This technical session focuses on a customer use case and how using the AWS Cloud together with automation has enabled them to standardise and automate their systems.
This talk will describe how this is achieved with two tools, Cloud formation and Puppet. Cloud formation is a declarative templating language that enables the deployment of environments in a standardised way. Combined with a configuration management tool like Puppet allows for the automation of ongoing software deployments and maintenance in a low overhead manner. Puppet is a Configuration Management tool that installs and configures software on instances. Taken together a complete system can be built from the ground up.
Prometheus is a popular open source metric monitoring solution and Azure Monitor provides a seamless onboarding experience to collect Prometheus metrics. Learn how to configure scraping of Prometheus metrics with Azure Monitor for containers running in AKS cluster.
This morning I presented the “Managing VMware vSphere 4 with The Virtualization EcoShell” session for an audience of 200+ people at the Dutch VMUG event in Nieuwegein. The total number of attendees is over 600!!! Here’s a copy of my slide deck.
Today, the development and operations landscape has shifted to a more collaborative model merging the two (DevOps). Developers need to know much more about the operational components of their software - especially around network programming, services development, and continuous deployment. Likewise, the developer's IT counterpart needs to know much more about development - especially around infrastructure automation (Chef/Puppet), automated testing, and continuous deployment.
Project Sherpa: How RightScale Went All in on DockerRightScale
We just finished a 7 week project at RightScale to migrate 48 services and 650+ cloud instances to Docker. As a result we’ve been able to accelerate our development processes and cut our cloud costs (a lot). Here we share lessons learned about our experience migrating to Docker and introduce our new Container Manager we added to the RightScale platform to help manage containerized environments.
Building and deploying an analytic service on Cloud is a challenge. A bigger challenge is to maintain the service. In a world where users are gravitating towards a model where cluster instances are to provisioned on the fly, in order for these to be used for analytics or other purposes, and then to have these cluster instances shut down when the jobs get done, the relevance of containers and container orchestration is more important than ever. In short Customers are looking for Serverless Spark Clusters. The Intent of this presentation is to share what is Serverless Spark and what are the benefits of running Spark in serverless manner.
Prometheus is a popular open source metric monitoring solution and Azure Monitor provides a seamless onboarding experience to collect Prometheus metrics. Learn how to configure scraping of Prometheus metrics with Azure Monitor for containers running in AKS cluster.
This morning I presented the “Managing VMware vSphere 4 with The Virtualization EcoShell” session for an audience of 200+ people at the Dutch VMUG event in Nieuwegein. The total number of attendees is over 600!!! Here’s a copy of my slide deck.
Today, the development and operations landscape has shifted to a more collaborative model merging the two (DevOps). Developers need to know much more about the operational components of their software - especially around network programming, services development, and continuous deployment. Likewise, the developer's IT counterpart needs to know much more about development - especially around infrastructure automation (Chef/Puppet), automated testing, and continuous deployment.
Project Sherpa: How RightScale Went All in on DockerRightScale
We just finished a 7 week project at RightScale to migrate 48 services and 650+ cloud instances to Docker. As a result we’ve been able to accelerate our development processes and cut our cloud costs (a lot). Here we share lessons learned about our experience migrating to Docker and introduce our new Container Manager we added to the RightScale platform to help manage containerized environments.
Building and deploying an analytic service on Cloud is a challenge. A bigger challenge is to maintain the service. In a world where users are gravitating towards a model where cluster instances are to provisioned on the fly, in order for these to be used for analytics or other purposes, and then to have these cluster instances shut down when the jobs get done, the relevance of containers and container orchestration is more important than ever. In short Customers are looking for Serverless Spark Clusters. The Intent of this presentation is to share what is Serverless Spark and what are the benefits of running Spark in serverless manner.
Let’s dive into the world of serverless and give you real world examples of how to get started. We will focus on Azure Functions in Java and discuss how to provision, deploy and test them in a productive environment. In my demos we will see the ease of local development leveraging from the great integration in Visual Studio Code. Finally, let’s ship our samples and scale them in Azure. If you are tired of server maintenance and want to achieve more with your java functions , don’t miss this session.
