Movin' to Chicago!

It has been a nearly-indescribably busy few months. A lot of exciting stuff going on at Apprenda with SaaSGrid; barcamp Albany 2011 at HVCC; and now, I am in the process of moving to Chicago for a WCF role with Redbox.

I have most definitely enjoyed working with the team at Apprenda -- to a person, they're the hardest working people in tech. Unfortunately the Client Services role I was in turned out to be waaaay more help desk type work than initially expected, and anyone who knows me, knows I'm not a help desk type guy. Even the desired consulting/implementation/architectural type work I was actually doing was, unfortunately, often ignored by clients and dev teams who had other priorities, like budgets and deadlines. ;)

A longtime friend of mine from Rochester has been living in Chicago about four years now himself, and had this Redbox opportunity come across his desk; it was something he thought I'd be a great fit for, and taking a look, I had to agree. After a phone interview week before last with two of the team members, Redbox made an offer. I will be joining the fairly new Platform Services team: 100% WCF, and NO, I repeat NO, GUI work! Platform Services supports the entire enterprise, and I understand we will be playing a large part in the upcoming streaming and digital distribution initiative that Redbox has been talking about for some time.

Yes, I recognize that Redbox is something of an underdog, and will have to come from behind in establishing a streaming offering that can compete with Netflix. I'm happy to be a part of that, and excited to see what challenges lay ahead. I think it's an exciting space to be in, and will enjoy working for a talked-about consumer brand.

I believe Apprenda is on the right track to a successful exit, and I wish them luck -- though they hardly need it, they're the kind of team to make their own luck. Thanks for a great year guys!

SaaSGrid: Decoupled, shared storage in grids

When you're working in a grid environment like Apprenda's SaaSGrid, many people are uncertain how to deal with the need for shared state and shared binary content.

This is not unlike Amazon's EC2, though it should be noted that EC2 and SaaSGrid are not in the same category of offering -- you can run a SaaSGrid environment on top of Amazon's IaaS offering: EC2 VM images. SaaSGrid itself is a distributed application server and runtime for SaaS. EC2 is a cloud of virtual machines, part of Amazon's larger AWS suite.

With EC2, you do not have persistent storage locally on your virtualized AMIs -- when your AMI reboots or powers down, all local state is lost. Instead, Amazon offers Elastic Block Storage (EBS) for non-volatile storage of data and content used when bringing your AMIs online, database repos, etc.

Likewise, you cannot assume persistent local storage on any given SaaSGrid node -- any given request to SaaSGrid may take multiple paths to reach its destination, and any given node may leave or join the grid environment at any time. This is why SaaSGrid application development, and most other SOA architecture, best current practices dictate stateless design and implementation as much as possible. Some amount of state can be persisted in an out-of-process cache, such as memcached, but there is still often a need for a binary content repository accessible to all nodes.

I diagrammed this concept over on the SaaSGrid Developer Blog yesterday.

SaaSGrid Blog: High Availability SaaSGrid

I just posted a blog on "High Availability SaaSGrid" on the SaaSGrid community site. In IIS7+ we now have "Application Request Routing" (ARR) and the "Web Farm Framework" available to facilitate deployment and management of high availability IIS webfarms (clusters).

We're hiring! Apprenda seeks another Client Services Engineer

We're looking to hire another engineer into my department at Apprenda. We work in post-sales, client support, training and professional services. We work directly with clients, we travel some 20-40% of the time, nationally and internationally. (I was in Denver and then San Diego the other week. We've got a guy in the UK right now; 2 others were in the UK a month ago, and the same guy now in the UK was in Paris for 3 months last year.)

I currently spend 20-30% of my time coding, and the rest of the time dealing with clients by phone, email, Skype or on site. I expect us to be doing more coding moving forward as we institute a standard POC & on-site training package as part of our engagements.

This is the first place I've worked (and I've worked many places) where I wasn't clock watching by the end of the first week -- and that includes my time with Xerox and IBM. We completed a $5M funding round a few months back. The company is healthy and growing, defining processes and procedures, figuring out how things ought to be done. It's an exciting time to come on board.

I'm one of the few "hardcore" .NET guys -- we have several people, some complete converts, with lengthy histories in Java and/or PHP, some C++ as well. (But no, no Ruby guys, to my knowledge :)


The bit about us
Apprenda is the creator of SaaSGrid, the industry’s leading Application Server for Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaSGrid solves the upfront and ongoing technical and business challenges of delivering software as a service. We're a hi-tech leader in a rapidly evolving technology space. We were just recently honored with the CEG's Rising Star Award.

The bit about you
We're looking for a Client Services Engineer.

The Client Services Engineer is responsible for ensuring an optimal client experience with SaaSGrid by proactively and professionally managing client information requests, technical support questions, and custom software development projects. The SaaSGrid client engagement is a highly technical process that requires skills in a variety of software development and infrastructure disciplines. To be clear: you will be writing code, and you will be configuring servers. You’ll then interface with clients via email, phone, community websites, and more during all phases of the client lifecycle. Many of our clients are new to the world of software as a service and have chosen SaaSGrid as a foundation - they will look to you to lead the way. Specifically, you'll be involved in the following:

SaaSGrid installation and configuration
Customer training onsite and remote (the position is roughly 30% travel - domestic & international)
Application development guidance and SaaSGrid best practice enforcement
Customization and extension of the SaaSGrid platform
Moderation of public community websites for SaaSGrid developers
The Client Service Engineer is a SaaSGrid knowledge base expert to all clients with whom he/she is engaged. You’ll lead webinars, trainings, and more. We’re looking for the unique combination of technical astuteness and personality!

Qualifications:

BS or MS in Computer Science or BS or MS in another science or engineering discipline with significant practical software development experience(minor or dual degree that includes a Social Science a plus)
A solid foundation in computer science, with strong competencies in software design, systems architecture, and data structures.
Strong OO skills and practicing knowledge of OO languages
Several years of large systems software design and development experience (extensive knowledge of Windows based environments preferred)
Coding skills in C#, Javascript/AJAX, and SQL preferred
Practical knowledge of WCF & ASP.NET preferred
Practical knowledge of Windows system administration preferred
Strong writing and interpersonal skills required (You MUST be personable!)
Quick “on your feet” thinking and the ability to be creative in tight situations
The position is located in our headquarters in Clifton Park, NY. Relocation to the Albany, NY area is required.

One more thing
Tip: Along with your resume, send us a brief explanation of how dependency injection might be used in a billing system accepting multiple forms of payment. We just might move your resume to the top of the stack.

Email resume & other material to: job-tjxvf-1772851493@craigslist.org

Philly Code Camp - Gold Sponsor!

I'm happy to announce that not only will I be attending Philly Code Camp 2010.1, but my new employer, Apprenda, will be there as Gold Sponsor, specifically of the Architecture track.

We may or may not be doing a presentation on SaaSGrid. Unfortunately we got our ducks in a row at a bit of the last minute on this, though we are eagerly awaiting a last-minute presentation slot to open up, whether that be due to a presenter's sickness, travel difficulties or sudden enrichment of their bank account. *cough* ;) As it is we missed NYC Code Camp 4 and New England Code Camp 13 :( We are also looking for future Code Camp sponsorship and presentation opportunities!

I believe we are going down to Philly the evening of Friday the 9th, and possibly considering staying as long as overnight Saturday. I don't believe I've ever been to/near Philly before ... perhaps driven on a nearby bypass?

One more note, SaaSGrid may make an appearance at CloudCampNYC on April 20th as well. TBD.