2022 Year in Review - Big Changes

As I wind down the year 2022, it's time to reflect and take stock of my activities to put it all in perspective. 

I find this to be one of the more enjoyable articles to research, as I was part of all events and content statistics that I collect. It's nice to see my hard work, code, writing, and travels all tied up in a single article with a pretty bow on it.

This year was one marked with a lot of change for me and for the world if we are honest. We all came out of a few years of pandemic lock downs, lack of mobility, lack of freedom to interact face to face, and wondering if the world would ever be the same again. On top of that, I decided it was time to move on to new adventures this year. This was not pandemic driven, but more about the changes to the company I was working for due to an acquisition. 

On 15 July, after +13 years at Red Hat, I decided to jump into the exciting challenges of cloud native observability (o11y) at scale with a wonderful company called Chronosphere.

All of these things meant that I was going to get back into the world of interactions with people, being on a stage, sharing knowledge, learning new things, and taking you all on the journey with me. Let's review some of my activities from 2022 as things started to get back to the new normal.

Cloud Data - FinOps is the crucial Ops

The daily hype is all around you.

From private to public cloud, multi-cloud, and even hybrid cloud, you're overrun with information telling you this is the path to your digital future. To complicate matters while you are contemplating these choices, you are expected to keep up your daily tasks of enhancing customer experiences and agile delivery of those applications.

Wrapped up in all this delivery and architectural infrastructure, there's a multitude of decisions around data to be considered when engaging with any cloud experience. There are regulatory and compliance pressures that force you to evaluate how we collect, process, and store our observability data. Understanding the pitfalls around the collection, maintenance, and storage of your cloud data can mean the difference between failure and success within your cloud strategy.

This series is based on a talk given previously in Dublin, Ireland and was brainstormed with my good friend Roel Hodzelmans. The reactions from the audience inspired me to share the concepts in this series.

The first article in this series provided an introduction to cloud and data, what that means in a cloud-native architecture beyond just storage. The second article in this series talked about the forgotten data that is often overlooked when planning for cloud-native solutions. This third and final article explores a new operations role that is going to be the most crucial one in your organization.

Cloud Data - Observability is the forgotten data

The daily hype is all around you.

From private to public cloud, multi-cloud, and even hybrid cloud, you're overrun with information telling you this is the path to your digital future. To complicate matters while you are contemplating these choices, you are expected to keep up your daily tasks of enhancing customer experiences and agile delivery of those applications.

Wrapped up in all this delivery and architectural infrastructure, there's a multitude of decisions around data to be considered when engaging with any cloud experience. There are regulatory and compliance pressures that force you to evaluate how we collect, process, and store our observability data. Understanding the pitfalls around the collection, maintenance, and storage of your cloud data can mean the difference between failure and success within your cloud strategy.

This series is based on a talk given previously in Dublin, Ireland and was brainstormed with my good friend Roel Hodzelmans. The reactions from the audience inspired me to share the concepts in this series.

The first article in this series provided an introduction to cloud and data, what that means in a cloud-native architecture beyond just storage. In this second article, the forgotten data that is often overlooked when planning for cloud-native architectural solutions is discussed.

Cloud Data - Understanding 3 common pitfalls

 

The daily hype is all around you.

From private to public cloud, multi-cloud, and even hybrid cloud, you're overrun with information telling you this is the path to your digital future. To complicate matters while you are contemplating these choices, you are expected to keep up your daily tasks of enhancing customer experiences and agile delivery of those applications.

Wrapped up in all this delivery and architectural infrastructure, there's a multitude of decisions around data to be considered when engaging with any cloud experience. There are regulatory and compliance pressures that force you to evaluate how we collect, process, and store our observability data. Understanding the pitfalls around the collection, maintenance, and storage of your cloud data can mean the difference between failure and success within your cloud strategy.

This series is based on a talk given previously in Dublin, Ireland and was brainstormed with my good friend Roel Hodzelmans. The reactions from the audience inspired me to share the concepts in this series.

