How IT Pros Learn Online In 2021

I surveyed 53 IT professionals about online IT training in August 2021. Most of the folks I interact with are networking & cloud infrastructure professionals, and the answers reflect that. 53 responses isn’t enough to draw hard and fast conclusions from, but I still believe there are interesting trends & individual comments worth thinking about.

By the way, if you’d like to submit your own responses, I left the survey open. I told Google Forms to not collect email addresses, so your responses are anonymous.

1. Which online learning sites do you have a subscription to or have bought an IT course from?

  1. Udemy – 32
  2. Pluralsight – 24
  3. INE – 19
  4. A Cloud Guru – 16
  5. CBT Nuggets – 12
  6. Coursera – 9
  7. O’Reilly / Safari – 7
  8. ITProTV – 4
  9. LinkedIn Learning / Lynda – 3
  10. Juniper Learning Portal – 2
  11. Pearson – 2
  12. Skillshare – 2
  13. Adrian Cantrill – 1
  14. Cisco Learning Network – 1
  15. Global Knowledge – 1
  16. Ivan Pepelnjak – 1
  17. KBITS – 1
  18. Kirk Byers – 1
  19. Routehub – 1
  20. Skillsoft – 1
  21. TalkPython – 1
  22. Teachable – 1
  23. YouTube – 1

I believe Udemy is so popular because it’s a great platform to Continue reading

Hedge 97: Low Context DevOps

Language is deeply contextual—one of my favorite sayings from the theological world is if you take the text out of its context, you are just left with the con. What does context have to do with development and operations, though? Can there be low and high context situations in the daily life of building and running systems? Thomas Limoncelli joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the idea of low context devops, and the larger issue of context in managing projects and teams, on this episode of the Hedge.

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The Huge Payoff Of Extreme Co-Design In Molecular Dynamics

When money is really no object and the budget negotiations involve taking a small slice of your personal net worth of $7.5 billion out of one pocket and putting it into another, and you have the technical chops to understand the complexities of molecular dynamics and have a personal mission to cure disease, then you can build any damned supercomputer you want. …

The Huge Payoff Of Extreme Co-Design In Molecular Dynamics was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Linux turns 30

Something happened back in 1991 that dramatically changed the future of computing. Linus Torvalds, a Finnish-American software engineer, released the Linux kernel and the second version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2). A good portion of the technology we use today would not be what it is had this not happened.It all started on August 25th of that year when Torvalds announced in a usenet post that he was working on a free OS and that it would be ready within a few months. He also said it "won't be big and professional like gnu," but that wasn't exactly how things turned out!The GPL The beauty of the Gnu GPL was that, instead of restricting what users can do with the Linux kernel, it maximized their rights. Richard Stallman, GNU founder, referred to these rights as the "four freedoms." They include the freedom to run, copy, study/improve and distribute. This was akin to turning the function of a license inside out.To read this article in full, please click here

Linux turns 30

Something happened back in 1991 that dramatically changed the future of computing. Linus Torvalds, a Finnish-American software engineer, released the Linux kernel and the second version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2). A good portion of the technology we use today would not be what it is had this not happened.It all started on August 25th of that year when Torvalds announced in a usenet post that he was working on a free OS and that it would be ready within a few months. He also said it "won't be big and professional like gnu," but that wasn't exactly how things turned out!The GPL The beauty of the Gnu GPL was that, instead of restricting what users can do with the Linux kernel, it maximized their rights. Richard Stallman, GNU founder, referred to these rights as the "four freedoms." They include the freedom to run, copy, study/improve and distribute. This was akin to turning the function of a license inside out.To read this article in full, please click here

Sponsored Post: Pinecone, Kinsta, Bridgecrew, IP2Location, StackHawk, InterviewCamp.io, Educative, Stream, Fauna, Triplebyte

Who's Hiring? 

  • DevOps Engineer: At Kinsta, we set out to create the best managed hosting platform in the world. If you are an experienced DevOps Engineer who is constantly looking for ways to innovate and improve, we might just be the place for you! As Kinsta’s DevOps Engineer, you will be instrumental in making sure that our infrastructure is always on the bleeding edge of technology, remaining stable and high-performing at all times. If you love working with Linux, have a background in PHP, and have worked with cutting-edge technologies, such as Ansible and LXC, check us out and apply here.

  • SysOps Engineer: As Kinsta’s SysOps Engineer, you’ll play a key role in caring for the health of our servers, preventing issues, and responding immediately to mitigate any problems in our infrastructure. If you have experience in hosting and with the WordPress stack, have worked with Ubuntu or Debian-based systems, and cutting-edge technologies, such Ansible and LXC, you should definitely check us out and apply here!

  • JavaScript Developer: Kinsta’s Development Team aims to create truly effective solutions for our customers and our internal teams. We believe the only way to maintain and scale Continue reading

MikroTik – RouterOSv7 first look – feedback on routing filters

Overview

Routing filters have been a hot topic lately in the world of RouterOSv7. The first implementation of routing filters in ROSv7 was difficult to work with and documented in the two articles below:

MikroTik – RouterOSv7 first look – Dynamic routing with IPv6 and OSPFv3/BGP

MikroTik RouterOS – v7.0.3 stable (chateau) and status of general release


MikroTik then made some changes and opened up discussion to get feedback. I did a lot of work and testing using ROS 7.1beta7 which never made it to public release and was close to publishing the results when 7.1rc1 came out so this post will use that version.

