Xebia

MARCH 1, 2024

How do you track your security posture in AWS? You have services like Security Hub, but it will only show you the scores of a limited set of standards. This blog post will continue on the previous 2 blog post that I wrote: Use custom rules to validate your compliance Deploy config rules across your organization In this blog we will look at how you can track your security posture in your organization.

AWS 130

AWS Compliance Metrics Resources 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Filtering web traffic is easy with Cloud Firewall , a cloud-first NGFW with advanced threat protection. How easy? A single policy allows or denies traffic to a domain name and applies as fine-grained as tags or service accounts. Looking for more examples? Check out the GitHub repository. Allowing egress to xebia.com The following policy allows all hosts to access xebia.com : resource "google_compute_network_firewall_policy_rule" "allow_xebia" { project = var.project_id firewall_p

Firewall 130

Firewall Google Cloud Cloud How To 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Best practice for handling SSH keys in Google Cloud When you are using the Compute Engine in Google Cloud, you might wonder what’s the best way to handle SSH keys for your Virtual Machines (VMs) ? We’ve also got some questions from our customers. There are several ways to implement and store SSH keys into your Google Cloud environment, but you might wonder what the best way to do so?

Engineering 130

Engineering Google Cloud Software Review Policies 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

LLM Fine-tuning NeurIPS 2023 featured a challenge to efficiently fine-tune open-source LLM models on public datasets. We participated in this challenge. If you are considering fine-tuning LLMs, there are some things to consider: Infra, Data, Base Model, Training, Inference and Evaluation. In this blog post, we share some practical considerations. The challenge The goal of the challenge is to find out what works and doesn’t work when fine-tuning LLM models.

Artificial Inteligence 130

Artificial Inteligence Training Open Source Storage 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

Introduction Among the sea of metrics, vanity numbers have often taken the spotlight, leaving many organizations lost in a world of misleading indicators and superficial gains. The catch is that many of these metrics (Website views, Leads in Sales Funnel, Marketing spent, Revenue without profit etc.) are more like flashy billboards on a highway, catching your eye but not necessarily leading you to the best destination.

Metrics 130

Metrics Authentication KPI Software Review 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

In the dynamic realm of software development, success isn’t solely about constructing impeccable code. It’s about grasping the process flow that wraps around the entire software-business domain – a domain that holds many more challenges than what traditional “developmental problems” confine. Why dive into Holistic Horizons ? Working in the software domain is no easy feat.

Software 130

Software Construction Authentication Software Development 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

In my previous blog I showed you how you can write your own config rules. But it will only bring you value if you deploy the rule in your AWS Accounts. In this blog we will dive into the distribution of these config rules. What are my options? There are many ways you can deploy these rules in your member accounts. In this blog I will only focus on the 2 real options: Deploy the rules using CloudFormation StackSets in each account.

Organization 130

Organization AWS Compliance Policies 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

In the second post of this three-part series, we explored entity-component-system (ECS) architecture and built a static user interface with Bevy. In this post, the finale of the three-part series, we implement the numerous systems that together drive the evolution of our elementary cellular automaton and support user interaction via the keyboard and mouse.

Resources 147

Resources Windows System Construction 147

Xebia

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Today I got a call from a customer who is trying to understand what’s going on in their teams and is getting lost among the many different Features and Product Backlog Items on their boards. There are 2 things going on at this customer. They’re changing how they use their tools to better fit their needs. They’re changing their delivery process to improve collaboration in and among teams.

SCRUM 147

SCRUM Azure Tools Programming 147

Xebia

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

Knowing when to act is an important aspect of Observability. You might have a lot of individual metrics, some of which indicate an error rate for example. You may be inclined to set an alert for those error rates, and immediately have someone investigate them whenever they increase or aren’t zero. But a single error could occur because of any number of reasons, many of which are not easily identifiable, or even noticeable by end-users.

Metrics 130

Metrics Budget Examples B2B 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 11, 2024

Google Chat is increasingly used in various organizations to get quick and easy answers to questions. And Google wouldn’t be Google if they did not keep on making it better and better for their users. Enhancements to the search results page Because Google Chat is used more often, the need for better search results also arises. In addition to recently adding highlighted matching keywords in search results, Google now introduces condensed versions of your search results to only show the rele

Applications 130

Applications Organization Cloud 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

As a non-Google user, until now you were able to join video calls in Google Meet on your desktop. But people that are on the road a lot were left behind. Not anymore, because Google now made it possible for anyone to join Google Meet video meetings on a smartphone, even without a Google account. Excellent to use on the go You can now quickly join a meeting as a guest without signing into a personal or work Google account or creating a new Google account.

