DevCentral Top5 09/11/2012
Coming to you from the late night station here at DC Productions, somewhere between Skrillex's latest remix and Firefly reruns (because why not make the fictional broadcasting giant multimedia enabled?), this soothing transmission of geeky goodness is sure to soothe even the most savage beast. Whether you're dreaming of iRules hawesomeoness or wide awake and looking for a light snack consisting of DevCentral media in the form of informative videos to help you get where you're going with F5 technology in style, this week's Top5 fits the bill nicely. There's much goodness to be had this week, as every week it would seem most fortunately, so let's get to it. I bring to you this week's DevCentral Top5:
#The101: iRules - Events & Priorities
It is with shameless abandon that I again plug what I believe to be this nicely progressing series. #The101 is the nomenclature for the newly anointed revamp of the 101 series of old, therein attempting to get people up to speed on a topic in a hurry by providing a logical flow throughout an article series, urging people deeper into a given topic area. #The101: iRules then, not shockingly, is a series of iRules focused articles looking to get people more knowledge of how iRules work, what they are, when to use them, some of the core components that go into them, and more. This is the fourth installment of this series (Hey, I figure only plugging my own series once a month means I have at least some restraint, right?) and it begins digging into the heart of what makes iRules tick. Past introductions, past terminology, past explanations in broad strokes, this addition to the series marks the start of the journey into the meat of the technology. If you ever wanted to know more about iRules, understand better how they work, or are looking to get up to speed on where to start ... this series wouldn't be a bad bet.
My Buddy Byron: Security iRules
Josh's Buddy Byron is a smart guy. Why, you ask? Well because Byron is not only an iRules fan, a sure fire sign of intelligence in my wildly biased and facetious opinion, but also because he did a rather clever thing. Namely packaging up a series of security iRules and outlining the ways in which a few simple iRules, combined with a few minutes of deployment time, can make many an environment better and safer. Whether you're looking to block particular DoS attacks or stop internal users from browsing to known bad websites via DNS inspection and blocking, Byron's got you covered with a collection of some old DevCentral favorites. I like the idea of building solution based bundles and may have to invest some time in continuing Byron's good work. Until then, read this article Josh put together outlining just how to make use of these tidbits. I did, and not only did I get a good reminder of some of the wicked content here on DevCentral, but I even learned a thing or two.
Monitoring Your Network with PRTG - Custom Sensors Part 1
The Earth is still round, the sky is still blue, water is still wet, and monitoring is still a good thing. As if that weren't enough, Joe is still doing his part to illuminate the world as to new and interesting ways in which things can be...well...monitored. In this addition to his "Monitoring Your Network with PRTG" series Joe sweetens the deal by digging into creating sensors. That's a good thing, because you'll very likely want to create some custom sensors to allow accurate monitoring of whatever application it is you're responsible for, and if Joe's showing you how to do it, well then life just got that much easier. I'm eagerly watching this series to learn more about the tools that Joe's talking about partly because they're interesting, and partly because we make use of them internally too. If they're good enough for DevCentral, they're good enough for me. Take a look and see if they're good enough for you, too.
DevCentral Weekly Podcast - Sept. 05, 2012
The weekly podcast, in its new, improved, resuscitated form, has been going strong for about a month now. I'm rather a fan of this new way of doing the business of podcasting, and I'd wager that even our hardcore fans from days of yore will enjoy it as well. The podcast is a place where some DevCentral folks get together on a DevCentral medium to talk about some DevCentral things. This week we chat about a user related tech tip that dives deep into the logging world. If it were deep see diving it would land somewhere near the earth's crust, I believe. Definitely a tech tip for those monitoring minded individuals out there, we discuss that and much more in this particular episode. So if you like some DevCentral up in your DevCentral while you DevCentral, there's no finer place to be. The conversations are zesty, the jokes flow freely, and you can even see us in our natural environments, headsets on and working away. Take a peek and see for yourself, it's the real deal.
DevCentral Post of the Week - Sept. 06, 2012
Leading the charge towards the top of my media favorites list from DevCentral, the Post of the Week is last only in order, not in priority, enjoyment or value. Every week a post from the forums is selected as either an exemplary example of something wicked cool to talk about, or because it spurs some excellent discussion in a rather interesting way. This topic is then the basis for the Post of the Week. We talk about the post, the concepts described or required, and then generally wax philosophical about whatever topics are near at hand given the discussion and the post's subject. This week Joe and I talk about the possibilities of regularly triggering an iRule at particular time intervals. There are a couple of options of course, as is almost always the case with iRules, and we weigh some pros and cons, and explain which approach we'd choose and why. Always interesting and often enlightening, I'm a PotW fan. Give it half a chance and I'm betting you will be too.
That will do it for this edition of the DevCentral Top5. As always any feedback is welcome, and will be read by our station manager to ensure positive uptick in ratings.