The metaphor of software viruses to biological ones is deeply ingrained, easily seen in the fact that biological viruses are at least the namesake, if not the inspiration for computer viruses. Can we take this analogy and reapply it in reverse? Is it possible to learn more about how we can combat biological viruses, such as the raging COVID-19 epidemic, by leveraging concepts, mindsets, and ideas that evolved in the software engineering and cybersecurity worlds?

Software developers and software architects have, for a very long time, stood on opposite sides of the “whose is better” competition. They have completely different beliefs, with each vowing that theirs is the correct one. Some swear by Java as the holy grail of backend; some worship Go as the right solution to all your backend problems. But, really, is there one right answer? Apart from the tools that you use, the architecture you will be using differs from company to company.

If you take a long hard look at the DevOps movement, you will find it actually divides neatly into two sub-movements. The bigger and often noisier of the two is about technology, advocating for the latest and the greatest tools and techniques, be they Cloud, CI/CD, Serverless, or Containers. The smaller sister, however, is much different, stemming from Management Theorem and focusing more on processes.

Last week the Rookout team, myself among them, participated in and sponsored the O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference in New York. New York is a city I personally love - the energy, the food, and the views are always top notch- there’s really just no comparison to the city that never sleeps. On top of that, I had the opportunity to mingle with some of the brightest minds in software architecture from many of the most successful companies in the world.

Ever feel like the world is moving by so rapidly, that it feels like something got left behind in the rush? That’s how we feel about being able to debug your applications easily. Technology has advanced rapidly, but the ease of debugging has not. With the introduction of serverless computing, the way enterprises are designed and how they build their production applications was changed.

We are excited to announce our new partnership with AppDynamics at their global event Transform 2020. Deep Code Insights (DCI) powered by Rookout will be generally available within the AppDynamics platform starting today. ‍ The partnership was a no-brainer: AppDynamics’ APM solution helps developers become aware of problems quickly; Rookout helps developers debug those problems easily. It’s a match made in devops heaven!

Today, service architecture is becoming increasingly complex with the explosion of new software techniques such as microservices. However, the performance of a system often is dependent on engineers’ ability to debug gnarly problems. The increase in complexity that comes with new microservices architectures makes debugging that much harder. In fact, some companies are considering reverting back to monoliths because of the increased difficulty of debugging, among a host of other challenges.

I love traveling to Barcelona for conferences. Between Gaudi’s architecture and tech architectures, there’s really not much more I can ask for. Walking into Cisco Live!, the first thing I encountered was the huge indoor fountain called the “Rain Wall”, which was built to raise awareness and celebrate Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility program.

Come, come sit! Let your weary legs rest, the journey can wait, fellow developer. Have you had a second breakfast yet? You really should have one, but you must be sure you finish your first breakfast, first; Otherwise, there can be quite a race condition in your stomach.