DC Top5

DevCentral Top5 11/7/2008

Colin Walker — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:39:09 GMT

The past few weeks have brought with them plenty of travel, a pair of cool conferences, a great chance to spread the DC/F5 word about application goodness and integration, and much killer content flittering its way across DC's ever present feeds and pages. Now that I'm back in stride and the wake from the recent happenings has cleared I'm here yet again, as you know I would be, to point you towards some of the many cool things happening on DevCentral this week. Here's this week's DC Top5:

Investigating the LTM TCP Profile: Nagle's Algorithm

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=282

Jason Rahm, the newest addition to the DevCentral team (Welcome Jason!), brings us a very cool look at one of the pieces of the TCP profile on LTM. As he starts his series investigating the many different options found in this most important of profiles, Jason first discusses the Nagle's Algorithm. If you've ever wondered about the details of this particular feature, I.E. how it works, what it was intended for, when it may NOT be beneficial, etc., then this is the article for you. Jason dives deep and gives a great look at how to make use of this part of the profile including a look at the logic flow of the algorithm itself. Maybe it's just the dev geek in me, but how can you not love that? Whether you were excited from the time I said the word "algorithm" or you're more concerned with the higher level points of when this can be good vs. bad, I highly recommend stopping here to take a peek.

Multicore: The RogueWave Option

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/11/06/multicore-the-roguewave-option.aspx

Learn about the woes of today's application developer when trying to solve the multicore problem. Follow Don MacVittie as he digs into one of the many solutions out there to address this issue, RogueWave's Hydra. While there are many options to deal with multicore programming, Don points out that Hydra uses an interesting method by parallelizing entire services, rather than working at a more granular level. There are pros and cons, which he details, but the overall feeling seems to be good. See for yourself in what looks like it could be only one of many in Don's Multicore series.

Creating An iControl PowerShell Monitoring Dashboard With Google Charts

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=284

Joe Pruitt, our in house iControl and PowerShell wizard, is at it again in this excellent Tech Tip about dashboards. Joe walks us through how to harness the power of iControl via PowerShell and coerce it into making use of the almost too handy Google Charts utility to produce an end result that not only provides great utility, but a great look and feel as well. Polling stats from your LTM via iControl is something Joe's talked about many a time, but this example really goes the extra mile to show you how to wrap all of that information up into a sleek format that's easy on the eyes. This one's definitely worth a read. Doubly so if you've got some geek in you.

Virtualization: How to Isolate Application Traffic

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/11/07/virtualization-how-to-isolate-application-traffic.aspx

Virtualization as a topic of discussion is an elephant running rampant across the face of the IT media world. You can't help but notice it, and everyone seems to be getting awfully excited and/or concerned about it, depending on their outlook. According to this recent post by Lori MacVittie one of the newer discussions surrounding virtualization is the idea of "VirtSec", or virtualization security. This discussion has worked itself all the way down to the infrastructure level, where some are suddenly looking for ways to virtualize traffic and keep data flows separate. Lucky for us we've had VLANS as part of our product for…well…ever. I guess that means we're visionary. This is a great read about what's happening in the virtualization realm and Lori's delivery is, as usual, top notch.

Cache in with LTM and iRules

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=283

After many extensive discussions last week at SDBP about how we help application developers and architects deliver their apps, I was inspired to jot down some thoughts and a brief example or two in Tech Tip form. Inside you can learn about how caching might help your application proliferate, why it's becoming more and more important in the realm of today's application and how you can turn to your LTM for some help in getting where you need to go. The already robust caching features on LTM can then be further augmented by the use of iRules as needed to really kick it up a notch, especially in those one off cases where extra flexibility is the order of the day.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode #61 - Taconoisseur

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/11/06/devcentral-weekly-roundup-episode-61---taconoisseur.aspx

Okay, I know this is #6, but I had to include it. Just look at that title. Hawesome. Just….hawesome. This is also the first Roundup with the entire team on board since Jason started. Good times abound.