Video 130

Video Meeting Mobile Applications 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

If you’re working on a file that you’ll need to share later during a meeting, you used to have to add it through Google Calendar, right? Well, that is no longer the only option: now you can also share your document to a calendar appointment, directly from your document. Sharing in Drive has been evolving since 2020 Since the introduction of the new sharing dialog for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms in 2020, Google has made several enhancements to make sharing effortless

Meeting 130

Meeting Applications Cloud 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

Do you ever send links to videos stored on Google Drive? If so, there’s probably also a need to direct the people you share the link with to a specific time in the video. From now on it is possible to share a timestamped link to specific parts of a video. This will take the recipient of the link directly to the indicated timestamp in the video.

Video 130

Video Applications Cloud 130

Xebia

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

The need for "glue" code is a fact of life for programmers. Sooner or later, that app you’ve crafted, that shining monument to software engineering, will need to be sullied by actually running it on a real system. Perhaps you need a boot script, or you need to build a container. Maybe it’s a tool that needs to be invoked as part of some larger orchestration process.

Scalability 234

Scalability Data Tools Programming 234

Xebia

FEBRUARY 3, 2024

AWS has a lot of controls built in, but what if you need more? AWS Config allows you to create your own rules. These rules can then inspect your resources and determine if they are compliant. This is useful when you want to enforce certain configuration settings. Giving you an overview of how compliant your workloads are. Let’s use a specific example, but you can apply this concept to other scenarios.

Compliance 130

Compliance Lambda AWS Resources 130

Xebia

JANUARY 27, 2024

At Xebia, we implement numerous internal initiatives. One such initiative involves developing a toolset for assessing a customer’s situation. This toolset (working title: Truffleswine) allows us to retrieve relevant data from systems quickly, which in turn helps us ask the right questions sooner and clarify business cases for improvement using actual data.

Software Review 130

Software Review Systems Review Tools Development 130

Xebia

JANUARY 26, 2024

Recently I have had the opportunity to implement environment based Terrafrom workspaces for a real world client. Whenever you have to expand a basic solution to the real world it highlights unforeseen issues. The main issue is one many larger companies will have, and that is traceability. In this article I will cover the issue of traceability, along with a couple of solutions to resolve it when using this deployment method.

Cloud 130

Cloud Software Review Storage Development 130

Xebia

JANUARY 23, 2024

This blog uses a Squid Proxy VM to access services in another Google Cloud VPC. While Squid can be used as a transparent proxy , this blog uses an explicit proxy for simplicity’s sake. Connectivity overview The Squid Proxy allows clients in the Source VPC to connect to services in the Destination VPC: The Squid Proxy uses two network interfaces to connect the VPCs.

Load Balancer 130

Load Balancer Google Cloud How To Network 130

Xebia

JANUARY 23, 2024

Which qualities in a person lead to great code? I used to think it was raw intellect, technical know-how, or breadth of knowledge. Slowly but surely, this sentiment faded, and my opinion shifted. Nowadays, I believe the key to great code is empathy. Empathy the key to great code? What’s this guy talking about? Allow me to explain. I’ll start with a quote from Kent Beck that has stuck with me ever since I first encountered it: Software design is an exercise in human relationships The

Exercises 130

Exercises Software Applications Software Development 130

Xebia

JANUARY 15, 2024

When you speak with software developers, they will probably tell you that they use design patterns. But when the world first shifted to the internet the general feeling was that these design patterns would not work for the web. This is not true, and today you see these patterns being used more and more. I have noticed the same behavior with serverless.

Lambda 130

Lambda AWS Software Review Serverless 130

Xebia

JANUARY 15, 2024

You may have already noticed, especially if you use it frequently, but the Google Drive scanner app has undergone some very welcome improvements on both Android and iOS. In this blogpost, we like to highlight them for you. Google is making additional enhancements to the Drive scanner on Android devices. Specifically, you’ll notice: Automatic capture to help you get the best scan quickly Camera viewfinder that helps you position your document for the highest quality scan The option to import from

Cloud 130

Cloud Organization 130

Xebia

JANUARY 9, 2024

Chatting, who doesn’t use it? Both in private life and in professional life, using chat apps are a fast and convenient way to get in touch with others quickly. So we are very happy that these apps keep on innovating. Like Google Chat, that recently introduced a new bottom navigation bar within the mobile application on Android & iOS devices.

Mobile 130

Mobile Groups Innovation Applications 130

Xebia

JANUARY 9, 2024

Today’s world requires continuous adaptation. Legislation changes with each new term of government, the competition is always right around the corner and customers constantly voice their opinions about products through social media—so the products better be good! How do you deal with all this changes, uncertainty, risk and complexity? A way to cope with this is to embrace it, not try to predict or to prevent it.

Agile 130

Agile Leadership Culture Organization 130

Xebia

JANUARY 8, 2024

In this blog, I will explain in high-level three networking capabilities to help you in your architecture design decisions in cases where you need to connect VPCs in Google Cloud. What is a VPC? A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in Google Cloud is a virtual representation of a physical network. It is a global resource which spans all regions in Google Cloud offering capabilities to build up your network in the cloud at scale.

