Wednesday 28 August 2019

AWS CloudFront Lambda at Edge cloudwatch logs

Where are the AWS CloudFront Lambda@Edge logs and metrics?


Feb 2022 - this post is permanently moved to https://architectfwd.com, my new site, and can be found here  - https://architectfwd.com/architecture/cloud/amazon-web-services-aws/dns-domains-route-53/2022/01/23/aws-cloudfront-lambda-at-edge-cloudwatch-logs/ please go and bookmark that site for all of my future content.


You've created a lambda@Edge function to view or influence the http request/response using a Lambda function, but you cannot see any hits when looking at the monitoring tab in the function definition within AWS Lambda. Is it being hit? Here's how to find out.

Lambda@Edge


I'd created a lambda@edge function bound to a CloudFront distribution and to a specific origin event. In my instance it was to modify the default root object in a request URI for a static site hosted in AWS S3 which is fronted by CloudFront.

You've looked at the metrics in Lambda after CloudFront status for the distribution is Deployed



It looks like the function is not being triggered, why is that. Well, go over to CloudFront, look at the metrics tab and select the Lambda@Edge function, and you will see the region where the function is being triggered from, which you wouldn't be able to see by changing regions on the console.

Here's an example:


Take a look at which regions through hovering over


It looks I'm hitting Sydney, so the best place to go is the CloudWatch logs in Sydney. Take a look in the console by changing regions to Sydney, look at the Log Groups and there are my logs. The same metrics as seen in the CloudFront metrics is available in the CloudWatch metrics.

Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

Monday 8 July 2019

AWS DNS Route 53 delegating responsibility of subdomain without migrating parent domain

AWS DNS Route 53 delegating responsibility of subdomain without migrating parent domain


Feb 2022 - this post is permanently moved to https://architectfwd.com, my new site, and can be found here  - https://architectfwd.com/architecture/cloud/amazon-web-services-aws/dns-domains-route-53/2022/01/23/aws-dns-route-53-delegating-responsibility-of-subdomain/ please go and bookmark that site for all of my future content.


When you have a domain hosted at a register or other DNS service and want to create a subdomain hosted in Route 53 but do not want to move the parent domain then do the following.

AWS Route 53


In this example, I assume you have a domain, e.g. lovescatsnotarealdomain.com and you do not want to transfer it to Route 53. All you want to do is create a subdomain e.g. mysubdomain.lovescatsnotarealdomain.com hosted and registered within Route 53.

In Route 53, create a new hosted zone mysubdomain.lovescatsnotarealdomain.com. You will be provided a SOA record and NS records in this hosted zone. Create a further subdomain record set in this domain if you so choose at a later time.

Do not create a hosted zone for lovescatsnotarealdomain.com in Route 53 for this scenario.

Update DNS Service


Copy the 4 nameservers from the record created above. At your domain register / DNS Service proceed to create 4 NS records for the subdomain - do not create a CNAME at the DNS Service, only NS records.

Wait. For DNS that is.

In the meanwhile create either an A record or an Alias in the Route 53 hosted zone for the domain. That is,
a) create an EC2 and assign the A to the IP address or
b) map an ELB via an Alias.

Wait. For DNS.

DNS...


At some point running a DIG NS mysubdomain.lovescatsnotarealdomain.com will result in NXDOMAIN error, but eventually you will get a full result showing the resulting NS changes.

Open mysubdomain.lovescatsnotarealdomain.com in a browser and you should be greeted with the service you configured against the subdomain in an earlier step.

This makes it really easy and no need to migrate the entire domain zone to Route 53. A really flexible option.


Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

Tuesday 30 April 2019

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes 2019/03 - digital consumption

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes from the DTI (2019/03) - Digital consumption


Feb 2022 - this post is permanently moved to https://architectfwd.com, my new site, and can be found here  - https://architectfwd.com/architecture/enterprise-architecture/digital-transformation/dti2019review/platforms/2022/02/01/digital-transformation-opportunities-and-themes-2019-03-digital-consumption/ please go and bookmark that site for all of my future content.



This post follows on from my previous posts on Digital Transformation opportunities and themes, this time focusing on the theme Digital Consumption.

