Dependency Management with Renovate: Beyond the Limits of Dependabot

While mature CI pipelines often incorporate security scanner tools like Trivy and Clair. But these tools primarily identify vulnerabilities and to fix those vulnerabilities, developers manually upgrade versions of those dependencies like packages, libraries, etc.

Manually managing dependencies in software development can be a time-consuming and error-prone process, leading to several challenges. What if we use a tool that scans the entire repo and detects if updates/patches are available or not and raises PR to upgrade dependency automatically, allowing developers to review and merge them as needed. This proactive approach helps prevent the introduction of vulnerabilities in the first place by ensuring dependencies are kept up-to-date until it is zero-day vulnerabilities.

This blog introduces you to Renovate, a powerful open-source tool that automates dependency management. As an open-source, it offers various ways of installing and configuring it. We will specifically focus on installation using the command-line interface (CLI), in this blog.

Continue reading “Dependency Management with Renovate: Beyond the Limits of Dependabot”

CI/CD with GitHub Actions – Concepts

Welcome to the first part of our blog on GitHub Actions!

This blog will delve into fundamental concepts essential for understanding GitHub Actions. Get ready to embark on a journey through the basics, paving the way for the upcoming implementation part of our blog. Stay tuned for hands-on demonstrations and practical applications in the next blog. Let’s dive in!

What is GitHub Actions?

GitHub Actions enables users to automate various GitHub events, such as cloning a repository, generating Docker images, and testing scripts. Developers use it to automate workflows across issues, pull requests, and more. This means that users can build, test, and deploy code written in different languages and running on different platforms, all using the same automation tool.

How do GitHub Actions work?

Continue reading “CI/CD with GitHub Actions – Concepts”

Nifi and Zookeeper Cluster Setup with Terraform

Recently while trying to set up Apache Nifi in cluster mode manually, I faced the challenge of performing same tasks on all nodes manually. In addition configuring the right cluster configurations was not easy. In my last blog here, I have covered the advantages of having nifi cluster over standalone and the manual steps to configure a Nifi cluster with external zookeeper.
In this article, I will show you how you can set up a three-node Zookeeper and Nifi cluster with terraform which will minimize the steps we have to perform with manual setup.

Apache NiFi is an open-source data integration and automation tool that enables the automation of data flow between different systems. NiFi provides a user-friendly interface to design, control, and manage the flow of data between various sources and destinations. The tool is particularly useful in handling data from different sources, applying transformations, and routing it to different systems in real-time.

Advantage of Using Terraform for Nifi

Terraform allows you to define your NiFi cluster infrastructure as code, making it easily versioned, shareable, and easy to understand. This ensures that your infrastructure is consistent across different environments. This helps in maintaining consistency and reducing the chances of configuration drift. As your NiFi cluster requirements evolve, Terraform makes it simple to scale your infrastructure up or down by adjusting the configuration.

Setting Up Apache Nifi Cluster with External Zookeeper

Continue reading “Nifi and Zookeeper Cluster Setup with Terraform”

Navigating AWS FinOps: Harnessing Cloud Intelligence Dashboards for Strategic Cost Optimization


The Cloud Intelligence Dashboards represent an open-source framework crafted and nurtured by a dedicated community of AWS enthusiasts. These dashboards are designed to deliver actionable insights and scalability for organizations, with a focus on customer satisfaction. The functionalities of these dashboards extend to fostering financial accountability, optimizing costs, monitoring usage goals, implementing governance best practices, and attaining operational excellence across all Well-Architected pillars. It includes multiple dashboards:

  • CUDOS Dashboard
  • Cost Intelligence Dashboard
  • KPI Dashboard
  • TAO Dashboard
  • Compute Optimizer Dashboard
  • Cost Anomaly Dashboard
CUDOS Dashboard

The CUDOS Dashboard offers comprehensive overviews and operational insights, allowing users to delve into resource-specific details. Users can discover automatically generated recommendations for cost optimization and actionable insights within the CUDOS Dashboard. These insights readily apply to FinOps practitioners, Product Owners, and Engineering teams. The dashboard facilitates swift identification of usage spikes and reveals uncertainties in AWS consumption, highlighting specific resources that can be optimized.

Continue reading “Navigating AWS FinOps: Harnessing Cloud Intelligence Dashboards for Strategic Cost Optimization”

Agentless Monitoring: Integrating Supabase Metrics with Grafana Cloud

The Power of Agentless Monitoring

Before we dive into the technicalities, let’s understand the core benefits of agentless monitoring. It’s like having a silent guardian for your application, one that doesn’t require the extra resources or management overhead that traditional agents do. This means less complexity, less maintenance overhead, and better accuracy in your monitoring.

TLDR; If you have a service exposing prometheus compatible endpoint, then you can scrape those metrics directly with services like Grafana Cloud without needing any intermediate agent.

Why Supabase and Grafana Cloud

Supabase is making waves as a top pick for developers needing a backend service, thanks to its solid PostgreSQL base and ease of use.

Grafana Cloud brings a lot to the table, with its easy-to-use features like drag-and-drop dashboards, smart alerts, and even some clever machine learning tricks to help you spot and fix problems before they blow up. In short, Grafana Cloud doesn’t just make monitoring simpler; it makes it smarter, helping developers keep their apps running smoothly and their users happy.

Continue reading “Agentless Monitoring: Integrating Supabase Metrics with Grafana Cloud”