Rajan's View

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.", Walt Disney. Let's start developing the e-commerce platform feature one at a time. Since, services are the centre of the platform, I initially built the basic set of services required, like - product, price, category, search etc. Building Blocks Identify the key building blocks of a service. Some of them could be - Programming language to be used, in this case it's  Python . Framework -  Flask . API Gateway to provide authentication, throttling, etc. -  3Scale . Logging provider -  Logentries . Provider - The provider under the service contains the business logic. I am going to take one service as an example - search. I used two providers -  Indexden  and  ElasticSearch . I will explain in a moment why. Anatomy of a Service All logos are registered/trademarked/copyright of the respective organizations. They are shown in the diagram above for ease of understanding. ...

So far, we have looked at the objective  and some principles . Now, to start executing the plan. The Team I now need a team and tools to start executing the plan. So, there's me and a mini-me. I am the team - product owner, designer, manager, architect, developer and support analyst all rolled into one. So far, I think we all got along just fine! The mini-me is the tools required - Acer Aspire One Netbook with 1.66 Ghz CPU, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB hard disk and a home broadband connection. Admittedly, the netbook is not the most powerful of machines. Since I use everything on the cloud, I was not too handicapped by the netbook. In terms of the software, all I used is - Node, Python, Notepad++, Git, Putty and the Appfog/Openshift command line tools. The Maneuvers It is said that, one of the reasons Napoleon was successful in his battles was the brilliant use of maneuvers. Although, he had a relatively smaller army, he used speed and flexibility to great effect. So, from...

As I described in my earlier post , every component of the application needs to be in the cloud. Let's now get into the business of identifying the various cloud providers that we want to use. There are several factors to consider. Litany of Choices "When you see a web-based accounting system, the architecture of that system should scream accounting at you." - Uncle Bob . I am going to take a leaf from this quote. An application is always built to deliver a customer feature(s). And, almost always we will have constraints like time, cost, capabilities etc that we need to overcome. This forces us to prioritize the features, accept trade off's and focus on the most important aspects in the application.  The constraints also help us take decisions on Build vs Buy vs Rent. The Build here refers to building a bespoke software, Buy is buying an off the shelf software and Rent is renting a software on the cloud. On a similar note - Less critical feature of the a...

It all started in the spring of 2013 when I came across an article on how Netflix was built on the Amazon cloud. It got me thinking about what is involved in building an entire application on the cloud. For example, what implications does it have on the following - If any, does it have any impact on the application features? What impact does it have on architecture principles? How do engineering practices need to evolve? Does it make it any easier to monitor, administer and support such an application? How does one handle data and security? Lastly, what were the trade-offs? So, I started reading up on the various cloud providers. These ranged from IaaS, PaaS and SaaS providers. I also looked at how organizations were leveraging these providers.  I jotted down a few architecture principles on which to build an entire application in the cloud. All resources, tools and technologies to be based in the cloud. Use a diverse set of cloud providers to test the interoper...

Beat the Heat Summer is marching on this year and leaving behind parched throats. A simple and popular summer cooler is made all over India with yogurt. It's called by various names - "lassi" and "chaas" in the north and "more" in the south. Contributed by  Rajan Manickavasagam . Published  30 March 2014 Ingredients 1 chopped green chillies  1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon mustard seeds 3 chopped ginger 3 cups natural yogurt 1 cup milk Instructions Dry roast the mustard seeds, chopped ginger and green chillies in a pan for a minute. Blend the salt, yogurt and milk. Mix the yogurt with the spices. Serve with ice cubes. Happy drinking. Further details Serves 3-4  people . Preparation time is approximately 5  min . Cooking time is approximately  5 min .

Posted by Rajan Manickavasagam January 5th, 2014 Rating:  5  out of 5 Bismillah . This Arabic word has many meanings, the most common being "In The Name of God". It is typically intoned before starting anything new. Almost all chapters in the Quran start with this word. If we remove the religious context, it is about creation of life, celebration of peace and love without the ego of self.  Bismillah is a song in the sufi style by Kailash Kher and Munawar Masoom. The rustic voice of Kailash blends brilliantly with the powerful Munawar. Munawar is popular for singing poems of sufi poets like Rumi and Khusro. He impresses the most as he brings to bear his ghazal and sufi style of singing. Munawar gives a great start to the song with his deep baritone voice. Kailash joins him into the song and provides a great middle and ending with his clear voice.  The acoustics add to the song's atmospherics.   The simple lyrics are by Irfan Siddiqui. The brothers,...

Complex tastes This dish has been inspired by the food from the street vans of the world. Street food often showcases the unique creativity of the vendors. This dish has a complex taste and is a medley of four different dishes. Contributed by  Rajan Manickavasagam . Published  01. September 2013 Mushroom and beans Ingredients 10 whole mushrooms 8 - 10 chopped long beans  1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon crushed black pepper 1 teaspoon olive oil Instructions Heat the oil in a pan. Season the pan with the salt and pepper. Add the mushrooms and beans. Saute the vegetables on a high flame for a few minutes until they begin to brown. Sausages Ingredients 3-4 chopped sausages 1 teaspoon crushed black pepper 1 chopped coriander Instructions Roast the sausages in the pan until they are lightly brown. Season them with black pepper and garnish them with the fresh coriander. Sweet and sour sauce Ingredients 2-3 tablespoon ...

The world at large has been going through a phase of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). Some say that this is the new "normal". Although, this term was initially coined by the US Army War College, it applies to the world of business and markets as well. As a result, the VUCA conditions impose more strain on IT departments to deliver solutions that are sustainable and flexible. There are several structured techniques one can employ to manage this scenario. One of the techniques is called - "Nine Windows". This technique looks at two dimensions - time and space. The time represented as past, present and future. The space dimension is modelled as - super system, system and sub system. Nine Windows As an IT architect, a lot of my time is spent working with teams on solution architecture and implementation. Sometimes, when there are several or competing options available, I use this technique. Typically, there is a tendency to focus...

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well." ~Virginia Woolf Cupcakes made by my co-conspirators and me. One of the recent trends all over the world has been the popularity of cupcakes.  I suppose people are becoming more health and wallet concious. Added to that is the creativity from the deli and patisserie establishments. I have found baking always a bit tricky because one doesn't often have a chance to course-correct if there are any mistakes in the cooking. You get to see the results only at the end. So far, my attempts at baking have been hit-and-miss. So, I thought of giving a bakery class a shot. I went for a weekend class at Spoonful of Sugar in Bangalore .  If you are in Bangalore, you should give this class a go. Chef Yuvna Damani took us through all the steps in making the cupcakes and the icing. All the participants then had to make their own too. We made vanilla, chocolate and red velvet cupcakes with various icing o...

Posted by Rajan Manickavasagam July 17th, 2013 Rating:  5  out of 5 Calvary Cemetery in Queens - by Wikipedia User  Plowboylifestyle The album ' The Blessed Unrest ' by Sara Bareilles has just been released. It contains a superb collection of songs imbibing pop, soul and jazz musical styles. The outstanding song in the album is ' Chasing The Sun '. I would recommend this song and even the entire album to anyone. The song is sung from the vantage point of the cemetery in Queens. The photograph aptly captures the essence of the song. We spend our lives chasing our moment in the sun. Everyone is keen to see the skyscrapers in the city but there are over 3 million tiny skyscrapers in the cemetery too. There are songs in the past that eulogised the hustle and bustle of New York, like - 'New York Minute' (Don Henley), 'New York, New York' (Frank Sinatra'). This song captures New York in a more reflective mood. Sara's voice is str...