Notes on data, AI, IT
and security
No marketing fog. The way I think about real problems with founders and managers.
Digital workplace: from emergency fix to something sustainable
How to move from 'just make it work' to a proper infrastructure for a distributed team - observations from April 2020.
Event-driven architecture: a plain explanation for non-engineers
What event-driven architecture is, why engineering teams want it, and how to evaluate whether it makes sense for your product - without needing to understand the code.
API-first design when the team works remotely
Why distributed teams make sloppy API contracts visible faster - and how to use that pressure to establish a more disciplined design process.
Remote work in a weekend: what broke and what held
First observations on how companies are handling the emergency shift to remote in March 2020.
API versioning: why it matters and how to keep it manageable
A practical explanation for product owners and engineering managers: what API versioning is, why getting it wrong is expensive, and what a workable strategy looks like.
Monolith or services: how to make the call without an engineering background
A practical explanation for founders and executives: when splitting your architecture into services is justified, and when it just adds cost.
IT budget for 2020: splitting between maintenance and growth
Year-end is budget planning season. How to think about allocating IT spend between what already exists and what needs to be built.
When you should not break up the monolith
Microservices sound modern, but decomposing a monolith without sufficient reasons creates more problems than it solves. How to think about this decision.
Cloud egress cost: the hidden budget line that is easy to miss
Why the cost of transferring data out of the cloud often comes as an unpleasant surprise - and how to keep it under control.
Breaking up a monolith: why sequence matters more than speed
How to plan a migration away from a monolithic architecture without halting operations - on sequencing, risks, and rollback points.
Kubernetes operators: what the model is and why it matters now
What the operator pattern in Kubernetes is, why it has become the central way to manage complex applications in a cluster, and what that means for architecture.
API versioning is contract management, not a technical formality
Why every API needs a versioning policy, and what happens to integrations when there is none.