Day: September 21, 2023

IBM App Connect Enterprise (ACE) is a powerful and widely used integration tool. Developers create integration flows by defining an entry point that receives a message, then processing that message, and finishing by sending or placing the transformed message. Flows consist of a series of nodes and logical constructs. ACE is powerful and flexible — there are many nodes provided specifically to interact with the systems being integrated, however there are also nodes that can run a script or Java code. Because of this, ACE can do pretty much anything, and as such could be considered (although this is not its intended purpose) as an application runtime environment. 

An ACE flow is a deployable unit that is inherently stateless, although it can manage its own state. In a traditional server environment, many flows are deployed on an integration server and their execution can be managed and scaled using the workload management features. This makes ACE a natural fit for a Kubernetes environment.

Verifying code changes with unit tests is a critical process in typical development workflows. GitHub Actions provides a number of custom actions to collect and process the results of tests allowing developers to browse the results, debug failed tests, and generate reports.

In this article, I show you how to add unit tests to a GitHub Actions workflow and configure custom actions to process the results.

IoT manufacturers in every region have a host of data privacy standards and laws to comply with — and Europe is now adding one more. The Cyber Resilience Act, or CRA, has some aspects that are simply common sense and others that overlap with already existing standards. However, other aspects are entirely new and could present challenges to IoT manufacturers and providers.

Let’s explore the act and consider how it will change the world of connected devices.

APIs have become increasingly popular in the current SaaS ecosystem due to their ability to seamlessly integrate software systems. APIs provide standardized ways for applications to share data. API monetization is a powerful way for businesses to drive growth and generate revenue from existing API consumer data and usage. By offering your APIs as products or services, your company can tap into new markets, attract more developers, and create self-sustaining ecosystems around your product line. The “API as a product” approach unlocks monetization opportunities for expansion and diversification, leading to increased profits and market share.

By turning APIs into revenue streams, organizations can allocate more resources to their engineering departments, empowering them to focus on core product development and innovation. At the same time, by automating the monetization process, companies can alleviate the burden of monitoring and reporting on engineering teams. According to Gartner, 75% of application providers will revise their current product pricing models to support customers’ consumption of APIs by 2025. Monetizing APIs allows you to provide your valuable APIs to external developers, creating a collaborative ecosystem that not only fuels business growth but accelerates innovation.

In Java, memory management is an automatic process that is managed by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and one that does not need explicit intervention. Java, being a block-structured language, uses a model where its memory is divided into two main types: stack and heap.

Local variables and method parameters use memory based on a ‘stack.’ This area of memory grows and shrinks automatically when a code block or method is entered or exited, respectively. In situations where a request is made to the system for an amount of memory, whose size is only known at runtime or when creating an object, these requests are usually satisfied by an area of the process' memory known as ‘dynamic memory’ or the ‘heap’.  Strictly speaking — there is an occasion when an object that may be destined for the heap is instead written to the stack; however, we will leave this discussion for a later document.

If you're looking for a top player in the cloud industry, AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a great choice. One of its many offerings is AWS Amplify, a comprehensive set of tools and services that can help developers create, deploy, and manage full-stack web and mobile applications on the AWS platform. Amplify is known for providing complete AWS solutions to mobile and front-end web developers, simplifying the development process with its features.

• Backend development: Amplify can create and manage serverless backend APIs, authentication and authorization, storage, databases, and other standard services.
• Frontend development: Amplify provides a variety of libraries and tools for developing frontends in popular frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue.js, and Flutter.
• Hosting and deployment: Amplify offers a fully managed web hosting service with continuous deployment, so developers can focus on building their apps without worrying about infrastructure.

Benefits of Using AWS

There are many benefits to using AWS Amplify, including:

In this article, we delve into the exciting realm of containerizing Helidon applications, followed by deploying them effortlessly to a Kubernetes environment.  To achieve this, we'll harness the power of JKube’s Kubernetes Maven Plugin, a versatile tool for Java applications for Kubernetes deployments that has recently been updated to version 1.14.0. 

