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  • Big Data Processing with Apache Spark - Part 2: Spark SQL

    Spark SQL, part of Apache Spark big data framework, is used for structured data processing and allows running SQL like queries on Spark data. In this article, Srini Penchikala discusses Spark SQL module and how it simplifies running data analytics using SQL interface. He also talks about the new features in Spark SQL, like DataFrames and JDBC data sources.

  • Impediment Busting: Designing an Impediment Removal Process for Your Organization

    Lean Product Development takes an end-to-end focus on the flow of work through a system. Rather than focus on traditional measures such as capacity utilization, it proves more effective to focus on how work is moving through the system. This article discusses what impedes the flow of work, and how we manage impediments to the flow of work.

  • Coding Culture: How To Build Better Products by Building Stronger Teams

    Software developers spend a tremendous amount of time and energy focused on how to build the best possible products. We obsess over what web framework to use or whether to go with a NoSQL or SQL database. While these questions are important, they often neglect to address an equally important aspect of software development: culture.

  • Metadata-Driven Design: Designing a Flexible Engine for API Data Retrieval

    Bulk data is commonly accessed via files & FTP. As the world moves toward APIs to facilitate collaboration, what are the requirements for data APIs? This article describes a meta-data driven architecture for bulk data ingestion. Two APIs operate in parallel to provide data changes as well as the data records themselves. An example demonstrates how API responses are parameterized using meta-data.

  • Inviting over Imposing Agile

    We are at a crossroads in the agile-adoption narrative. Early in the story teams were the “bottom-up” vector for agile spread. Next the way agile spread started to shift away from teams to executives and “management”. Recent developments move us towards consultancy for bring agile to larger enterprises that struggle with change. Which way is agile going to go next?

  • Software Development Tooling: Information, Opinion, Guidelines, and Tools

    In this article, authors summarize the information published in "Tools of the Trade" column series in IEEE Software magazine for last ten years. Tools and best practices are organized into categories like design, developing code, tooling, builds, and operations.

  • Lean Documentation

    Knowledge about system and domain, which is important for both effectiveness and good quality, is best acquired through a dialog, face2face. Unfortunately, there are situations when a dialog is not possible and our only rescue is lean documentation. This article gives you 6 practices how to maximize information while minimizing the number of words. This makes it easy to use and to maintain.

  • You’ve Completed Unit Testing; Your Testing has Just Begun

    Stopping testing your code when your unit tests all pass is like starting mass production of automobiles after testing the nuts and bolts. Integration testing guarantees that the collaboration of classes works. This article investigates some important techniques in integration testing.

  • WebRTC - Democratization of Telecom Enabling New App Experiences

    With the emergence of the WebRTC API standard, telecom’s control of communications is changing. This standard enables developers without any experience in telecommunications technology and protocols to easily integrate real-time comms into their applications. This ease of access will spawn new innovative use cases that will change the way that we communicate, exchange information and interact.

  • Enterprise Agility Through Culture

    Culture plays an important role in organizational change. Successful agile adoption tends to depend on the ability to change the culture. Making the culture explicit and becoming more conscious of the existing culture is important in agile transformations according to Olaf Lewitz and Michael Sahota. Giving attention to culture can increase the agility of an organization.

  • Cynefin 101 – Shared Context and Sense Making

    The Cynefin model can be used in different ways; for categorisation which is useful from a situational perspective; for contextualisation which is useful in taking a rain check point and deciding what you want to do and also from a dynamics perspective. This article examines the situation where there is a need to make sense of situation as we have found that there are a large number of issues.

  • Fifteen Years of Service-Oriented Architecture at Credit Suisse

    In this article, authors reflect on Credit Suisse's adoption of SOA principles and patterns and the organization's transition from using tightly integrated mainframe programs to open SOA services with emphasis on the importance of interface contracts and service governance.

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