Skip to content

bill duncan's blog

Performance Matters (and Other Tidbits from the Trenches)

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact bill duncan
  • Links
bill duncan's blog

Month: June 2018

Preventing Trainwrecks

I keep a large framed photo of this on the wall in my office to remind me what can happen when things go “off the rails”.. Continue reading “Preventing Trainwrecks”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-222018-06-27Categories Just-for-FunTags preventing disaster1 Comment on Preventing Trainwrecks

Hiring Questions, Problem 1

A colleague of mine once posted a hiring question to ask prospective developers: “What is the least significant 10 digits of the series: 1^{1}+2^{2}+3^{3} .. 1000^{1000} ?”

Continue reading “Hiring Questions, Problem 1”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-212018-06-27Categories Code Bits, Just-for-FunTags awk, bash, LaTeX, modular exponentiation, scripting

Don’t Aggregate, Consolidate!

In previous posts, I’ve emphasized that averages are particularly bad at characterizing most things that you might be looking for. However, storing aggregated data of any type can limit your ability to analyze data later. Continue reading “Don’t Aggregate, Consolidate!”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-202018-06-27Categories Detecting Performance IssuesTags monitoring, observability, performance

awk, the Often Ignored Little Language

Many people use awk for one-liners; picking out fields from logs, doing pattern matching. It’s capable of so much more however. IMO, the “littleness” of the language is one of it’s strengths. Continue reading “awk, the Often Ignored Little Language”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-202018-08-30Categories Code Bits, Just-for-FunTags awk, recursion, sudoku1 Comment on awk, the Often Ignored Little Language

Bitrot, Part 2

This article has a link to a simple script I’ve used for over a decade to detect corrupted files. It will detect and report on files that have changed, been added, deleted or possibly moved within the same directory structure. Continue reading “Bitrot, Part 2”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-192018-06-27Categories Code Bits, Data CorruptionTags bitrot, data corruption, filesystem

Bitrot, Part 1

Your systems have drives set up in RAID configurations and besides, you have data copied to redundant systems and backups, right? Safe? Maybe not. I recently found corruption in a quarter of a million files that had not previously been detected, for years! Continue reading “Bitrot, Part 1”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-062018-06-09Categories Data CorruptionTags bitrot, data corruption, filesystem1 Comment on Bitrot, Part 1

There’s Always a Problem

Do you have insatiable curiosity and are driven by a relentless pursuit of the truth? You might make a great problem solver, but be careful how you deal with your findings! Continue reading “There’s Always a Problem”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-042018-07-05Categories Detecting Performance Issues, Diagnosing Issues, System PerformanceTags diagnosing issues, engineering, latency, monitoring, observability, operations, performance, software stack

Look Up the Stack!

If you’ve been around systems long enough, you know that opportunity for performance gains goes up dramatically, the further up the stack you look.. Continue reading “Look Up the Stack!”

Author bduncanPosted on 2018-06-032018-06-27Categories Detecting Performance Issues, Diagnosing Issues, System PerformanceTags latency, monitoring, observability, performance, software stack

Recent Posts

  • openssl wrapper script
  • Anagrams for Fun
  • Good Luck and Happy New Year!

Archives

  • April 2023
  • January 2023
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018

Categories

  • Aviation (7)
  • Code Bits (14)
  • Data Corruption (2)
  • Detecting Performance Issues (14)
  • devops (27)
  • Diagnosing Issues (9)
  • Documentation (5)
  • Event logs (2)
  • Geolocating (1)
  • golang (1)
  • Just-for-Fun (12)
  • K8S (2)
  • Monitoring (4)
  • OT (6)
  • Problem Solving (5)
  • R (2)
  • Reading Week (6)
  • RemoteWork (2)
  • RTFM (5)
  • Security (2)
  • SRE (32)
  • System Performance (13)
  • Uncategorized (1)
  • WFM (5)

Archives

  • April 2023
  • January 2023
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact bill duncan
  • Links
bill duncan's blog Proudly powered by WordPress