#confluence vs sharepoint

[tzunami1]

Let's face it—migrating platforms is hardly ever fun. But if your team's outgrown Atlassian's Confluence or you're bringing digital assets together, Confluence migration is more of a requirement than a choice. Particularly when migrating from Confluence to SharePoint, it's not merely a matter of transferring pages—it's about maintaining knowledge, structure, permissions, and productivity.

[threesixfiveuk]

SharePoint vs. Other Intranet Solutions: A Comparative Analysis

Intranet solutions are essential tools for modern businesses aiming to enhance internal communication, collaboration, and productivity. Among the various intranet solutions available, SharePoint stands out due to its robust features and seamless integration with Microsoft’s suite of products. This blog provides a comprehensive comparison between SharePoint and other popular intranet solutions to help businesses make informed decisions.

Understanding SharePoint

SharePoint is a web-based collaboration platform that integrates with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, it is used for a variety of purposes, including document management, storage systems, and intranet development. SharePoint’s flexibility and extensive range of features make it a leading choice for many organizations.

Key Features of SharePoint

Document Management: SharePoint offers advanced document management capabilities, including version control, metadata tagging, and robust search functions.

Integration with Microsoft 365: Seamless integration with Microsoft 365 applications like Teams, Outlook, and OneDrive enhances productivity.

Customisation: SharePoint can be extensively customised to meet the specific needs of an organisation.

Security: With enterprise-level security features, SharePoint ensures data protection and compliance.

Workflow Automation: SharePoint supports workflow automation through Power Automate, streamlining business processes.

Comparison with Other Intranet Solutions

SharePoint vs. Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)

Collaboration Tools: While Google Workspace offers robust collaboration tools like Google Drive, Docs, and Sheets, SharePoint provides a more integrated experience with Microsoft’s productivity suite.

Customisation: SharePoint offers more extensive customisation options compared to Google Workspace.

Security and Compliance: SharePoint is generally considered to have more advanced security and compliance features suitable for larger enterprises.

SharePoint vs. Slack

Communication Focus: Slack excels in real-time communication with its advanced messaging and collaboration features, while SharePoint is stronger in document management and intranet capabilities.

Integration: SharePoint’s integration with Microsoft 365 provides a more comprehensive solution for businesses already using Microsoft products.

Customisation and Scalability: SharePoint offers greater scalability and customisation for complex intranet needs.

SharePoint vs. Confluence

Knowledge Management: Confluence is excellent for knowledge management and team collaboration with its wiki-style interface. SharePoint, however, offers more robust document management and broader integration with other tools.

User Interface: Confluence has a more user-friendly interface for content creation and collaboration, whereas SharePoint’s interface can be more complex.

Customisation: SharePoint allows for more extensive customisation and can be tailored to fit specific business processes.

SharePoint vs. Jive

Social Collaboration: Jive is strong in social collaboration features, making it ideal for creating community-based intranets. SharePoint, on the other hand, provides a broader range of business and collaboration tools.

Integration: SharePoint’s integration with Microsoft 365 and other enterprise applications is more seamless compared to Jive.

Cost: Depending on the scale and requirements, Jive can be more expensive than SharePoint, especially for small to medium-sized businesses.

Choosing the Right Solution

Selecting the right intranet solution depends on various factors, including the specific needs of the organisation, existing IT infrastructure, and budget. Here are some considerations:

Business Requirements: Determine the primary goals of the intranet, such as document management, communication, or collaboration.

Integration Needs: Consider how well the intranet solution integrates with existing tools and systems.

User Experience: Evaluate the ease of use and user interface of the intranet solution.

Customisation and Scalability: Assess the level of customization required and the potential for scalability as the organisation grows.

Security and Compliance: Ensure the solution meets the necessary security and compliance requirements.

SharePoint remains a leading intranet solution due to its robust features, extensive customisation options, and seamless integration with Microsoft products. However, other intranet solutions like Google Workspace, Slack, Confluence, and Jive offer unique strengths that may be more suitable for specific organizational needs. By carefully evaluating these options, businesses can select the intranet solution that best aligns with their goals and requirements.

For more information or to explore SharePoint intranet development services, contact us today.

[iesflorida-blog]

CONFLUENCE VS SHAREPOINT - WHY SHAREPOINT MAKES MORE SENSE FOR SMBS

We work in increasingly dispersed teams. As a result, collaboration has gotten tougher. This has served as the impetus for software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers to step up to the plate with some great document storage and collaboration tools that help teams make work happen.

In this robust and ever-changing market, you’ll find young, unproven disrupters and established companies offering small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) some of the best options for document collaboration. There is a lot of competition; MarketsandMarkets says the cloud software market for document collaboration tools is doubling from 2014 to 2019.