https://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175201#p867750


RouterOSv7.1rc1 syntax example

Here is an example of the latest syntax in ROSv7.1rc1

CLI

### MikroTik RouterOS 7.1rc1 ###

/routing filter rule
add chain=dead.beef.101 rule="if (dst==200:dead:beef:101::/64) {accept}"
add chain=dead.beef.102 rule="if (dst==200:dead:beef:102::/64) {accept}"
add chain=dead.beef.agg rule="if (dst in 200:dead:beef::/48) {accept}"
add chain=bgp-out-v6 rule="if (chain dead.beef.101) {set bgp-local-pref 300; accept}"
add chain=bgp-out-v6 rule="if (chain dead.beef.102) {accept}"
add chain=bgp-out-v6 rule="if (chain dead.beef.agg && dst-len<128) {set bgp-local-pref 150; accept}"

Winbox


And the corresponding routes received Continue reading

Introducing logs from the dashboard for Cloudflare Workers

Introducing logs from the dashboard for Cloudflare Workers
Introducing logs from the dashboard for Cloudflare Workers

If you’re writing code: what can go wrong, will go wrong.

Many developers know the feeling: “It worked in the local testing suite, it worked in our staging environment, but… it’s broken in production?” Testing can reduce mistakes and debugging can help find them, but logs give us the tools to understand and improve what we are creating.

if (this === undefined) {
  console.log("there’s no way… right?") // Narrator: there was.
}

While logging can help you understand when the seemingly impossible is actually possible, it’s something that no developer really wants to set up or maintain on their own. That’s why we’re excited to launch a new addition to the Cloudflare Workers platform: logs and exceptions from the dashboard.

Starting today, you can view and filter the console.log output and exceptions from a Worker… at no additional cost with no configuration needed!

View logs, just a click away

When you view a Worker in the dashboard, you’ll now see a “Logs” tab which you can click on to view a detailed stream of logs and exceptions. Here’s what it looks like in action:

Each log entry contains an event with a list of logs, exceptions, Continue reading

The Next Phase of Cloud-Grade Routing

The Next Phase of Cloud-Grade Routing

In the past decade, the emergence of cloud networks has blurred the line between switching and routing versus traditional routers. Today the industry is at an inflection point, where the adoption of cloud principles for routing intersects the rapidly expanding capabilities of the merchant silicon feature set and scale, creating a disruption of legacy routing architectures.

How to choose the best NVMe storage array

Storage will never be as fast as system memory--that’s just the nature of system architecture. But thanks to NVMe (nonvolatile memory express), SSDs can deliver such blazingly fast performance, the penalty of “going to disk” tends to be miniscule.NVMe encompasses a family of specifications for how software talks to storage. It works over a number of transport methods, including PCI Express, RDMA, and TCP. Storage arrays that support the NVMe standard are the sports cars of storage, exposing super-fast storage media more directly and efficiently than any other mainstream method allows.To read this article in full, please click here

Choosing and changing your Linux shell

There are quite a few shells on Linux system and more that can be easily added. This post examines some of the more popular shells, how they differ and the files that contribute to their configuration.The default shell on most Linux systems is bash. Unless you make an effort, any user accounts added to the system will be assigned bash as their login shell. Bash has been around since 1989 and was meant to replace the Bourne shell (sh). In fact, if you take a look at /bin/sh, you'll probably find that it's nothing more than a symbolic link to /bin/bash.$ ls -l /bin/sh lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 4 Jan 25 2021 /bin/sh -> bash Summarizing your command-line usage on Linux   Popular Shells Some of the best and most popular shells include:To read this article in full, please click here

How to choose the best NVMe storage array

Storage will never be as fast as system memory--that’s just the nature of system architecture. But thanks to NVMe (nonvolatile memory express), SSDs can deliver such blazingly fast performance, the penalty of “going to disk” tends to be miniscule.NVMe encompasses a family of specifications for how software talks to storage. It works over a number of transport methods, including PCI Express, RDMA, and TCP. Storage arrays that support the NVMe standard are the sports cars of storage, exposing super-fast storage media more directly and efficiently than any other mainstream method allows.To read this article in full, please click here

Choosing and changing your Linux shell

There are quite a few shells on Linux system and more that can be easily added. This post examines some of the more popular shells, how they differ and the files that contribute to their configuration.The default shell on most Linux systems is bash. Unless you make an effort, any user accounts added to the system will be assigned bash as their login shell. Bash has been around since 1989 and was meant to replace the Bourne shell (sh). In fact, if you take a look at /bin/sh, you'll probably find that it's nothing more than a symbolic link to /bin/bash.$ ls -l /bin/sh lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 4 Jan 25 2021 /bin/sh -> bash Summarizing your command-line usage on Linux   Popular Shells Some of the best and most popular shells include:To read this article in full, please click here

eBPF: When (and when not) to use it

Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) is a relatively new feature for Linux kernels that has many DevOps, SREs, and engineers excited. But is it a one-stop shop solution for all of your Linux kernel needs? Let’s take a look at what eBPF does well, and how it stacks up against standard Linux iptables.

 

What is eBPF?

eBPF is a feature available in Linux kernels that allows you to run a virtual machine inside the kernel. This virtual machine allows you to safely load programs into the kernel, in order to customize its operation. Why is this important?

In the past, making changes to the kernel was difficult: there were APIs you could call to get data, but you couldn’t influence what was inside the kernel or execute code. Instead, you had to submit a patch to the Linux community and wait for it to be approved. With eBPF, you can load a program into the kernel and instruct the kernel to execute your program if, for example, a certain packet is seen or another event occurs.

With eBPF, the kernel and its behavior become highly customizable, instead of being fixed. This can be extremely beneficial, when used Continue reading

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