June 2018 Summaries

We analyzed a quarterly report on developer trends in the cloud, which surveyed nearly 5,000 respondents globally about their use of technologies like containers and serverless computing. The results show that nearly half of respondents use containers today, with most who don't yet using them planning to adopt them in the future. Developers cite easy scalability as the biggest benefit of container use, but face challenges in setting up persistent data storage and network configuration. Only a third of developers globally have deployed applications in a serverless environment, but 43% of Indian-based developers have done so. When it comes to hiring managers' perspectives, competing job opportunities are cited as the main reason for technical employees leaving, while workplace culture is seen as a key factor in companies with strong IT talent retention. The report also highlights the perceived advantages and disadvantages of coding bootcamps compared to traditional college degrees. DigitalOcean Currents is published quarterly to provide insights into developer trends in the cloud.

DigitalOcean has made several improvements to its control panel and documentation to make it easier for developers to manage their infrastructure without spending too much time on it. The company has introduced features such as the ability to log in using a Google account, a new Product Documentation center with detailed guides and resources, and improved search functionality in the Droplet Search feature. Additionally, DigitalOcean has made it easier to access backup information for Droplets and enabled automatic formatting and mounting of Block Storage Volumes when creating a new Droplet or attaching one to an existing one. The company has also simplified the process of booting a Droplet from a Recovery ISO, allowing developers to recover from kernel mismatches and perform repairs on corrupted file systems independently.

TC Currie's article discusses the Enigma machine, a complex encryption device used by the Nazis during World War II. The machine was considered unbreakable due to its vast number of possible combinations, but developers applied modern artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to crack the code. Using 2,000 DigitalOcean servers and AI processes, engineers at Enigma Pattern broke the code in just 13 minutes, a feat that would have taken Alan Turing years to accomplish. The project aimed to understand how modern technology like AI could change things, and if they could break the code in a fraction of the time. By applying machine learning algorithms and using sheer computing power, the team was able to recognize patterns and separate the wheat from the chaff, ultimately breaking the Enigma code. The article also explores how companies can harness the power of big data with AI, as seen in the example of a coffee chain optimizing store locations based on customer data.

Mark Templeton will be joining DigitalOcean as its new CEO, bringing over 20 years of experience in scaling a company from $15 million to over $3 billion. He was previously the president and CEO of Citrix Systems, where he led the company's growth into a global industry leader with multiple "best places to work" awards. Templeton is drawn to DigitalOcean's focus on simplicity at scale and its unique position in the market. He believes the company has an incredible opportunity to serve tens of millions of developers and is excited about the prospect of scaling the business while upholding the commitment to customers and the developer community.

The article describes DigitalOcean's experience with Docker registries, highlighting the need for improved performance and availability. The company initially used a single server running the official Docker registry, but as their use of containers grew, they encountered performance issues such as slow or failing image pushes. To address these issues, they redesigned their Docker registry architecture to take advantage of Kubernetes primitives like scaling deployments and simple rolling deploys. They achieved this by disabling redirects in the registry, creating a caching proxy with Squid, and directing clients to request Docker images from the local region's registry instance using a DNS zone. This new setup has provided much quicker pulls and pushes across all data centers, enabling larger deploys and higher pull performance. Future improvements are planned, including metrics instrumentation and monitoring, as well as creating a shared regional cache for their registry deployments.

The DigitalOcean platform has introduced an "automatically format and mount" feature for Block Storage Volumes. This new feature aims to reduce friction in the user experience by allowing users to simply click to add storage to their Droplets, eliminating manual processes that can lead to errors. The feature is supported on various Linux operating systems, including Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and Fedora Atomic. Users can select between two popular Linux filesystems, Ext4 or XFS, for formatting their volumes, with options to customize mount points and commands for specific distributions. This new feature aims to improve the performance of Block Storage Volumes by providing a streamlined process for attaching external storage to Droplets.