This article looks at the two top document-sharing tools on the market today: Atlassian Confluence and Microsoft SharePoint. In a head-to-head comparison of Confluence vs. SharePoint, we explore why SharePoint is usually the better choice for SMBs.

CONFLUENCE VS. SHAREPOINT – SIMILARITIES

The first and most basic similarity between Confluence vs. SharePoint is that both are cloud-based software platforms. This means users can work wherever they have an internet signal, which is crucial for today’s on-the-go teams.

Both platforms let collaborators set up intranet sites. An intranet site is a private website accessible to your employees or clients. These sites serve as digital hubs or libraries of all the documents needed for a project. From this hub, you can list to-dos or calendar events. Multiple users can work from the intranet page and use it to manage research, documents, communications, and more.

While these Intranet sites have templates you can use, these sites can also be customized or even branded to fit a client or project.

CONFLUENCE VS. SHAREPOINT -- DIFFERENCES

The biggest difference in Confluence vs. SharePoint is that SharePoint is a more sophisticated version of Confluence. For example, SharePoint can be customized must more extensively than Confluence. SharePoint’s collaboration spans the entire Microsoft Office suite of products. You can edit Excel, PowerPoint, or Word documents simultaneously because SharePoint is a Microsoft product. They were all designed to mesh into one universe of office tools.

SharePoint is also robust enough to become a data warehouse with a very powerful and intuitive search tool. It is also offered in an on-premise version, in addition to the cloud-mode.

Another big difference between Confluence vs. SharePoint is that Microsoft’s platform has more than 1200 add-on applications. This means almost every business function imaginable is covered under the Microsoft umbrella. For the SMB seeking growth, the Microsoft platform becomes the clear winner because there is a tool for every job – something Confluence simply cannot match.

Also, the chat feature is built right into SharePoint, instead of being a Confluence add-on feature.

With that said, Confluence is simple enough for even the most basic user. Start-ups may benefit from Confluence because they don’t need all the features SharePoint offers.

However, if the SMB purchases Confluence, they will still likely need the Microsoft 365 suite of online office products including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Confluence does not integrate with these standard office products – including Outlook email.

For more information about SharePoint and how it can help your SMB, contact us.

[netmetic]

Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture

Have you ever spent weeks planning a road trip down to the last detail, only to be surprised along the way? The longer the trip, the higher the likelihood that something unexpected will happen. What does this have to do with microservices visualization? Great question! (I’m wondering that too!).

Implementing microservices can be a challenge because they’re inherently distributed which makes it hard to understand their relationships and dependencies from inception to deprecation. Event-driven microservices make this even harder to manage in that their biggest strength of decoupling is also their biggest challenge.

More event-driven microservices means more change, more dependencies, more moving pieces. Event sources don’t know about event sinks, so without a way to visualize the dependencies and interactions between microservices, your architecture starts to look like an Allstate Mayhem Commercial. Which leads me back to my road trip analogy (did you think I forgot?). For a super simple trip, you could get out your old Rand McNally Road Atlas (did I just date myself?) and highlight your intended route. What could go wrong? Road trip to San Diego for a beach vacation? Pack your swim trunks and let’s go!

But the problem is, I don’t live in San Diego, or in California for that matter. Coming from Salt Lake City where I live, I must drive across a couple states and through a number of towns like Provo, Las Vegas and Los Angeles to get there. And it’s not just one street I need to drive on, but many interstate highways, state roads, and local roadways. To make it more complicated, there are many different options that get me to San Diego too! So what am I getting at with this analogy? All of these cities are like microservices; they’re all related because they touch each other and flow into each other through roads. The roads are constantly changing from initial construction, to enhancements, to ultimate deprecation. Turns out route 66 is pretty much gone, yet my Rand McNally says it’s still there….

The Need for Microservices Visualization

This is what happens with all design documents (microservice or not) that are not updated as things change. In order to visualize the microservices architecture, an architect “sketches” the design in PowerPoint or Visio, takes pretty pictures, uploads them to SharePoint, and it soon becomes as accurate as the atlas in your glove-box. If you took that 1990 Rand McNally Road Atlas you would be up a dusty desert road, without gas, with only your swim trunks, and sitting in 120 degree heat!

So how do you take a road trip today? Google Maps lets you visualize, with multiple layers/views (road, topography, satellite) where you are going, complete with up-to-the-minute traffic and construction information, all verified by the real-time data collected by other users. In other words, the roads are verified, and construction and traffic bottlenecks are exposed so you can go around them. With Google Maps, you can estimate down to the minute when you’ll be cracking open that beer at your final destination, feeling the sand between your toes and working on that sunburn you’ll soon regret.

