Notes on data, AI, IT
and security
No marketing fog. The way I think about real problems with founders and managers.
API versioning: why it matters and how to keep it manageable
A practical explanation for product owners and engineering managers: what API versioning is, why getting it wrong is expensive, and what a workable strategy looks like.
Monolith or services: how to make the call without an engineering background
A practical explanation for founders and executives: when splitting your architecture into services is justified, and when it just adds cost.
IT budget for 2020: splitting between maintenance and growth
Year-end is budget planning season. How to think about allocating IT spend between what already exists and what needs to be built.
When you should not break up the monolith
Microservices sound modern, but decomposing a monolith without sufficient reasons creates more problems than it solves. How to think about this decision.
Cloud egress cost: the hidden budget line that is easy to miss
Why the cost of transferring data out of the cloud often comes as an unpleasant surprise - and how to keep it under control.
Breaking up a monolith: why sequence matters more than speed
How to plan a migration away from a monolithic architecture without halting operations - on sequencing, risks, and rollback points.
Kubernetes operators: what the model is and why it matters now
What the operator pattern in Kubernetes is, why it has become the central way to manage complex applications in a cluster, and what that means for architecture.
API versioning is contract management, not a technical formality
Why every API needs a versioning policy, and what happens to integrations when there is none.
ML in production demands process before MLOps has a name
Why companies that are serious about machine learning inevitably reach the need to version not just code, but data, models, and experiments.
Why IT project estimates are almost always wrong - and what to do about it
The gap between estimated and actual delivery time in IT projects is a known and persistent problem. A look at the structural reasons it keeps happening and the practices that reduce it.
API-first for internal systems: why it matters before you have many of them
Building internal tools and systems with an API-first approach is not extra work. It is the discipline that prevents the integration mess most companies spend years untangling.
Cloud vendor lock-in: how to make a conscious decision
When vendor lock-in in the cloud is a reasonable trade-off, and when it is a risk worth assessing upfront.