Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

March 2022

Debugging JAXB Production Issues

Java Architecture for XML Binding (AKA JAXB API) is a popular API for marshaling XML data. It’s a framework for mapping between XML documents and Java POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects, AKA regular Java classes) almost seamlessly. The API is very easy to use and many frameworks leverage it to provide their XML support. JAXB2.0 has gained popularity both in desktop applications (Java SE) and in application server code (Spring Boot, Java EE/Jakarta EE, Microprofile etc.).

Debugging Java Equals and Hashcode Performance in Production

I wrote a lot about the performance metrics of the equals method and hash code in this article. There are many nuances that can lead to performance problems in those methods. The problem is that some of those things can be well hidden. To summarize the core problem: the hashcode method is central to the java collection API. Specifically, with the performance of hash tables (specifically the Map interface hash table). The same is true with the equals method.

Interview with Tom Granot - Developer Observability, KoolKits and Reliability

In preparation for the upcoming Developer Observability Masterclass we’re hosting at Lightrun with Thoughtworks and RedMonk, I sat down for a brief interview with Tom Granot – the Director of Developer Relations at Lightrun. Tom will MC the event as he did for the Developer Productivity Masterclass we ran back in December.

Debugging Race Conditions in Production

Race conditions can occur when a multithreaded application accesses a shared resource using over one thread. Unless we have guards in place, the result might depend on which thread “got there first”. This is especially problematic when the state is changed externally. A race can cause more than just incorrect behavior. It can enable a security vulnerability when the resource in question can be corrupted in the right way. A good example of race condition vulnerabilities is mangling memory.

Effectively Bridging the DevOps - R&D Gap without Sacrificing Reliability

DevOps culture revolutionized our industry. Continuous Delivery and Continuous Integration made six sigma reliability commonplace. 20 years ago we would kick the production servers and listen to the hard drive spin, that was observability. Today’s DevOps teams deploy monitoring tools that provide development teams with deep insight into the production environment. Before DevOps practices were commonplace, production used to fail. A lot.