Logging is essential for monitoring systems and diagnosing issues. Within logging, structured and unstructured logs are two primary types, each with distinct benefits and drawbacks. Let’s explore these differences, their applications, and the strengths and weaknesses of each type.

Structured Logs:

Structured logs organize data neatly in a predefined manner. Consider this structured log entry:

{
   "timestamp": "2023-12-11T10:15:30Z",
   "user_id": "12345",
   "action": "Login",
   "status": "Success"
}

Pros:

• Performance: Optimized for swift machine processing and storage.
• Parsing and Analysis: Easily extract specific information due to clear structure.
• Filtering and Querying: Allows quick and accurate data filtering.
• Human-Readable: Despite being machine-optimized, remains easily understood by humans.

Cons:

• Rigidity: Might struggle to adapt to various data types or changing structures.
• Storage Overhead: This could require more space due to the fixed structure.

Unstructured Logs:

Unstructured logs lack specific formats and can hold varied data types freely. For example:

203.0.113.10 - - [11/Dec/2023:10:25:30 +0000] "GET /product/ABC123" 200 1345

Pros:

• Flexibility: Can accommodate various data types without strict rules.
• Human-Friendly: Easier for trained professionals to write and understand without constraints.

Cons:

• Parsing Complexity: It’s hard to get the details from this type of data. You need special skills to write difficult queries to understand and separate the information from it.
• Analysis Difficulty: Analyzing might be slower due to a lack of structure.
• Machine Efficiency: Processing might demand more resources.

Conclusion:

Both structured and unstructured logs have strengths and weaknesses. Structured logs excel in machine optimization and quick analysis, while unstructured logs offer flexibility and ease of human understanding. Selecting the appropriate one depends on specific use cases. Often, a mix of both types works best for comprehensive system monitoring and analysis.

Greetings, fellow tech aficionados! If you’re at the helm of software development, steering the ship through the digital wilderness, you understand the critical importance of grasping the nuances of logging, tracing, monitoring, alerting, and application performance management. Consider this your compass in the vast digital landscape. In simple, accessible language, let’s explore these essential aspects that guide an engineer in maintaining a robust and efficient software system.

Logging: Documenting Every Step

Purpose: Logging serves as more than a digital diary; it’s your dedicated record-keeper for requests, events, errors, and pivotal moments during your application’s runtime.

Components: Think of logs as meticulous notes—structured, with timestamps, log levels, and all the crucial context neatly organized.

Log Levels: Familiarize yourself with log levels (INFO, WARN, ERROR); they’re like different-colored flags, each signaling something important.

Log Retention: Avoid letting your log pile grow uncontrollably. Establish log retention policies to manage volume and stay compliant with data protection rules.

Keep in mind that both logs and their retention come with associated costs.

Tracing: Tracking Digital Footprints

Purpose: Tracing acts as your detective tool, allowing you to follow requests through the intricate web of components and services in a distributed system.

Instrumentation: Picture coding with a map! Implement instrumentation in your code to generate traces, aiding your understanding of performance and dependencies.

Distributed Tracing: It’s akin to connecting the dots in the digital realm. Tools for distributed tracing let you visualize and analyze how requests traverse various services.

Monitoring: Vigilance in Real Time

Real-Time Visibility: Consider monitoring your application’s guardian angel. Real-time visibility enables you to spot issues before they escalate.

Metrics: Numbers don’t lie. Define and collect metrics—like response times and resource use—to keep an eye on your system’s overall health.

Alerting Thresholds: Set up alerting thresholds; it’s akin to having a personal assistant notifying you when things deviate from the expected path.

Alerting: Proactive Notification Systems

Proactive Notification: Alerts serve as your early warning system. Be proactive—receive notifications about potential issues before they disrupt the system.

Severity Levels: Think of them as traffic lights for your system. Classify alerts by severity to discern between minor hiccups and major roadblocks.

Escalation Policies: Ensure that alerts garner attention promptly, even outside regular hours. Escalation policies act as safeguards for your system.

Application Performance Management (APM): Precision Tuning

End-to-End Performance Monitoring: APM tools act as performance maestros, providing insights into your application’s entire performance journey.

Transaction Tracing: Imagine tracing the steps of each transaction—it’s like watching a dance. Identify performance hiccups and make your code boogie-worthy.

Code Profiling: Dive deep into your code’s personality. APM tools with code profiling features let you pinpoint areas causing performance hiccups.