Let’s get back to event-driven microservices. What you need is a visualization tool that lets you map the relationships between your microservices, i.e., what data and schema is transporting your business objects, and lifecycle manage them so you don’t end up with a mess.

Why Most Microservices Visualization Approaches Fail

You might be thinking “Couldn’t I just keep my Visio or PowerPoint diagram up to date, and version control the design document?” If you’re talking about a small organization with infrequent changes, perhaps, but that is not the reality of most organizations I have worked for or with. To stay accurate your map needs to be constantly interrogating the interactions between the microservices and looking for discrepancies. What do I mean by discrepancies?

Does the data comply with the baseline schema? Does a data change comply with schema compatibility rules (forward, backward, etc.)

Are microservices sending the right data? To the right topic/place?

Are microservices consuming/subscribing to all the data they should? Should they be processing more data sets? Are they trying to consume data they are not authorized to receive?

Are there the proper number of microservice instances running to handle the data load?

These are the discrepancies that have a hard time finding their way back to a Visio, PowerPoint or a Confluence page. They are also the exact problems that plague microservice deployments (and all distributed systems) – if you can’t visualize the microservices architecture, you can’t understand the impact of a change.

Going back to the map example, if you were only looking at a list of directions and deviations, it would be hard to understand the impact of a road closure or traffic congestion and to weigh the pros/cons of the proposed rerouting. Yet, this is but one small example of why you need better tooling to visualize and understand your microservices architecture.

The Keys to Good Microservices Visualization

What all of us really want is to understand not just where we are and where we are going (whether architecting a system or going on a road trip), but how we’re going to get there, and where we are on that journey. To do that we need the following key capabilities:

Visualizations that give us information about relationships that can be hard to grasp from data alone (e.g. having a visual map in Google vs. written directions)

Layers/views that enable cognitive understanding without complexity, more than a PowerPoint diagram can (e.g. topography/satellite view in Google Maps)

A standard way to collaborate (share maps, waypoints, live position)

An automatic way to catch discrepancies with reality (Google crowdsourcing changes)

Change management capabilities (Google alerting to traffic, construction, speed traps and rerouting in real-time)

Visualizing Microservives with an Event Portal

An event portal is the key to treating your microservices architecture like you would treat a cross-country road trip – with adequate planning, the proper resources you need to visualize and manage the way forward (including potential hazards, detours), and a way to share it with others it may impact, whether that’s your coworkers, teammates, or your college buddy in Barstow whose couch you’ll crash on for a night.

Solace recently introduced an event portal called PubSub+ Event Portal that lets you:

Keep your loosely coupled microservices working, and yourselves/teams/managers happy by visualizing their relationships

Visualize how a change to one microservice is going to impact other

Proactively alert others before you hurt them

Ensure each microservice is independently versioned

Manage event relationships

And so much more!

This is so important for designing and maintaining microservices architecture because it can help the organization make better, informed decisions and – ultimately – get you to where you need to go.

Conclusion

With all that said, here are some wise words (if I do say so myself) to live by: Use Google Maps to get where you’re going on the road, not your 1990 Rand McNally Atlas. And use Solace PubSub+ Event Portal to manage and visualize your event-driven microservices, not Visio, PowerPoint, GitHub manifest files, Confluence, etc.

Try out the Solace PubSub+ Event Portal and explore how you can visually design and understand your event-driven microservice topography. Manage your event relationships like you do your road trips: with the best tools at hand!

  The post Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture appeared first on Solace.

Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture published first on https://jiohow.tumblr.com/

[jobisite11]

SureIT Solutions - Lead DevOps Engineer - CI/CD Framework 7-9 yrs Hyderabad Systems/Product Software