Saying hello to Chronosphere

After writing my last article sharing my decision to leave Red Hat after +13 years, I took a vacation from writing until I could publish an introduction to my new challenge.

Today I'm starting a new and exciting path with Chronosphere, which is the only observability platform that tames rampant data growth and cloud-native complexity. 

For me it's an interesting space to dive into and one that I've been dabbling in with my writing and speaking topics for the last year or so. It's also a place that Red Hat, with a focus on providing infrastructure and cloud-native platforms for your hybrid cloud environments, is not concentrating on.

I'm hoping to share my experiences from both the infrastructure and application development domains, use my open source experiences, and learn as we go in the observability world. I'm very excited to dive into the topics of the day on metics, monitoring, and observability while sharing all of my new insights with you here.

Now, about the new role I'm going to take on.

Saying goodbye to Red Hat

My tenure: 2009-2022

The time has come... the end of my tenure at Red Hat after +13 years.  

How about a short summary of some of the highlights while at Red Hat before I move on to a new adventure? 

I'll try to capture the big milestones, but there are just so many that I'm sure to miss a few. 

It's a moment of reflection on more than a decade spent in the world of enterprise open source technologies and riding a wave that was Red Hat in the prime of its evolution in the industry.

I have been involved in open source since my introduction late in life to programming, operating systems, and Linux in 1996. Before joining Red Hat I was involved in the community around a business process management project called jBPM. We were using this heavily in the financial institution I was working at and I became active as you do when you submerge yourself into an open source technology.

DIY Guide to Building a Pitching Pocket 9 Hole

I'm a fan of pitching and the sport of baseball for most of my life and have been wanting to own one of these pitching pocket 9 hole tools for awhile now.

I am also an OverseasFan, so that makes ordering things online in the USA a bit expensive, especially when they are heavy or large shipments. 

A seconde obstacle is that these things can be found online for between $200-$350, which is not a simple click and buy to help your local pitchers out.

I have been coaching pitching for quite a few years now and you can imagine the difficulties of securing a bullpen catcher for younger pitchers. 

This tool fixes that problem.

I did some research around the sizing, materials I might use here locally, and settled on last weekend to kick off my Do-It-Yourself (DYI) project to build a pitching pocket. I would be remiss if I didn't share this online so that many of you others out there would be able to make your very own pitching pocket too. 

Let's take a look, from start to finish, how you too can build your own pitching pocket with materials found in almost any home improvements store (either in US or in Europe where I built it) in just a day and stay under the 80 euro mark.

2021 year in review - The new normal?

The year 2021 is coming to a close, ending pretty much the same way here in the Netherlands as it started in 2020... a lockdown.

Empty streets, closed shops, closed restaurants, no parties, no gatherings, and all just when we thought it might be getting back to normal.

Not yet.

Meanwhile work has gone one and life has continued for me with little change other than the occasional possibility to get out and about to visit you.

Just like in 2020, we've shared more time together this year online in virtual events, coffee breaks, and other strange virtual events. On the up side there were the possibilities to travel again in 2021 and I got to spend time with my family back in the US for the first time in over three years!

It was my +12th year at Red Hat and the worldwide pandemic continued to influence our daily lives as it surged and subsided throughout the year. While it's a constant in all the planning and activities, let's review some of the activities from 2021 that were not affected by the pandemic.

Windows 10 installation using USB stick won't install, fix formatting USB with MBR using a Mac (error 0x80300002)

It's been some years since I have had to do anything with a Windows installer, but this last week I spent the better part of four hours wrestling with installing Windows 10 on a brand new gaming machine.

Now I know that this should be really straight forward as it's just a normal disk in a desktop machine, but it really seems to be a tricky problem due to the lack of clear error messages you get when it fails to start the installation.

The basis is getting a valid copy of Windows 10 in an ISO download, putting it on a bootable USB stick, putting that in a port on the new machine, booting the machine to start the USB installer, clicking a few times to get your new disk formatted, partitioned, and finally watching the installation start copying files onto your new machine.

