[Links of the Day] 25/06/2020 : Architecture decision record, Database stress test, Rust Network Function Framework

• Architecture decision record : Methods and tools for capturing software design choices that address a functional or non-functional requirement that is architecturally significant. [template]
• pstress : Perconna Database concurrency and crash recovery testing tool
• capsule : A framework for network function development. If you want to do fast packet process in a memory safe programing language (RUST) this is for you.

[Links of the Day] 31/05/2018 : Testing Distributed Systems, Quantum Supremacy , Togaf Tool

• Testing distributed systems : Curated list of resources on testing distributed systems. Thre is no silver bullet, just sweat, blood and broken systems. 
• The Question of Quantum Supremacy : Google folks are trying to determine the smaller smallest computational task that is prohibitively hard for today’s classical computers but trivial for quantum computer. This is the equivalent of hello world for a quantum computer and is critical to validate quantum computer capability and correctness. 
• Archi : open source modelling tool to create ArchiMate models and sketches. If you ever look at TOGAF or use the enterprise architecture principle, this tool is for you. 

[Links of the Day] 29/05/2018 : Tracers performance, Testing Terraform , Virtual-kubelet

• Benchmarking kernel and userspace tracers : a good recap of what tracing toolkit is out there and the performance tradeoff that comes with them
• terratest : this is the thing I was looking for, a way to test and validate my terraform script. This will really help the adoption of Terraform I think as it will significantly increase the confidence in Terraform code before deployment.
• Virtual-Kubelet : that s a really cool concept, and introduce a great dose of flexibility in your Kubernetes cluster deployment. There is already some really exciting solution leveraging it such as the AWS fargate integration. With this, you could implement easily bursting and batching solution or real hybrid k8s solution with virtual kubelet hosted in Azure, Aws and on your private cloud.  

[Links of the day] 13/06/2016 : Geometric Algorithms, Logical Clock are easy & distributed system testing

• Geometric Algorithm : Princeton algorithms and data structures lecture. Provide an excellent overview of the geometric algorithms out there and why they are important. 
• Why Logical Clocks are Easy : well not really but still , AMC queue article on the ever recurrent issue of time in distributed systems. 
• Distributed Systems Testing : When you cannot find good article on a subject, ask on twitter. The result is a good list of distributed system testing papers.

[Links of the day] 24/03/2016: Testing distributed systems, SDN OS, HW/SW for Storage Class Memory

• Technologies for Testing Distributed Systems : testing distributed system is hard, and unit testing do not really cut it when it come to byzantine fault.. 
• ONOS : Open Network Operating System (ONOS) is a software defined networking (SDN) OS
• WrAP : Hardware and Software Support for Atomic Persistence in Storage Class Memory

IoT next battlefield: test/dev platform commoditization

IoT term is past the point of no return and is now officially one of those buzzword that “serious” business need to brand themselves with in order to keep up with the time.
Lets have a look at the domain and do a quick mapping of the IoT value chain. What we discover is that a good portion of the value chain is already heavily commoditised but surprisingly some key aspects are not.

Current IoT Value Chain

First, we might ask why testing and dev platform are not as commoditized as the rest of the value chain. We have to remember that we are not developing software only. We need to validate if the a combination of hardware + software as well as its behavior within the overall IoT ecosystem.

The dev/test requirement for Internet of Things is a significant challenge. The scale of the systems is big because they contains large number of units spatially distributed. And the larger the scale, the harder it is to test within the software development lab for testing. Corporation do not have the financial capabilities to deploy large scale IoT testing like google does.
Moreover, as Nest CEO,Tony Fadell, explain in Stanford’s industrialist dilemma session : Testing software, testing procedures, test fixtures, (everything test) are critical IP that need to be protected in order to retain competitive advantage. As a result, the overall testing and, to a certain extend, dev remained closely guarded aspect of the value chain. Company kept these two at lower end of the shift toward commoditization in order to increase the barrier to entry.

IoT Value Chain Transition

However, with the increased demand, the ineluctable commoditization process will accelerate. And simulation will be at the heart of it by enabling companies to virtually deploy IoT devices over a virtual space and test their behavior. Using such environment, they will can model and test cheaply every aspect of the system, such as connectivity , disruptions, etc.. Instead of manually handling and maintaining hundreds of devices we will be able to do it via an API. While, we still need to do hardware testing we probably reduced the overall cycle by an order of magnitude and allow faster release of new product.

Future IoT Value Chain

Currently, most cloud player have offered IoT solution that revolve around analytic and have made almost no foray in the testing and dev platforms. However, they are poised to offer cloud IoT testing platform which will generate a shift in power within this field (as shown above). It is going to be great for smart object designer houses as it will steal away the leverage from bigger player ( Honeywell , GE, etc..) by breaking the barrier to competition while enabling an explosion of the IoT ecosystem.

To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon did a play in that field. They have already an significant interest in IoT and 3d printer. It would be a natural step for Amazon, enabling the company to lock down yet another market.

Links of the day 20 - 07 - 2015

Today's links 20/07/2015: Optimization tools, lock-free queue, distributed system testing framework, functional programming guide

• Google Optimization Tools : Google's software suite for combinatorial optimization
• SnapQueue : Lock-Free Queue with Constant Time Snapshots
• Conductor : A system for testing distributed systems across a network
• mostly-adequate-guide : Mostly adequate guide to Functional programming (in javascript)
  

Links of the day 07 - 07 - 2015

Links of the day 07/07/2015 : brittle vs ductile systems, leader election, testing distributed system, Non blocking algo and multicore programming

• Brittle : very good overview on why current obsession with fault tolerant system are a lot more expensive than a non-fault-tolerant system that (most of the time) does the same job. And worse when they fail the failure is catastrophic. The authors advocate that we need to move toward ductile system - system that are able to strech even under failure, while it might break it provides enough warning enabling the catastrophic failure scenario and the associated cost.
• Fast Leader election without tournament : very good Microsoft research paper on how to solve the leader election without the classic tournament approach.
• Distributed system testing : ACM queue article on the approaches and challenges of testing distributed systems. 
• Nonblocking Algorithms & Scalable Multicore Programming : from the fantastic paper we love meetup, Devon tells us: "Apart from being a fantastic primer on designing portable concurrent data structures, this well-sourced paper provides a number of captivating ideas on thinking about, modeling, and solving concurrency and contention problems."

Links of the day 11 - 02 - 2015

Today's links 11/02/2015: Test and optimization articles, scaling product team, PCIe vs Eth , Distributed Sys fallacies

• 100 Must-Read Articles on Testing and Optimization : data driven, big data, a/b testing etc.. The best articles from 2014
• Scaling a product team : lesson learned from Intercom on how they scaled a product building team, and the nitty gritty involved in getting valuable product out the door as fast as possible.
• Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing : very good tech talk with real life encounter of the fallacies.
• PCIe vs Ethernet : with the rise of Intel’s silicon photonics (SiPh) optical PCIe (OPCIe) and other PCIe fabric, is it time to fragment your datacenter and use fast PCIe rack fabric and Eth for cross rack one. To be honest time will tell as you already know the best technology doesn't always win.