Integration with DevOps Practices: Harmonizing the Process

Continuous Monitoring: Make monitoring a habitual practice, not a chore. Integrate continuous monitoring into your DevOps practices to catch issues early in the development dance.

Feedback Loop: Utilize monitoring, alerting, and tracing data to create a feedback loop—it’s like practicing your moves for continuous improvement, keeping your application in top-notch shape.

By mastering these aspects, you aren’t merely ensuring the reliability, performance, and maintainability of your applications. You’re stepping into the realm of proactive wizardry, addressing issues before they even knock on your door. Happy coding!

Are you a lead engineer overseeing the front-end channel? Here’s a simple breakdown of key aspects to ensure your team’s success and project excellence:

1. Keep Up with Tech Trends: Stay in the loop with the latest front-end technologies, frameworks, and libraries. Understand which ones suit your projects best.

2. Know Your Tools: Understand the strengths and weaknesses of different tools. This knowledge helps you make informed decisions for your projects.

3. Architect with Precision: Deep dive into front-end architecture patterns like MVC, MVVM, and Flux. Ensure your applications are scalable, maintainable, and follow best practices.

4. Optimize Performance: Learn how to optimize front-end performance by reducing page load times and efficient resource use. Familiarize yourself with performance profiling and debugging tools.

5. Embrace Responsive Design: Grasp the principles of responsive web design to create interfaces that seamlessly adapt to various devices and screen sizes.

6. Enhance User Experience: Collaborate closely with UX/UI designers to implement designs that offer a positive and intuitive user experience. Understand and apply usability principles.

7. Tackle Compatibility Issues: Be mindful of cross-browser compatibility to ensure your applications work seamlessly on different browsers and devices.

8. Prioritize Accessibility: Familiarize yourself with accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG) to ensure your applications are accessible to users with disabilities.

9. Code Quality Matters: Enforce coding standards and best practices within your team. Use code reviews to maintain high-quality code aligned with standards.

10. Master Build and Deployment: Understand the build and deployment processes for front-end applications. Implement CI/CD practices to streamline development workflows.

11. Foster Collaboration: Promote effective communication within your team and with other stakeholders. Collaborate with back-end developers, designers, and other teams for a cohesive development process.

12. Prioritize Security: Be aware of common security issues in front-end development (e.g., Cross-Site Scripting) and take steps to mitigate these risks.

13. Monitor and Analyze: Implement tools for monitoring and analytics to track user behavior and application performance.

14. Document Thoroughly: Encourage comprehensive documentation of code, APIs, and architectural decisions. This facilitates knowledge sharing and onboarding.

15. Stay Informed: Keep yourself updated on industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in front-end development.

By focusing on these aspects, you’ll be well-equipped to lead your front-end development team and deliver high-quality, user-friendly applications.

In the tech world, we often hear about “front-channel” and “back-channel” requests when systems talk to each other, especially during login or permission checks. Let’s break it down in simpler terms with examples:

Front-Channel Request

What is it? It’s like when your computer talks directly to another computer, usually through your web browser or a front-end app.

Example: Imagine logging into a website like Zomato and being sent to Google or Facebook for login. All the login stuff happens right there in your browser – that’s the front channel.

Back-Channel Request

What is it? This is when computers chat behind the scenes, away from your browser (Server-to-server communication).

They’re like secret agents talking on a hidden radio frequency.

Example: Picture a website needing special info from a secret database. Instead of asking your computer (front channel), it sends a message to its own server. The server then talks to the secret database on the back channel, like a secret mission.

Now, let’s talk about the good and not-so-good sides of these types of requests:

Pros and Cons of Front-Channel Requests

Pros:

1. Easy for You:
   • Front-channel requests make things easy for you. For example, when you log in with Google on a website, it feels smooth because it’s happening right in front of you.
2. Quick Token Handling:
   • Important codes (tokens) can be sorted out quickly in your browser, making things faster for you and the computer.
3. Faster, Thanks to Caching:
   • Your browser can remember some things, like the website’s answer to your login, making future visits quicker.

Cons:

1. Security Worries:
   • Sometimes, dealing with important info in your browser can be risky. Bad guys might try to sneak in (cross-site scripting).
2. Not Much Control for the Website:
   • The website can’t control everything because it relies on the place you’re logging in from (like Google).