You would think it's that easy, right?

My journey was a bit harder than that... but I want to share the solution for others.

2020 in review - suddenly the world changed

As 2020 heads off into the mists of history, it's a good time to look back briefly and reflect, as I do every year, on my year.

We've shared more time together this year online in virtual events, virtual coffee breaks, and other strange virtual events that before because the world is not the same. 

There were few trips and little travel in 2020 and so I spent a large portion of my time working on content. 

I've been generating architecture blueprints, upgrading demos, updating workshops, and spreading as much good cheer as I could from behind my webcam.

It was my +11th year at Red Hat and suddenly it's all changed with the arrival of a worldwide pandemic. I don't want to spend much time on that part of the year, so let's review some of my activities from 2020.

Codemotion 2020 - Open Key to Your Career

UPDATE 04 March 2020: 
The Codemotion organization have decided to move this event to June 11-12, so I'm all in again. See you in Rome in June!

UPDATE 02 March 2020: 
With regret in my heart I've had to pull out of this conference. The health concerns for this area have create travel policy changes and concerns to the point of me canceling my attendance. I'll be resubmitting this talk again in the future and hope to make it up to the Codemotion Rome organization.

----------------------------------------------------- 

 It's been two years since I last presented at Codemotion Rome,  so it's nice to be invited back this year to get reacquainted with old friends in Italy.

Back in October 2019 three talks were submitted covering topics:

• DevOps Heros
• 5 questions  everyone ignores with microservices
• Open key to your career.

The first acceptance has arrived and  I'll be presenting on how open is key to your career in March 2020.

2019 in review - Open career and portfolio architecture

As 2019 winds down to its end, I find it a good time to slow down and reflect on what as transpired.

We've shared time together in articles, on flights, on stages, at the coffee machine, on video channels, and in many a Red Hat office around the globe. 

I've spent the year with a fun team where we've been creating architectural blueprints based on customer solutions leveraging the open technology portfolio at Red Hat. Watch for more of this from me in 2020 as we push on ahead.

I passed the ten year mark at Red Hat and we're living in interesting times. With that in mind, here's my review activities from 2019.

Grace Hooper Celebration 2019 - Empowering a Career in Open

Later this year, from 2-4 Oct in Orlando, Florida is the Grace Hooper Celebration 2019.

As they say on the site, "Grace Hopper Celebration is the world's largest gathering of women technologists."

I've always admired this conference from afar, and have been a bit unsure if I should submit a session. It's often been an issue of not really having something specific to the theme of this conference, but now I do.

I've been tuning a topic for the better part of two years now and feel that I can tailor it towards helping empower women in open careers.

I've submitted the following session and have my fingers crossed.

2018 in review - Portfolio Architecture and storytelling

Every year ends and every year it's always good to look back on the times we have shared, the trips taken and what's been accomplished.

This year I transitioned into a new team focused on the entire Portfolio, specifically generating solution architecture blueprints.

While I continue to function as a Global Technology Evangelist, I've also been tasked with creating generic architectural blueprints of real customer based solutions that make use of the open technology portfolio at Red Hat. Watch for more of this in my publishing, social media, and talks in 2019.

I am now approaching ten years at Red Hat and we're living in interesting times. With that in mind, here's my review activities from 2018.

2017 in review - Global Technology Evangelist Director and more

Every year ends and every year it's always good to look back on the times we have shared, the trips taken and what's been accomplished.

This year started off with a promotion to Global Technology Evangelist Director in March, after over five years in various technical marketing roles throughout Red Hat.

I am now approaching nine years at Red Hat and it's never been more fun than now.

This year saw a transition from supporting integration portfolio solutions like Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure and Red Hat Cloud Suite, to focusing the coming year on hybrid cloud stories.

With that in mind, here is my review of my activities in 2017.

Understanding the 3 kinds of debt haunting your CIO

3 kinds of debt, path to understanding pressures on your CIO

In the modern world we are all familiar with debt.

We all owe a debt to someone.

