Apache SkyWalking – Conference

Blog: [Video] Distributed tracing demo using Apache SkyWalking and Kong API Gateway

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Observability essential when working with distributed systems. Built on 3 pillars of metrics, logging and tracing, having the right tools in place to quickly identify and determine the root cause of an issue in production is imperative. In this Kongcast interview, we explore the benefits of having observability and demo the use of Apache SkyWalking. We walk through the capabilities that SkyWalking offers out of the box and debug a common HTTP 500 error using the tool.

Andrew Kew is interviewed by Viktor Gamov, a developer advocate at Kong Inc

Andrew is a highly passionate technologist with over 16 valuable years experience in building server side and cloud applications. Having spent the majority of his time in the Financial Services domain, his meritocratic rise to CTO of an Algorithmic Trading firm allowed him to not only steer the business from a technology standpoint, but build robust and scalable trading algorithms. His mantra is “right first time”, thus ensuring the projects or clients he is involved in are left in a better place than they were before he arrived.

He is the founder of a boutique software consultancy in the United Kingdom, QuadCorps Ltd, working in the API and Integration Ecosystem space and is currently on a residency programme at Kong Inc as a senior field engineer and technical account manager working across many of their enterprise strategic accounts.

Blog: [Video] Another backend storage solution for the APM system

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The APM system provides the tracing or metrics for distributed systems or microservice architectures. Back to APM themselves, they always need backend storage to store the necessary massive data. What are the features required for backend storage? Simple, fewer dependencies, widely used query language, and the efficiency could be into your consideration. Based on that, traditional SQL databases (like MySQL) or NoSQL databases would be better choices. However, this topic will present another backend storage solution for the APM system viewing from NewSQL. Taking Apache Skywalking for instance, this talking will share how to make use of Apache ShardingSphere, a distributed database middleware ecosystem to extend the APM system’s storage capability.

As a senior DBA worked at JD.com, the responsibility is to develop the distributed database and middleware, and the automated management platform for database clusters. As a PMC of Apache ShardingSphere, I am willing to contribute to the OS community and explore the area of distributed databases and NewSQL.

Blog: [Video] Improve Apache APISIX observability with Apache SkyWalking

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Apache APISIX is a cloud-native microservices API gateway, delivering the ultimate performance, security, open-source and scalable platform for all your APIs and microservices. Apache SkyWalking: an APM(application performance monitor) system, especially designed for microservices, cloud-native and container-based (Docker, Kubernetes, Mesos) architectures. Through the powerful plug-in mechanism of Apache APISIX, Apache Skywalking is quickly supported, so that we can see the complete life cycle of requests from the edge to the internal service. Monitor and manage each request in a visual way, and improve the observability of the service.

Blog: [Video] SourceMarker - Continuous Feedback for Developers

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s monitoring solutions are geared towards operational tasks, displaying behavior as time-series graphs inside dashboards and other abstractions. These abstractions are immensely useful but are largely designed for software operators, whose responsibilities require them to think in systems, rather than the underlying source code. This is problematic given that an ongoing trend of software development is the blurring boundaries between building and operating software. This trend makes it increasingly necessary for programming environments to not just support development-centric activities, but operation-centric activities as well. Such is the goal of the feedback-driven development approach. By combining IDE and APM technology, software developers can intuitively explore multiple dimensions of their software simultaneously with continuous feedback about their software from inception to production.

Brandon Fergerson is an open-source software developer who does not regard himself as a specialist in the field of programming, but rather as someone who is a devoted admirer. He discovered the beauty of programming at a young age and views programming as an art and those who do it well to be artists. He has an affinity towards getting meta and combining that with admiration of programming, has found source code analysis to be exceptionally interesting. Lately, his primary focus involves researching and building AI-based pair programming technology.

Blog: [Video] The history of distributed tracing storage

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past few years, and coupled with the growing adoption of microservices, distributed tracing has emerged as one of the most commonly used monitoring and troubleshooting methodologies. New tracing tools are increasingly being introduced, driving adoption even further. One of these tools is Apache SkyWalking, a popular open-source tracing, and APM platform. This talk explores the history of the SkyWalking storage module, shows the evolution of distributed tracing storage layers, from the traditional relational database to document-based search engine. I hope that this talk contributes to the understanding of history and also that it helps to clarify the different types of storage that are available to organizations today.

Hongtao Gao is the engineer of tetrate.io and the former Huawei Cloud expert. One of PMC members of Apache SkyWalking and participates in some popular open-source projects such as Apache ShardingSphere and Elastic-Job. He has an in-depth understanding of distributed databases, container scheduling, microservices, ServicMesh, and other technologies.

Blog: [Video] Apache grows in China

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Sheng Wu is a founding engineer at tetrate.io, leads the observability for service mesh and hybrid cloud. A searcher, evangelist, and developer in the observability, distributed tracing, and APM. He is a member of the Apache Software Foundation. Love open source software and culture. Created the Apache SkyWalking project and being its VP and PMC member. Co-founder and PMC member of Apache ShardingSphere. Also as a PMC member of Apache Incubator and APISIX. He is awarded as Microsoft MVP, Alibaba Cloud MVP, Tencent Cloud TVP.

In the Apache FY2020 report, China is on the top of the download statistics. More China initiated projects joined the incubator, and some of them graduated as the Apache TLP. Sheng joined the Apache community since 2017, in the past 3 years, he witnessed the growth of the open-source culture and Apache way in China. Many developers have joined the ASF as new contributors, committers, foundation members. Chinese enterprises and companies paid more attention to open source contributions, rather than simply using the project like before. In the keynote, he would share the progress about China embracing the Apache culture, and willing of enhancing the whole Apache community.