Azure Days 2019: Infrastructure as Code auf Azure (Jonas Wanninger & Daniel H...Trivadis
Heutzutage schreibt man nicht nur Applikationen mit Code. Dank der Cloud wird die Konfiguration von Infrastruktur wie virtuellen Maschinen oder Netzwerken in Code definiert und automatisiert ausgeliefert. Man spricht von Infrastructure as Code, kurz: IAC. Für Infrastructure as Code auf Azure gibt es viele tools wie Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc. Zwei Lösungen stechen durch Ihren unterschiedlichen Ansatz heraus - Die Azure Resource Manager Templates (ARM) als Microsoft-native Lösung, immer auf dem neusten Stand, aber an Azure gebunden. Auf der anderen Seite Terraform von HashiCorp mit einer deskriptiven Sprache als Grundlage, dafür weniger Features im Security-Bereich. Für einen Grosskunden haben wir die beiden Technologien verglichen. Die Resultate zeigen wir in dieser Session mit Livedemos auf.
Using HashiCorp’s Terraform to build your infrastructure on AWS - Pop-up Loft...Amazon Web Services
Using Terraform to automate your infrastructure on AWS. What is Terraform and how is it different from Ansible. How to control cloud deployments using Terraform.
Another day, another buzzword in the world of software development! ‘Microservices’ is a new approach to structuring server-side software. But is it really new? In this talk I’ll walk you through the birth and ‘raison d’etre’ of microservices and tell about pro’s and con’s of the approach.
Having laid the foundation, we will take a look at best-practices and patterns for building micro service architectures and combine this with a tour of current technologies and development tools.
Finally, I will take a quick look at the future and discuss some of the remaining challenges. All parts of the presentation will be accompanied by structural examples based on a real ecommerse system.
Describes common serverless patterns with a little demo/screenshot. Most of the content are based in AWS Lambda, but should apply to other service providers as well. Best for developers new to cloud computing and serverless pattern.
Presented at AWS Connect Taipei, Apr. 27th.
Scaling on Amazon AWS : From the perspective of AWS, and the application stack. Talks about the available options on AWS, and also the architecture of the scalable application.
Dissection of the arguments against using public cloud providers from the Chef Compliance event in Dallas April 25, 2016. Compared and contrasted benefits of AWS vs. Azure vs. GCP.
Let’s dive into the world of serverless and give you real world examples of how to get started. We will focus on Azure Functions in Java and discuss how to provision, deploy and test them in a productive environment. In my demos we will see the ease of local development leveraging from the great integration in Visual Studio Code. Finally, let’s ship our samples and scale them in Azure. If you are tired of server maintenance and want to achieve more with your java functions , don’t miss this session.
Azure Days 2019: Infrastructure as Code auf Azure (Jonas Wanninger & Daniel H...Trivadis
Heutzutage schreibt man nicht nur Applikationen mit Code. Dank der Cloud wird die Konfiguration von Infrastruktur wie virtuellen Maschinen oder Netzwerken in Code definiert und automatisiert ausgeliefert. Man spricht von Infrastructure as Code, kurz: IAC. Für Infrastructure as Code auf Azure gibt es viele tools wie Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc. Zwei Lösungen stechen durch Ihren unterschiedlichen Ansatz heraus - Die Azure Resource Manager Templates (ARM) als Microsoft-native Lösung, immer auf dem neusten Stand, aber an Azure gebunden. Auf der anderen Seite Terraform von HashiCorp mit einer deskriptiven Sprache als Grundlage, dafür weniger Features im Security-Bereich. Für einen Grosskunden haben wir die beiden Technologien verglichen. Die Resultate zeigen wir in dieser Session mit Livedemos auf.
Using HashiCorp’s Terraform to build your infrastructure on AWS - Pop-up Loft...Amazon Web Services
Using Terraform to automate your infrastructure on AWS. What is Terraform and how is it different from Ansible. How to control cloud deployments using Terraform.
Another day, another buzzword in the world of software development! ‘Microservices’ is a new approach to structuring server-side software. But is it really new? In this talk I’ll walk you through the birth and ‘raison d’etre’ of microservices and tell about pro’s and con’s of the approach.
Having laid the foundation, we will take a look at best-practices and patterns for building micro service architectures and combine this with a tour of current technologies and development tools.
Finally, I will take a quick look at the future and discuss some of the remaining challenges. All parts of the presentation will be accompanied by structural examples based on a real ecommerse system.
Describes common serverless patterns with a little demo/screenshot. Most of the content are based in AWS Lambda, but should apply to other service providers as well. Best for developers new to cloud computing and serverless pattern.
Presented at AWS Connect Taipei, Apr. 27th.