We all owe a debt of something.

We all owe a debt somewhere.

It can be as simple as debt on your credit card, it can be a large lode stone that the bank puts around your neck when you buy your dream house or it can be as tiny as promises you have made to those that trust you.

There are three kinds of debt that can be haunting your boss at work, your CIO, and understanding what pressures are on her shoulders will help you when pitching your suggestions to the C-level audiences in your organization. In this series I will take a deeper look at the following three kinds of debt that are facing your CIO. It will help you when positioning your projects within your organization and help you to succeed in your C-level interactions.

Technical debt

The typical definition references Ward Cunningham, relating to quick and easy development solutions that require rework later are chosen over more complex solutions that are done right the first time. The idea being that if you do enough of these quick and easy solutions, you are accruing an ever growing pile of technical debt.

If you take this to the level of the CIO, where many of the technical decision eventually are given a final blessing, you are now looking at technical debt that can span more than just a single development solution.

I believe that technical debt is also created when you are implementing infrastructure solutions that will lead to major expensive changes down the road. The difference with technical debt from solutions development and with infrastructure development will be the focus of this topic with a look at why it is a burden on innovation.

Stay tuned for an in depth look in this series at how technical debt is haunting your CIO.

Relationship debt

This kind of debt is less visible in an organization if you don't know how to read the signs. Every CIO has to manage relationships with their suppliers and vendors, though most of these will be of the nature that they are run transactionally through commercial departments like procurement or purchasing.


There will be a few key, or strategic, relationships that the CIO will want to maintain personally to keep a finger on the pulse of the vendors that are delivering the key components to the operation. These can be software or infrastructure or a combination of both, but they will be vital to the personal agenda of your CIO. The question is how can you watch your CIO and have a good understanding of which vendors are the strategic ones and which are just throwing around the word strategic when they visit your organization?

Stay tuned for an in depth look in this series at how relationship debt is haunting your CIO.

Political debt

When you start to understand how your CIO has committed to certain choices within your organization, then you are into the arena of political debt. This is where a CIO has chosen a solution to solve a critical path in her agenda and is going to do all she can to ensure this path is successfully navigated.

Political debt is one that can span technology choices, solution choices, personnel choices and vendor choices that will often not even be the best choices in hindsight. One must tread carefully when dealing with political debt, as they will weigh just as heavily on decision made around your project proposals as any of the other two.

Stay tuned for an in depth look in this series at how political debt is haunting your CIO.

Haunting call

By introducing the three kinds of debt that are haunting in their effect on your CIO, I intend to lay the ground work before diving into a deeper look at each one of these kinds of debt. I will be giving you valuable insights into how you can use this knowledge when positioning your projects, such as Open Source Cloud solutions, JBoss architectures, Cloud Suite, OpenStack or OpenShift strategies to your CIO.

Debt is everywhere, even in your organization, and it's haunting your CIO every single day. Let's make sure you can use these situations to your advantage.

Year in Review 2013 - JBoss, Cycling, Travel, and telling stories

My last article for 2013... the year in review where I wander through the highlights of my work, play, cycling, writing, and travels for the past year.

This year marks the second year in my current role at Red Hat as a JBoss Technology Evangelist, covering the Integration & BPM technology products. This was a handful, requiring coverage of JBoss SOA-P, EDS, BRMS, BPM-Suite, Fuse, and messaging products.

While I was alone it was really hard to keep ahead of the wave of great technology products we put out, but luckily I got assistance from Kenny Peeples and have been able to focus much more on JBoss BRMS & BPM Suite products.

I am very excited at the coming releases of these products and have been around the world talking about them this year as you can see in the Travels section below. Looking forward to my continued involvement with the JBoss MW Business Unit in 2014 and continued interaction with some of the smartest people I have ever worked with in Engineering, Product Management, and Marketing divisions of Red Hat.

Writing

The writing continued in 2013 with blogging, articles and a revision submitted for OpenShift Primer that should be released in early 2014.

