November 2018 Summaries

Managing timezones in applications involves storing and displaying datetime values efficiently, with a focus on using UTC time until user-specific display is necessary. Databases typically store dates as 64-bit integers, like Unix epoch with milliseconds, due to their querying and indexing efficiency, while APIs should handle datetime consistently in UTC, though they can accept various timezones in requests. For APIs, datetime can be formatted as ISO 8601 strings or Unix Epoch time, with each having its pros and cons; ISO 8601 is human-readable and timezone-inclusive, while Epoch is compact and suited for high-volume data. If displaying time in a user's local timezone is the primary goal, storing the user's timezone isn't always necessary, as client-side technologies can handle conversions, but caching timezone information might be useful for backend processes like alerts. Storing timezone identifiers rather than UTC offsets is advised due to issues like daylight savings changes. Moesif, an API analytics platform, supports various protocols and is used for insights, debugging, and monitoring by platform companies.

Moesif has introduced a free tool designed to centralize the monitoring of third-party APIs, providing a unified dashboard view of the operational status across various services. This tool addresses the growing dependency companies have on third-party APIs, such as those for payment processing and communication, by offering a centralized interface to track their reliability. The dashboard organizes services by status codes—operational, minor, major, critical, and maintenance—allowing users to view unresolved incidents and maintenance schedules easily. Users can customize their monitoring preferences and share their dashboard configurations, while also accessing detailed breakdowns of individual service components. Although the current list of supported services is incomplete, Moesif plans to expand its offerings based on user feedback. For deeper insights and error monitoring, Moesif recommends its main product, Moesif API analytics, which supports various protocols like GraphQL and REST, and is used by numerous platform companies for debugging and monitoring.