LinkedIn: Lakehouse Analytics - with Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks

Today i came across a posting in linkedin.com which points to this nice booklet:

The linkedin posting pointed to site, where you can register for the a PDF, which contains 20 pages and 7 chapters.

Chapter one is a very short one (only half of a page): A typical introduction about data, information, analytics and why this is important :)

In chapter 2 the lakehouse architecture is explained. I liked the phrase "It combines [...] traditional data warehouse with the massive scale and flexibility of a data lake". This phrase combined with a very good table of the differences between a data warehouse and a data lake is from my point of view an excellent definition.

"Data management and analytics with Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks" is the title of the third chapter. This chapter only emphasizes that Fabris and Databricks can work seamlessly together and Microsoft introduces a OneLake to simplify the integration of these tools.

Chapter 4 i can not really summarize here. But there is really a cool figure in that chapter. Here only a part of that:

The Databricks part is missing and some other parts as well, but in the new Microsoft approach Fabric consists not only of storage - even PowerBI is a part of that new powerful tool. (one subsection is about AI integration)

The next chapter "Code faster with GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio Code, and Azure Databricks" is about the demonstrating "the power of Azure Databricks as a leading platform for data and AI when combined with developer tools such as Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot". This is like a small walkthrough how to configure Visual Studio Code.

In the seventh chapter a step by step guide is provided for integrating Databricks with OneLake. 

In my eyes chapter 4 is the key of that booklet, for everyone who wants to know, how the terms Fabric, OneLake, Databricks, Lakehouse are related and how the big picture looks like. Anyone who analyzes data with Microsoft should have read this.

LinkedIn: Microsoft 365 Backup for Dummies sponsored by Veeam

 This week Veeam published this booklet on linkedin.com for download:

The booklet contains 6 chapter - the last one is a summary "Six takeaways" like always in such "for dummies" books.

From my point of view chapter 1 & 2 can be skipped - this you should really know, if running M365 (motivation for M365 backup). 

Chapter 3 is about how the loss of files can be prevented with M365 mechanisms. This is about compliance center, retention policies and labels. But only the keywords are mentioned and no deeper insights are provided.

In chapter 4 many scenarios are described, how you can loose your data on M365. Here a quote:

I think this chapter can be skipped like chapter 1 & 2. 

Chapter 5 opens with a nice term which was new to me: BaaS - Backup as a Service. Never thought about this acronym. Completely clear, that some backups in cloud are done without having purchased storage or servers on premises. Nice thing inside this chapter: a checklist about data source, data properties and some others. Really nice.

Chapter 6 comes up with the takeaways. These are really worth reading.

LinkedIn: A Guide to Data Governance - Building a roadmap for trusted data

On linkedin from "The Cyber Security Hub" shared a nice booklet about data governance:

An like always: It is only a booklet with about 25 pages - so this is not really a deep dive into this topic, but it gives you a good overview and of course a good motivation:

These include the need to governdata to maintain its quality as well as the need to protect it. This entails the prerequisite need to discover data in your organization with cataloguing, scanning, and classifying your data to support this protection.

and if this is to abstract, you should consider the following use case (and i think this use case has to be considered):

However, for AI to become effective, the data it is using must be trusted. Otherwise decision accuracy may be compromised, decisions may be delayed, or actions missed which impacts on the bottom line. Companies do not want ‘garbage in, garbage out’.

The booklet contains the sections "Requirements for governing data in a modern enterprise", "components needed for data governance", "technology needed for end-to-end data governance" and "managing master data". All sections do not provide a walk through for achieving a good data governance, but there are many questions listed, which you should answer for your company and then move forward. 

If you already have a data governance in place: This book is a good challenge for your solution. And for sure you will find some points, which are missing :)

Review: Securing containers & cloud for dummies

Securing containers & cloud (provided by sysdig) is a booklet with 42 pages and 7 chapters. Like most of the "for dummies" series the last chapter is a summary with ten considerations.

But let's start from the beginning:
Chapter one "understanding cloud security" is a really nice abstract. Here some of the topic, which you should be aware of: "overprivileged identites", "visibility over cloud assets", "leaving out IT", "former employees, one-time users and guest accounts that are left active", ... With knowing that the following proposal is made: "to dectect and stop cyber threats [..] first step is to see them". Therefore a singe event store should be used and a open-source validation because of validation an transparency.
The second chapter is named "securing infrastructure as code (IaC). The typical arguments for IaC are speed, scalabilty, resilience, reproducibility but what about security? IaC is created by the developers and this code has to be checked as well as the application sources. And even if IaC is checked, configuration templates in  a CI/CD pipeline will suffer from drift. "Policy as code PaC allows you to leverage a shared policy model across multiple IaC, cloud, and Kubernetes environments.  Not only does PaC provide consistency and strengthen security, but also it saves time and allows you to scale faster."
"Preventing Vulnerabilites" is the third chapter. Many images in production contain patchable vulnerabilites, which should be patched. So the selecting of container images from every source (including DockerHub) without scanning them is not a good idea. One subsection here is "Automate vulnerability scanning in the CI/CD pipeline". I think this is something you should read in the booklet in detail.
After scanning for threats, the next chapter is about detecting and responding to threats. This chapter is only about 3 pages and it is more an appetizer for Falco, which is a solution from sysdig.
The sixth chapter is named "Targeting monitoring and troubleshooting issues" is is plea for open source. "Avoiding Vendor Lock-In" is key to success at least from the perspective of the authors.
As in the beginning mentioned the last chapter is a ten point summary of the topic. This is a fast checklist, you can use.
 

All in all a very good high level introduction into "Securing Containers & Cloud". I recommend all DevOps engineers and developers to spend half an hour to read this booklet.