Scaling on Amazon AWS : From the perspective of AWS, and the application stack. Talks about the available options on AWS, and also the architecture of the scalable application.
Dissection of the arguments against using public cloud providers from the Chef Compliance event in Dallas April 25, 2016. Compared and contrasted benefits of AWS vs. Azure vs. GCP.
How do you automate operational tasks when managing your infrastructure on AWS, such as code deployment, software configurations, package installations, database setups, and server scaling? Using AWS OpsWorks, you can deploy and operate applications of all shapes and sizes. In addition, you can model your application stack with layers that define the building blocks of your application: load balancers, application servers, and databases.
The webinar will accelerate your use of OpsWorks by helping you learn how to manage and configure instances, create and deploy applications, and monitor your resources using AWS OpsWorks.
Learning Objectives:
• How to model your application stack
• How to manage and configure instances
• How to create and deploy applications
• How to automate operational tasks
Who Should Attend:
- Developers,
- Dev-ops Engineers,
- System Administrators
Data science with spark on amazon EMR - Pop-up Loft Tel AvivAmazon Web Services
Organizations need to perform increasingly complex analysis on their data — streaming analytics, ad-hoc querying and predictive analytics — in order to get better customer insights and actionable business intelligence. However, the growing data volume, speed, and complexity of diverse data formats make current tools inadequate or difficult to use. Apache Spark has recently emerged as the framework of choice to address these challenges. Spark is a general-purpose processing framework that follows a DAG model and also provides high-level APIs, making it more flexible and easier to use than MapReduce. Thanks to its use of in-memory datasets (RDDs), embedded libraries, fault-tolerance, and support for a variety of programming languages, Apache Spark enables developers to implement and scale far more complex big data use cases, including real-time data processing, interactive querying, graph computations and predictive analytics. In this session, we present a technical deep dive on Spark running on Amazon EMR. You learn why Spark is great for ad-hoc interactive analysis and real-time stream processing, how to deploy and tune scalable clusters running Spark on Amazon EMR, how to use EMRFS with Spark to query data directly in Amazon S3, and best practices and patterns for Spark on Amazon EMR.
Join ClearScale and AWS to learn how the San Jose Water Company worked with ClearScale to leverage Docker and the latest AWS DevOps tools including Amazon ECS, Amazon EC2 Container Registry (ECR) and AWS CodePipeline, to deliver new app features faster, with lower overhead. Gaining a competitive edge in the modern business landscape often depends on delivering apps with small, quick changes that create faster time-to-market, with focused value for the end customer. Successful companies adopt a DevOps model that automates continuous app delivery and may use a software containerization platform, both to accelerate releases and reduce risk. ClearScale is an AWS DevOps Premier Consulting Partner that helps decrease your time to market, governance and compliance risks, and lower your operational costs.
Join us to learn:
• The advantages of DevOps on AWS, using the latest AWS tools and Docker
• Best practices to design and deploy containers on AWS, based on experiences of the San Jose Water Company
• Learn from ClearScale experts about proven automation techniques for DevOps on AWS
Who should attend: CTOs, CIOs, CISOs, VPs of Engineering, VPs of Development, Business Development Directors, Senior Development Managers, Senior Architects, Business Development Managers
Learn how the Blue/Green Deployment methodology combined with AWS tools and services can help reduce the risks associated with software deployment. We will illustrate common patterns and highlight ways deployment risks are mitigated by each pattern. Topics will include how services like AWS CloudFormation, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon EC2 Container Service, Amazon Route53, Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing can help automate deployment. We will also address how to effectively manage deployments in the context of data model and schema changes. Learn how you can adopt blue/green for your software release processes in a cost-effective and low-risk way.
How IT at Getty Images Brokers Cloud ServicesRightScale
As enterprise IT teams become brokers of cloud services, they need to embrace new approaches to governance and self-service. The Getty Images IT team will share how they have deployed a self-service portal to entice IaaS consumption on top of their own legacy infrastructure and how they focused on cloud-agnostic automation.
Cost is often the conversation starter when customers think about moving to the cloud. AWS helps lower costs for customers through its “pay only for what you use” pricing model, frequent price drops, and pricing model choice to support variable & stable workloads. In this session, you will learn about the financial considerations of owning and operating a traditional data center or managed hosting provider versus utilizing AWS. We will detail our TCO methodology and showcase cost comparisons for some common customer use-cases. We’ll also cover a few AWS cost optimization areas, including Spot and Reserved Instances, EC2 Auto Scaling, and consolidated billing.