That's it for this week's DC Top5. Tune in again next week to hear more about things like hydras, elephants and Taconoissuers (yeah, I went there)…and you know, maybe some IT stuff too.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,Virtualization,Caching,iRules,iControl,Colin Walker

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 10/3/08

Colin Walker — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:10:19 GMT

Amongst the myriad of tasty bits floating across DevCentral this week brings us a cool iControl Tech Tip from one of our usually prolific bloggers. That doesn't mean she stopped blogging, of course. Much to the contrary, her contributions were welcome as always and added to the array of info at your fingertips. Here to guide you through to some of the meatier morsels I act, as always, as your faithful guide to DevCentral goodness. Here's your Top5 for this week:

WebAccelerator Beta and Toys

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/10/03/webaccelerator-beta-and-toys.aspx

Don jumps into the fray talking about the brand new news in DCLand - WebAccelerator! We've signed up for the WA beta and will be going through that process and sharing it with the community from beginning to end. There should be some very cool content so keep an eye out. In addition to just talking about the beta Don goes into some more detail about some very, very cool new WA features such as signed and encrypted WA policies. That's something that's been talked about off and on for a while and is just too darn cool not to talk about (for Don) or highlight (for me). Take a look and get the scoop yourself. And make sure you keep coming back to DC over the coming months as there will surely be lots more WA talk…and more.

The Concise Guide to Proxies

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/10/02/the-concise-guide-to-proxies.aspx

Lori's at it again with yet another fantastic, informative, organized, well written blog post. I'd say it's annoying how good she is if she weren't contributing so much darn cool stuff to DC for everyone's benefit. This week I couldn't pass up showing off her guide to proxies. Inside she walks through different proxy architectures, describes each, the differences, some common uses and more. She even gives diagrams of each to make sure things don't get too confusing. If you've ever had any confusion around which does what or why you'd use it, or if you're just up for an excellent read, take a look inside.

Automatically adding and removing Java EE applications to pools with iControl

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=274

Lori's contributions to the DC community and knowledge base don't stop with blogs alone. This week she's contributed a cool Tech Tip of the iControl variety. As the title suggests, this article is all about how to automatically deal with your Java EE applications on your BIG-IP. Inside you'll get code that shows the solution at work, as well as a step by step walk-through of what you'll need to do to get things running. She even gives you a link to another article that can show you how to add more flexibility to this introductory automation solution. For those of you looking for cool iControl use cases or interesting things to show off about your BIG-IP, here's a great candidate.

Microsoft Wants to Pay You 25 cents An Hour For Searching With SearchPerks

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/10/01/microsoft-wants-to-pay-you-25-cents-an-hour-for.aspx

Getting paid to perform web searches sounds like a pretty easy gig, if you ask me. That, however, doesn't mean that I want to sell my time for 25 cents an hour, just because it's easy. Take a look to get Joe's comments and perspective on Microsoft's SearchPerks program which is an attempt to get people to use their search engine over….others. Sure, it may be an interesting ploy to gobble up some market share, assuming you can convince people that the long-term commitment to the new search engine is worth it, but Joe breaks down some of the numbers into raw, mathematical terms and, well, it just doesn't pay off in my book. See for yourself inside, as well as taking a look at some of the things MS is offering as rewards.

Motorola builds an army of Android devs with plans to take over the mobile world

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/09/29/motorola-builds-an-army-of-android-devs-with-plans-to.aspx

An army of Androids bent on taking over the world?!? Oh no! Before you run for the hills you should really take a look at this blog post in which I talk about the real army that Motorola is putting together. They're upping their development team from around 50, to over 350 members specializing in the newly released Google Mobile platform, Android. Nokia is making a similar investment in warm bodies to produce hot code. This can only mean good things for mobile computing users as the market heats up, making Apple think about how to improve and enhance the iPhone so it doesn't get passed up with this new, open platform. I'm excited to see what these giants can produce with the flexible new OS at their fingertips. I'll keep following Android as new info and products are released, so check back often if you're curious to see what's new.

There it is, another Top5 for this decidedly fall-esque October Friday. As always I hope it serves you well, and if you've got comments, questions or feedback, please send it my way.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,Java,WebAccelerator,Android,Proxies,Microsoft,SearchPerks,Colin Walker

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 9/29/2008

Colin Walker — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:13:26 GMT

In this special Monday edition of the DC Top5 I'll recap last week's must see DevCentral hits. Along with the standard fare of cool tech info and insight, we've got another new series to introduce from a new member of the DC blogging family. I also get to share some news that got me pretty excited to hear on a somewhat personal level, though it definitely relates to our industry even if in a somewhat tangential manner. All that and more in this (last?) week's DC Top5:

Protocol of the Week

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/kris/archive/2008/09/26/protocol-of-the-week.aspx

Kris Plunkett is a Software Engineering intern here at F5. He did a good introduction here, in his blog. He came to the DevCentral team asking if he could possibly become part of the blogging family to chronicle his experiences here as well as use it as a platform to speak about the things he's learning. We of course jumped at the chance as he's bright, eager, and has a very unique perspective on things happening here at F5. It's also a fantastic opportunity to get a view into the process of learning and growing the knowledge needed to keep up with our Rockstar Dev team. Take a read as Kris launches what promises to be a hit series in his blog titled "Protocol of the Week".