The DTI assessment from May 2018 noted that the following are key themes that have emerged from the analysis of digital transformation across 13 industries (health, retail, professional services amongst others):
  • Maximizing return on digital - discussed in a prior post
  • Digital Consumption - discussed in this post
  • Digital Enterprise - discussed in prior post
  • Platform Economy - discussed in prior post
  • Societal Implications - future post
  • Unlocking Digital Value to Society - future post

Digital Consumption

Digital customers needs and expectations are evolving, and businesses / organisations serving these customers must adapt, primarily through

  • Offering experiences rather than products and services. Customer experience is the number 1 priority. I must list the one that comes to mind first: Amazon principle, Customer Obsession: 
  • Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
  • Hyper-personalisation. Customers expect services tailored and personalized for them.
    As an example, netflix offers a match percentage when viewing a show, though I sometimes question if it matches anything I want or just matches based on proximity to other shows I may have clicked over. Spotify has the ability to suggest songs or playlists based on other previous playlists and songs a customer has listened to, which helps to promote new songs and playlists ultimately improving the experience of the user.
  • Ownership to access, where customers would rather pay for access-based models rather than purchase outright. Think of renting a movie via Apple Movies, or a Spotify subscription where you don't actually own any of the albums you listen to.
I believe the access-based model is becoming more prevalent, especially as platforms drive us to consume content, video and audio for a subscription fee, and more relevant is likely how many customers prefer that to buying a DVD, CD etc and not enjoying the whole album. The choice and flexibility in offering these experiences is highly desirable to older models of purchasing and ownership, just as an example. In my next post I'll discuss one the next themes, Digital Enterprise, with more on disruption and innovation of business models, operating models and how the DTI paper suggests new metrics should be added and tracked to gauge performance outside of typical financial indicators.


Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

Sunday 14 April 2019

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes 2019/03 - platform economy

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes from the DTI (2019/03) - Platform economy


Feb 2022 - this post is permanently moved to https://architectfwd.com, my new site, and can be found here  - https://architectfwd.com/architecture/enterprise-architecture/digital-transformation/dti2019review/platforms/2022/02/01/digital-transformation-opportunities-and-themes-2019-03-platform-economy/ please go and bookmark that site for all of my future content.


This post continues my study of Digital Transformation opportunities and themes as described in the DTI assessment[1] from May 2018, primarily focused on what the DTI report describes as the Platform economy.

Themes


Just to summarise where we're at, the DTI notes the following are key themes that have emerged from the analysis of digital transformation across 13 industries, and I've worked through them as follows:
  • Maximizing return on digital - discussed in a prior post
  • Digital Consumption - discussed in a prior post
  • Digital Enterprise - discussed in prior post
  • Platform Economy - discussed in this post
  • Societal Implications - future post
  • Unlocking Digital Value to Society - future post
Let's dive in and work through what the platform economy holds.

Platforms

As described in the DTI report, value is derived from platforms in these ways..
  • to drive transformed business models, through more frequent and complex interactions amongst businesses B2B platforms are requiring businesses to think about innovation and digital business models in new and disruptive ways.
  • to help ecosystems expand,

    interconnected systems and new business models are increasing collaboration between businesses, partners, vendors and the businesses they support to drive highly complex always-on systems capable of supporting local, national and global business. Platforms even create means for other startups or established organisations to leverage those platforms to create services and integrations which could generate new revenue. Atlassian is a good example of that - app market places and plugin ecosystems allow others to leverage the popularity of the platforms to deliver new features or integrations which ultimately become revenue sources to those players.
  • creating a win-win for industry and society,

    The DTI report notes a US$100 trillion value at stake from digital transformation, and it states society can benefit as much as the the industries.. We'll need to unpick that.

DTI further notes changes to Strategies and Operational capabilities, such as
a) changes to pricing models to outcome based objectives, and these may be especially important if considering the move from ownership to access-based models for some services or products.
b) strategies to position an organisation as having a platform mindset, especially for key services or product offerings. Confidence in the customer segment, new or existing, must be high to avoid the 'build it and they will come' platform possibly where there are no customers needing or wanting what has been built.
c) platform-driven innovation, which is especially important to innovate and provide a base for partners and customers to derive and even create further value.

The only thing I think I want to work through here is the win-win for industry and society, just to be clear on what the value to society is envisaged to be. I'll do that in another post.

Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

[1] http://reports.weforum.org/digital-transformation/

Saturday 6 April 2019

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes 2019/03 - digital enterprise

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes from the DTI (2019/03) - Digital Enterprise


Feb 2022 - this post is permanently moved to https://architectfwd.com, my new site, and can be found here  - https://architectfwd.com/architecture/enterprise-architecture/digital-transformation/dti2019review/2022/02/01/digital-transformation-opportunities-and-themes-2019-03-digital-enterprise/ please go and bookmark that site for all of my future content.



