REDtalks.live #48 – Deep API Monitoring w/ resurface.io

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With the evolution of application architecture – from monolith to distributed, microservice – comes the need for modern ‘architecture appropriate’ monitoring and visibility solutions.

Traditional ‘packet sniffer’ tooling falls short in terms of the requirements developers need to transition from best-effort, educated guesses to detailed usage logging and traceability. To help realize these deep API monitoring goals, in this episode I’m joined by Founder and CEO of resurface.io, Rob Dickinson. 

Rob, who has a long history in the traditional application monitoring space, tells us how the tools and approaches of yesterday just don’t work in today’s distributed, microservice, ‘API first’ world. Watch this episode to understand how resurface.io delivers “DevOps-friendly instrumentation” for the modern, agile service.

 

For more information on Resurface.io:

  • You can view their YouTube Channel here
  • Take a look at the examples on GitHub here
  • And even run their demo yourself, here

 

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #47 – POSTMAN API client w/ creator & CEO, Abhinav Asthana

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Very excited about today’s episode where I’m joined by Abhinav Ashtana, the creator and CEO of world renowned API client, POSTMAN.

 

In this episode, hear Abhinav explain how POSTMAN started – how a personal frustration with API interactions presented an opportunity to create something cool. Learn about the journey POSTMAN took and the use cases that shaped its form today. Lastly, hear about the latest POSTMAN training capabilities shipping in version 7.0 (totally free) to better enable adoption by learning directly within the product as you use it.

Take a peek at this capability in the POSTMAN blog here.

Thanks for listening!

 

REDtalks.live #46 – ‘API Contracts’ w/ Kin Lane

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API Contracts, or ‘API Parenting’ as I like to call it, is a critical part of API creation and delivery. So, if you’re thinking if implementing an API, or maybe you already have and things aren’t going so well, then this is the episode for you!

For API consumers, the API Contract sets expectations. It lets you know whether functionality may change at short notice, or not. It informs you of rate-limiting policies, and of the providers uptime/availability commitments. As an API consumer, you should demand API contracts of your providers to inspire confidence in your API consumption choices.

For API creators/providers, your consumers get all of the above – confidence in your API. If you love your customers/consumers, you’ll provide them an API contract, and honor it.

To learn more about API contracts, from the API evangelist (apievangelist.com), Kin Lane, himself, watch this episode!

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #45 – being ‘open source’, practicing ‘social coding’

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Great to have GitHub’s Christian Weber (t: @classicwebdog) on the show again to help us understand what being part of the open-source community is all about.

Some key theme’s from this episode:

  1. Git IS all about ‘Social Coding’
  2. GitHub is NOT your download server
  3. Adopting open-source is a lot like hosting a meetup; be present, communicate, and listen
  4. Be receptive to feedback

Watch now:

 

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #44 – Security Automation /w Benn Alp

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Welcome to episode 44 of REDtalks.live, your home of Ranting, Engineers, and Devops, where I’m joined by F5 Networks Global Security Solution Architect, Benn Alp.

Benn brings perspective based on many years of security experience across a range of roles and verticals. Learned in this episode:

  1. DevSecOps is finally getting some traction.
  2. Security vendors have started making more programmable security tooling.
  3. Culture is the most important thing to change in security. Removing the ‘no team’ label often attributed to security practitioners starts within the security team and how they serve the business.
  4. Benn’s arm movements are faster than the YouTube live-streaming frames per second transmission out of ‘Straya.

Enough words, watch now!

 

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #43 – “API First Strategy” w/ Kin Lane

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Welcome to episode #43 where I’m joined by super-famous API evangelist, Kin Lane – yes, the Kin Lane behind apievangelist.com

Watch this episode to learn about Kin’s background and how he’s helped many organizations of different sizes realize the benefits of an “API First” strategy. Or just watch to see if he really does look like this:

Theme’s in this episode:

  • API First strategy
  • API Politics
  • Applying API’s to existing technologies/services

Enough words, watch/listen here:

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #42 – Dev’s gone rogue

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There’s lots of talk in the computer networking media about the need to pick up some scripting/coding skills to stay relevant in the modern agile/DevOps world. To better understand this perspective, in episode #42 we take a look at it from the opposite direction… from that of two developers who switched to networking!

Joining me in this episode, Cody (who I refer to as ‘Cory’, not once, but twice… sorry, Cody – if that even is your name…) Green, and Daniel Edgar explain how developers look at networking and how to avoid the common miscommunication problems between the two important but very different worlds.

Thanks for joining me CODY Green and Daniel Edgar!

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #41 – Grafana Dashboard update for SSL stats

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Watch this episode to see how you can view F5 BIG-IP SSL statistics in the latest Grafana Dashboard for the BigStats telemetry exporter.

Well, I know I already posted the end of year wrap-up episode (REDtalks.live #40 – 2018 in Review) but I had a little free time and here we are on the very last day of the year with an update to add SSL statistics to the Grafana Dashboard for BigStats.

 

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #40 – 2018 in Review

/ Nathan Pearce / 1 Comment

In REDtalks.live episode #40 we take a look at the activity throughout the year.

NOTE: We’re almost at 20,000 views on the youtube channel. Help us get there by clicking play on this video below:

2018’s REDtalks.live Posts:

In addition to the creation of two dedicated landing pages for:

Its been an honor creating content for you and I really appreciate the comments/feedback. Keep them coming! And if you have any ideas for episodes, please do get in touch here.

Thanks for listening!

REDtalks.live #39 – Me at Github Universe

/ Nathan Pearce / 1 Comment

Last week Github Universe happened. You missed it? I’m sorry. Don’t let it happen again!

Github Universe is awesome. Some things that stood out for me:

1) No Badge Scanning

It took me no more than 30 seconds to get through registration and collect my badge, a process that brings with it the reminder of how many times I’m going to be scanned onto follow-up email and call lists for things I’m really not interested in. Nope, not at Github Universe. Everyone is free to communicate without a sales/marketing push.

2) The Right People

Every sponsor stand I visited was staffed with the people that created/architected their offering. I can’t recall a conference where every interaction resulted in all the answers to all the questions, at once. That was pretty sweet, right there!

A quick example, I stopped by the Microsoft stand part way through a VS Code demo. I was approached and asked if I had any questions by an employee, who turned out to be one of the developers behind the Github Pull Request extension. Immediately after asking a question about the extension we were both looking at the source code and I was getting a detailed walk-through.

This made my week! And it didn’t just happen once…

3) Culture

The people at Github Universe were all on the same side: the sponsors, the guests, the event support staff, everyone went out of their way to ensure the best experience was had by all. I really cannot fault the execution…

4) My awesome demonstration!

Last, but not least, I appeared on the Github Universe Demo Desk where I demonstrated managing some F5 BIG-IP virtual appliances via Github Enterprise and the practice of Network Configuration as Code.

Here’s the powerpoint presentation: Introducing Network Configuration as Code

And here are the videos:

Quick Intro

 

RBAC & Config Rollback

 

Advanced – multi-change commit