Microservices, SQL, OSB, PQXDH, UpCloud

1. Death by a thousand microservices (@ renegadeotter.com) - Excellent topic, I think I've already covered this topic are in my countless blog posts. But I just have to say that I do agree. kw: “complexity kills”, monolith, redundant boilerplate

2. Yet another small optimization case. They were unhappy about one data update task taking 17 - 18 minutes to be stored in the database. After I did check what's required in detail, and remodeled the code, now it takes 29-33 seconds, and it's not by causing lock contention or by holding long term locks in place to improve performance using overly large data batches. Basic concept is to prepare everything that is possible outside transaction, then pass only key data to be updated to stored procedure in a suitable sized batch and let the stored procedure open transaction do all the updates (only if necessary!) and commit the operation. This drastically reduces number of transactions needed, chattiness with the SQL Server as duration of each transaction. While reducing number of transactions needed to get the job done. - I'm quite happy with this result. Old code also contained extreme trap for high load situations. If any of the updates failed, it started from the beginning. This could lead to situation where the update job never finishes, in case the tables being handled are sufficiently busy and there are dead locks popping up more or less randomly (as usual). The stored procedure version only retries a single batch segment, without starting the job from the beginning. Yet this part should be obvious to everyone anyway.

3. UK - Online Safety Bill (OSB) (@ Wikipedia) has passed. But they're not going to enforce it? This might lead to classic case, where most can do away with breaking the law, but when seen suitable, you'll find out that you'll get charged.

4. Signal: Quantum Resistance and the Signal Protocol (@ signal.org) using PQXDH (@ signal.org). Seems to be quite similar hybrid compared to SSH's "Hybrid Streamlined NTRU Prime sntrup761 and X25519 with SHA-512: sntrup761x25519-sha512". It's likely that many other protocols are going to upgrade the key exchange in similar way. kw: hybrid key exchange (kex), post quantum, X3DH, CRYSTALS-Kyber.

5. UpCloud firewall management issue, if I open firewall rule which defines Port Range rule from A - B. Then I change it to Single Port rule and enter A. The UI doesn't show anymore the B field, but after saving the rule, the rule is still typed as port range and the B is present. If I remove the B port number and change it to single rule. It gives error when saving that the end port number is missing. Wtf? It's a single port rule. Ok, let's se A and B to same value, set it to single port rule and save. - Works. - So the UI option single port or port range affects just UI. Technically every rule is port range rule from A - B in case, even when it's a single port rule. Duh! - Yeah, of course everyone verifies rules after setting those up. But I could see situations where someone would fail with this, so it's bad UX and potentially a dangerous fail. - I've noted earlier that some times their web management console dev team seems sloppy, this fits into that category as well.

6. Something not so different? TCAS (@ Wikipedia) and as a comparison what could theoretically be out there AN/APG-81 (@ Wikipedia) and AAQ-37_Electro-Optical_Distributed_Aperture_System (@ Wikipedia). Had to remind my self about details of that technology due to strange statements made by Taiwan air defense in news. But I did remember all key details which are publicly available totally correctly. No, civil passenger planes do not have any technical system onboard, which would likely detect other planes close by when those aren't using a transponder.

2024-08-04