says Pierre-Martin Tardif, a cybersecurity professor at Université de Sherbrooke and a member of the Emerging Trends Working Group with the professional IT governance association ISACA. Technologies such as SaaS management tools, data loss prevention solutions, and scanning capabilities all help identify unsanctioned applications and devices within the enterprise.

Worker v bot: Humans are winning for now

Ethical and legislative concerns aside, what the average worker wants to know is if they’ll still have a job in a few years’ time. It’s not a new concern: in fact, jobs are lost to technological advancements all the time. A century ago, most of the world’s population was employed in farming, for example. Professional services company Accenture asserts that 40% of all working hours could be impacted by generative AI tools — primarily because language tasks already account for just under two thirds of the total time employees work. In The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2023, jobs such as clerical or secretarial roles, including bank tellers and data entry clerks, are reported as likely to decline. Some legal roles, like paralegals and legal assistants, may also be affected, according to a recent Goldman Sachs report. ... Customer service roles are also increasingly being replaced by chatbots. While chatbots can be helpful in automating customer service scenarios, not everyone is convinced. Sales-as-a-Service company Feel offers, among other services, actual live sales reps to chat with online shoppers.

The Future of Continuous Testing in CI/CD

Continuous testing is rapidly evolving to meet the needs of modern software development practices, with new trends emerging to address the challenges development teams face. Three key trends currently gaining traction in continuous testing are cloud-based testing, shift-left testing and security testing. These trends are driven by the need to increase efficiency and speed in software development while ensuring the highest quality and security levels. Let’s take a closer look at these trends. Cloud-Based Testing: Continuous testing is deployed through cloud-based computing, which provides multiple benefits like ease of deployment, mobile accessibility and quick setup time. Businesses are now adopting cloud-based services due to their availability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Cloud-based testing doesn’t require coding skills or setup time, which makes it a popular choice for businesses. ... Shift-Left Testing: Shift-left testing is software testing that involves testing earlier in the development cycle rather than waiting until later stages, such as system or acceptance testing.

IT is driving new enterprise sustainability efforts

There’s an additional sustainability benefit to modernizing applications, says Patel at Capgemini. “Certain applications are written in a way that consumes more energy.” Digital assessments can help measure the carbon footprint of internally developed apps, she says. Modern application design is key to using the cloud efficiently. At Choice Hotels, many components now run as services that can be configured to automatically shut down during off hours. “Some run as micro processes when called. We’re using serverless technologies and spot instances in the AWS world, which are more efficient, and we’re building systems that can handle it when those disappear,” Kirkland says. “Every digital interaction has a carbon price, so figure out how to streamline that,” advises Patel. This includes business process reengineering, as well as addressing data storage and retention policies. For example, Capgemini engages employees in sustainable IT by holding regular “digital cleaning days” that include deleting or archiving email messages and cleaning up collaborative workspaces.

SRE vs. DevOps? Successful Platform Engineering Needs Both

The complexity of managing today’s cloud native applications drains DevOps teams. Building and operating modern applications requires significant amounts of infrastructure and an entire portfolio of diverse tools. When individual developers or teams choose to use different tools and processes to work on an application, this tooling inconsistency and incompatibility causes delays and errors. To overcome this, platform engineering teams provide a standardized set of tools and infrastructure that all project developers can use to build and deploy the app more easily. Additionally, scaling applications is difficult and time-consuming, especially when traffic and usage patterns change over time. Platform engineering teams address this with their golden paths — or environments designed to scale quickly and easily — and logical application configuration. Platform engineering also helps with reliability. Development teams that use a set of shared tools and infrastructure tested for interoperability and designed for reliability and availability make more reliable software.

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