WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: amazing reference to understand the most common hacks in digital: SQL injection, cross-site scripting and many more. A reference to bookmark.

WHY IT MATTERS: as with all gartner quadrants, skip to the end for the content and market analysis sections for the useful insights in the field of APM. As we move to digital, monitoring and debugging when issues arise becomes more important than ever.

WHY IT MATTERS: an outstanding presentation on what it takes to create a microservice architecture at scale - here for Netflix. More interesting than the technical details - which are plentiful - are the explanations of the work required to change an architecture "in flight", while the solution is running and expanding globally. Plus with a n outstanding speaker. Must listen.

Slides are here: https://www.slideshare.net/InfoQ/mastering-chaos-a-netflix-guide-to-microservices-70048469 

WHY IT MATTERS:  the web almanac chapter on performance provides an overview of the performance of websites as they related to core web vitals from Google Lighthouse project. A reference.

WHY IT MATTERS: web content is often created for display of information to human. Structured data provides the metadata required by machines to decipher and "understand" what is inside a web page. This chapter of the 2021 almanac highlights the most popular tags found on 30M websites.

WHY IT MATTERS: interesting review of cognitive search solution - read AI-driven. What sparked my interest most is the note from Forrester that companies should "choose more than one vendor solution" as it probably means that the field remains immature. I'll know soon as I need to pick a solution from the list - or maybe multiple? ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: integrating different systems, especially in the context of cloud-based SaaS solutions, has become the biggest requirement of large system developments in recent digital transformation. For example, it is now common to connect eCommerce systems with CRM, ERP, web and marketing automation solutions. Some come already pre-integrated via extensive marketplaces like that of Shopify. Other solutions and platforms merely expose their API and let others do the connexion. This is where API management becomes essential. Other use case exist.

As with most Gartner MQ, skip the reviews and jump to the market overview and criterias to find out what should be considered in your API tool selection.

WHY IT MATTERS: this short example shows how far we've come with serverless and event-drive architectures in the cloud, enabling complex processing as a pipeline of small operations. For old dudes like me this is a throwback to the command line pipelines we used to make in Un*x way back when. It makes for very resilient solutions, once you debug the flow. Should be used more often.

WHY IT MATTERS: interesting to read the report associated with this infoQ talk to understand the level of complexity that large software solution have and the methods and tools devised to reduce technology debt that creeps over time.

WHY IT MATTERS: because it rains and this is fun.

WHY IT MATTERS: a good and simple intro to the concept.

WHY IT MATTERS: headless solutions are all the rage in web development, including eCommerce. This ebook pulls it all together with good insights and analysis followed by overview of 14 tools. Useful.

WHY IT MATTERS: testing is always an issue and this ebook highlights advances in tools that help automate the process. Beware of inherent bias in this ebook!

WHY IT MATTERS: customer data platforms are starting to become more integrated into the web platforms. This book is a good summary of what's possible with a CDP. Just beware that there is an obvious bias towards the bloomreach solution - so do not discard the standalone version as they suggest!

WHY IT MATTERS: search engine optimization (SERP, SEO, SEM) is essential and this report highlights some of the best practice. Basically focus on mobile, local, images, videos.

WHY IT MATTERS: survey result from GitLab about devOps practices. Take numbers and % with HUGE grain of salt as I don't feel they represent the "real world" as they are skewed toward smaller organizations and (relatively) early adopters. Nevertheless, the tools and the practices and the trends should be looked at seriously in any organization. I know it will shape how I do things for le panier bleu... ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: the latest trend in website design, SSGs, now count 322 different solutions in this list. Wow, not an easy decision...

WHY IT MATTERS: security has become central in our age of digital transformation. Yet, it seems, most people are either unaware of basic security principles, or not willing to invest time or money to do it. And I am not even talking of doing it *well*. Just implementing proper security measure. In this case it affect Parler, which in itself I don't much care about (they deserve it for such a stupid mistake). But their lack of security impacts their users privacy as well. And that includes potentially millions of people (in the photo, 68000 video have been geolocated - too bad for keeping your anonymity ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: setting performance budget for websites is a great practice to ensure that the final result behaves as expected.

WHY IT MATTERS: been playing with static site solutions recently as it seems a natural evolution for websites, blog, etc. This article is a good case study of a web design firm that are now on their 2nd version of their static website. Lots of tech references and links for those like me still learning about the stuff.

WHY IT MATTERS: architecture documentation of digital solutions often fails because it is not there (read the code most developers say) or is incomplete and difficult to read. The C4 model, far from being perfect, at least provides a consistent approach that is actually linked to the software code: everyone should be happy. I recommend for all developers!

There is even simple tools to use: https://structurizr.com/

WHY IT MATTERS: most organizations have multiple websites to manage (for different countries, regions, departments, products, focus areas, etc.) making multi-site WCMS solutions essential. Yet most multi-sites are not architected the right way ending up with different look and feel, technologies, databases, analytics, etc. This report provides some insights into key decisions to make.

WHY IT MATTERS: essential tools for any self-respecting geek. Easy to check this out, look in the extension toolbar of their chrome browser and you'll probably see BuiltWith... ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: we expected cloud computing data centers, like those of Google, protect our data and keep it private. This article dives into the potential issues that can occur when server hardware are compromised at the hardware level - within the silicon that powers the servers and often contains millions lines of code that can be hacked. The post presents a new open-source chip called Titan that should help protect against those threats. Important, essential, should be everywhere.

WHY IT MATTERS: Acquia has been playing catchup to Adobe and sitecore in the WCMS platform game and it looks like they have listened to most urgent complaints: CDN, automation, personalization. eCommerce remains weak.