Jack Thompson finally disbarred for failing at gaming the gamers

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/09/26/jack-thompson-finally-disbarred-for-failing-at-gaming-the-gamers.aspx

I try not to use the Top5 as a place to spout off about things that interest me personally but aren't relevant to the readers, but this one is close enough that I'm going to call it "tangentially related" to the industry and go with it. Jack Thompson, who I'm sure at least a large chunk of you know of, has been nothing but a nightmare in the form of a bafoon in an incompetent, egotistical lawyer's clothes for as long as I can remember. He's been attacking one group after another, most recently sinking his teeth into the gaming community and industry. You might remember him from his ranting about GTA that got him more press than he deserves. The list of things he's done that are silly, despicable or just plain wrong runs long, but there's a link to the Wikipedia article detailing many of them in the blog post. All of that makes his disbarment the best news I had all last week.

Multi-Core III - a panacea of options

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/09/22/3638.aspx

Don continues on his path to finding the ultimate answer to the multi-core question. With so many different offerings, each with ways of doing things whose differences range from slight to trans-Atlantic proportions, it's quite a journey to embark on. If anyone's capable, though, it's Don, so I'm glad to see he's still looking at offerings, weighing the differences and providing us with some awesome info about each of them. Which one is the best will certainly depend on your needs, but this series is a fantastic, condensed source of information whether you're just learning about the multi-core world or looking for your new solution.

iControl Apps - #11 - Global GTM Statistics

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=273

Trading my overzealous verbosity for powerful code nuggets, Joe's iControl Apps series continues to grow and expand as he adds yet another tasty tip to the mix. Global GTM Statistics will show you how to get inside the head of your GTM to pull out the valuable stats that so many managers and analysts crave. As always Joe includes some handy code (this time in PowerShell, his latest love it would seem) that will get you there from here, or at least most of the way. He even notes some of the handy Utility Functions that are included for conversions.

HttpFox: The FireFox add-on you can't live without

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/26/httpfox-the-firefox-add-on-you-cant-live-without.aspx

The seemingly always active, never sleeping Lori is bringing us a never-ending stream of tips and info about the IT and ADN world. This week I have to point out the handy new tool she introduced to the community, and to me. HttpFox is a great little add-on for FireFox that I saw her chatting about on twitter before it hit the blogs on DC. I grabbed it and in my test-drive found myself quite happy to have given it a shot, and thankful for Lori's tip on giving this one a whirl. If you're looking for a way to grab HTTP info and you're a FF fan, then I highly recommend checking it out. Thanks Lori!

That wraps up five more from the top of my list for last week. Sorry for the delay on getting this out but a sudden family event got sprung on me before I could wrap this one up. Don't worry, I'll be back on Friday with more for you. Never fear, the Top5 will be here. As always, feedback and suggestions are quite welcome.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,HttpFox,iControl,Multi-Core,Jack Thompson Disbarred,Protocol of the Week,Colin Walker

Thanks,

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 9/19/2008

Colin Walker — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:21:56 GMT

It's been a long month this week. Things have been blurring as they go whizzing by and I'm just trying to keep up. If I'm feeling like there's a lot going on, then that must mean that there's even more than normal going on with DevCentral. Hopefully that's an indication that there's more reason than ever to keep putting out the Top5. I'll doll out my picks from the week that I think are "must see" items amongst the torrential cascade of content that is DevCentral as I always do, and hope that you all agree. That said, here's this week's Top5:

4 things you can do in your code now to make it more scalable later

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/19/3631.aspx

The ever insightful Lori MacVittie takes us through four different things that application architects and developers can do to future-proof the performance and scalability of their applications. These aren't just basic programming tricks, either. These are programming concepts that are custom tailored to make your application run at top performance in a high-availability environment with an intelligent Application Delivery Controller. Take a look as Lori lays these tips out in detail covering not just how, but why each of these will keep your app scaling for many moons. This one's definitely worth a read for anyone looking to get that last bit of performance out of their deployment, or anyone that's about to delve into the world of application design/management in an ADC enabled environment. It's a brave new world, baby.

iControl Apps - #10 - Bigpipe List

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=272

Joe just keeps kicking out the jams. It's hit after hit after hit for this architecting mad scientist. In this week's iControl Apps project, Joe goes into detail discussing the BIG-IP configuration. More specifically he walks through how to get a human readable version of the LTM config via the magic of the iControl API. Using nothing but some PowerShell code, iControl, and the sheer power of his mind, Joe weaves together a nifty little app that will get you just that. It's effectively the equivalent of the "bigpipe list" command, or so he claims. Take a look and judge for yourself.