What's exciting about this release is that it now supports the Helidon framework, a Java Microservices gem open-sourced by Oracle in 2018. If you're curious about Helidon, we've got some blog posts to get you up to speed:

In the fast-paced world of software engineering, innovation and efficiency are paramount. One approach that has gained significant traction in recent years is the use of prototype models. These models serve as a fundamental building block in the software development process, offering numerous advantages for both developers and clients. The concept of prototype models in software engineering, exploring their benefits, types, and best practices.

The development process can be intricate and challenging. Clients often find it difficult to convey their exact requirements, and developers may struggle to interpret them accurately. This is where prototype models step in, revolutionizing the way software is developed and ensuring that the end product meets or exceeds client expectations.

ML systems are becoming increasingly powerful, with applications in a wide range of fields. Additionally, ML and NLP systems are being used to improve the quality of information retrieval systems, making it easier for users to find the information they need. This makes it much easier for us to access and understand information from a variety of sources. For example,

• Conversational AI can be used to create chatbots that can hold natural conversations with humans.
• Recommender systems can use NLP to recommend products relevant to a user’s interest.
• Sentiment analysis can be used to identify the emotional tone of text.

The training of many deep learning models requires a vast amount of computational resources, such as GPUs and TPUs. The cost of inference can also be prohibitive for the application of these models in high-performance situations.

You’re working hard to transform your ways of working with a range of different goals. Common aims of digital transformations include:

1. To become more Agile;
2. To deliver faster through DevOps;
3. To migrate all of your systems to the cloud;
4. To enable regular change.

Whatever your desired outcome, there’s one common problem that most (everybody really) ignore. Yet, overlooking this problem ultimately means that the initiative will fail, become delayed, cost too much, or generally become severely hampered going forward.

The JVM is an excellent platform for monkey-patching.

Monkey patching is a technique used to dynamically update the behavior of a piece of code at run-time. A monkey patch (also spelled monkey-patch, MonkeyPatch) is a way to extend or modify the runtime code of dynamic languages (e.g. Smalltalk, JavaScript, Objective-C, Ruby, Perl, Python, Groovy, etc.) without altering the original source code.

Austin, Texas, is a city filled with music, vibrant nightlife, and some legendary BBQ. It is also one of the great tech hubs of the southern United States, home to a wide variety of tech innovators like Indeed, SolarWinds, and Amazon's Whole Foods. It is simultaneously home to one of the largest tech events in the world, SXSW, as well as many smaller tech events, including BSides Austin 2023.

Like other BSides, Austin had informative sessions, a number of training opportunities, and several villages, including capture the flag, lockpicking, and more. Here are just a few of the highlights from this year's excellent event.

One of the most persistent myths surrounding the advent of Artificial Intelligence lies in the fantasy that advanced new technologies carry the "superpower" of being able to address every subject. For some, AI is providential, while for others, it is nothing less than a threat to humanity.

In reality, artificial intelligence technologies cannot solve problems for which they were not designed.

In this blog post, we will explain how to easily create a "Hello, World!" module in Magento 2. Take note that the concept of local/community/core/folders only existed in Magento 1 and we don’t use them in Magento 2. 

Steps To Create the Hello, World! Module

All of our custom modules in Magento 2 go under the app/code directory. The first step towards creating a module in Magento 2 is to create a folder inside your project directory named after the module. This will be where all the files related to the module will reside. The modules have a 2-part naming structure; i.e., Namespace/Module. This is so that the modules can be organized more efficiently. 

In today's highly competitive business landscape, staying ahead of the curve often means leveraging the expertise and resources available around the globe. Offshore software development has emerged as a strategic approach for companies looking to optimize their software development processes and reduce costs while maintaining high-quality outcomes. In this blog, we'll delve into nine key benefits of offshore software development and how it can be a game-changer for your business.

What Is Offshore Software Development?

Offshore software development is a business practice where a company or organization outsources its software development tasks and projects to a team of software developers or a software development company located in a different country or region, typically one with lower labor costs. This approach allows businesses to leverage the expertise, skills, and cost advantages available in other parts of the world while focusing on their core business activities.