Cloud tutorial on serveless web app and eventing

A follow-up from my last post on Python decorators:

Solution architecture

Some years back, on IBM Cloud, we introduced an IBM Cloud solution tutorial for GitHub traffic analytics based on Cloud Foundry and IBM Cloud Functions. A Cloud Functions action is triggered daily to collect traffic data. The action stores the data in a Db2 database. Users can then analyse the data in a Python Flask app served by Cloud Foundry.

Today, that same solution scenario and app are still available, but they are served by IBM Cloud Code Engine. Code Engine is a fully managed, serverless platform that runs your containerized workloads, including web apps, microservices, event-driven functions or batch jobs. The slightly renamed tutorial — "Serverless web app and eventing for data retrieval and analytics" — demonstrates how the existing app can be containerized and both served as web app and and used to process the daily data collection event.

Continue reading the article on the IBM Cloud blog.

Updated: Cloud App Security - an introduction

IBM Cloud offers security services

Two years back, I had created two blog articles providing an introduction to cloud app security with an overview of topics, then discussing details on how to implement those security requirements with (then) Bluemix services. Recently, I had some time to update look into cloud app security again, adapt my previous write-up to the current state of (now) IBM Cloud. You can read it on the IBM Cloud blog as "Cloud App Security: What Makes a Secure App?".

Happy reading! If you have feedback, suggestions, or questions about this post, please reach out to me on Twitter (@data_henrik) or LinkedIn.

Hello again, Davos, AI ethics, cybersecurity, Db2 events and IBM Cloud

Hello, here I am again after a while. I hope you had a good start into 2019. I enjoyed being offline for a while, then got busy with not much time to blog. So, here is a roundup of things going on.

Security and DB2 LUW

Did you recently start paying more attention to credit card bills? Thinking twice before speaking on the phone or sending a text message? Cutting short on communication with your partner...? Awareness for topics such as privacy and data security has increased dramatically over the past few months. In some industries such as banking, the supervisory authorities - in Germany it is BaFin - have tightened regulations over several years, requiring changes to how databases are set up and administrated, how data can be stored and accessed. As I recently declared 2014 as the year of database security, I thought collecting some related DB2 resources would be a good way to promote it. Here we go...

When you work with DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, and are researching a topic, then the DB2 Information Center is a good start. It has an entire section on security (look at the navigation section on the left). It explains the DB2 Security Model, various security-related concepts, and has links and background information on some IBM InfoSphere Guardium tools. Many security and auditing tools as well as the Data Encryption (formerly Encryption Expert) product are labeled Guardium.

Other places to visit are the DB2 Best Practices, IBM Redbooks, and IBM developerWorks (list of DB2 security articles). There is a IBM Data Server Security best practices paper and also a redbook "DB2 Security and Compliance Solutions for Linux, UNIX, and Windows". You can also learn about security functionality when attending one of the offered Information Management bootcamps or taking a DB2 class through Learning Services.

Last but least, before I start my weekend, I would like to point to the blog articles I have written on DB2 security topics.

Have a nice weekend and watch your transactions...

!!!STOP!!! Birthday Party for 5 Years of Blogging (Your participation needed)

Five years ago, on January 9th 2009, I started this blog. Time to look back and to

by John Hritz, CC-BY-2.0

celebrate. But also time to look forward. And I need your help with both. Please continue reading, 5 minutes are needed.

In late 2008 I was looking for an easy way to share tips&tricks about DB2. Over the holidays I thought about trying out "blogging" and started it in January 2009. And now I can't believe that 5 years passed already. Time to celebrate: Some extra chocolate for me today and a big THANK YOU to you for reading what I write.

As part of the celebration I am looking for some gifts, i.e. your feedback:
Please send me an email to "hloeser" at the domain "de.ibm.com" with a small note about what you like in the blog.

• Did it help you with some specific aspects of DB2, like migration from Oracle, XML processing, taming the beast...?
• Are you reading this blog because grammar my sometimes funny it looks?
• Do you like the articles labeled "fun"?
• Did you read my now "dated" articles on April Fools Days?
• Did you try to solve all the quizzes?
• Did you come to my blog for the series on epilepsy?
• Did you come here by mistake after an Internet search?
• Anything else?

And what do you want to read in the future? Again, please celebrate with me and send a quick email with some feedback. If you want to stay anonymous, please leave a comment.

ROI at IOD 2013, Some numbers for your boss

The Information On Demand conference 2013 is a good month away and it is time to register. There is the IBM IOD Hub at IBMIODHUB.com to share information in advance of the conference, during it, and later report on all the stuff you missed (and some marketing of course... :). The following infographic is from that side and lists some reasons why to attend and why your money-conscious boss should send you there (I have to talk with my bosses now).

At past conferences I successfully did some product certifications, visited hands-on labs (actually teaching them), and had good technical sessions that provided new insights into existing products and showed technical directions and technology trends (what to prepare for, what to investigate, etc.). And most importantly, maybe not to emphasize when talking with your boss, is what is listed on the lower right: FUN.

DB2 and important stuff my smartphone can do...

My smartphone can do a lot of cool stuff (and I won't tell you whether it is Android-based or an iPhone). I can make calls on it, I can check and write emails, get directions within cities I travel to, I can listen to music, take and watch pictures, use it for boarding airplanes or trains (mobile ticket), and I can read interesting blog posts on the upcoming DB2 10:

• Matthias Nicola on new XML features and enhancements in DB2 10
• Serge Rielau on more than 98% Oracle compatibility and on faster PL/SQL in DB2
• Dave Beulke on why DB2 10 for LUW extends IBM's DBMS leadership

Last but not least, my smartphone has two advanced features that I will use over the following days:
It has this tiny power button that I will use to turn it off over the weekend. And finally it has a calendar and alarm function: DB2 10 will be available on April 30th, this next Monday. My alarm is set, so I can download DB2, access the Information Center with details on the cool new stuff. Yes, DB2 is cool, too...

My topics as Wordle

Finally, I got some time to try my hands on Wordle, feeding in this blog. The result - after some adjustments - looks like this:



You can compare it to the thermal image of a house.