Virtualized Storage - Cleaning up invisibly

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/09/15/3617.aspx

Read more about Don's impressions from his recent trip with cohort Joe back to Lowell to learn about our Data Solutions offerings. Don seems to think that ARX is filled with win, which is a good thing to you non-geeks out there. Whether it's more because it lets admins live in a stubless world, or because it allows for zero downtime filer maintenance we may never know. What I do know is that both of those are part of the reason, along with more straight-forward things like storage tiering that have got the propeller on Don's beanie spinning. It's great to watch a fellow geek get geeked out over some awesome technology. Get Don's impressions and examples here.

User Roles and Partitions, a tool for administration agility - A View from SAP TechED 2008

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/nojan/archive/2008/09/15/user-roles-and-partitions-a-tool-for-administration-agility.aspx

A relatively new member of the DC blogging family, Nojan Moshiri, delivers a power-packed post about User Partitioning and Roles. This post was sparked by some experiences he had with people asking questions about these topics at this year's TechEd. He discusses at length management and administration of permissions and access as well as discussing F5's take on some of these things. He then goes on to walk through some example steps to setting up partitions and accounts with proper access for multiple user roles. All in all a strong offering and an interesting read.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode #55 - Ear Rest

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/09/18/3629.aspx

I know, I know…I put the Weekly roundup in the Top5 almost every week. Well that's only because it's usually chalk full of really cool stuff! Not to mention the interesting and usually entertaining conversations that go on while we're talking about the varied topics. This week's is especially interesting because it covers two things that are pretty big news in the DC world. One is the Groundswell competition that we're in and, as far as I can tell, currently the Supporting entry to beat. This just tells me that the world is not completely insane, and some things are as they should be. The other is the Data Center migration that DC went through this week. Thanks to a large helping of assistance from our IT crew here in Seattle, we've migrated our site to some shiny new servers in a bigger, better, faster F5 DataCenter. This is part of our plan for WORLD DOMINATION! Err…I mean…for showcasing F5 technology and delivering DC to our users in a continuingly improving fashion. Cool things ahead all, stay tuned!

There's your Top5 for this week. Next week promises to be just as jam-packed, so make sure you're looking for Friday's transmission to recap the good, the better and the great to keep you pointed in the right direction. As always, feedback is more than welcomed.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,TechEd,Virtualized Storage,iControl,Colin Walker

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 9/12/2008

Colin Walker — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:14:18 GMT

This week Don and Joe traveled to Boston while Jeff and I held things down here at DC Headquarters. Those guys were even contributing while on the road…hawesome as they are. There was plenty going on this week on DevCentral including a great announcement, so be sure to check out this week's Top5. Speaking of which, here it is:

Support, Social Technology, and Trust

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/JeffB/archive/2008/09/11/3607.aspx

Probably the most exciting news from the world of DevCentral this week is that we've entered into Forrester's Groundswell competition for social networking sites. Jeff's blog post discussing what that is, why we entered and the road we've traveled getting to a point where this is even possible is a great look at some of the things you might not know about DC. It's also a great form of kudos to the fantastic community members that make DevCentral what it is. Thanks to everyone that's contributed to make this possible, and be sure to take a look on DC to see where you can go to vote for DevCentral! Okay, it's really a "review", but who's counting?

DevCentral Groundswell Success Story

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=268

Don MacVittie helped the team by spearheading the Groundswell effort. As such, he put together a couple of great documents for use in our submission and for giving the community some info about the contest and what it means to be a part of it. This is one of those docs that will talk a little more about what the contest is, in depth, the category we chose to enter in and why. Don does a great job at pointing out some of the things that make DevCentral truly unique, and some of the ways you might not realize you can get more out of the site, both of which are worthy reasons to dive in and give this doc a read.