Update 06 April 2019, my other post on the theme maximizing return on digital in the DTI report is available.

This post follows on from my previous post on Digital Transformation opportunities and themes, this time focusing on the theme Digital Enterprise and how innovation affects and influences business models, innovation and staff skills needed to succeed in the transformation.

The DTI assessment from May 2018 noted that the following are key themes that have emerged from the analysis of digital transformation across 13 industries (health, retail, professional services amongst others):
  • Maximizing return on digital - discussed in a prior post
  • Digital Consumption - discussed in a prior post
  • Digital Enterprise - discussed in this post
  • Platform Economy
  • Societal Implications
  • Unlocking Digital Value to Society

Digital Enterprise

Innovation and disruption are key to successful transformation into a digital enterprise:
  • Business Models.
    Business models must consider distribution channels, customer segments (either existing or new), value proposition and even the Key Assets which could all be driven from new technology enablers. Cost could be impacted through platform, new technology adoption to provide streamlined or new capabilities into value stream stages.. disruption!

    The DTI summary notes that Business Models may be able to choose from one of these options to deliver and realise the promise of digital:
    1. Build - If there is time and capability to do so
    2. Buy - when wanting to own the market, open new markets or when internal capability is not mature enough
    3. Partner - thus leveraging the strengths of partners, including any of their key assets, channels or gaining access to their customer segments
    4. Invest - Invest in R&D, in key resources development or even in intrapreneurial initiatives within the organisation
    5. Incubate - invest in and incubate a separate or sub entity and apply startup/lean methods to iterate
  • Operating Models.
    Delivering value requires an agile business operating model, in both core and supporting capabilities. Lean, DevOps and Agile methodologies and practices are being adopted in many business units, even those I work with now to reduce waste and increase business agility.

    The DTI summary notes the operating models vary amongst 5 key types, likely needing a post on its own. Of these models, the customer-centric operating model focussed on a decentralised organisation focusing on the frontline processes to be customer obsessed is crucial and likely the most obvious depending on the business' target client base. A frugal operating model using less and with constrained resources and funding is also important to deliver more without undue fixed expense or waste. Lastly I like the Open and Liquid operating model, centered around platforms for the 'sharing customer', access based models. The other 2 models noted is (a) Data-powered with a focus on analytics, and (b) skynet with a focus on manufacturing.
  • Digital skills. Digital skills of staff and digital leadership are both crucial to delivering in a transformational environment.

DTI also suggests new metrics to monitor as part of key performance indicators. These include number of users, growth in registrations but also monthly active users, conversion rates and abandonment rates. Engagement is also key, with factors such as time on site, time on specific content, contribution metrics and of course customer satisfaction indexes.

These are exciting facets of the Digital Enterprise, and I am excited by this knowledge of innovation, strategy and planning around business models and being able to continue to architect business aligned technology enablement and solutions to improve and enable digital transformation.  

Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

Wednesday 3 April 2019

Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture - starting at the business model

Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture - Starting at the business model




When an organisation begins thinking about digital transformation or when strategy and business objectives require focus on value delivery, new capabilities or new customer segments, then there is a need to model the desired state, as a vision clearly stating how to deliver to and meet these objectives. Where can you start? Bottom up, i.e. from the technology layer up may not realize the value if the business outcomes are not articulated beforehand. Technology for the sake of it will not realize value unless it aligns with a business need.

The Open Group Architecture Framework (Togaf) describes the steps, approach and taxonomy that can be used to elicit requirements and then describe and implement an architecture. But to get there you need a model to drive the requirements for a future state of the business. The Business Model Canvas is an option for high level modelling of the target business model.

The Business Model Canvas was proposed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur in the book 'Business Model Generation' . I initially became familiar with it from Eric Ries' book 'The Lean Startup' and again through some notes from Steve Blanks. A white paper from The Open Group also indicated that the canvas can be used as a means into more robust modelling for EA. It can also be used for customer development, validation and learning in the Lean Startup methodology. I'll get into those in another post.