Presenter:
Amit Sharma, Solution Architect, Amazon Internet Services
Krishnenjit Roy, Director IT Operations, Freshdesk
AWS re:Invent 2016: Development Workflow with Docker and Amazon ECS (CON302)Amazon Web Services
Keeping consistent environments across your development, test, and production systems can be a complex task. Docker containers offer a way to develop and test your application in the same environment in which it runs in production. You can use tools such as the ECS CLI and Docker Compose for local testing of applications; Jenkins and AWS CodePipeline for building and workflow orchestration; Amazon EC2 Container Registry to store your container images; and Amazon EC2 Container Service to manage and scale containers. In this session, you will learn how to build containers into your development workflow and orchestrate container deployments using Amazon ECS. You will hear how Okta runs 30,000 tests per developer commit and releases 10,000 new lines of code each week to production with a CI system based on 100% AWS services. We'll also discuss how Okta uses ECS for parallelized testing in CI and for production microservices in a multi-region, always on cloud service.
An overview of running Oracle Database, Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications on AWS. Covers licensing, pricing, support, security, networking, Amazon VPC, Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, use cases, and customer successes.
Video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv-3RgIZIZY
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcuMPYJ4Osax4528rgqQWrw?sub_confirmation=1
https://medium.com/@varunmanik1/aws-copilot-by-deploying-an-amazon-elastic-container-service-infrastructure-application-3854f1e5eacf
Tokyo Azure Meetup #7 - Introduction to Serverless Architectures with Azure F...Tokyo Azure Meetup
Serverless architecture is the next big shift in computing - completely abstracting the underlying infrastructure and focusing 100% on the business logic.
Today we can create applications directly in our browser and leave the decision how they are hosted and scaled to the cloud provider. Moreover, this approach give us incredible control over the granularity of our applications since most of the time we are dealing with single function at a time.
In this presentation we will cover:
• Introduce Serverless Architectures
• Talk about the advantages of Serverless Architectures
• Discuss in details in event-driven computing
• Cover common Serverless approaches
• See practical applications with Azure Functions
• Compare AWS Lambda and Azure Functions
• Talk about open source alternatives
• Explore the relation between Microservices and Serverless Architectures
Cloud-Native DevOps: Simplifying application lifecycle management with AWS | ...Amazon Web Services
Organizations are migrating to the cloud in order to increase their agility and eliminate undifferentiated heavy lifting. At the same time, they’re embracing DevOps principles in order to deliver functionality faster and improve operational performance. Taken together, it’s possible to deliver agile, reliable applications with less overhead than ever before. However, it’s not always optimal to emulate traditional approaches to DevOps and configuration management in the cloud. No matter where you are in your DevOps journey, join us in this session to learn how to use AWS application lifecycle management services to focus on your mission, not your tooling.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4
Infrastructure Automation on AWS using a Real-World Customer Example
1. Infrastructure Automation on AWS
Sebastian Krueger – Director of Cloud Engineering
Lindsay Parker – Cloud Architect
Using a Real-World Customer Example
2. Agenda
• Case Study Overview
• Automation Introduction
• Cloudformation
• Puppet
• Demo
5. Case Study Overview
• The challenge
• New deployment of ‘big’ Oracle Enterprise Application and associated
applications
• Tight delivery deadlines
• Only 2.5 technical FTEs
• Greenfields, i.e. no existing H/W, new install
• Multiple environments required – dev, sit, ual, qual, etc
Start with an empty AWS account.
6. Technologies Landscape
• Oracle Enterprise Application Stack
• Oracle Service Bus / SOA Suite
• Mulesoft ESB for System Integration
8. Automation Introduction
• Reproducible
• Consistent across environments
• Build one, run many times
• Template install
• High skilled build, low skilled run
• Automatic resilience and recovery
• Reduce developer turnaround time
9. Cloudformation
• Infrastructure automation and deployment
• Simple to create, update, and delete stacks of infrastructure
• Free! Pay only for the AWS resources created in the stack
• Available in all regions
• Deploy almost all AWS services
• Uses a JSON format
10.
11. Configuration Management Tools
• Configuration Management Tool
• Install packages, template files, and control services on servers
• Tools
• Facter – server information
• Hiera – configuration store
• Share code in modules. Public on Forge, Github.
• Lots of alternatives
12.
