Containers have fast become one of the most efficient ways of virtually deploying applications, offering more agility than a virtual machine (VM) can typically provide. Both containers and VMs are great tools for managing resources and application deployment, but what is the difference between the two, and how do we manage containers?
Application acceleration is all about improving the responsiveness of a digital service. When clients access web applications, they are expecting near-immediate feedback from servers. Maintaining that level of performance requires ensuring the right resources are available to process requests, shortening the information retrieval process, and maintaining system uptime by warding off threats.
With HTTP REST APIs serving as the backbone of modern web applications, securing those APIs presents a critical challenge for organizations. APIs are typically designed to be discoverable, self-documenting, and easily consumed by a range of programming languages, and that makes them appetizing for hackers.
When talking about managing web applications and the services they provide, the term “API gateway” is often thrown around, but what does it mean? In order to unpack how a gateway functions, we first need to understand what an API is.
With the right load balancing in place, the demand of increasing web traffic can become manageable, but how do you determine which load balancing algorithm is best suited for your applications? Does the ease of use of static load balancing better suit the services you provide, or would your system benefit from a more complex and dynamic set of algorithms to maximize efficiency? In this blog post, we discuss what to consider when deciding on the right load-balancing algorithm.
HAProxy. High availability and a reverse proxy–it’s in the name, but what does it all mean? Before understanding how the two concepts work together in the load balancing space, we need to unpack the basics of high availability and how a reverse proxy functions.
If you host dozens of web services that reside at various subdomains, TCP ports, and paths, then migrating them to live under a single address could simplify how clients access them and make your job of managing access easier. It would mean moving from a hodgepodge of address schemes, such as: to a single address wherein services are designated by the URL’s path: The good news is that you don’t need to rearrange your entire network to make this happen.
An application programming interface (API) provides access to the features of a business application, but with the visual elements stripped away. By using APIs, devices like tablets, self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals, and robotic sensors can connect up to apps running on servers in a datacenter or in the cloud. Because they give access to the heart of your business applications, it should come as no surprise that there are some APIs that the general public should not have access to.
Developing a strategy for collecting application-level logs necessitates stepping back and looking at the big picture. Engineers developing the applications may only see logging at its ground level: the code that writes the event to the log—for example a function that captures Warning: An interesting event has occurred! But where does that message go from there? What path does it travel to get to its destination?
With HAProxy situated in front of their servers, many people leverage it as a frontline component for enabling extra security and observability for their networks. HAProxy provides a way to monitor the number of TCP connections, the rate of HTTP requests, the number of application errors and the like, which you can use to detect anomalous behavior, enforce rate limits, and catch application-related problems early.