We have immediate opportunities for Lead Devops Consultant in Hyderabad. Please find the details below. If this interests you, please apply or call us at 9700725847 or 040-40207933 for further inputs.Job Title : Lead Devops ConsultantExperience : 7 to 9 YearsLocation : HyderabadCompany : Tollplus India Pvt. Ltd.Job Overview :We are looking for a passionate, innovative, results-oriented technology professional with heart-deep commitment tosuccess to be a part of our continuous Integration and continuous team. This role requires designing and implementing cutting edge continuous integration and continuous deployment solutions, for various lines of business and enterprise applications. Responsible for application deployment, high performance and scalability in a distributed, multi-tier and cross platform web and mobile applications. Regularly mentors the day-to-day activities of peers and junior resources. Responsible for taking deployment work, meeting completion dates, interpreting and ensuring application of policies and procedures. May also be responsible for performing the work being supervised.Responsibilities :- Identify gaps and areas of improvement in deployment process and continuously drive the team to fix them.- Responsible for creating build and deployment jobs in multiple platforms TFS/VSTS, Jenkins, Team city.- Applied research and development, prototyping, for new areas in CI/CD.- Continuously improve the build and deployment process to reduce time and build breaks.- Participating, and helping development team when needed, production troubleshooting and 'War Room' Activities.- Instilling a culture of execution, operational excellence, and accountability.- Seeking and capitalizing on the opportunities to improve productivity, improving time-to-market, improving solutions quality and improving cost effectiveness.- Creating a culture that is based on knowledge sharing and learning from best practices.- Exhibiting high level of professional flexibility and volunteering innovation and new ideas.Experience with the following Technologies/Methodologies required :- Strong knowledge and understanding of configuring windows server, IIS, Sql server is required.- Strong knowledge and understanding of configuring Linux servers, Apache Tomcat, Cron job is required.- Strong knowledge and understanding of TFS/VSTS is required.- Strong knowledge of Power Shell scripts, batch scripts or bash scripts or python is required.- Strong administrative skills of multiple source control systems like GIT, SVN, TFS is needed.- Knowledge on automated build and/or unit testing and integration systems and process.- Knowledge on multiple CI and CD tools like Team-city, Jenkins Jira is needed.- Strong experience in using MS build or Maven build.- Experience in using multiple IDEs Visual Studio, VS Code, Eclipse and multiple plugins for the IDEs.- Container based deployment like docker or kubernetes or Service Fabric is preferred.- Agile development environment especially SCRUM using Urban Turtle.- SharePoint or confluence experience for content management, portal and applications.- Experience in signing and deploying iOS and Android applications to app store and play store.Other skills Preferred :- Excellent communication, presentation, influencing, and reasoning skills to earn support of business leaders, technology leaders, colleagues, and vendor representatives.- Capable of building sustainable relationships with colleagues and key individuals.- Creativity and ability to think outside-the-box while defining sound and practical solutions.- Desire to take the initiative, moving projects/ideas forward with clarity.Minimum :- A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Business Administration, or related discipline. - While an advanced degree is preferred, the value is placed on the extent of the relevant experience and accomplishments- 5+ years hands-on experience in CI and CD frameworks and Tool (OOD), Scripting language distributed architectures, and designing for scalability and performance, especially within web and Mobile technologies.- Knowledge of Release Management and creating release plans for different environments is needed.- Knowledge of Release Management and creating release plans for different environments is needed.- Demonstrated proficiency in framework design, development and documentation.SaadSureIT Solutions Inc.Phone: 040-40207933 / 9700725847www.sureitinc.com (ref:hirist.com) SureITSolutions-LeadDevOpsEngineer-CICDFramework(7-9yrs)Hyderabad(SystemsProductSoftware) from Job Portal https://www.jobisite.com/extrJobView.htm?id=173452

[amitkoth-blog]

Post on Tallyfy - Best Collaboration Software - Confluence vs Sharepoint / You have a project to complete- or ten. After putting a team together for each project - Read more at https://tallyfy.com/confluence-vs-sharepoint/

[tallyfy]

New post - Best Collaboration Software - Confluence vs Sharepoint https://tallyfy.com/confluence-vs-sharepoint/ You have a project to complete- or ten. After putting a team together for each project you begin working on all the tasks and documents required to complete the project. Documents get emailed back and forth between team members, with everyone having a different version of the document on their computer. Some team members may not even have the necessary documents because they were made on someone else's computer. Discussion about tasks gets lost in a pile of emails, and walking from department to department to chat with a team member gets tiring.

[tzunami1]

Let's face it—migrating platforms is hardly ever fun. But if your team's outgrown Atlassian's Confluence or you're bringing digital assets together, Confluence migration is more of a requirement than a choice. Particularly when migrating from Confluence to SharePoint, it's not merely a matter of transferring pages—it's about maintaining knowledge, structure, permissions, and productivity.

[tzunami1]

Demystifying SharePoint Online migration involves understanding the intricacies of the process, leveraging tools like the SharePoint Migration Tool, and making informed decisions about collaboration platforms. Whether migrating from an on-premises environment or considering a switch from Confluence, careful planning and execution are key to a successful transition. As organizations evolve, embracing the capabilities of SharePoint Online ensures a scalable, secure, and collaborative digital workspace for the future.

[iesflorida-blog]

CONFLUENCE VS SHAREPOINT: WHICH IS BETTER FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Here is what we know: The right tools can make all the difference.

The digital landscape is dotted with choices for document and team collabora

tion software. Because our teams are often dispersed or remote, having the right tool for coordinating project documents is essential for making business happen.

Noticed we used the word “tool” instead of “tools”? That’s because we believe today’s software should be able to help you dump a multitude of legacy platforms and redundant processes and replace them with a single solution.

In this article, we’re going to look at two of the best document collaboration software applications on the market, Confluence vs. SharePoint. We’ll go into detail on the features, benefits, and pricing that come with these competing platforms to try to help you decide which is better for your business.