The Business Model Canvas


The business model canvas describes 9 core entities of a business. The business model describes how the organisation creates, delivers or captures value. In particular it describes the main domains within a business as 9 building blocks, notably the customers, the distribution channels, costs and revenue, the assets and means to create the value proposition. The use of the business model canvas can help to describe the viability of any proposed business model, such as
  • is this model going to yield the financial outcomes required to be sustainable
  • is the model going to deliver the right product - or service - to the right customer segment
  • are the channels to deliver suitable and effective? Are there other channels which would serve the customer better?
The Business Model Canvas building blocks are described best in the book by Osterwalder.

Value Proposition


When thinking of digital transformation the important questions are how does the business or organisation deliver a highly engaging, high value experience to the customer through the use of digitalisation and technology to improve the product or service. This is a key point, the customer satisfaction and the impact to the customer segment must be positive.

The value proposition must include consideration of factors such as efficiency, lowering cost, improving service etc.

I created an example business model canvas to display the core blocks as seen below.


This is a hypothetical music streaming service showing which customers, the channels, value proposition, key resources, activities and partners. It also shows the cost structure and revenue streams core to being a successful business.

It is useful as has become a popular means to describe a business model. I will need to test it out when looking at strategic drivers and objectives in certain projects I'd like to use this modelling tool in, especially to determine if I can use this model when needed as input into other deliverables I typically generate.

Integrating with Enterprise Architecture


The business model defines the as-is or future-state design of a business. Using the Business Model Canvas as a means to look at strategy and innovation is useful in the Enterprise Architecture context.

It helps to ensure enterprise architecture can be aligned with business strategy through developing a business architecture to deliver capabilities, business services and application architectures supporting the business model. In essence supporting support the value streams delivering the product and or service as described in the Value Proposition within the Business Model Canvas. The business architecture views developed through the architecture effort describe either the as-is or target state include operating models, value streams, organisation Maps, organisation model, capability maps etc. as well as other typical Togaf catalogs, matrices and diagrams. The business architecture views developed through the architecture effort drives planning through to implementation of architectures to support the business model.

I'm not suggesting the Business Model Canvas would always be the first model you start with; the business model may be available already and thus any enterprise architecture or solutions architecture can then focus on ensuring that capabilities support the existing business model.

However when modelling to describe who a product or service is aimed at, what channels will be used to communicate with those customers and what value is to be delivered against any costs I aim on utilizing this business model canvas. There are a few projects in my current role in public sector where I already have interest in describing the value proposition through the business model canvas.

Another tool in the belt, use when suitable I suggest!

Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

Sunday 31 March 2019

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes 2019/03 - maximizing return on digital

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes from the DTI (2019/03) - Maximizing return on Digital


Feb 2022 - this post is permanently moved to https://architectfwd.com, my new site, and can be found here  - https://architectfwd.com/architecture/enterprise-architecture/digital-transformation/dti2019review/2022/02/01/digital-transformation-opportunities-and-themes-maximizing-return-on-digital/ please go and bookmark that site for all of my future content.



Update 06 April 2019, my post on the theme digital enterprise from the DTI report is available.

This post follows on from my previous post on Digital Transformation opportunities and themes. The DTI assessment[1] from May 2018 noted a number of advanced technologies which would impact businesses, through enabling new capabilities and ultimately driving new value to customers and other stakeholders. This post touches lightly on one of the themes from the DTI assessment, and how it may further impact business and society.

Themes


The DTI notes that the following are key themes that have emerged from the analysis of digital transformation across 13 industries (health, retail, professional services amongst others):
  • Maximizing return on digital - the topic of this post.
  • Digital Consumption
  • Digital Enterprise
  • Platform Economy
  • Societal Implications
  • Unlocking Digital Value to Society
I will post on each of these themes aspects I find particularly insightful over a number of posts.

Maximizing return on digital


Investing in new technologies..

  • ..creates new efficiencies, through modernising, improving or streamlining business processes and optimizing use and cost of assets and resources.

    Here I see value as follows. Technology such as cloud and AI can be used to improve value stream stages, and other efficiencies in business process redesign to make optimal use of technology in streamlined operations and reduction of costs.
  • ..enhances customer experiences,

    Here I see the value delivered through omnichannel, new channels, enhanced process, product and solution value propositions which focus on delighting the customer and meeting high expectations of tailored service offerings. Think of cloud and how netflix delivers TV and film to any device, form factor and with video quality and an experience to suit the form factor.
  • ..builds new business models.

    Investing in new business models is difficult and where faster moving startups excel, but finding new technologies to improve the channel, value proposition or delivery through technology providing, for example a platform as a key asset helps to drive revenue and open or expand customer segments. I plan on writing something up regarding the Business Model Canvas as another blog entry. The book "Business Model Generation" was so useful to me in understanding this area, and I hope to continue learning more.