Review: Intent based networking for dummies

I found the book intent-based networking on linkedin posted by juniper:

The book contains 5 chapters on 44 pages.

Chapter one (expressing intent and seeing the basics of IBN) tries to give a motivation for intent based networking. And the story goes like this: "humans are slow, expensive, error prone, and inconsistent. [...] the systems are vulerable to small mistakes that can have enormous costs to business."
In addition we have "inadequate automation", "data overload", and "stale documentation". (At this point i think we are generally doomed and should stop networking at all).
BUT with IBN "you can manage what requires auto- mation, make your system standardized and reliable, and ensure you’re free to move and adjust heading into the future." The promise of IBN is to do a change from node-to-node management to an autonomic system. "The sys tem self-operates, self-adjusts, and self-corrects within the parameters of your expressed technical objectives."
So everthing should work like this: you express your intent - this intent is translated and then orchestration configuration will roll out the changes onto your network.
I think on good phrase for IBN is: "You say what, it says how"

The second chapter is named "Looking at the characteristics of IBN. This chapter does not give any helpful information at all. One nice concept is mentionend here: "Simple Pane of Glass": "t’s an important concept and a valuable benefit of having a single source of truth: You can see your entire network from a single, consistent perspective." But is think this is not possible for networks. Depending on your perspective (ethernet, vlans, ips, mpls, ...) the view is completely different. Just think about hardware ports vs virtual ports...
 

"Detailing the IBN architecture" is the titel of chapter 3. This chapter is with 9 pages the biggest chapter inside the booklet. In this chapter an example is drilled through: The intent "I want a VLAN connecting servers A, B, C, and D." is analyzed and the steps from define, translate, verify, deploy and monitor are shown.
In addition there are some subsection where the reference design, abstractions, inventory are put into relation to each other. This is illustrated with very nice figures. Really a good chapter!
 

In chapter four the book moves forward from fulfillment to assurance. "This chapter shows you why your IBN system (IBNS) requires sophisticated, deep analytics that can detect when a deployed service is drifting out of spec and either automatically make the adjustments to bring it back into compliance or alert you to the problem."
It starts with differentiating uncontrolled changes from controlled changes. This is nothing special to IBN. I think this is useful for any kind of operation in IT.
 

Chapter 5 is as always in this "dummmies" series a recap of the chapters before.


All in all a nice booklet which introduces very well in this new kind of network management system. But if IBN can keep the promises - let's see...
 

Review: Container Storage for Dummies

After reading Running Containers in Production for Dummies this book fell into my hands:

 
 

Container Storage for Dummies is promoted by RedHat and consists of 5 chapters with 35 pages. 

The first chapter gives a short summary about containers. I liked this statement very much: "For example, a VM is like a heavy hammer. It assumes you’re running a server and that the server can host multiple applications. [...] And the container can run just about anywhere, even on a bare metal machine or in a VM — the container doesn’t care." The chapter ends with a motivation why containers need persistent storage: ephemeral containers are transient....
Chapter 2 has the title "Looking at Storage for and in Containers". The key argument here is: "Software-defined storage (SDS) separates storage hardware from storage controller software, enabling seamless portability across multiple forms of storage hardware. You can’t slice and dice storage using appliances or typical SAN/NAS as easily, readily, or quickly as you can with SDS." Both terms (Storage for Containers + Storage in Containers) are given a defintion (just take a look inside the book ;-)).
In chapter 3 the authors want to convince the reader about the coolness of container-native storage with phrases like "Container-Native Storage Is the Next Sliced Bread". I think the main argument in this section is, that RedHat contributes a substantial parts to open source Kubernetes so that RedHats Openshift container storage fits easily in there. And this is done by introducing the Container Storage Interface which can be used by all storage providers.
Chapter 4 motivates why developers like Container-Native storage: because it can be easily managed without SAN administrators....
The last chapter closes with ten reasons to move to Cantainer-Native storage: simplified management, more automation, scalibility, ....

As summary i think, this book is a nice starting point about the problems and possible solutions with storage for containers. It is a little bit disappointing, that openshift is not really explained - but within only 35 pages this is really impossible.
If you are working or starting to work with containers i require you to read this booklet - it is a good start into the container world!

Review: Running Containers in Production for dummies

 Last evening i read the following booklet:

Here my review:

Chapter one gives within 7 pages an excellent introduction into "Containers & Orchestration Platforms". From Kubernetes over Openshift/Docker Swarm up to Amazon EKS - many services are described. In my opinion Azure AKS is missing, but it is clear, that every hyperscaler will provide you its managed Kubernetes environment. At the end even Apache Mesos is listed - which is out of scope for the most of us. 

Building & Deploying Containers is the headline of chapter 2 and a brief, solid description of these topics is given. If you want to know what all the buzzwords like CI/CD/CS, Pipelines, Container Registries are about: Read that chapter and you have a good starting point.

Nearly 33% of the book(let) is abount Monitoring Containers (chapter 3). This points in to the right directions. You have to know what your containers are doing and what you have to change with continuous delivery and continuous deployment. If you are running tens or hundreds of containers, the monitoring has to be  automatic as well - or you are lost. "A best practice for using containers is to isolate workloads by running only a single process per container.  Placing a monitoring agent — which amounts to a second process or service — in each container to get visibility risks destroying a key value of containers: simplicity." - So building up a monitoring is not such easy, as is was on full-stack servers...

Chapter 4 is about Security. This focuses on the following topics: Implementing container limits against resource abuse, how to avoid outdated container images, management of secrets and image authenticity.

The last chapter closes with "Ten Container Takeaways".

 

Within 43 pages a really nice starting point to learn about the world of docker and container orchestration.