May 2018 Summaries

I'm Plushcap, here's a summary of the text in one paragraph: Preparing for and taking an Amazon Web Services (AWS) certification exam requires careful planning, practice, and patience. The author, who recently passed their AWS Certified Solutions Architect—associate exam, recommends booking the exam with a deadline to stay motivated, finding a study buddy to share knowledge and motivation, learning both theory and labs, and not relying solely on sample questions for practice. They also advise taking breaks during the actual exam, skipping around if needed, carefully reading each question and option, and using various study resources such as official guides, online courses, and practice exams. By following these tips, candidates can improve their chances of success in the exam and become certified cloud architects.

Sean Winters, a Solutions Architect at New Relic, shares his experience and tips for preparing for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect—Associate exam, emphasizing the importance of setting a hard deadline for the exam, finding a study buddy for motivation, and balancing theoretical learning with practical labs. He advises against relying solely on rote memorization of sample questions, as the actual exams seldom repeat these questions verbatim, and instead suggests using them to identify knowledge gaps. During the exam, Winters recommends skipping around to answer known questions first and revisiting challenging ones later, highlighting the significance of reading questions and options carefully due to their often similar nature. He also discusses various resources he found helpful, including the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Official Study Guide, Linux Academy, Whizlabs, and A Cloud Guru. Ultimately, Winters encourages those taking the exam to focus on becoming competent cloud architects rather than just obtaining the certification.

This article discusses the development and implementation of a team health assessment program at New Relic, a software company. The goal was to understand how well the teams were performing and identify areas for improvement. The program used a standardized set of 22 health standards across six categories, including management, software, culture, focus on value, effective delivery, and self-determination. These standards were based on feedback from leadership roles and the Agile Fluency Model. A Google spreadsheet was used to collect data from team members, who assessed indicators related to each standard using a scale of 1-5. The results were analyzed through discussions with teams and facilitated by facilitators, who recorded notes that were kept anonymous. After gathering responses, teams created health plans to address their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. The program aimed to be flexible and revise standards based on what was learned, with the goal of continuous organizational improvement through data.

In an effort to enhance team health and performance, New Relic has implemented a comprehensive team health assessment, drawing from the Agile Fluency Model. This initiative, led by Honey Darling and inspired by Agile specialist Jim Shore, emerged from the need for concrete data to understand team dynamics after their Agile transformation during Project Upscale. The assessment process involves a detailed evaluation across six categories, distilled from feedback from organizational leaders, and employs a Google spreadsheet for individual team scoring. Confidentiality is prioritized, with managers filling out assessments independently and discussions held with team members to explore results. A two-day backchannel period allows for confidential feedback. Teams also create health plans, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and improvement actions, as demonstrated by the New Relic Browser team. Initial results highlight common challenges such as prioritization and stakeholder feedback, guiding further organizational improvements. The plan is to conduct these assessments biannually to track progress and continuously refine the approach for sustained organizational enhancement.

I worked with my fellow engineer Allan Feldman to develop a plan to make our manager-interview process more productive for hiring a new manager for our Python team in New Relic's product organization. We created a shared document listing the four key topics we wanted to assess in a candidate: support for innovation, shared control, respect, and technical ability. We developed questions designed to help us evaluate candidates in each area, including some "weird and/or challenging" ones to prime them to describe how they would respond in similar situations. After the interviews, we divided the categories between ourselves and took separate notes before discussing our impressions of the candidates and providing a final rating. The process yielded great feedback from Tim Krajcar, the hiring manager, who appreciated the depth of process and quality of notes provided on the candidates.

In an effort to improve the hiring process for a new manager in New Relic’s Python team, software engineer Rey Abolofia and his colleague Allan Feldman devised a structured interview approach focusing on four key areas: support for innovation, shared control, respect, and technical ability. They crafted specific questions to assess candidates' capabilities in these areas, drawing on past team experiences to create challenging scenarios. By adopting a clear evaluation system that avoided ambiguity and encouraged in-depth candidate assessments, they aimed to make informed hiring decisions without relying on subjective feelings. The process was well-received by the hiring manager, Tim Krajcar, who praised the depth and quality of their notes and evaluations, highlighting the seriousness and thoughtfulness they brought to the selection process.

In 2008, the technology industry was marked by significant advancements and trends that have had a lasting impact. The introduction of the App Store with the iPhone 3 sparked a mobile revolution, while Android became the most popular mobile operating system. Google's Chrome browser also gained popularity, eventually surpassing Internet Explorer as the top browser. Twitter emerged as a cultural phenomenon, enabling politicians to communicate directly with the world. Other notable debuts included the Apple iPod with Flash memory, Microsoft Windows 7, Hulu, and the Amazon Kindle. However, not all innovations from that year have survived or remained relevant, such as Netbooks, edible computer chips, and flexible display screens. Over the past decade, leaders in the industry have changed, including Steve Jobs at Apple and Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. New Relic, founded by Lew Cirne in 2008, has evolved into a comprehensive cloud-based platform used by over 2,100 enterprise customers, processing millions of events and metrics every minute.

In 2008, the tech industry saw significant developments that have shaped the current digital landscape, including the launch of Apple's App Store, which revolutionized mobile app usage, and the debut of the first Android phone, setting the stage for Android's dominance as the leading mobile OS. Google's Chrome browser entered the scene, eventually surpassing competitors like Internet Explorer and Firefox to become the leading web browser. Twitter gained prominence at the SXSW festival, and solid-state drives began replacing traditional hard drives, while Windows 7 was announced as a successful successor to Windows Vista. Hulu and Amazon's Kindle also began altering media consumption and reading habits, respectively. Not all innovations from 2008 sustained their relevance, such as netbooks, while others, like flexible displays, have yet to fully materialize. Leadership in technology companies has evolved, with figures like Jeff Bezos rising to prominence. New Relic, founded in 2008 by Lew Cirne, has grown into a leading SaaS application performance monitoring provider, offering insights to numerous enterprise customers worldwide.

This approach enables teams to create and manage multiple custom integrations for a host without requiring extensive cross-team coordination. By containerizing each integration, teams can easily build, test, and deploy their integrations, reducing the need for manual configuration and deployment. This approach also allows for greater flexibility in managing on-host integrations, particularly in environments like CoreOS Container Linux, where traditional installation methods may be less feasible. The isolation provided by containers makes it easier to separate workloads into more manageable components, ultimately improving platform maintainability and scalability.

New Relic's Infrastructure agent allows for the incorporation of on-host integrations, which can be challenging when operating in a containerized environment. The text explores several strategies to facilitate hardware monitoring integrations without compromising the ability for hardware owners to add their custom integrations. One proposed solution is building a new container image, although this approach may be cumbersome for teams with multiple integrations. Another option is using volume mounts, but this requires careful management of dependencies. The ideal method suggested involves containerizing each integration, enabling teams to deploy and manage them independently within their containers. This method provides flexibility and ease of deployment, especially on platforms like CoreOS Container Linux. Containerization simplifies the process, allowing for streamlined integration management and reducing the need for extensive cross-team coordination. This approach also enhances isolation and workload management, promoting scalability and adaptability in monitoring infrastructure with New Relic.