The DevSecOps Skills Gap

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September 7, 2017

Few enterprise IT trends have evolved from buzzword to must-have as solidly as DevOps. Virtually everyone agrees that a software development and delivery process that bridges the traditional gap between dev teams and operations professionals is a good thing for the enterprise, an approach that is almost certain to deliver software faster and more reliably.

And yet, the results of a just-published survey(“DevSecOps Global Skills Survey: Trends in training and education within developer and IT operations communities”) suggests that the rush to adopt DevOps practices might be leading enterprises to an insecure place.

Sponsored by application security firm Veracode and DevOps.com, a site dedicated to DevOps education and community building, the survey of IT professionals uncovered the disturbing fact that “developers today lack the formal education and skills they need to produce secure software at DevOps speed.”

Changing the World with the Power of Cognitive Computing

By

Swapnil Bhartiya

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September 6, 2017

In his keynote at Open Source Summit in Los Angeles, Tanmay Bakshi will talk about how he’s using cognitive and cloud computing to change the world through open source initiatives, including “The Cognitive Story,” which is aimed at augmenting and amplifying human capabilities. Through this project, Bakshi is working to decipher brain wave data through AI and neural networks and provide the ability to communicate to those who cannot communicate naturally.

Bakshi is a software and AI/cognitive developer, author, algorithm-ist, TEDx speaker, IBM Champion for Cloud, and Honorary IBM Cloud Advisor. He also hosts the IBM Facebook Live Series called “Watson Made Simple with Tanmay.”

At age 13, Bakshi is on a mission to reach and help at least 100,000 aspiring beginners learn how to code, by sharing his knowledge through his YouTube channel “Tanmay Teaches” and through his books, keynotes, workshops, and seminars. Here, Bakshi shares more about his work and his upcoming keynote.

Linux.com: Can you tell us about how you are involved with open source? What are some projects that you maintain or have founded?

Tanmay Bakshi: I am a huge supporter of open-source code and technology. I have founded open source projects that I actively maintain. One of these projects is AskTanmay, an open source web-based Natural Language Question Answering (NLQA) System, which was one of my very first Watson projects.

I also have a YouTube channel called Tanmay Teaches, where I love to share my knowledge about topics like computing, programming, algorithms, Watson/AI, machine learning, math, and science. When I find something I think the community needs to know about, I create a tutorial, build the entire application, and explain and open source the project on GitHub. To date, I have 144 videos and counting.

Another project I’m closely involved with, which will touch a lot of people’s lives, is “The Cognitive Story.” It’s a project that I’m a part of, and it uses artificial intelligence in a field where I believe it can make the most impact — healthcare. The point of The Cognitive Story is to augment people’s lives using the power of cognitive computing and AI. This is a completely open source project, and anyone is welcome to take help from this project and also contribute to its common cause.

Furthermore, the reason I’m so passionate about open source is that it’s one of the ways through which I can share my knowledge. Lots of people reach out to me with their problems and questions that they have about coding and technology. When a project is open source, nobody needs to “rediscover fire” or “reinvent the wheel” — they’re not spending time rebuilding a base that’s already been built. They’re working on top of the base to create even better software that can benefit the community.

That is the main reason I love Linux, and at Open Source Summit North America, I look forward to connecting with more supporters of open source.

Linux.com: How are you involved with these various projects?

Bakshi: DeepSPADE is one of my most recent AI projects, and I’m very excited about it — the basic point of DeepSPADE is to detect spam on public community websites and automatically report it to the people who can take care of it. It uses a very deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) + Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) model to achieve this. You can find out more about it on a blog that I wrote.

AskTanmay was my very first Watson project, and it’s an NLQA system that can answer natural language questions. It uses a combination of IBM Watson’s NLU and NLC services with BiDAF (Bi-Directional Attention Flow) to understand online resources to answer your questions. This open source code is available on GitHub.

The first chapter in The Cognitive Story (TCS) is to help those with special needs and disabilities. Our very first goal here is to help a quadriplegic girl who lives north of Toronto, and her name is Boo. She’s unable to communicate or express herself in any way — and only her mom can understand the very broad concepts she tries to convey, which is why we’ve given her mom the title of “Intimate Interpreter.” My role in TCS is to implement deep learning systems to understand Boo’s EEG brain waves and decipher them into what she’s trying to communicate. The project is open source and is available on GitHub.

Linux.com: What’s the common theme among these projects?

Bakshi: Whether it be (a) trying to reduce the time it takes to research something, (b) allowing website users to have a better experience, or (c) allowing those who can’t communicate naturally to communicate via AI, the commonality is that I want to share my knowledge through these open source projects. We are at a point in time where conventional computing alone is not able to help us. As an Open Source Community, we need to build and provide tools in the hands of those working in healthcare, security, agriculture, science, education, etc., so that they can do their work better and the entire community can benefit. All these projects use machine learning to make people’s lives easier and better to live.

Linux.com: What is going to be the core focus of your talk at Open Source Summit?

Bakshi: In my talk, I’ll primarily urge everyone to understand the importance of open sourcing AI technology. Since AI is still an evolving technology, yet already such an integral part of our lives, there’s a need to expand this technology at an even more rapid pace through the power of open source – we’re only holding back our own progress by keeping our code to ourselves.