The impact of the network on … everything

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/11/3606.aspx

Lori's at it again, writing those insightful, interesting posts to her blog that we're glad to have on DevCentral. In this particular post she discusses the days of yesteryear when she was actually allowed near a programming terminal. In the interesting pontification she brings up some very interesting and salient points about current performance concerns, the network affecting applications and why it's critically important to have a firm understanding of what the applications are going to need and be doing before assuming the network is going to be able to properly serve them.

Class ordering in an iRule

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=270

My tech tip offering this week delves into a discussion whose impetus stems from an email thread wherein one of the many bright Development types here at F5 discussed some interesting points about Classes as they're implemented in iRules. It was a reminder to me that not everyone knows this, and it might be quite valuable or at least offer some insight into the nuts and bolts behind the iRules foo we all know and love. I figured it was my duty to get this out to the community at large so…here you go. I hope it does the original discussion justice, and is interesting all at the same time.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode 54 - Stream Scrubbing

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/09/11/3608.aspx

This week we have the whole team on the line for the podcast, albeit from opposite sides of the country this time. The discussion ranged from the relevant to the wacky and back, as it always does when we get to chatting. I think there were some pretty decent comments and insights along the way, though. At the very least there's a summary of what we've been up to, what's been going on behind the scenes in the land of DevCentral, and some great discussion about the Groundswell submission I've already mentioned a couple times above. Check it out, listen up, and let us know what you thought.

Thanks for coming along for this week's Top5 from DevCentral. As always, comments and suggestions are quite welcome, so send in that feedback.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,Groundswell,iRules,Colin Walker

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 9/5/08

Colin Walker — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:58:48 GMT

It's almost the end of summer. Kids are back in school, vacations are wrapping up, and everyone's hunkering down for the fall months. DevCentral is as active as ever, and it's only going to amplify as the team keeps on kicking out the jams. I'm hoping this means the Top5 is even more useful as I walk you through what's been going on this week in DCLand and show you some of the things I think are a "must-see". That said, here's your Top5:

The First VIPRION Review

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/09/03/the-first-viprion-review.aspx

Faster than a speeding bullet and able to handle more traffic than I-5, VIPRION has finally been reviewed, officially. Joe brings us his blog summary of the review as well as the link to the ITPro article where you can read all about it. It's great to see that not only was the review positive, but it included some great sentiment about the future of the ADC and how we're leading the way. Take a look at the full review (link included in Joe's blog post) as it's definitely worth a read.

Google Chrome - Review

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/09/02/google-chrome---review.aspx

Joe's second review of the week is a big one. The much anticipated Google Chrome has had quite a buzz in the IT community this week, and Joe's review has been right there at the top of the Google results garnering over 100 comments from visitors that want to share their feelings about the shiny, new, sleek browser. I'm not a user yet, personally, but Joe has taken it for a spin and shares his thoughts. Probably even more interesting (sorry Joe) is browsing through the slough of comments and seeing the reactions of the masses. It's fantastic to see this kind of turn-out on DC and I had to share. Not to mention a new browser could quite possibly affect the way people use and view web applications.

If Kernighan were a network architect he would say…

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/03/3585.aspx

Lori pontificates about network architectures and troubleshooting them, comparing and contrasting those thoughts to software development and the troubleshooting involved with that. This is a good illustration of some of the challenges our customers go through when dealing with their deployments, and is something to keep in mind when trying to think of ways that we can help them get where they're trying to go. It all got started by a great quote from Brian Kernighan - "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." I love it.

Agility or just Change?

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/09/02/3582.aspx

The other half of the Dynamic MacVittie Duo was hardly resting on his laurels this week. My offering to you, from Don, is his awesome look at IT agility or the lack thereof. As he mentions, we've been at it for over 20 years (IT agility, not F5 in particular) and it's interesting to pause and think about how far we've gotten, where we are, and where we're trying to go. Have we progressed? Has it been enough to warrant the time invested? Get Don's take in his Persistently Different blog. I did, and I don't regret it.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode 53 - No Mercy

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/09/04/3591.aspx

Finally, this week, we had the entire team back on the Podcast. I can't recall how long that's been, but it's certainly been too long. For the fifty third episode of the weekly roundup the entire team discusses many things, including our distinct lack of mercy when it comes to dealing with each other. Listen in, as I recommend almost every week, to get a good recap of what's been going on, who's working on what, what to expect in coming weeks, the weather….wait…strike that last one. This week we also announce DevCentral's entry into Forrester's "Groundswell" competition. Listen in and follow the links to learn more about what that is and how you can help us take home the gold!