Pros and Cons of Back-Channel Requests

Pros:

1. Super Safe:
   • Back-channel requests are like having a secret conversation in the computer’s brain, making it safer from sneaky attacks.
2. More Control:
   • The server has more say in what happens during things like logins. It can add extra security tricks.
3. Not Picky About Your Browser:
   • The website doesn’t have to worry if you’re using an old or new browser because the server is doing all the work.

Cons:

1. Gets a Bit Complicated:
   • Sometimes, setting up back-channel talks between different computer parts can be a bit tricky, especially if there are many of them.
2. Slower Due to Extra Chatter:
   • Since the different servers need to chat with each other a lot, it can slow things down a bit compared to the smooth talk happening in your browser.
3. Might Not Feel Smooth:
   • In some cases, because of all the secret talks in the background, things might not feel as smooth for you.

Choosing between front-channel and back-channel requests depends on what the computer needs to do and how safe it needs to be. Often, tech wizards use a bit of both to make sure everything works well and stays secure.

Introduction:

Embarking on a digital detective mission within the vast landscape of Azure requests data has proven to be an enlightening journey. Armed with queries and a detective’s intuition, we delve into the intricate details of the request table for my Azure project. Join me as we uncover the mysteries behind response codes and gain insights that will enhance our project’s performance.

1. Spotting Overall Response Codes:

requests
| summarize count() by resultCode

Our journey begins with a broad view of response codes. This simple yet powerful query reveals the distribution of response codes, providing a quick snapshot of the overall health of our system.

2. Examining 4XX: Understanding HTTP Error Analysis:

requests
| where resultCode startswith "4"
| summarize count() by resultCode

Next, we focus our magnifying glass on the 4XX errors—the client-side errors. This query allows us to understand the landscape of client-related issues, helping us fine-tune our application and enhance the user experience.

3. Identifying URLs with Excessive 401 Responses:

requests
| where resultCode startswith "401"
| summarize count() by resultCode

The notorious 401 responses can be a headache. By singling out URLs associated with excessive 401 responses, we can pinpoint potential authentication or authorization challenges and ensure a seamless user journey.

4. Identifying URLs with Excessive 5XX Responses:

requests
| where resultCode startswith "5"
| summarize count() by resultCode

Server errors (5XX) can disrupt the user experience. This query identifies URLs generating excessive 5XX responses, empowering us to address server-related issues promptly and ensure a robust and reliable system.

Conclusion:

In the ever-evolving landscape of Azure, our detective work with these queries unveils valuable insights. Armed with this newfound knowledge, we can optimize our Azure project, ensuring a smoother user experience and a more resilient system. The journey into Azure request data may be akin to detective work, but with these queries, we’re equipped to solve the mysteries and elevate our project to new heights. Happy analyzing! 🕵️‍♂️🚀 #AzureAnalytics #DataInvestigation #TechDetective

Here are some common issues that can occur in the development of APIs:

• Inadequate Authentication and Authorization:
  • No proper way to verify users.
  • Weak security measures for authentication like using simple API keys or Basic Authentication without any additional security measures.
  • Not controlling access based on user roles.
  • Exposing sensitive information without restrictions.
    
• Lack of Input Validation:
  • Not checking the type of data received.
  • Allowing attacks like SQL injection or script injection.
  • Not handling unexpected input values like out-of-bounds.
    
• Exposing Sensitive Data:
  • Returning too much information, including passwords, personal data, API Keys, etc.
  • Not encrypting or protecting sensitive information properly.
    
• Poor Error Handling:
  • Revealing internal system details in error messages.
  • Not handling exceptions that can cause application crashes.
    
• Rate Limiting and Throttling:
  • Not controlling the rate at which requests are allowed.
  • Allowing excessive requests that can overload the system.
    
• Not keeping things safe:
  • Not using secure communication protocols or encryption.
  • Failing to protect data at rest or in transit.
    
• Not writing down the rules:
  • Insufficient or outdated documentation for developers.
  • Missing information about API endpoints, parameters, and responses.
    
• Versioning:
  • Making changes that break compatibility with existing clients.
    
• Logging and Monitoring:
  • Not keeping records of requests, errors, or suspicious activity.
  • Failing to set up alerts for monitoring the system.
    
• CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing):
  • Allowing unauthorized access from any origin, potentially leading to attacks.
  • Not specifying which HTTP methods are allowed.|
    
• State and Session Management:
  • Not implementing statelessness properly.
  • Relying solely on client-side sessions without server-side validation.
    
• Secret Management:
  • Storing secret keys or credentials in the source code.
    
• Not Keeping Dependencies Updated:
  • Using outdated libraries or frameworks that have known vulnerabilities.

