Forward-looking and backward-looking refer to two vastly different approaches to developing industry standards for technology.
Author: William David Louth
From Abstraction to Simplicity
Abstraction and simplification are two fundamental principles that often work together in the design of systems. With abstraction, we reduce system complexity by focusing on the essential aspects in the area of structure, elements, and behavior.
The OSSification of Observability
Here we explore why the industry needs to move beyond the legacy tools and embrace a more dynamic and adaptable approach to gleaning genuine value from the ever-growing ocean of data collected.
Climbing the Conceptual System
As engineering systems grow ever more complex, the engineering community's focus on simplistic measurement and reporting hinders achieving operational scalability by way of sensemaking and steering of such systems of systems.
Software Performance Optimization Heuristics
To acquire the knowledge of suitable software performance heuristics, developers must experience software execution in a new, more modern manner - a simulated environment of episodic machine memory replay.
The Past, Present, and Future will be Simulated
The mirroring of software execution behavior, as performed by Simz (online) and Stenos (offline), has the potential to be one of the most significant advances in software systems engineering. Its impact could be as significant as that of distributed computing.
Introducing Signals – The Next Big Thing
This post introduces the reasoning, thinking, and concepts behind a technology we call Signals, which we believe has the potential to have a profound impact on the design and development of software, the performance engineering of systems, and the management of distributed interconnected applications and services.
Transcending Code, Containers, and Cloud
There is always tension between adaptability and structural stability in engineering and possibly life. We want our designs to be highly adaptable. With adaptation, our designs attempt to respond to change, sensed within the environment, intelligently with more change, though far more confined and possibly transient, at least initially. But there are limits to how far we can accelerate adaptation without putting incredible stress on the environment and the very system contained within.
Beyond Big Data – Mirrored Algorithmic Simulation
Today, the stimulus used to develop machine intelligence is sensory data, which is transferred between devices and the cloud – the same data that concerns many consumers. But what if instead of sending data related to such things as a thermostat’s temperature set point, what was transmitted mostly concerned the action taken by the embedded software machine – an episodic memory of the algorithm itself?
Circuits, Conduits, and Counters
Our brain houses billions of neurons (nerve cells) that communicate with each other through intricate networks of neural circuits. These circuits play a fundamental role in various cognitive functions, sensory processing, motor control, and generating thoughts and emotions. Why should it be different for Observability?