WHAT’S IN A NAME: ATLASSIAN VS. MICROSOFT

Deciding between Atlassian vs. Microsoft should start with a look at the longevity and background of the companies themselves.

When compared to Microsoft, Atlassian is the young upstart. This Australian company was founded in 2002 by two college students who maxed out their credit cards to finance their vision. By 2017 Atlassian became a $148 million venture with no credit cards in sight. In the intervening years, the firm worked to release JIRA, an issue-tracking device for software developers, and Confluence, their document collaboration tool. Interestingly, the firm does not have a traditional sales team, instead relying on word-of-mouth.

Microsoft has been creating business software since 1975. An American company founded during the Silicon Valley boom, the Microsoft suite of office products quickly cornered the market – and has held it for decades. In the 80s, Microsoft joined forces with IBM, bundling the Microsoft operating system within their suite of hardware. Today, Microsoft’s revenue is around $23 billion – not bad for an idea conceived in Bill Gates’ rec room.

WHAT MAKES GOOD COLLABORATION SOFTWARE?

Both of these firms offer document collaboration and team communication tools. Atlassian offers Confluence and Microsoft sells SharePoint. In a feature-by-feature comparison of Confluence and SharePoint, both seem to offer some of the features that one would expect with this kind of business collaboration software. For example, they both offer:

The ability to coordinate tasks, project planning, and deadlines, as well as offering team members the ability to assign to do’s. This should include workflow management features that allow the user automate document approval or review while tracking process steps.

Collaboration on documents between team members. However, this software should do more than maintain proper version control. It should serve as the hub for a client project, allowing instant messaging, scheduling, and task lists. These tools should be scalable to the largest teams but not too unwieldy for smaller organizations.

Real-time communication should exist in ways that transcend email; look for social collaboration applications that incorporate IM, video chat, on-demand recording features, file editing, and more.

The problem today is that the IT market has collaborative task management spread over multiple software applications for lead generation, collaboration on documents, project management, communications, etc. According to Computer World, 92% of IT professionals say they have an average of around four different applications that do what both Confluence and SharePoint can do. Integrating multiple legacy platforms is not only a problem for IT teams, but overly time-consuming for internal teams stuck repeating tasks.

Although enterprise organizations have been conservatively slow to adopt many of the digital disruptors that we see today, the market for software collaboration tools is expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 13%, according to Computer World.

However, Computer World also points out that the best office collaboration tools come not from Atlassian, but from Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, and Google – in that order. So, in a head-to-head comparison of Confluence vs. SharePoint, does this mean SharePoint will win every time? Let’s find out.

CONFLUENCE VS. SHAREPOINT – BENEFITS, AND DRAWBACKS

The first thing to consider, when looking at these two software platforms, is not the technology itself. Instead, we want you to consider the business-related problem these applications may help you solve. What are the top needs of your company that this software should solve?

Should it help coordinate remote teams with Intranet sites or wikis where documents can be built and stored?

Should the software have interactive brainstorming tools like virtual whiteboards?

Is prototyping important? How about microblogging or mind mapping?

Is the platform geared for internal teams, external clients, or both?

As part of this process, you should make a list of the applications that the platform should replace, and then check to see that the new software can replace all the features and functions you’re currently using.

Ultimately, you should allow your business user case to dictate the platform goals. Once this has been established, deciding between Confluence vs. SharePoint will get little easier.

CONFLUENCE

Despite being created by a younger company, Confluence has many of the same features as SharePoint. For example, both applications allow the user to create Intranet sites that can be used as the hub for project coordination. Atlassian’s Confluence operates under the old wiki concept, which originated in the mid-2000s. As a wiki, it does not allow the internal website to be published externally on the web for public consumption; however, Microsoft SharePoint does.

The Confluence software gives each user or team space within the larger wiki database where they can create pages. Confluence is popular software for web designers and programmers because they can create specific pages for technical documentation while uploading important documents.

Confluence pairs well with other Atlassian products like their HipChat for IM or JIRA for project management and software bug tracking. Confluence is very simple to use; the wikis have templates so setting up a page is pretty easy and uploading documents is intuitive.

Confluence is widely used for project management in developer communities. It is also particularly good for small businesses that need a smart, clean, yet simple tool to get the job done. Confluence has all the basic features of an office document management tool and is easy to use.

The pricing for Confluence starts at $10 per month for 10 users but jumps to $50/month for 15. The price goes up to 2000 users at $1,000 per month. One drawback to the platform is the first big, startling jump; for small but growing businesses it might be easy to have sticker shock if you’re not paying attention to the next pricing levels.