Linux.com: You are also hosting a Birds of a Feather session at OS Summit. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Bakshi: In my BoF talk, I will take a deep-dive into the working of the DeepSPADE system: why it’s structured as it is and the logic behind the model. I’ll also talk about the evolution of the model, and why I chose the CNN+GRU method.

Linux.com: Who should be attending your talk?

Bakshi: I’d recommend my keynote to machine learning beginners/experts, and those who are curious as to how the power of AI and ML can not only change but also augment their lives and amplify their skills. I’d recommend my BoF talk to all those who have used machine learning before, or are machine learning experts, and who are interested in how and why DeepSPADE works.

Check out the full schedule for Open Source Summit here. Linux.com readers save on registration with discount code LINUXRD5. Register now!

How Open Source Contributes to Microsoft’s Cloud Strategy

By

Pam Baker

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September 6, 2017

This article was sponsored by Microsoft and written by Linux.com.

Julia Liuson, Corporate Vice President of Developer Tools & Services at Microsoft, says Microsoft’s support for open source is evolving in every dimension. In this interview, ahead of her Open Source Summit North America keynote presentation — Open Source & Cloud Application Platform: Our Learnings from a Developer-First Journey — Liuson provides an insider view about how open source and the cloud intersect at Microsoft, where, she says, developers are focusing on building and maintaining the best hybrid cloud they can make.

The Open Source Summit conference combines LinuxCon, ContainerCon, CloudOpen, and the new Open Community Conference under one roof. Attendees and presenters alike are gathering in Los Angeles from Sept. 11-14 to explore and discuss Linux, containers, cloud technologies, microservices, and more.

Here are some interesting insights Liuson had to share on how open source contributes to Microsoft’s cloud strategy.

Linux.com: Tell us a little about the early days of open source at Microsoft.

Liuson: I started at Microsoft as a developer 25 years ago. Roughly five years ago, as a developer I needed permission from the powers-that-be to even to look at open source code. We knew a major change was in progress when an executive vice president sent an email to developers that said there would be no consequences for looking at open source code. The company encouraged us to go explore. It was a mind-boggling cultural shift.

The journey since has revealed very striking changes. Support for open source is evolving in every dimension. The latest example is the expansion of the Microsoft and Red Hat alliance on simplifying containers. The synergies and innovations are amazing — so much so that now open source developers are attracted to working at Microsoft. Just think about that for a moment. What a long way we’ve all come!

Linux.com: Give us some examples of how open source contributes to Microsoft’s cloud strategy.

Liuson: What we’re doing at Microsoft is focusing on building and maintaining the best hybrid cloud we can make. We have open source elements across the entire Azure service. And, Azure can run anything from a developer’s perspective. But we want to always target all possibilities and frameworks, and we want to deliver the tools, editors, and services needed to work with them.

Take our recent announcement about expanding our alliance with Red Hat on containers, for example. Windows Server containers will be natively supported on Red Hat OpenShift, which is an enterprise platform for Docker and Kubernetes. It is also the first container application platform built from the Kubernetes project that supports both Linux and Windows Server container workloads. That is huge because it breaks down silos and simplifies the work in a cloud-native agenda.

Another example, and there are many, is our Visual Studio Code, which is a code editor for building and debugging web and cloud applications. It was launched in April 2015 and now has 2 million monthly active users, and 40 percent of them are non-Windows developers.

It’s a surprise to many people to learn that companies like Google and Facebook use Visual Studio Code and are strong advocates.

There is also strong adoption from the Node.js community. We build on top of Node — some people don’t realize that — and there are lots of uses for all the popular languages.

Linux.com: What is Microsoft doing to help developers move to or do their work in the cloud, with hybrid clouds, or multi-clouds?

Liuson: We’re aiming to make it easier to build and release code in any cloud environment. We support multiple languages such as Node.js, PHP, Python, and Java, so developers can work in languages they prefer.

We’re also working on making Visual Studio Code tighter and easier than it already is. We’re constantly working on the tools for the latest concepts such as continuous integration and continuous deployment so that they not only carry over to cloud, but can be cloud-native, too.

Linux.com: What is the most striking thing Microsoft is doing in terms of using open source to influence its cloud strategy?

Liuson: We get involved early in open source projects and work hard at making meaningful contributions along the way, because those are very important. We do work hard to earn influence in projects so we can help shape things so that projects work out well for our own customers but for others, too. But beyond that, we are designing projects in the open now with .Net. This lets developers see what we are doing and give us immediate feedback so we can improve and adopt developer suggestions on the fly. We are evolving run time in the cloud so that everything works really well. You can expect to see more open source influences in our culture and products, and especially in all things cloud.

Check out the full schedule for Open Source Summit here. Linux.com readers save on registration with discount code LINUXRD5. Register now!

3 Android Apps to Help You Learn Linux

By

Tech Republic

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September 6, 2017

Everyone learns in different ways. For some the best means is by doing, while for others it’s all about reading. No matter your preference, there’s an app for that.

