Ed Featherston

Test Data Management and the Cloud - Keeping All the Plates Spinning I was recently in Boston at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, and with the long-awaited warm weather, all the street entertainers were in full force. Singers, musicians, and a variety of juggling acts filled the street, with crowds surrounding them. One act in particular struck a chord with me - the classic spinning plates. We've all seen it at various times in our lives. The entertainer started spinning plates, balanced precariously on top of wooden sticks. More and more plates started spinning with the entertainer frantically running back and forth as one started to slow down, almost fall, but, just in time, was able to get it spinning and balanced again. Then the entertainer reached his limit: he add one more plate and as he tried to keep them all up, one lone plate, down on the end started to wobble, th... (more)

Containers and Cloud and Security By @EFeatherston | @DevOpsSummit [#DevOps]

Dorothy the CIO was walking the yellow brick road of planning. She was on her way to the Emerald City to ask the great wizard of the agile data center for advice. Along the way she met two other CIOs who joined her on the journey, nicknamed Tin Man and Scarecrow. Their travels brought them to the edge of the dark forest of datacenter hype and fear. ‘‘Do you think we'll meet any wild technologies and fears in there?'' she asked her companions. ‘‘We might.'' responded Tin Man. ‘One's that devour IT projects?'' whispered Scarecrow. ‘‘Possibly.' said the Tin Man, ‘‘but mostly contain... (more)

Is the Internet of Things Amassing on Your Radar? By @EFeatherston | @ThingsExpo [#IoT]

I recently saw an unusual post online that caught my eye. It was a standard weather radar picture from a Wisconsin TV Station (WFRV-TV Ch. 5). In the image you can see a large green area that normally denotes rain. What particularly caught my eye was that this image labeled the large green swatch over Lake Winnebago as "Lake Flies!" My first reaction was that clearly this had to be a joke, but a quick internet search on ‘lake flies radar' proved me wrong - there was even a great article last year from Wired discussing it. Each "lake fly" by itself is small (less than 1/2 inch), ... (more)

DevOps and Hybrid Clouds By @EFeatherston | @DevOpsSummit [#DevOps]

DevOps and Hybrid Clouds: A Match Made in Heaven? It seems today we are in a constant state of business and technology disruption. The convergence of the social, mobile, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) disruptions have both forced and enabled organizations to move at breakneck speeds addressing the needs and expectations of the lines of business/end users. This speed requires the development teams to be agile. They must be able to respond quickly to changing needs and demands of the organization. The quality assurance (QA) team still needs to ensure a quality product is being sent i... (more)

Sailing the Great Big Data Lakes | @CloudExpo [#BigData #IoT]

In my younger days (we won't discuss how long ago that was) I decided to take up sailing. I had always been fascinated watching sailboats, gliding smoothly along the water, with nothing but wind as their engine. My first lesson on the water was an exhilarating and eye opening experience. The instructor took me out on a 17-foot day sailer. It was a brisk New England April afternoon, what seemed like a perfect day to be sailing. The instructor explained the different techniques and maneuvers required to traverse the lake, which I executed, though somewhat nervously. We were moving ... (more)