Big Ideas in App Architecture

In this episode of Big Ideas in App Architecture (with new host David Joy!) our guest, Peter Fraedrich, the Director of SRE at Ally, discusses the agony and the ecstasy of being a Site Reliability Engineer.

Peter shares strong opinions about migrating everything to the cloud, what responsible transitions to serverless architectures look like, the way SREs balance operational cost of new tools with actual cost, and the importance of learning Rust and getting comfortable with containers. There are some good horror stories in here about daytime migrations, databases that fell over, and late afternoon P1s. Join as we discuss:

• How to get less pages on the weekend
• Characteristics that make a great SRE
• Why boring technologies are awesome

This episode is not affiliated with Ally Bank. The thoughts and opinions expressed in the episode are of our guest.

In the latest episode of "Big Ideas in App Architecture," we dive into the world of utility facilities and their app architecture with guest Grant Muller, Vice President of Applications and Technology Architecture at Xylem. Grant shares valuable insights on bridging end-to-end solutions while focusing on energy efficiency and data collection in utility facilities.

Grant explains IoT standards in utility facilities and the importance of SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems for device automation and control. He emphasizes the need to address cyber security concerns and highlights the significance of dividing the workload through a robust architecture.

The conversation then delves into data management, with a focus on understanding data lakehouse patterns and motivating the centralization of data locations. Grant also gets into his thoughts on Data Mesh and its usage in managing and scaling data effectively.

Join as we discuss:

• IoT data on the edge
• Cyber security risk management
• Data lakehouse patterns and the expansion of data meshes

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This week, Mattias Sio Fjellvang, CTO and Co-Founder of Doubble, joins to discuss the technical challenges he’s faced while building a "double dating" application. Mattias discusses tech stack decisions, developing with a completely distributed team, and the incredible month-to-month growth of the application.

Mattias talks about what it was like for ‘a React guy’ to develop using Dart and Flutter. Taking a prototype built on MongoDB and flipping it to CockroachDB to solve the scalability, reliability, and data compliance issues challenges. Join as we discuss:

• The application design of a double-dating application
• CockroachDB vs Mongo
• The use of Github’s co-pilot development
• How Doubble handles downtime

Be sure to rate the podcast 5-stars on your favorite podcast platform like Apple and Spotify. You can also watch every episode on YouTube!

Join us for an exciting episode of the Big Ideas in App Architecture Podcast with Mike Murphy, Corporate Vice President, at New York Life. Mike is a venerable mind who began coding at 13 years old and has decades of experience building software in the insurance industry.

Mike shares his insights on the complex technical challenges faced by the insurance industry.In this conversation, Mike explains his architectural best practices including how to utilize modern tooling and cloud services to scale seamlessly. We discuss the benefits Mike has seen from using managed services enable teams to leverage cutting-edge technology without the need for substantial upfront investments.

Furthermore, Mike sheds light on the industry-wide challenge of outsourcing capability to smaller companies, which are often 1/1000th the value. He provides an optimistic view of a future state where trust can be established through automation, protecting customers and ensuring their satisfaction.

Join as we discuss:

• Effectively writing software for insurance policies
• The problem with sequential IDs
• Soft-coded vs hard-coded practices
• The challenges of horizontal scale for insurance application architecture

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In this episode, Adam Koch, Systems Engineering Fellow at Paycor, discusses transitioning from legacy systems to the cloud and its impact on application architecture.

Adam draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience in the field to help frame the evolution of data architecture and infrastructure. He shares his perspective on the limitless possibilities that cloud scale brings, while also giving an honest accounting of the challenges that come with it.

Additional topics include:

• Maintaining boundaries on acquired domains
• Ensuring effective master data authentication
• Strategies to address and prevent downtime
• Building effective teams for effective architecture

Be sure to rate and review the podcast on your favorite podcast platform like Apple and Spotify. You can also watch every episode on our YouTube channel.