Thanks for tuning in. If you have any feedback or suggestions I'd love to hear them, as always.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,DevCentral Top5,Google Chrome,Kernighan,Groundswell,Colin Walker

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 8/29/08

Colin Walker — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:43:33 GMT

Goodness it's been a while since we've had a Top5, hasn't it? The past couple months have been insane for vacations/medical leave/paternity leave, etc on the DC team. Hopefully things are settling down now, and we can get back to our normal routine. Regardless, here I am, your faithful guide through the oceans of content on DevCentral, committed to bringing you a weekly sampling of the Top5 coolest new things that showed up on DevCentral. Even with parts of the team out, there's been lots of content, so buckle up, here's your Top5:

Dear Data Center Guy

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/08/29/3572.aspx

Sometimes the things I pick for the Top5 are the most informative pieces I can find. Other times they're the most exciting and interesting because of some new announcement or content. This one is, well, just plain hawesome. Go check out Lori waxing away from the perspective of a lonely, forlorn BIG-IP. Follow this plea to the "Data Center Guy" and find out why it is that there's more than meets the eye to the BIG-IP, and why it's worth investing some more time getting to know yours.

Crack open the books, it's iRule time

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/08/29/crack-open-the-books-its-irule-time.aspx

Exciting news from the training group! F5's stellar training team now officially offers and is booking iRules training! This is fantastic news. Up until now the aspiring iRuler had to rely only on their wits, their browser, and the ever-faithful DevCentral. Now there's an organized, formal way to get some hands-on, classroom instruction to get your iRuling experience jump started. This is something that's been a long-time request of the DC members, and I'm very, very pleased to be able to share this great news. Make sure you take a look and read the course description for more info.

iControl Apps - #08 - System IP Statistics

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=264

Check out Joe flexing those iControl muscles yet again in this continuation of the iControl Apps series. In this edition Joe will walk you through how to query yet more fun statistics type stuff (very technical term) from the BIG-IP via iControl. If you ever wondered how to get access to aggregate, IP based statistics in a programmatic fashion, well, then this is the one you've been waiting for. Even if that hasn't been your dream since high school, this post is definitely worth checking out for more firepower to add to your iControl arsenal.

20 Lines or Less #14

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/08/29/20-lines-or-less--14.aspx

In our second week back on track with the 20LoL I manage to find still more cool examples of iRules fu that are byte sized at most. In less than 21 lines you can learn how to distribute email to the appropriate pools based on IP address. If that's not enough, we're doing HTTP inspection without HTTP profiles, too. Confusing? It won't be if you click through and take a gander. Good ole' TCP commands to the rescue. Take a peek, send some comments, add a suggestion.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode 52 - The Road to 100

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/08/29/3575.aspx

Last, but never least, is this week's DevCentral Roundup. This is a special edition of the podcast this week, because this week we wrapped up our 52^nd chat about DCLand, IT in general, and all sorts of other wacky stuff. With a year's worth of podcasts behind us, it's time to set our sights on 100 and keep on trucking, because there's plenty to talk about every week, that's for sure. This week listen to Don and Joe talk about all sorts of cool iControl applications and twitter and the like, and Colin try to keep up and explain that he's almost caught up from being out for 3+ weeks….honest. The Roundup is always a great way to get a dose of what we've been up to in a short amount of time, without even having to do any of that reading stuff. Have a listen and let us know what you think.

There you have it, your Top5 for this week from DevCentral. It's good to be back, and hopefully you faithful readers out there have been eager for this to get fired back up. If you've got questions or comments please feel free to drop me a line, as always. See you next week.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,Top5,Colin Walkerer

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 7/25/2008

Colin Walker — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:09:49 GMT

I'm back with another week's worth of DevCentral goodness for you. The DC team just keeps rocking along and putting out all sorts of awesome content. That is of course in my completely neutral, un-biased opinion. This week I'll take you through five more great reasons to visit DevCentral, ranging from an exclusive interview with Joyent's CTO and co-founder, to real-world examples of PowerShell coding in the wild, making use of the BIG-IP and iControl. That said, let's get to it. Here is your Top5 for this week:

Scaling in the Cloud with Joyent's Jason Hoffman

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/interviews/archive/2008/07/23/scaling-in-the-cloud-with-joyents-jason-hoffman.aspx

You may have seen Joe's blog post last week about Joyent, a shared cloud provider, scaling LinkedIn's BumperSticker application to over a billion page views per month. That's an impressive number regardless of the platform. What made this even more compelling is that BumperSticker is a Ruby on Rails application. For those of you that haven't been keeping tabs, Ruby on Rails is one of the fastest growing languages/platforms out there on the web, but it's historically been accused of being unable to scale to handle enterprise traffic levels. Joe and I got the chance to chat with Joyent's CTO, Jason Hoffman, to get the skinny on the cloud over at Joyent. Listen in to hear about what they're doing, why it's so powerful and unique, how F5 is an integral part of that process, and where you can show up to get some tasty tacos.