DTI notes that Compound Annual Growth Rate for business spend on new technologies could rise 13% to $2.4 trillion through to 2020! Growth areas include 3D printing, robotics and IoT, and decreases likely in the mobile / social space.

DTI notes that some key enablers are required, such as building ecosystems of partners and suppliers, technology infrastructure build-out, agile and digital leadership, strong data access and management and forward thinking.

It is incredible to think how Digital Transformation can benefit customers and business, and how technology can assist in realizing these outcomes! In my next post I'll discuss one the other themes listed in the Digital Transformation Initiation report - Digital Consumption.

Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

[1] http://reports.weforum.org/digital-transformation/

Thursday 21 March 2019

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes 2019-03 - DTI review

Digital Transformation opportunities and themes - DTI review (2019/03)


Feb 2022 - this post is permanently moved to https://architectfwd.com, my new site, and can be found here  - https://architectfwd.com/architecture/enterprise-architecture/digital-transformation/dti2019review/2022/02/01/digital-transformation-opportunities-and-themes-2019-03-DTI-review/ please go and bookmark that site for all of my future content.


Update 06 April 2019, my posts on the themes maximizing return on digitaldigital enterprise around the DTI report are available.

Since gaining my Togaf 9 certification (Togaf is a framework for enterprise architecture that provides an approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise information technology architecture) I have been consuming a large number of Open Group white papers and that led to a renewed interest in what themes are surrounding Digital Transformation in the current environment. I am particularly interested in how new and advanced technologies intersect with innovation and new business models to deliver outstanding experiences to customers.

I have experience in Digital Transformation, particularly in relation to services and solutions which have modernised and / or transformed services and impacted stakeholders in valuable and meaningful ways, in industries such as Systems Integration / Plant automation, Bottling, ISV in mobile solutions and audit, tax and corporate secretarial, and in Government. I was therefore pleased to find the Digital Transformation Initiative by the World Economic Forum detailing some innovations and themes to which I could relate, and which I could further add to my tool kit.

The Digital Transformation Initiative


The World Economic Forum launched the Digital Transformation Initiative (DTI) in 2015 focusing on themes and opportunities relating to digitalization of business.

The falling costs of advanced technologies is a key driver for business to leverage these technologies to deliver new capabilities which can enhance value propositions, improve value stream stages and deliver new experiences to customers or stakeholders.

Technologies


The DTI paper notes that the following are key technologies impacting business:
  • AI
  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Big data analytics and cloud
  • custom manufacturing and 3D printing
  • IoT
  • Robots and drones
  • Social Media and platforms
The value which can be created for customers and businesses though the use of these technologies needs to be viewed in conjunction with impact to both business models and operating models. 

Themes

I'm keen to explore the technologies, themes and impact to business and operating models over a few posts. Stay tuned.

Cheers
Quintes

Quintes van Aswegen Togaf 9 Certified Architect, Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter

[1] http://reports.weforum.org/digital-transformation/

Monday 18 March 2019

Azure billing, cosmosdb, a tale on monitoring costs

Azure billing, cosmosdb and a tale on monitoring costs


I found an extra MSFT line item on my credit card, for a few dollars, not too much but enough for a nice lunch out. Not sure how I missed it. I did have cosmosdb from the free trial running at 100 RU/s and I think the trial ended. So looking at my invoice I could momentarily see nothing as at one point it was saying resource not available, but since corrected itself.

Account Subscription billing data

On the summary page, a link to the Version 1 downloadable data throws me an error "https://account.azure.com/Error/404" 

Clicking on "Download invoice" confirms "Azure Cosmos DB 100 RU/s AU East"

By the way, clicking the downloadable CSV option Version 2- Preview results in a file with plenty of info and I could tell which resources at a high level and over the period.

Subscription cost analysis

The cost analysis chart shows me how cosmos was chewing through dollars since 01 Feb. Useful but tells me I've now paid way more than a nice lunch.

Uh, Deleted

Easy, I've deleted the cosmosdb instance. I've also opted in to my emails to other email accounts because this one slipped through and the billing invoice was missed.

Cost optimisation - you must monitor all costs in your cloud consumption and determine if the service you are consuming is at the right tier or can be downscaled, or in this instance uh, deleted.

Cheers
Quintes
Togaf 9 Certified Architect
Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) Certified

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter