I had to port the client part of a PHP based client-server program, which received some XML data along with compressed images as binary data. As it cost me some time to inflate the received data in Ruby, I want to share what I found out about deflating and inflating data in Ruby and PHP. … Continue reading How to Inflate And Deflate Data in Ruby and PHP
Category: Tools & Technology
Puppet vs. Capistrano – a short comparison
We’re currently using Capistrano not only to deploy our Ruby on Rails application, but also to setup and manage our physical and virtual (Xen based) servers. We have Capistrano recipes for adding users, installing packages like apache or mysql, configuring a Xen VM and more. Coming accross puppet, I started to wonder about the essential … Continue reading Puppet vs. Capistrano – a short comparison
Setup a Ruby on Rails Project Using the Lighthouse API With ActiveResource
As you might have already guessed, I'm constantly striving for the simplest yet most optimal process for running both an agile development team and agile web operations. People come first, then the procedures followed by the people and finally, the tools those people use. Since tools supporting the agile development process have the lowest priority … Continue reading Setup a Ruby on Rails Project Using the Lighthouse API With ActiveResource
Configuration Management: Introduction to Puppet
After years spent working with Cfengine, Luke Kanies decided to form the company Reductive Labs in 2005 and Puppet, a long time idea and quickly stabilizing prototype, was born. He describes it as an open-source, next-generation server automation tool. Configuration files (called manifests) are written declaratively, and there is a client/server model for distribution handling. … Continue reading Configuration Management: Introduction to Puppet
Who Else Wants to Understand Cloud Computing?
Evaluating hosting scenarios for our Ruby on Rails based web application, I finally had a good reason to dig deeper into "cloud computing". While I was already watching the evolution of Amazon's web services like S3 and EC2, a lot of offerings nowadays labelled as "cloud computing" were quite new to me. To better understand … Continue reading Who Else Wants to Understand Cloud Computing?
Configuration Management: Introduction to Cfengine
As promised in my last post about configuration management, I want to introduce you to one of the key Open Source configuration management players on the scene today - Cfengine. Embarked upon in 1993 by Mark Burgess, Cfengine has helped system administrators configuring and maintaining their servers in the data center for over a decade … Continue reading Configuration Management: Introduction to Cfengine
Configuration Management: Scaling The Data Center and Growing Your Business
The Velocity 2008 Conference hosted many excellent presentations and discussions concerning web performance and operations. Adam Jacob, of HJK Solutions, presented how his company goes about "Building An Automated Infrastructure". To briefly explain what an automated infrastructure is, let's think of servers and data as office buildings and automobiles. Would it make sense to begin … Continue reading Configuration Management: Scaling The Data Center and Growing Your Business