4 Reasons not to use mod_security

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/07/23/3477.aspx

Well, Lori's done it again. With her recent blog post detailing some of the possible scenarios and reasons that mod_security isn't for everyone, she's managed to stir up another fantastic and lively discussion. Check it out to see what the community has to say about Lori's position on application security firewalls and mod_security. She even managed to get Ivan Ristic, the creator of mod_security to chime in not once but twice. Way to go Lori! Aside from all the chatter and comments, it's an interesting read in its own right, so take a look.

Custom SNMP Traps

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=256

SNMP has long been the standard for server monitoring. Despite the fact that we offer iControl for monitoring these days, there will likely always be a relatively strong contingent of SNMP lovers who either use it extensively in house anyway, or don't want to learn how to use iControl. That's why articles like this one are important. Deb walks through how to define, create and test custom SNMP traps to allow for customizable actions based on certain log content. This can be extremely useful to notify administrators, alert a group of an outage, or even trigger other custom processes to perform some action behind the scenes. Network and server admins alike will love this one, if they're SNMP folks.

iControl Apps - #05 - Rate Based Statistics

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=257

In the continuation of the iControl Apps series, Joe walks through how to put together yet another keen PowerShell application, this time one that can use iControl to do Rate Based Statistics monitoring for your LTM. Not only does he walk you through the application setup and utilization, but he includes a bonus this time through as well. Included is a cool look at a way to include some .Net code in-line in your PowerShell application which, while arguably overkill for this particular example, could be very valuable in general and as such is a darn cool look at some fancy PowerShell footwork. This one's definitely worth a read, as well.

20 Lines or Less #12

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/07/24/20-lines-or-less-12.aspx

Yet another edition of 20 Lines or Less is available for your perusal on DevCentral. This week's edition was especially packed with iRules foo and all kinds of BIG-IP goodness, if I do say so myself. Inside you'll learn how to use SSL commands in an iRule on a non-SSL VIP, extract DHCP info directly from a UDP stream, and re-write the URI based on the load balancing decision. No, I didn't say that wrong…the URI changes based on the server chosen for load balancing. All of these, of course, are less than 21 lines, as always, and are great examples of the kind of power you can get from iRules without having to invest much time at all in the coding process.

There are five more for you from the Top. Hopefully you'll find at least a couple that pique your interest and get you cruising around on DevCentral, looking for more. As always, let me know if you've got any questions or comments.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,Top5,iRules,iControl,Ruby on Rails,Joyent,SNMP,Colin Walker

Thanks,

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 7/18/2008

Colin Walker — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:39:05 GMT

This week's Top5 takes you from Application Health Monitoring to queues formed by CS students. The team has been hard at it, as always, and there's plenty to dig through on DevCentral this week. Choosing just five things to talk about seems to be an increasingly difficult task thanks to the mounds of content out there every week, but that's a good problem to have. Here are this week's Top picks:

Scaling Ruby on Rails to 1 Billion Page Views a Month

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/07/15/scaling-ruby-on-rails-to-1-billion-page-views-a.aspx

Joe talks about Joyent's successful scaling of their Ruby on Rails deployment for Linkedin's "BumperSticker" Facebook app to a billion page views a month. That's some pretty serious traffic, and an awesome accomplishment to be able to tout. It's doubly important due to the naysayers out there that would have you believe that Ruby on Rails doesn't scale for high traffic situations. Joe talks about some of the finer details of this recently announced achievement as well as inviting them to jump on a DC podcast with us, which I'm pleased to say they agreed to. Definitely keep an eye out for that chat!

Storage - Where do we go from here?

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/07/14/3449.aspx

It's no surprise to anyone that's been around computers even a short while that data storage is growing at an amazing rate, as is the demand for storage space due to increased use of media and more and more users of resources already in place. Don shows off some of his in-depth experience in the storage arena by delving into a discussion of different issues facing the storage community these days. He talks about stale data, data tiering, high-speed filers and more. Discussing about different methods of using and dealing with each, this post is definitely worth a read.