SHAREPOINT

SharePoint is so much more powerful than Confluence it’s almost shocking. In fact, for the small business, SharePoint may be overkill. But for the organization that’s ready for the real deal, Business 2 Community says, “If Confluence is one product, then SharePoint is a whole platform.”

On the surface, there are a lot of similarities between Confluence and SharePoint. SharePoint lets you set up web pages, just like Confluence does. It has instant messaging, document management, and storage, just like Confluence. Both software platforms are also mobile friendly. There’s where the main differences end.

The biggest differentiator is that SharePoint works seamlessly with other Microsoft products. Think about that for a moment. What if one tool could bring everything together under one umbrella? What if you were working on a project and wanted to set a meeting to review a document. SharePoint will store and let others collaborate on the document. It will allow instant discussion about the project, no matter how far apart the team is. But it will also let you set up a video conference, which you can record for any team members that miss it. In setting up the meeting, SharePoint populates meeting details in your Outlook calendar. You can also collaborate on PowerPoint presentations in SharePoint. Finally, SharePoint can serve as a data warehouse for important files related to your project.

Did we mention SharePoint has dozens of add-on services?

SharePoint pricing is divided into three tiers, at $5, $10, and $20.

When looking at Confluence and SharePoint, the user will also note that both platforms have cloud options. However, only SharePoint is offered in an on-premise solution. So, which is better for your business?

CONFLUENCE VS. SHAREPOINT – WHICH IS BETTER?

Defining a use case is the first step toward making the right business decision. But one fact to consider is that SharePoint simply does more than Confluence. When you combine it with the rest of the products in the Microsoft suite, it becomes hard to beat no matter what set of features you’re trying to find in your next software platform. But – and there is always a but – SharePoint is still clearly a work-in-progress, just like Confluence. Some users suggest that the tool is too complex so that all the features will never be used effectively.

One crucial consideration for SharePoint is that users must establish business rules for how files will be stored before users are set loose into the software. Otherwise, the lack of file naming conventions will almost assuredly leave files in a jumble, making them hard to find.

So, for an easy-to-use intuitive software platform for the small to mid-size business, Confluence may be worth checking out. But enterprise organizations, businesses that are already invested in Microsoft’s ecosystem, and fast-growth companies should consider SharePoint.

[netmetic]

Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture

Have you ever spent weeks planning a road trip down to the last detail, only to be surprised along the way? The longer the trip, the higher the likelihood that something unexpected will happen. What does this have to do with microservices visualization? Great question! (I’m wondering that too!).

Implementing microservices can be a challenge because they’re inherently distributed which makes it hard to understand their relationships and dependencies from inception to deprecation. Event-driven microservices make this even harder to manage in that their biggest strength of decoupling is also their biggest challenge.

More event-driven microservices means more change, more dependencies, more moving pieces. Event sources don’t know about event sinks, so without a way to visualize the dependencies and interactions between microservices, your architecture starts to look like an Allstate Mayhem Commercial. Which leads me back to my road trip analogy (did you think I forgot?). For a super simple trip, you could get out your old Rand McNally Road Atlas (did I just date myself?) and highlight your intended route. What could go wrong? Road trip to San Diego for a beach vacation? Pack your swim trunks and let’s go!

But the problem is, I don’t live in San Diego, or in California for that matter. Coming from Salt Lake City where I live, I must drive across a couple states and through a number of towns like Provo, Las Vegas and Los Angeles to get there. And it’s not just one street I need to drive on, but many interstate highways, state roads, and local roadways. To make it more complicated, there are many different options that get me to San Diego too! So what am I getting at with this analogy? All of these cities are like microservices; they’re all related because they touch each other and flow into each other through roads. The roads are constantly changing from initial construction, to enhancements, to ultimate deprecation. Turns out route 66 is pretty much gone, yet my Rand McNally says it’s still there….

The Need for Microservices Visualization

This is what happens with all design documents (microservice or not) that are not updated as things change. In order to visualize the microservices architecture, an architect “sketches” the design in PowerPoint or Visio, takes pretty pictures, uploads them to SharePoint, and it soon becomes as accurate as the atlas in your glove-box. If you took that 1990 Rand McNally Road Atlas you would be up a dusty desert road, without gas, with only your swim trunks, and sitting in 120 degree heat!

So how do you take a road trip today? Google Maps lets you visualize, with multiple layers/views (road, topography, satellite) where you are going, complete with up-to-the-minute traffic and construction information, all verified by the real-time data collected by other users. In other words, the roads are verified, and construction and traffic bottlenecks are exposed so you can go around them. With Google Maps, you can estimate down to the minute when you’ll be cracking open that beer at your final destination, feeling the sand between your toes and working on that sunburn you’ll soon regret.

