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Is the web so fragile that one company can take it down?

Today (8 June 2021), many high profile websites were unavailable for around an hour because they were all relying on a Content Delivery Network (CDN) called Fastly that became unavailable. Some headlines said that this was a cautionary tale about the fragility of the web. But is this true? What exactly happened? And what isContinue reading “Is the web so fragile that one company can take it down?”

Should you be concerned about a government ‘data grab’ of your medical records?

The digital world is a bit like the American Old West. There are big opportunities, relatively few regulations and huge resources to be mined. One of these golden data nuggets is your set of medical records. There has recently been a wave of protest from privacy campaigners and GPs themselves about an imminent UK governmentContinue reading “Should you be concerned about a government ‘data grab’ of your medical records?”

A software engineering career path

As an engineer, sometimes it’s difficult to see where or how you can progress next in your career. While working at graze, this was my attempt to write down the things I value in engineering, and try to show what career progression can look like. Originally cross-posted from graze.com.

Projects are a performance – design is your rehearsal

When you do a project, you’re putting on a performance. And for a good performance, you need to rehearse to figure out what to do and how to do it. Rehearsals in that sense are a design process. Here’s how Oscar-winning actor and theatre director Sir Mark Rylance helped me understand more about the artsContinue reading “Projects are a performance – design is your rehearsal”

Agile development – what should an architect actually do?

Software architecture has traditionally been about creating standards and designs to achieve consistency across an application or system. These choices are often assumed to be well-considered decisions made by smart people known as ‘architects’ who can see all the requirements and how everything should work. They are not challenged by an individual developer, whose role is simply to code it all up.

But in today’s agile-enlightened world, we’re aware that it’s impossible to know all the requirements. And we recognise that it’s developers themselves who are best placed to make most design decisions.

So where does this leave architects? What should they actually do?

The ESB in an API-driven world

Being able to quickly exploit new channels and devices, partnerships and third-party development through integrations is a huge competitive advantage. Building and maintaining APIs for your key systems and processes is a good way to achieve this, but it’s not straightforward. How can an ESB help you?