Join us for an exciting episode of the Big Ideas in App Architecture Podcast with Mike Murphy, Corporate Vice President, at New York Life. Mike is a venerable mind who began coding at 13 years old and has decades of experience building software in the insurance industry. Mike shares his insights on the complex technical challenges faced by the insurance industry.

In this conversation, Mike explains his architectural best practices including how to utilize modern tooling and cloud services to scale seamlessly. We discuss the benefits Mike has seen from using managed services to enable teams to leverage cutting-edge technology without the need for substantial upfront investments.

Furthermore, Mike sheds light on the industry-wide challenge of outsourcing capability to smaller companies, which are often 1/1000th the value. He provides an optimistic view of a future state where trust can be established through automation, protecting customers and ensuring their satisfaction.

Join as we discuss:

• Effectively writing software for insurance policies
• The problem with sequential IDs
• Soft-coded vs hard-coded practices
• The challenges of horizontal scale for insurance application architecture

“Aside from math and physics, there are no laws in software engineering.”

In this episode, Joe Lynch, a technical leader with decades of experience (Google, Twilio…), discusses the fundamental principles of building software efficiently; and the human obstacles that get in our way. Joe explains the difference between "laws" and tendencies in software engineering and how understanding Conway's law can lead to better organizational structure, better peer review practices, and better software design.

We also address pressure on engineers to get things right and the danger of striving for perfection, which can be the enemy of good. He stresses the importance of setting up a "problem space" to identify problems before you start “solutioning”.

Join as we discuss:

• A satirical Grand Unified Theory of software engineering
• How to properly understand a problem before solving it
• The impact of humanity in software engineering
• Be weary of Kubernetes. It is not a silver bullet.

In today's episode, we're joined by Yolanda Davis, Principal Software Engineer at Cloudera, to talk about Apache NiFi and its role in streamlining data transfers.

Yolanda explains the architecture of Cloudera’s Apache NiFi and the UI developers use of the tool to design and manage dataflows. She also shares how Kubernetes has changed the game in terms of efficiency and scalability (while acknowledging the occasionally immense challenge of growing K8s).

We delve into the challenges of observability and monitoring in the cloud. And how Cloudera is using the insights gathered from monitoring. Yolanda also shares some unique observations about the way she sees the public cloud being leveraged for scaling efficiently for performance and cost savings.

Join as we discuss:

• Cloudera’s Apache NiFi and how it streamlines data transfers, operates within the cloud, and deploys dataflow
• Exploring the combination of observability and AI
• Scaling efficiently for performance and cost efficiency

“I guarantee you no CIO will ever write a check to Cockroach Labs. You have to change the name.”

Peter Mattis, Co-founder and CTO at Cockroach Labs, was given that unsolicited advice from an audience member at a conference in 2018. Five years later Cockroach Labs has cashed plenty of checks signed by CIOs from some of the biggest companies on the planet. In this conversation, Peter goes way under the hood to talk about how CockroachDB is architected, how that architecture has evolved, and how the architecture will continue to evolve to make developers’ lives easier.

Join us as we discuss:

• The origins of GIMP and early days at Google
• How Peter built Pebble & how it compares to RocksDB
• Lessons learned building Postgres compatibility
• What the future of “serverless” databases will look like

This week, we’re with one of those masters of database building, Andy Pavlo, an Associate Professor with indefinite tenure of databaseology in the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University and the Co-Founder of OtterTune.

Andy discusses how his introduction to “databaseology” changed the way databases are not only built but also studied for more efficiency at companies. From optimizing databases for efficient testing and usage to building effective databases using the right knobs and building blocks, Andy shares his insights and expertise on how to improve the performance and reliability of your applications.

Join as we discuss:

• The emerging field of databaseology and its importance for efficient testing and usage.
• The design and implementation of effective databases using the right knobs and building blocks.
• Latest trends and techniques in database management and design that can improve application performance.

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