Let’s get back to event-driven microservices. What you need is a visualization tool that lets you map the relationships between your microservices, i.e., what data and schema is transporting your business objects, and lifecycle manage them so you don’t end up with a mess.

Why Most Microservices Visualization Approaches Fail

You might be thinking “Couldn’t I just keep my Visio or PowerPoint diagram up to date, and version control the design document?” If you’re talking about a small organization with infrequent changes, perhaps, but that is not the reality of most organizations I have worked for or with. To stay accurate your map needs to be constantly interrogating the interactions between the microservices and looking for discrepancies. What do I mean by discrepancies?

Does the data comply with the baseline schema? Does a data change comply with schema compatibility rules (forward, backward, etc.)

Are microservices sending the right data? To the right topic/place?

Are microservices consuming/subscribing to all the data they should? Should they be processing more data sets? Are they trying to consume data they are not authorized to receive?

Are there the proper number of microservice instances running to handle the data load?

These are the discrepancies that have a hard time finding their way back to a Visio, PowerPoint or a Confluence page. They are also the exact problems that plague microservice deployments (and all distributed systems) – if you can’t visualize the microservices architecture, you can’t understand the impact of a change.

Going back to the map example, if you were only looking at a list of directions and deviations, it would be hard to understand the impact of a road closure or traffic congestion and to weigh the pros/cons of the proposed rerouting. Yet, this is but one small example of why you need better tooling to visualize and understand your microservices architecture.

The Keys to Good Microservices Visualization

What all of us really want is to understand not just where we are and where we are going (whether architecting a system or going on a road trip), but how we’re going to get there, and where we are on that journey. To do that we need the following key capabilities:

Visualizations that give us information about relationships that can be hard to grasp from data alone (e.g. having a visual map in Google vs. written directions)

Layers/views that enable cognitive understanding without complexity, more than a PowerPoint diagram can (e.g. topography/satellite view in Google Maps)

A standard way to collaborate (share maps, waypoints, live position)

An automatic way to catch discrepancies with reality (Google crowdsourcing changes)

Change management capabilities (Google alerting to traffic, construction, speed traps and rerouting in real-time)

Visualizing Microservives with an Event Portal

An event portal is the key to treating your microservices architecture like you would treat a cross-country road trip – with adequate planning, the proper resources you need to visualize and manage the way forward (including potential hazards, detours), and a way to share it with others it may impact, whether that’s your coworkers, teammates, or your college buddy in Barstow whose couch you’ll crash on for a night.

Solace recently introduced an event portal called PubSub+ Event Portal that lets you:

Keep your loosely coupled microservices working, and yourselves/teams/managers happy by visualizing their relationships

Visualize how a change to one microservice is going to impact other

Proactively alert others before you hurt them

Ensure each microservice is independently versioned

Manage event relationships

And so much more!

This is so important for designing and maintaining microservices architecture because it can help the organization make better, informed decisions and – ultimately – get you to where you need to go.

Conclusion

With all that said, here are some wise words (if I do say so myself) to live by: Use Google Maps to get where you’re going on the road, not your 1990 Rand McNally Atlas. And use Solace PubSub+ Event Portal to manage and visualize your event-driven microservices, not Visio, PowerPoint, GitHub manifest files, Confluence, etc.

Try out the Solace PubSub+ Event Portal and explore how you can visually design and understand your event-driven microservice topography. Manage your event relationships like you do your road trips: with the best tools at hand!

  The post Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture appeared first on Solace.

Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture published first on https://jiohow.tumblr.com/

[netmetic]

Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture

Have you ever spent weeks planning a road trip down to the last detail, only to be surprised along the way? The longer the trip, the higher the likelihood that something unexpected will happen. What does this have to do with microservices visualization? Great question! (I’m wondering that too!).

Implementing microservices can be a challenge because they’re inherently distributed which makes it hard to understand their relationships and dependencies from inception to deprecation. Event-driven microservices make this even harder to manage in that their biggest strength of decoupling is also their biggest challenge.

More event-driven microservices means more change, more dependencies, more moving pieces. Event sources don’t know about event sinks, so without a way to visualize the dependencies and interactions between microservices, your architecture starts to look like an Allstate Mayhem Commercial. Which leads me back to my road trip analogy (did you think I forgot?). For a super simple trip, you could get out your old Rand McNally Road Atlas (did I just date myself?) and highlight your intended route. What could go wrong? Road trip to San Diego for a beach vacation? Pack your swim trunks and let’s go!

But the problem is, I don’t live in San Diego, or in California for that matter. Coming from Salt Lake City where I live, I must drive across a couple states and through a number of towns like Provo, Las Vegas and Los Angeles to get there. And it’s not just one street I need to drive on, but many interstate highways, state roads, and local roadways. To make it more complicated, there are many different options that get me to San Diego too! So what am I getting at with this analogy? All of these cities are like microservices; they’re all related because they touch each other and flow into each other through roads. The roads are constantly changing from initial construction, to enhancements, to ultimate deprecation. Turns out route 66 is pretty much gone, yet my Rand McNally says it’s still there….