If you’re a software professional working in the UK mortgage domain, it’s really important to know key concepts to make informed decisions.

Here’s an overview:

• Mortgage Principle: A mortgage in principle is also known as a Decision in Principle (DIP), Agreement in Principle (AIP), or mortgage promise. This is a written estimate from a lender saying that they’ll lend a certain amount to you before you’ve finalized the purchase of your home. It’s not a guarantee but can show sellers you’re serious about buying.
• Interest: The cost of borrowing money. Interest can be ‘fixed’ (the rate remains the same for a set period) or ‘variable’ (can change).
• Deposit: The upfront amount you pay towards the property’s purchase price. It’s typically expressed as a percentage of the property’s value.
  The size of your mortgage deposit will depend on the value of the home you want to buy. For those buying a property to live in, it’s usually at least 5% or 10% of the overall property value. For example, on a property valued at £200,000, a lender may ask for a 10% deposit – which is £20,000.
• Loan-to-Value (LTV): A ratio that compares the size of your loan to the value of the property. If you borrow £80,000 on a £100,000 property, your LTV is 80%. Generally, a lower LTV gives access to better interest rates.
• Mortgage Term: The length of time you have to repay the mortgage. A typical mortgage is repaid over 25, 30, or 35 years.
• Repayment Mortgage: A mortgage where you pay back both the interest and the principal loan amount. By the end of the term, you’ll have paid off the entire loan.
• Interest-Only Mortgage: You only pay the interest on the loan amount each month. At the end of the term, you’ll need to repay the original loan amount in full.
• Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT): A tax paid on the purchase of properties in England and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Wales have their own equivalent taxes.
• Mortgage Broker: A professional who offers, negotiates, and/or arranges mortgages on behalf of individuals or businesses.
• Standard Variable Rate (SVR): The default mortgage interest rate your lender will charge after your initial mortgage deal period ends. This can go up or down in response to changes in the Bank of England base rate or internal decisions by the lender.
• Early Repayment Charge (ERC): A fee you might have to pay if you repay your mortgage (or overpay more than the agreed amount) during a fixed or discounted period.
• Equity: The difference between the value of your home and the mortgage you owe. If your home is worth £250,000 and you owe £200,000, you have £50,000 equity.
• Negative Equity: When the value of your home is less than the amount you owe on your mortgage.
• Remortgaging: Switching your current mortgage to a new deal, either with the same or a different lender.
• Buy-to-Let Mortgage: A mortgage specifically for people buying property as an investment, intending to rent it out.
• Affordability Assessment: Before giving you a mortgage, lenders will assess if you can afford the monthly repayments. They’ll look at your income, outgoings, and other financial commitments.
• Conveyancing: The legal process of transferring ownership of a property from the seller to the buyer.
• Mortgage Protection: Insurance policies like life insurance, critical illness cover, or income protection, ensure that your mortgage is paid if you die, fall seriously ill, or lose your job.
• Help to Buy: A government scheme designed to help people buy a home with a smaller deposit.
• Initial interest rate
  This is the initial percentage rate at which we calculate the interest on the mortgage.
• Initial interest rate period
  This is the period during which the fixed or tracker rate applies. For fixed and tracker rate mortgages, when the specified period expires, the rate will revert to the HSBC Standard Variable Rate/Buy-to-let Variable Rate.

Understanding these concepts provides a solid foundation for navigating the UK mortgage domain. If you’re considering obtaining a mortgage, it’s always advisable to seek professional advice or counseling to ensure you understand all the implications and potential costs involved.

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1.  API and REST API Fundamentals – https://lnkd.in/e8eMet_k
2.  API Methods – https://lnkd.in/ey9v7-hU
3. API Terminologies – https://lnkd.in/eRsPMzpd
4. API Authentication – https://lnkd.in/eNPfpAdE
5. API Status Codes – https://lnkd.in/egXizUrS
6. REST API vs GraphQL – https://lnkd.in/eZHREdgC
7. API Integration – https://lnkd.in/eDASPP5m
8. API Testing – https://lnkd.in/emgmWJqH
9. API with Python – https://lnkd.in/eM23ah2y
10. API Scaling – https://lnkd.in/e3mZSvmn
11. Designing and Developing Robust APIs – https://lnkd.in/eBXzbFyg
12. Designing APIs with Postman- https://lnkd.in/ezue3d4B
13. Testing APIs with Postman – https://lnkd.in/eCPnGTGi