13. Demo Time
• Oracle Meter Data Management on AWS
• Based on Oracle WebLogic and Oracle Application Framework used in
various other Oracle Enterprise Applications
Editor's Notes
Good afternoon, my name is Sebastian and I wanted to share with you some of the journey that we’ve gone with some of our AWS customers. Going form a traditional datacentre to an AWS architecture.
We’re going to cover a real-world case study that has been put together using some of the technologies we’ve used in the field over the last 18 months. From what we’ve seen, this may be reflective of some of your environments that you may be looking to shift across to AWS.
Don’t focus too much on the specific technology landscape in this case study and focus on the concepts and principles introduced in this talk and how they might apply to your organisation.
Our cloud journey takes us to the early days of Internet of Things. Sensors connected over the Internet. Specifically, in this case, sending your electricity usage to the metering provider. This could be your electricity meter at your home. Ok, single meter, single stream of half hour reads coming into your data center.
But now we have millions of meters! This is a much harder to solve problem. We have an infrastructure problem and a data torrent problem. Say, a whole new city is being fitted out with these advanced meters. Suddenly you need a whole new set of infrastructure provisioned. Sure, you could buy some new kit. But how long would that take? And at what cost?
This was our challenge. First prove the software was going to work in AWS, then be able to scale up massively very quickly as demand profile requires. Oracle have specialist software to solve the data torrent problem. Specifically, Oracle Meter Data Management. This software has so many features and such a long legacy that it is big and heavy and difficult to install.
Traditionally that wasn’t too big a problem. You probably know from your won experience that these ERP-like applications are installed a set number of times and that number is set in stone. They are effectively sacred, protected behind wall of bureaucracy and governance overhead.
Our story that we are sharing with your today is how we were able to bring agility back into these ERP-like environments.
Our case study will cover the following technology stacks and vendors.
At a high level our architecture looks like this. We have two public network paths, and two private network paths. Inbound public internet traffic is routed through the Proxy, outbound public internet traffic is routed through the NAT. Secured traffic from developers desktops comes in via the OpenVPN tunnel. Secured traffic from our corporate data center is routed via the OpenSwan ipsec tunnel. This allows Mule ESB, Oracle Service Bus, etc to access the on-premise FTP server, or call directly to other backend applications such as JDEdwards that haven’t been moved across to AWS yet.
Remember our Oracle Application. Traditionally it took 2 weeks to get a new install going. And that was if all went smoothly. Each environment is hand crafted. Guess what… you stand up 5 of these hand crafted environments. They are all different! To ensure consistency, we must take out the manual steps. Ensure we have reproducible results, and provisioned at speed.
Initially this is going to be hard, but as you invest in these skills and build up a library of reusable automation artifacts, the results will be groundbreaking.
Cloudformation is awesome! It provides a simple template of your AWS infrastructure. Defined in JSON, you specify your complete network setup, machine image id, security groups, instance type, etc.
Available in all regions. So you can go global in minutes or hours.
At API Talent we use Cloudformation for everything. We recommend a Cloudformation first approach.
Looks like this in its raw format. There are DSLs that simplify this but you loose some of the feature richness of Cloudformation, so at API Talent we like to stay close to the actual JSON code.
So we have our AWS environment defined. But what about our Operating System configuration? Tools like Puppet rule in this space. Take a vanilla OS and apply all configuration based on a textual template.
How to choose which? At API Talent we are Oracle Middleware / Applications specialists so Puppet is great because of the existing Oracle modules.
So we chose Puppet for our Oracle Applications use case. This is due to the extensive publicly available modules that can be reused. But if your technology landscape looks different, you could consider using one of the newer configuration management tools available. But remember to not reinvent the wheel with your automation. If someone has already made a module public, reuse it first.
This is what an example Puppet script could look like. Simple install of a LAMP stack into an already provisioned EC2 instance.
Demo
Oracle Meter Data Managemnet in AWS
- describe the cloudformation template that will kick off the MDM install
- show how to trigger the stack
- talk about what it's doing in the background
- provisioning the aws vpc, subnet, security groups, etc
- cloudformation triggers puppet bootstrap in the EC2 instance and passing in configuration via metadata
- puppet configures OS and installs application
Dialogue between Lindsay and Seb.
Seb: Question 1: How has your experience with CF been so far since you started working with AWS?
Lindsay: - Split into multiple small templates
- Cloudformation generation from ruby templates
Seb: Question 2: How long has it taken you to create the automation for this Oracle Enterprise Application?
Lindsay:
- login to Oracle application