As I noted in "Continuous Integration Best Practices—Part 1" there are 10 best practice principles associated with Continuous Integration and in this previous article, we looked at the first three. For part 2, we pick up where we left off and talk about principles...
Integration and Workflow
Puppet Quickstart Guide (Part 1)
Puppet is the most well-known configuration management tool in the DevOps world and used by systems administrators to centrally manage large numbers of servers and computer systems. There are several Puppet quickstart guides online. However, these guides are...
Puppet Quick Setup Guide (Part 2) – How to Configure Puppet Master
Recently I explained how to easily set up communication between a Puppet client and master. In this follow up post I’ll outline the steps involved in configuring the Puppet master to control the client machine. Starting out with Puppet does not have to be a...
Three Monotonous Tasks That Are Killing Morale In Your Software Engineering Team
In the engineering world, there’s no underestimating how hard it is to attract and retain top talent. Finding qualified candidates is hard enough. But you want to go one better than that. You want to attract talent that gives your organization a competitive edge. Once...
Five Reasons to Outsource Compute Farm and Server Management
The paradigm of computing resource configurations have changed several times of the last 40 years. From mainframes to mini computers, through desktops and file servers to server farms, software as a service and the cloud. Any company that uses server farms or...
How To Use ClearCase clearfsimport and Avoid Pitfalls
This week we will change things up a bit and have a look at an IBM/Rational ClearCase utility used for importing files into ClearCase source control. The utility command, clearfsimport, can be used to import any sort of file from a variety of other source control...
What Happened to Google Wave? A Look at Collaboration Alternatives
Two years ago, Google announced a new product: Wave. Their (and I use the term loosely, since all new Google products seem to come from the same giant, faceless Googleplex) original goal was to unify messaging – have you thought about how many tools you use to...
Two Ways IT Outsourcing Can Unleash Innovation
One of the most frequently cited windfalls of IT outsourcing is the level of autonomy that’s created for internal IT staff who are able to devote more time and energy to pursuits aimed at benefiting the business. This includes innovative approaches to applying...
Get Insight Into Your Misbehaving Laptop With Three Free Tools
Get insight into your laptop’s status and taking some precautions with CPUID’s Hardware Monitor and CPU-Z and Belarc Advisor It happens to most laptops eventually. After two or more years of heavy (ab)use, most of our laptops are not in the condition they were...
Outsource Your System Administration to Set Your Engineers Free
The inquisitive nature of engineers, which makes them so good at designing, developing and building products, can also lead them to become distracted by other “interesting things” like managing the very systems and tools that allow them to do their engineering....
Continuous Integration Best Practices—Part 1
Continuous Integration is a leading software development methodology whereby new development is constantly being submitted and tested against the main body of work. The goal being rapid feedback on incremental changes, resulting in lower maintenance costs and higher...
Continuous Integration Best Practices—Part 3
As I noted in "Continuous Integration Best Practices—Part 1" and "Continuous Integration Best Practices—Part 2" there are 10 best practice principles associated with Continuous Integration and in this previous articles, we covered the first six. In this article, we...