Tech – Skelton Thatcher

You build it, You run it (Why developers should also be on call)

This post was written by Chris O’Dell co-author of Team Guide to Software Releasability. It’s all about Feedback Loops The Continuous Delivery Pipeline is familiar to most developers. It’s a collaborative process built upon loops of feedback at every stage. A new feature will defined between a Product Manager, a Developer and a Quality Analyst. Continue reading “You build it, You run it (Why developers should also be on call)”

The benefits of using GoCD deployment pipelines for managing Terraform environments

This post was written by Rich Bosomworth. Although an excellent tool for infrastructure orchestration, Terraform plans can quickly become complex and difficult to manage, especially when deploying to multiple environments. In this post we examine the benefits of abstracting away core aspects of the deployment process into a GoCD wrapper and look at the enhancedContinue reading “The benefits of using GoCD deployment pipelines for managing Terraform environments”

Auto-generated infrastructure node graphs from Terraform plans

This post was written by Rich Bosomworth. Information visualisation is used for visually representing data to reinforce and enhance cognition. When deploying infrastructure as code, this visual perspective of resources and their relationships can prove useful, both at the design stage, and also post deployment for purposes of troubleshooting and infrastructure development. In this postContinue reading “Auto-generated infrastructure node graphs from Terraform plans”

Using Packer to create Windows AWS AMIs for declarative build agents

This post was written by Chris O’Dell co-author of Team Guide to Software Releasability. Key Takeaways Take advantage of the Cloud to scale your buildagents to meet development workloads (and save costs by turning them off when not in use Use Packer to build declarative golden images, including with Windows, to reduce handcrafted buildagents DevelopersContinue reading “Using Packer to create Windows AWS AMIs for declarative build agents”

DevOpsDays London 2017: Mental Wellbeing, Learnings from the Unexpected and Incident Management

This post was written by Chris O’Dell co-author of Team Guide to Software Releasability. DevOpsDays was back in London this week and was lucky enough to go along on the second day. The format was a mix of presentations the morning, ignite talks after lunch and Open Spaces for the remainder of the day. I particularlyContinue reading “DevOpsDays London 2017: Mental Wellbeing, Learnings from the Unexpected and Incident Management”

Container Clustering with Rancher Server (Part 7) – Stack and service build out to create a custom catalog item for Splunk

This post was written by Rich Bosomworth. This is the seventh post in an on-going series exploring Rancher Server deployment, configuration and extended use. In the last post I detailed how to create and deploy custom catalog items for GoCD. This post shows how we built out stack services from a docker-compose file to create a custom catalog item for SplunkContinue reading “Container Clustering with Rancher Server (Part 7) – Stack and service build out to create a custom catalog item for Splunk”

Mobile Ops and Tablet Terraform with Termux

This post was written by Rich Bosomworth. As a core sys(ops)admin and long time proponent of flexible working I’m a big fan of mobile ops, and ever keen to push the boundaries. The laptop can unchain you from the desk (and office). Mobile Ops lighten things even further with no need for anything more thanContinue reading “Mobile Ops and Tablet Terraform with Termux”

Artifactory for global software teams

This post was written by Matthew Skelton co-author of Team Guide to Software Operability. Artifactory is an excellent solution to the problem of package management and binary artefact distribution when teams are spread around the world. The caching and data replication features of the Artifactory Enterprise edition hugely simplify global software development.

HTTP HealthChecks for a Resilient Platform

This post was written by Chris O’Dell co-author of Team Guide to Software Releasability. HTTP Healthchecks are a simple concept. A server exposes an endpoint over HTTP which is periodically called by another coordinating service. In many cases this other service is a loadbalancer that’s using the check to determine whether the instance should continueContinue reading “HTTP HealthChecks for a Resilient Platform”