The Need for Microservices Visualization

This is what happens with all design documents (microservice or not) that are not updated as things change. In order to visualize the microservices architecture, an architect “sketches” the design in PowerPoint or Visio, takes pretty pictures, uploads them to SharePoint, and it soon becomes as accurate as the atlas in your glove-box. If you took that 1990 Rand McNally Road Atlas you would be up a dusty desert road, without gas, with only your swim trunks, and sitting in 120 degree heat!

So how do you take a road trip today? Google Maps lets you visualize, with multiple layers/views (road, topography, satellite) where you are going, complete with up-to-the-minute traffic and construction information, all verified by the real-time data collected by other users. In other words, the roads are verified, and construction and traffic bottlenecks are exposed so you can go around them. With Google Maps, you can estimate down to the minute when you’ll be cracking open that beer at your final destination, feeling the sand between your toes and working on that sunburn you’ll soon regret.

Let’s get back to event-driven microservices. What you need is a visualization tool that lets you map the relationships between your microservices, i.e., what data and schema is transporting your business objects, and lifecycle manage them so you don’t end up with a mess.

Why Most Microservices Visualization Approaches Fail

You might be thinking “Couldn’t I just keep my Visio or PowerPoint diagram up to date, and version control the design document?” If you’re talking about a small organization with infrequent changes, perhaps, but that is not the reality of most organizations I have worked for or with. To stay accurate your map needs to be constantly interrogating the interactions between the microservices and looking for discrepancies. What do I mean by discrepancies?

Does the data comply with the baseline schema? Does a data change comply with schema compatibility rules (forward, backward, etc.)

Are microservices sending the right data? To the right topic/place?

Are microservices consuming/subscribing to all the data they should? Should they be processing more data sets? Are they trying to consume data they are not authorized to receive?

Are there the proper number of microservice instances running to handle the data load?

These are the discrepancies that have a hard time finding their way back to a Visio, PowerPoint or a Confluence page. They are also the exact problems that plague microservice deployments (and all distributed systems) – if you can’t visualize the microservices architecture, you can’t understand the impact of a change.

Going back to the map example, if you were only looking at a list of directions and deviations, it would be hard to understand the impact of a road closure or traffic congestion and to weigh the pros/cons of the proposed rerouting. Yet, this is but one small example of why you need better tooling to visualize and understand your microservices architecture.

The Keys to Good Microservices Visualization

What all of us really want is to understand not just where we are and where we are going (whether architecting a system or going on a road trip), but how we’re going to get there, and where we are on that journey. To do that we need the following key capabilities:

Visualizations that give us information about relationships that can be hard to grasp from data alone (e.g. having a visual map in Google vs. written directions)

Layers/views that enable cognitive understanding without complexity, more than a PowerPoint diagram can (e.g. topography/satellite view in Google Maps)

A standard way to collaborate (share maps, waypoints, live position)

An automatic way to catch discrepancies with reality (Google crowdsourcing changes)

Change management capabilities (Google alerting to traffic, construction, speed traps and rerouting in real-time)

Visualizing Microservives with an Event Portal

An event portal is the key to treating your microservices architecture like you would treat a cross-country road trip – with adequate planning, the proper resources you need to visualize and manage the way forward (including potential hazards, detours), and a way to share it with others it may impact, whether that’s your coworkers, teammates, or your college buddy in Barstow whose couch you’ll crash on for a night.

Solace recently introduced an event portal called PubSub+ Event Portal that lets you:

Keep your loosely coupled microservices working, and yourselves/teams/managers happy by visualizing their relationships

Visualize how a change to one microservice is going to impact other

Proactively alert others before you hurt them

Ensure each microservice is independently versioned

Manage event relationships

And so much more!

This is so important for designing and maintaining microservices architecture because it can help the organization make better, informed decisions and – ultimately – get you to where you need to go.

Conclusion

With all that said, here are some wise words (if I do say so myself) to live by: Use Google Maps to get where you’re going on the road, not your 1990 Rand McNally Atlas. And use Solace PubSub+ Event Portal to manage and visualize your event-driven microservices, not Visio, PowerPoint, GitHub manifest files, Confluence, etc.

Try out the Solace PubSub+ Event Portal and explore how you can visually design and understand your event-driven microservice topography. Manage your event relationships like you do your road trips: with the best tools at hand!

  The post Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture appeared first on Solace.

Why Microservices Visualization is the Google Maps of Your Microservices Architecture published first on https://jiohow.tumblr.com/