AWS App Mesh — Service Mesh for Microservices Running on AWS

The idea of a “service mesh” has become increasingly popular over the last couple of years and the number of alternatives available has risen. There are multiple service mesh open-source projects: Istio, Linkerd, Envoy and Conduit which can be deployed on any Kubernetes environment. The AWS App Mesh can be used with microservices running on Amazon Elastic Container …

Creating product recommendations using neo4j

In this blog post, I will show you how to use neo4j to create product recommendations. By tracking the users’ activity, you can find products, your users have in common and easier present relevant products for the users Intro If you work on large e-commerce sites, you will inevitably run into the problem of showing …

10 More Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings

If you’re trying to get ahead in the corporate world, appearing smart in meetings should be your top priority. This can be hard if you find yourself daydreaming about Mexico, margaritas or queso cheese dip. If this happens, keep one of these tricks in your back pocket so you always look like you know what everyone’s talking …

Stop EC2 instances by Scheduling with AWS Lambda Function -(Python)

In this article I will show you how to create AWS Lambda using Python to stop EC2 instances in all regions in one go. The purpose of this Lambda function is to reduce a cost of AWS account which is used for development/POC (proof of concept) in organization. The Lambda function will get triggered on scheduled time and stop the running EC2 …

How to Manage Remote Programmers Effectively

No, I am not going to talk about the virtues of remote development here. There are already tons of articles that have done a great job explaining the nitty-gritty of remote development. We are living in a time when remote work is mandatory and the “extended team” consisting of “remote programmers” is no more a …

The Easy Way to Test your Logstash Configuration

Have you ever broken a system? Introduced an error in configuration? Or simply didn’t test all use cases on your laptop? How do we prevent misconfiguration when working in large teams? Code reviews, configuration management, and manual testing are not enough, especially when you roll your changes to production. The truth is, configuration files are …

Localizing content with Lambda@Edge

Recently our marketing team came to me with the challenge of localizing content for viewers from different countries on the GreenOrbit website. They explained the use case and benefits to running a multi-regional and multi-lingual website, it was all well planned out and just needed to be executed. To provide some background, the GreenOrbit website is built …

How to be an excellent technical leader

The context of the leadership in this article is related to new technology business, transformational environments, and enterprise modernisation initiatives. However, these traits might also apply to leaders in other domains. My views in this article reflect my 36 years of experience working with hundreds of technical and technology leaders. To keep this article at …

The Hardest Part of Being a Software Manager

The hardest part of being a software manager is understanding that software takes the time it takes, and rushing it will slow it down and make it buggy. Patience is everything. I know what you’re thinking. You have to finish your product in time for Black Friday, right? Or find product/market fit before the startup runway …

15 Tips for Managing Remote Teams From Zapier’s Vice President of Engineering

Distributed teams are the future of work, but how do they actually work? Here at FirstMark, we’re proud backers of a number of companies that subscribe to that future — like InVision, Upwork, and others that use remote work as a way to unlock and accelerate their growth and success. But why has remote work …