Even for learning the Linux operating system.

That’s right, Linux. If you’re a systems administrator, an understanding of Linux has become unavoidable. To that end, it’s time you start boning up on the platform. If you happen to have an Android device in your pocket, take it out and start learning; because I’m going to introduce you to a collection of apps that will help school you on the open source operating system.

Are you ready?

The Forgotten Secret to DevOps Success: Measurement

By

InformationWeek

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September 6, 2017

The enterprise DevOps market is shaping up to be one of the fastest growing markets in technology. According to Gartner it reached $2.3 Billion in 2015, up 21% over 2014. As companies invest more in digital transformation to stay relevant, the need to build their own software to drive growth is paramount.

However, a recent study from Forrester Research and Blueprint paints a confusing picture: While DevOps is anecdotally adding value, 50% of practitioners struggle to link DevOps with positive ROI. How can that be the case when so many believe DevOps is no longer a nice-to-have but a need-to-have in order to stay in business?

Measuring the end-to-end DevOps value stream is the key to delivering value and tracking its ROI. Since IT teams can focus on only a few initiatives at a time, it’s critical to identify existing constraints and focus on the most important work to accelerate your transformation and deliver true business value with DevOps.

Maneuvering Around Run Levels on Linux

By

Network World

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September 6, 2017

On Linux systems, run levels are operational levels that describe the state of the system with respect to what services are available.

One run level is restrictive and used only for maintenance; network connections will not be operational, but admins can log in through a console connection.

Others allow anyone to log in and work, but maybe with some differences in the available services. This post examines how run levels are configured and how you can change the run level interactively or modify what services are available.

Facebook to Open Source LogDevice for Storing Logs from Distributed Data Centers

By

TechCrunch

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September 6, 2017

Facebook is planning to open source LogDevice, the company’s custom-built solution for storing logs collected from distributed data centers. The company made the announcement as part of its Scale conference.

Logs are used to track database events. If a server suffers an outage for any reason, companies need a way to debug, perform security audits and ensure consistency between servers. This is particularly important to Facebook, which holds immense amounts of your content across its massive data centers around the world.

LogDevice is capable of recording data regardless of hardware or network issues. If something breaks, it will simply hand-off the task of collecting logs. And when everything turns back on, LogDevice can restore records at between five and 10 gigabytes per second.

From Safety to Savings, Blockchain Technology Will Disrupt the Food Scene

By

The Spoon

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September 6, 2017

Behold the blockchain. The disruptive new technology promises to make traditional paper ledger-based transactions obsolete, replaced by digital ledgers. Headlines appear every day heralding how blockchain technology will revolutionize financial services markets, which remain burdened by unwieldy paper trails and costly proprietary software applications. But blockchain technology will also have a transformative impact on the food industry and many other industries. From cost savings to removal of intermediaries to more efficient and precise tracking of contamination, the food business will derive many benefits from blockchain.

None of this is lost on titans in the food industry and technology giants are focused on blockchain, too. IBM has announced a blockchain collaboration with food giants including Walmart, Unilever and Nestle. Big Blue has announced that it will help global food businesses use its blockchain network to trace the source of contaminated food instantly. Because blockchain uses digital means to track transactions and trace the flow of food, contamination trails can be solved by data-centric means rather than paper-based ones. Officials from Walmart have demonstrated how this kind of contamination tracking can take place in under three seconds.

A Checklist for Building Your Enterprise Logging Layer

By

OpenSource.com

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September 6, 2017

In any discussion about big-picture topics such as cloud migration services, data centers, and microservices, the topic of enterprise logging can get relegated to an afterthought. But you do so at your peril, because without logging, you won’t have critical visibility into your services in order to diagnose and debug efficiently. What’s more, if you’re a large enterprise, you may be violating compliance requirements.

As you add applications and infrastructure components to your data centers, the amount of log data you collect will grow enormously. Combine that with the movement toward ephemeral components with Docker, containers, and Kubernetes, and log data becomes essential.

Proprietary tools for logging layers haven’t kept up with cloud-native trends, so many enterprises are turning to open source software to meet their logging requirements.

If Machine Learning Is the Question, Open Source Is the Answer

By

The Register

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September 6, 2017

In the early days of Linux, for example, the director of IBM’s Linux Technology Center told me that for open source to be successful, you had to have a sufficient body of developers with aptitude and interest in a given area. Every developer needs an operating system, for example, so there tends to be a large body of developers with interest and aptitude in contributing to something like Linux. Ditto databases, app servers (remember them?), and so on.

More recently, Apcera chief executive (and Cloud Foundry architect) Derek Collison told me: “Open source is a natural progression for ecosystems where there’s a lot of innovation and breakthroughs. The market eventually becomes democratized and open source alternatives emerge.” …

Early on, Google made its intentions clear when it open sourced TensorFlow. “We hope this will let the machine learning community – everyone from academic researchers, to engineers, to hobbyists – exchange ideas much more quickly, through working code rather than just research papers,” Google said. With TensorFlow and other open source ML/AI code in mind, Google breeds familiarity with ML and then encourages developers to run their projects on Google Cloud.