44. App modernization, cloud readiness and an agile model of cloud migration - with Rik Hepworth

11/28/22 • 46 min

In this episode, we talk to Rik Hepworth. As Microsoft Azure MVP, member of the Microsoft Regional Director program, and Chief Consulting Officer at Black Marble, he helps organizations make better use of the cloud. We talk about his role at Black Marble and how it is a development shop at heart; helping customers reach a higher level of maturity in terms of Application Lifecycle Management or DevOps, and helping them with app modernization, cloud adoption and migration. And we dive into the entire process of getting an on-premises solution ready for migration to the cloud in small baby steps. Talking about the reasons their customers need to move to the cloud, the difficulties and challenges they face with migration projects, and how to deal with them; he has broken this down into five stages of app migration. Subsequent, he explains that organizations need to be aware of two great things: business value and risk. And business value has got to be the principal driver for pushing you to the cloud, but in doing so, you need to minimize risk. That might mean foregoing a full cloud migration, opting for a hybrid solution and experimenting with an agile model of migration. Because a big plus of cloud computing is experimentation, trying out cloud services and solutions, just to switch it off if it doesn’t work. Which is more difficult with hardware. And as Rik explains, most businesses don’t realize how big of a deal this is; they need to start their migration project years before they decommission their database (licenses) and hardware. You need to look forward, because businesses and IT are evolving rapidly, especially in the last 10 years. Thus, are you ready for cloud migration?
About this episode, and Rik Hepworth in particular: you can find @rikhepworth on Twitter and GitHub. Check out his website and read his blogs.
About Betatalks: have a look at our videos and join us on our Betatalks Discord channel

Previous Episode

43. Serverless and Azure Functions, SaaS product Ably & creating Pixel art and retro games - with Marc Duiker

In this episode, we talk to Marc Duiker, he is a senior developer advocate at Ably and has a strong focus on event-driven architectures in the Azure cloud and serverless technologies. He started Azure Functions University on GitHub, a free and open-source learning curriculum. He likes to create pixel art, code visuals & music, and design retro games. We talk about his job at Ably, everything you need to know about Ably and their SaaS product; real-time communication, native WebSockets, its security, and how it compares to Azure Web PubSub are discussed. And he shares what it's like to move from a consulting role in a services company to a technology company making a technical product. We dive into his hobbies of creating pixel artwork and small retro games, for example, his Azure Function logo game. How his pixel art avatars went, sort of, viral. How he even added pixel art animals to the VS Code Pets extension. And learning new techniques or languages in the process, such as TypeScript. Furthermore, Marc is probably one of the biggest advocates of Serverless and Azure Functions in the Netherlands. So, we touch upon why he thinks Serverless is so powerful, his Azure Functions University on GitHub, and creating custom bindings.
About this episode, and Marc Duiker in particular: you can find @marcduiker on Twitter, GitHub and his Azure Functions University GitHub. And, don't forget to read his blogs and his recent blog on Cloud PubSub services compared: Azure Web PubSub vs Ably. You can also find all of his links and his retro games via his Linktree.
About Betatalks: have a look at our videos and join us on our Betatalks Discord channel

Next Episode

45. End-to-End Testing with Playwright and the use of codegen - with Debbie O'Brien

In this episode, we talk to Debbie O'Brien, a senior program manager at Microsoft. Where she is in charge of advocating Playwright End-to-End Testing. Debbie has over 10 years of experience in front-end development. We dive straight into why Playwright is becoming increasingly popular. A lot of developers don’t like to write tests; they think it’s boring, takes too much time, or is hard to learn. Debbie explains that one of Playwright’s features is codegen, which generates the tests for you and helps you write better code. What problems do Playwright and codegen solve? And what’s coming in the near future? Moreover, we elaborate on what Playwright exactly is; its best features and benefits, what it does differently, and how easily it integrates. For example, it works in VS Code, you literally only have to press the green triangle to run it. Ultimately, the goal is to make testing a lot easier for people so that we have more people testing. We discuss how the testing world is shifting and how Debbie thinks that we’re moving more towards an end-to-end world rather than unit testing. Because your code changes. You're constantly modifying it. And what this means for the testing community and a company’s testing culture. Furthermore, we talk about the work Debbie’s team has done, and is doing to further advance Playwright. So, if you haven’t tried Playwright yet, give it a try, you won't regret it.
About this episode, and Debbie O'Brien in particular: you can find @debs_obrien on Twitter & GitHub. And, don't forget to check out her website where you can find all her blogs and videos with all her courses.
About Betatalks: have a look at our videos and join us on our Betatalks Discord channel