Opinion

The agent security mess

Humans don’t use most of their granted permissions, but agents will—and the results will be disastrous.

By Matt Asay

Mar 23, 20266 mins

Access ControlDevelopment ApproachesIdentity and Access Management

The cloud repatriation tempest in a teacup

Leaving the cloud is not a matter of choosing between two clear-cut options. Few enterprises go completely data center or completely cloud.

By David Linthicum

May 24, 2024 4 mins

Cloud Architecture Cloud Computing Technology Industry

How to improve cloud-based generative AI performance

The problems can be hard to find but easy to solve. With a proactive approach and best practices, you can avoid unhappy users and a damaged business reputation.

By David Linthicum

May 21, 2024 5 mins

Careers Cloud Computing Generative AI

The AI revolution will take time

Humans, with our biases, fears, and comfortable habits, always put the brakes on revolutionary technology.

By Matt Asay

May 20, 2024 4 mins

Artificial Intelligence Emerging Technology Technology Industry

Is generative AI bringing back private clouds?

Many enterprises are dusting off the private cloud strategies that lost out to the allure of the public cloud. Is this the right move?

By David Linthicum

May 17, 2024 4 mins

Cloud Architecture Generative AI Technology Industry

Designing and developing APIs with TypeSpec

Microsoft’s Concise API Design Language has a new name and a larger role to play in building REST, OpenAPI, gRPC, and other services.

By Simon Bisson

May 16, 2024 7 mins

APIs Development Tools Programming Languages

Need GPUs? Take a look at microclouds

There’s definitely more uncertainty in going with a microcloud provider, but choosing a smaller company for your GPU services may pay off big in the end.

By David Linthicum

May 14, 2024 4 mins

Cloud Architecture Cloud Computing Technology Industry

AI coding tools are your interns, not your replacement

AI can’t replace bad developers because it only works for good developers. Recognizing when code from an LLM will fail requires skill and experience.

By Matt Asay

May 13, 2024 5 mins

Artificial Intelligence Development Tools Generative AI

Cloud environments beyond the Big Three

The idea of decentralizing cloud computing has been overshadowed by AI, but frustration with high cloud prices has boosted interest in other options.

By David Linthicum

May 10, 2024 5 mins

Careers Cloud Architecture Hybrid Cloud

Does cloud security have a bad reputation?cyberthreats

It seems to be fair game now to label cloud security as risky even though your data is likely safer there than on-premises.

By David Linthicum

May 7, 2024 5 mins

Cloud Computing Cloud Security Technology Industry

Does cloud security deserve a bad reputation?

It seems to be fair game now to label cloud security as risky even though your data is likely safer there than on-premises.

By David Linthicum

May 7, 2024 5 mins

Cloud Computing Cloud Security

We do all the work, and they make all the money. It doesn’t have to be that way, does it?

By Nick Hodges

May 7, 2024 4 mins

Technology Industry

What developers hate

Take a look at this unscientific survey to discover some ways to keep developers happy. A few are even simple.

By Matt Asay

May 6, 2024 4 mins

Careers Engineer Libraries and Frameworks

What software developers hate

Take a look at this unscientific survey to discover some ways to keep developers happy. A few are even simple.

By Matt Asay

May 6, 2024 4 mins

Engineer Software Development

‘Architecture by conference’ is a really bad idea

Using the generic architecture you saw at a conference for your company's unique business needs is a surefire way to waste money and time.

By David Linthicum

May 3, 2024 4 mins

Cloud Architecture Generative AI IT Skills and Training

Understanding Microsoft’s Trusted Signing service

A new managed signing service on Azure offers low-cost, low-touch code signing with integration into GitHub Actions.

By Simon Bisson

May 2, 2024 8 mins

Application Security Cloud Computing Microsoft Azure

How cloud cost visibility impacts business and employment

New data reveals some interesting information about cloud cost management and the fear of being fired. Should we rethink our approaches?

By David Linthicum

Apr 30, 2024 5 mins

Careers Cloud Computing

AI still has a ways to go in code refactoring

Without skilled developers supervising AI coding assistants, they are likely to break your code rather than write it. Right now, only people can fine-tune and evaluate AI.

