At some point, we can't "do it all" with one block of code. As developers, we need to store persistent data for a variety of reasons: We want it for later execution (or to compare it to another result) We're sick of storing variables in code. This matters a lot more in compiled languages than runtime ones We …

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It's probably safe to say that service provider networking is pretty unique. One particular design pattern - Looking Glasses - is extremely useful for complex dynamically routed networks. I'd really like to shift the gatekeeping needle here - networks that are complex enough to benefit from a looking glass should move …

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NGINX Rewrite Directives, The 9/10 Solutions When doing ADC/Load Balancer work, nearly all requests fit into two categories: Please rewrite part of the URL/URI Please change the host header for this reverse proxy These are fairly simple to implement in NGINX, so I'm creating a couple of cheat-sheet code snippets here. …

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Don't Reinvent the Wheel: Ansible Playbooks Writing your own code isn't always the answer Often, communities such as Python will contribute code of substantially higher quality than what you/I can create individually. This is OK. In nearly every case, dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist programmers will consume …

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So far, we've provided the infrastructure for continuous delivery / continuous integration, but it's been for those other guys. Is that odd? Let's try using the principles provided for more infrastructure-oriented reasons. Let's build a network lab using NSX-T. First, we need some form of a mutable router. Normally, …

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So far, most API invocations, at least in terms of what you need to do, are pretty simple to execute. Then again, just about every other administrative function on a computer is, as well. For example: Clicking a button Typing in a command or variable Interacting with a programmable interface is as simple as any other …

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Let's be realistic about the API craze - it seems everything has one, and everybody is talking about API consumption in their environment as if they've invented fire. Here are a few things to know about APIs that could have been communicated better: Writing code to consume an API is easy. Most of the time, a cURL …

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