20 Lines or Less #11

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/07/16/20-lines-or-less-11.aspx

Back on track with three examples each weighing in under 21 lines, this week's 20LoL continues to demonstrate the power you can pack into easily written and managed, short iRules. Feel free to drop in a request for an iRule you need written to solve a certain problem or requirement and who knows, your solution might just be featured in the next 20 Lines or Less. Take a peek and tune in every week as we continue on our exploration of the possibilities that iRules offers to deliver compact yet powerful solutions.

DC Post of the Week - Application Health Monitors: Alternate Ports

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dctv/archive/2008/07/17/3461.aspx

Deb dives into the Post of the Week yet again to highlight a question asked in the forums, giving an in-depth answer and example to go with it. This week she's addressing Health Monitors and trying to monitor a member of a pool on a port not configured for the pool. Tune in for a walk-through and discussion of how this can be done, benefits, caveats and more.

A queue is a (a) line (b) a pony tail (c) a data structure

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/07/14/3448.aspx

In our only multiple choice blog post of the week Lori agrees with a fellow blogger's assertion that "The most agile developers, however, are those who approach programming with a firm grounding in computer science." I suppose that means I'm off that list, but I won't hold that against her. This insightful and interesting post discusses the way that programming has evolved and works in today's world, and why those computer science degrees that actually focus on, well, computer science, might be more valuable than some people think. Take a look inside to see why.

Safely through another five awesome topics from DevCentral, here we are, at the end of this week's Top5. I'll be back next week with more DC goodness. Until then, feel free to drop me any feedback you might have.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,DC Top5,Colin Walker

#Colin

DevCentral Top5 7/11/2008

Colin Walker — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:50:10 GMT

After a Friday off for the holiday here in the states, we're back at it again, and DevCentral is as busy as ever. There's been some great content and some really fantastic banter alike on the site this week. Today we'll dive into cookie security, go back in time with iControl, and more, but not to worry, I'll step you through it all so you don't get lost in the white water of information rushing through DevCentral. Please keep all hands inside the raft, here's this week's Top5:

Persistent and Persistence, What's the Difference?

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/07/11/3443.aspx

Two words that can often times be incorrectly used interchangeably are discussed and defined by the esteemed Lori Macvittie. In this useful and in-depth blog post Lori delves into the intricacies of each term, why they should be clearly separate in your mind, and some uses and advantages of each. If ever you had some doubt as to what each term meant, now's the time to clear it up, and this is the place to do it.

DC Post of the Week - Application Health Monitors : Response Strings

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dctv/archive/2008/07/10/3440.aspx

If you're one of the many people out there looking at just the status code of your HTTP responses to determine the health of your application, you may want to take a look at this week's Post of the Week. Deb talks about why it's sometimes important to do more in-depth, application appropriate monitoring to get a look at what's really going on, and the experience users are actually getting. Blank web-pages being served efficiently doesn't do anyone any good.

Tech Tip: Cookie LoJack via iRules

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=251

This week I got to write about an awesome iRule submitted by Aidan Clark, one of our many awesome engineers in the field. This outstanding example of iRules usage shows how you can add an additional layer of security to your cookies, even if they're already being encrypted. There is much hawesome and cool contained in the rule, so make sure you take a look at yet another way that iRules are changing the game, every day.

iControl 101 - #19 - Time Conversions

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=252

I was convinced that time travel was something relegated to fiction novels and white-haired professors with DeLoreans, but Joe has proved me wrong it seems. Joe goes through the iControl methods that allow you to return system time, along with many formatting methods and options for those methods. In this way you can truly be in control of time, and make sure you're getting the results you need. Yet another cool example of just how in-depth and robust iControl really is.

3 Reasons not to use Apache mod_rewrite

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/07/07/3428.aspx

And now for the most hotly debated blog post on DC in recent memory, and possibly ever. Take a look inside as Lori gives her view on Apache mod_rewrite and why you are likely better served by offloading that functionality to an Application Delivery Controller, possibly even via an iRule. She makes some excellent points and definitely stirs the pot. Check out the excellent post and the impassioned and interesting follow-up comments.

There's another Top5 for you. As always, keep in mind that DevCentral has a lot more than I can put in just one distribution a week, so be sure to poke around yourself. Feedback is welcomed and encouraged.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,Top5,iRules,iControl,Apache,mod_rewrite,persistence,Colin Walker

Thanks!

#Colin