By Matt Asay

Apr 29, 2024 4 mins

Artificial Intelligence Development Tools Generative AI

The end of vendor-backed open source?

The license changes of Redis and Elasticsearch may harken the end of open-source projects backed by solo vendors. Let’s work through what that means.

By David Tippett

Apr 29, 2024 7 mins

Open Source Software Development

The temptation of AI as a service

Enterprises may find it faster and easier to deploy their AI models in a public cloud that runs them as a service. AWS is jumping on this trend.

By David Linthicum

Apr 26, 2024 5 mins

Artificial Intelligence Generative AI Technology Industry

The cloud is not a slam dunk platform for generative AI

With public cloud providers chasing generative AI, it may be a surprise when dollars flow in other directions. Vendors and customers have a lot to consider.

By David Linthicum

Apr 23, 2024 5 mins

Careers Generative AI Technology Industry

Why we suck at estimating software projects

You can plan, strategize, chunk, fold, spindle, and mutilate a project for countless person-hours, and you still won’t know the difficulties that lay ahead in actually writing the code.

By Nick Hodges

Apr 23, 2024 4 mins

Software Development

Focusing on the wrong open source issues

Yes, a tiny number of companies have relicensed their open source code. Let’s worry about actual problems, like security and megacompanies that contribute almost nothing.

By Matt Asay

Apr 22, 2024 5 mins

Open Source Software Development Technology Industry

Cloud cost management is not working

As cloud costs got out of control, we turned to cost optimization approaches and tools, and have little to show for it. What now?

By David Linthicum

Apr 19, 2024 4 mins

Careers Cloud Computing

How Microsoft scales Git for massive monorepos

Microsoft has rolled its Git Virtual File System and Scalar optimizations into a fork of Git designed to support enormous repos and large distributed teams.

By Simon Bisson

Apr 18, 2024 7 mins

Devops Technology Industry Version Control Systems

How Microsoft’s Git fork scales for massive monorepos

Microsoft has rolled its Git Virtual File System and Scalar optimizations into a fork of Git designed to support enormous repos and large distributed teams.

By Simon Bisson

Apr 18, 2024 7 mins

Devops Technology Industry Version Control Systems

3 secrets to deploying LLMs on cloud platforms

Let’s not make the same mistakes we did 10 years ago. It is possible to deploy large language models in the cloud more cost-effectively and with less risk.

By David Linthicum

Apr 16, 2024 5 mins

Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing Generative AI

Data pipelines for the rest of us

Apache Airflow is a great data pipeline as code, but having most of its contributors work for Astronomer is another example of a problem with open source.

By Matt Asay

Apr 15, 2024 6 mins

Data Integration Open Source Python

The cloud is benefiting IT, but not business

A recent study shows that the cloud benefits the IT department more than other business areas. That’s not enough to make it a success.

By David Linthicum

Apr 12, 2024 4 mins

Careers Cloud Computing Technology Industry

Xamarin Forms reaches end of life. What should you do?

It’s time to update your older cross-platform .NET applications. Should you use MAUI or something else?

By Simon Bisson

Apr 11, 2024 7 mins

Libraries and Frameworks Microsoft .NET Software Development

ESG tools for cloud computing can be a distraction

ESG scores can be a helpful tool in the pursuit of sustainability. But they won’t look deep into your architecture to see if poor design is wasting money and energy.

By David Linthicum

Apr 9, 2024 4 mins

Careers Cloud Architecture Cloud Computing

Build or buy: Is it really even a choice?

Every software developer wants to work on challenging projects that expand their horizons. But it’s better to buy a wheel than reinvent it.

By Nick Hodges

Apr 9, 2024 5 mins

Software Development

Progress in AI requires thinking beyond LLMs

The inherent weaknesses of large language models are reason enough to explore other technologies, such as reinforcement learning or recurrent neural networks.

By Matt Asay

Apr 8, 2024 4 mins

Artificial Intelligence Emerging Technology Generative AI

AI advancements are fueling cloud infrastructure spending

It’s no surprise that AI will be a gold mine for cloud providers. However, if vendors and customers move too far in the wrong direction, we’ll waste business value for years.

By David Linthicum

Apr 5, 2024 5 mins

Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing Technology Industry

Using Neo4j’s graph database for AI in Azure

New techniques make graph databases a powerful tool for grounding large language models in private data.