Google Cloud 130

Google Cloud Network Cloud Firewall 130

Xebia

JANUARY 7, 2024

Whenever you use a list or describe operations in the AWS API operation will return a paged result. If you want to process all the results of query, you must use a paginator. In this blog I will introduce a simple utility function to make this very easy. the normal way The normal way to retrieve all results from an AWS API operation, looks like this: describe_log_groups = logs.get_paginator("describe_log_groups") describe_log_streams = logs.get_paginator("describe_log_streams") f

AWS 130

AWS How To Fashion Programming 130

Xebia

JANUARY 8, 2024

Introduction With an ever-expanding digital universe, data storage has become a crucial aspect of every organization’s IT strategy. The cloud, particularly Amazon Web Services (AWS), has made storing vast amounts of data more uncomplicated than ever before. However, without the right approach and a well-thought-out strategy, costs can quickly pile up.

Storage 147

Storage AWS Backup Policies 147

Xebia

JANUARY 4, 2024

Embracing Innovation in an Organization’s Digital Transformation Journey: The Power of Event Storming and Big Picture Event Storming Introduction So, you’re working in a department within the organization overseeing teams and striving to ensure product delivery while also capturing the market’s attention with services to attract customers.

Innovation 130

Innovation ChatGPT Agile Organization 130

Xebia

JANUARY 3, 2024

Always Useful, Sometimes Beautiful What is code to you? Is it a tool? A way to make your thoughts executable? Something beautiful perhaps? Over the years, I’ve noticed that not all programmers look at code the same way. Some see it as a means to an end – a way to solve a problem. Others, like me, think code also holds aesthetic value. I can appreciate elegant code and find it beautiful.

Programming 130

Programming Software Resources Development 130

Xebia

DECEMBER 20, 2023

Introduction Large Language Models (LLM’s) have proven to be useful for numerous tasks. LLM’s can summarise text, generate text, classify text or translate text. What LLM’s can also be used for is converting unstructured data to structured data. This can have huge benefits. Useful facts that were previously hidden inside a large piece of text can now be unveiled, allowing you to use properties of a dataset that could before not be directly accessed.

Artificial Inteligence 130

Artificial Inteligence Examples Data Strategy 130

Xebia

DECEMBER 22, 2023

AgileNCR, Xebia’s flagship knowledge-sharing community event, successfully concluded its 14th edition on December 1st and 2nd, 2023. This year, the conference took place virtually on the vFairs conference platform, attracting over 350 registrations from Agile enthusiasts, speakers, and volunteers from around the world. The primary purpose of AgileNCR is to foster a culture of knowledge-sharing and learning within the community.

Agile 130

Agile Generative AI SCRUM Conference 130

Xebia

DECEMBER 20, 2023

In this blog, we like to show you how to setup a highly available, regional fail-over setup when using serverless network endpoint groups (NEGs). Traditionally network endpoint groups rely on gRPC health checks to determine whether a backend is available and ready to receive traffic. However, these health checks are not supported for serverless network endpoint groups.

Google Cloud 130

Google Cloud Serverless Cloud How To 130

Xebia

DECEMBER 19, 2023

In this three-part series and the associated project , we are going to bring elementary cellular automata to life using the Rust programming language and the Bevy game engine. We’ll learn a few things about cellular automata, Rust, entity-component-system architecture, and basic game development. You can experiment with the finished web app online ; just give your browser a moment to download the app, and click the grid to give the app focus.

Testing 130

Testing Games Resources Course 130

Xebia

DECEMBER 19, 2023

Sharing files in Google Drive has always been a rather easy and convenient way to collaborate better. But sometimes, it may become a bit of a hassle to know with whom you shared what documents, and who has access to what. Mid-December, Google introduced a new filter option that makes it possible to get an overview of folders, subfolders and/or files within the Drive environment that are shared with specific people or groups.

Groups 130

Groups Organization Cloud 130

Xebia

DECEMBER 19, 2023

In one of my previous blogs I wrote why I switched to compiled languages for my lambda functions. But using Golang for your lambda functions does add some challenges. In this blog I would like to share the challenges that I have seen and how to mitigate them. Spoiler, I use a Makefile I always use a Makefile in my projects, If you are interested in why I wrote a blog on that as well.

Serverless 147

Serverless Lambda Software Review Technical Review 147

Xebia

DECEMBER 19, 2023

Did you know that sustainable software engineering is a topic we frequently discuss and engage with? However, our conversations predominantly revolve around the economic dimension, such as optimizing costs in cloud computing, or the technical dimension, particularly when addressing code maintainability. But were you aware that sustainable software engineering encompasses five distinct dimensions?

Software Engineering 130

Software Engineering Sustainability Software Review Engineering 130

Xebia

DECEMBER 18, 2023

Our work consists of many video calls through Google Meet. So we are super excited to share with you that various new functionalities and extensions have been implemented, both for the browser version and for the mobile application. Higher Resolution for Google Meet For recorded meetings in Google Meet, Google increased the maximum resolution for shared content from 720p to 1080p.

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Meeting Mobile Video Virtualization 130