Dumb user errors? Must be Monday at the help desk

Everyone has bad days, but the start of the week seems to bring out no-brainer help requests around the office

It happens to all of us, when after a long, taxing day, you can't string together two coherent thoughts. Due to mental exhaustion, we make mistakes and overlook minor details. I don’t mind helping users in such cases. In a couple of minutes, I can fix the tech problem, remove one worry, and help them get on with their day.

And if the help desk call happens to come on a Monday, there's no telling what to expect.

Microservices: Simple servers, complex security

As microservices replace monolithic applications, they're proving to be more flexible, but also more complex to secure and protect

The benefits of microservices architecture -- smaller development teams, faster release cycles, fewer dependencies, less risk -- are becoming widely known, thanks to companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix sharing their experiences. Less widely understood are the security challenges introduced by this new paradigm, but the engineers in the vanguard have wisdom to offer on this front as well.  

You need to keep in mind more than a few details before you rip the wrapping off the shiny new app containers. Instead of securing one monolithic app or a couple, you're now responsible for perhaps dozens of smaller services, all capable of interacting with each other in a number of ways. What's more, you're trying to secure those services from outside attack and internal misuse, deliberate or not.