Submitted to publisher @DeveloperPress, revision of #OpenShiftPrimer e-book, stay tuned... coming soon! #writerwrites pic.twitter.com/ljejhrR89X
— Eric D. Schabell (@ericschabell) December 27, 2013

I focused mainly on schabell.org (98 articles), howtojboss.com (33 articles), community.jboss.org (23 articles), and dzone.com for the technical writing I do throughout the year. I covered a wide range of topics and provided quite a few demo projects that you can also browse over on github.com.

I also wanted to challenge myself to write something different so I started working on short stories but only got one pushed out before turning to sport journalism (amateur). In April I applied and got accepted to help staff the RedSoxLife.com site, attempting to publish daily articles during the Red Sox baseball season. This was a magical task as I attended several games this year in Boston and following the team so closely while they went all the way and won the World Series was indescribable.

I plan to continue with all these writing tasks in 2014, so stay tuned!

Cycling

This year I spent a lot of time on the bike, cycling to prepare for my first vacation in the French Alps near Annecy. I got to climb top category mountains and several in the 20th stage of the 2013 Tour du France. This was fantastic and I wrote up a nice article including the tracked rides around Lac Annecy.

I also participated in the second annual Ries van der Velden Classic, going almost five and a half hours over 130 km's. It was a windy and long day but had a great time cycling in Red Hat kit for the cause.

I logged around 1500 km's over the year, a bit low for my normal season but a lot of these were spent climbing mountains and it was amazing!

Travels

I went on the road 18 times this last year and visited 22 cities in 10 countries. I got a few new destinations where I had never been to before, which is really nice. Here is a look at the destinations:

• Madrid (4x)
• Paris
• Munich (3x)
• Geneve
• Boston, MA (3x) - attended MLB:  Red Sox vs Angles, Red Sox vs NYY 
• Dallas, TX
• Raleigh, NC
• Emerald Isle, NC
• Washington, DC - attended MLB: Nationals vs Rays
• Singapore
• Chicago, IL - attended MLB: Cubs vs Pirates
• Hamburg
• Aarhus, DK
• London (2x)
• Barcelona
• Antwerpen

Many of these were for JUG's, JBUG's, conferences, and events. See the links for details as they are too numerous to list here.

That about sums up 2013. I am looking forward to 2014 as a year I am again privileged enough to share my stories with all of you.

General impressions of Singapore

On a work trip a few weeks ago, not too much time to tour around Singapore, but here is a small impression. It includes pictures of the training given, but none of the Singapore JBoss User Group meeting I spoke at.

The food was amazing, which is why I think the best pictures are of the food eaten!

APAC Singapore 2013

Singapore Asparagus & Bacon Dish.

Guest Lecture Requirement Engineering at Radboud University Nijmegen

A few times a year I give guest lectures on Business Rules and Requirement Engineering, today was the 2013 version of the later.

A nice group of students put up with my story telling over a two hour period, well, to be honest I think we wrapped it up a bit earlier than that, but you get the idea. We covered some use cases I have from a previous project, but it is representative of how it often looks in real life, thus the title is 'from the trenches.'

We covered best practices, improving the experience, staying positive no matter what, business rules, business processes, and even a bit on Red Hat as there were some questions at the end. I really enjoyed this group, so nothing left to do but wish them luck on the final!

Requirements Engineering - a tale from the trenches from Eric D. Schabell

In transition to a new role as JBoss Technology Evangelist

Today was my last day as a JBoss Sr. Solution Architect for the Benelux Region. No, I am not leaving Red Hat... just transitioning into my next challenge, that of a JBoss Technology Evangelist.

This is a role working with the JBoss Middleware Business Unit. I will be helping promote the "integration products" that are the JBoss Business Rules Management System (BRMS), JBoss SOA Platform (SOA-P) and JBoss Enterprise Data Service Platform (EDS-P).

I consider this role to have a lot to do with story telling, bringing the value and pleasure of working with JBoss Open Source integration products to the masses. I look forward to sharing our story time together over the coming years.