By Simon Bisson

Apr 4, 2024 7 mins

Databases Generative AI Microsoft Azure

OpenTofu may be showing us the wrong way to fork

Disagree with a license? Fork the project, but don’t lift the code and say it was always publicly available. Compare HashiCorp's code and license to OpenTofu's version.

By Matt Asay

Apr 3, 2024 5 mins

Open Source Software Development

What is Apache Spark? The big data platform that crushed Hadoop

Fast, flexible, and developer-friendly, Apache Spark is the leading platform for large-scale SQL, batch processing, stream processing, and machine learning.

By Ian Pointer

Apr 3, 2024 11 mins

Machine Learning Open Source SQL

There’s more to cloud architecture than GPUs

Many systems architects already see too much focus on processors for generative AI systems and not enough attention on other vital components.

By David Linthicum

Apr 2, 2024 6 mins

Cloud Architecture Computer Components Generative AI

Redis vs. the trillion-dollar cabals

The Redis license change hurts no one except AWS and other cloud giants. If they gave back a little, they wouldn’t need watered-down forks.

By Matt Asay

Apr 1, 2024 9 mins

Amazon Web Services Open Source Technology Industry

The dawn of eco-friendly systems development

How much carbon is your software responsible for? Awareness of power consumption and accountability for it are the first steps in a green development cycle.

By David Linthicum

Mar 29, 2024 6 mins

Cloud Computing Software Development Technology Industry

Using Microsoft’s Retina to monitor Kubernetes networks

The open-source Retina brings observability to container networks in Kubernetes using eBPF.

By Simon Bisson

Mar 28, 2024 8 mins

Devops Microsoft Azure Technology Industry

Ethics makes a comeback in cloud-based systems

Interest in doing the right thing is extending to IT systems beyond AI. This is good, even if mainly motivated by the fear of legal or financial consequences.

By David Linthicum

Mar 26, 2024 5 mins

Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing Technology Industry

Ensuring the open source moment continues

When the Open Source Definition isn't applied to cloud-distributed software, and the General Public License allows cloud companies to grow rich without contributing much, everyone loses.

By Matt Asay

Mar 25, 2024 7 mins

Open Source Software Development Technology Industry

Is Kubernetes worth it?

A dirty little secret in the cloud world is that container workloads have a higher total cost of ownership than they should.

By David Linthicum

Mar 22, 2024 6 mins

Cloud Computing Software Development

Building a smarter Azure Kubernetes for developers

Microsoft continues to evolve its Azure Kubernetes Service. Kubernetes co-creator Brendan Burns tells us where it’s going next.

By Simon Bisson

Mar 21, 2024 7 mins

Cloud Computing Microsoft Azure Software Development

A change in the machine learning landscape

AI models that use data where it exists rather than centralizing it require stronger privacy and security measures. Introducing the RoPPFL framework.

By David Linthicum

Mar 19, 2024 5 mins

Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing Machine Learning

Return to office is a mistake

Cubicle farms are breeding grounds for interruptions, and interruptions are the bane of developer productivity.

By Nick Hodges

Mar 19, 2024 4 mins

Careers Engineer Software Development

Open source comes to real-time metering

Is the complexity of billing better handled by buying software or building it? Lago offers developers a chance to get back to solving core business problems.

By Matt Asay

Mar 18, 2024 5 mins

Careers Engineer Open Source

Securing Azure Kubernetes with Falco

The open-source cloud-native runtime security tool is now a graduated CNCF project. Is it time to use it in your Kubernetes applications?

By Simon Bisson

Mar 15, 2024 8 mins

Cloud Computing Microsoft Azure Software Development

Why public cloud providers are cutting egress fees

Enterprise IT sees these fees as arbitrary and annoying, and cloud providers are taking notice. However, it’s not all about customer goodwill.

By David Linthicum

Mar 15, 2024 4 mins

Careers Cloud Computing Technology Industry

How AI has already changed coding forever

AI coding tools such as Amazon CodeWhisperer and GitHub Copilot boost the productivity of pro and novice developers alike. They’re only the beginning.

By Matt Asay

Mar 12, 2024 6 mins

Amazon Web Services Development Tools Generative AI