Blog Archives - Page 6 of 11

Whether using as a Platform-as-a-Service, such as Docker, or orchestration through a tool like Kubernetes, the race is on for containerized solutions. In October 2021, the General Services Administration released its Containerization Readiness Guide. Containerized software solutions allow agencies to develop applications rapidly, scale quickly and optimize compute resources. The need is especially pressing for legacy applications which must also remain secure as they modernize.

Creating Dockerfiles for Containerization

When we think of containerization, the first step is to create a Dockerfile for each application. While the Dockerfile provides flexibility to build an image that is only limited by your ability to script, it also adds overhead on developers to ensure the accuracy, efficiency and security of these images. For example, the developers must ensure that the Dockerfiles are as small as possible by removing any redundant dependencies that can increase the image size, which increases the build time. They must also confirm the files don’t contain any secrets or config keys. Additionally, they should verify that the base image comes from a secure source while actively scanning the images for new security vulnerabilities. If the image contains vulnerabilities that can spread to all containers that use the vulnerable image. Without proper planning and oversight, things can quickly get messy.

Benefits of using Buildpacks over Dockerfiles

Buildpacks allow you to convert application code into a secure, efficient and production ready container image without the need to create a Dockerfile for each application. It examines applications written in Java, .NET, Python and many other languages to determine all the dependencies it needs and then configures them appropriately to run on any cloud. Buildpacks also offer the capability to swap out OS layers without rebuilding an image. This reduces build time by eliminating the need to recreate all the layers when the base image is updated.

Using Tekton for creating CI Pipelines

Tekton is a cloud-native solution for building CI/CD pipelines. Unlike Jenkins, Tekton was designed to work natively on Kubernetes and incorporates AWS EKS best practices by default. It installs and runs as an extension on a Kubernetes cluster and provides a set of open source Kubernetes resources to build and run CI/CD pipelines, such as parameterized tasks and pipelines. Just like Jenkins uses plugins to extend its capabilities, Tekton has Tekton Hub – a catalog of predefined tasks, you can create custom tasks and scripts to extend the capabilities of these tasks if you can’t find a task that precisely matches your requirements. Tekton’s modularity allows for componentization, standardization and reusability within the CI/CD workflow. Buildpacks project provides tasks that Tekton can leverage to build and deploy applications.

Additionally, Tekton also provides support for Windows containers and an ability to run Linux-only, Windows-only as well as hybrid workflows. Installing Tekton on an EKS cluster means EKS automatically manages the availability and scalability of the Kubernetes control plane nodes responsible for scheduling containers, managing application availability, storing cluster data, and other key tasks. In addition, it allowed us to take advantage of all the performance, scale, reliability, and availability of AWS infrastructure, as well as integrations with AWS networking and security services, such as application load balancers (ALBs) for load distribution, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) integration with role-based access control (RBAC), and AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) support for pod networking.

Conclusion

In summary, integrating Tekton with Buildpacks allowed us to containerize applications easily and securely and create an end-to-end CI/CD pipeline with reusable components. Using Tekton and buildpacks we were able to containerize more than 20 .NET applications and move them to the cloud in less than six months. This initiative will reduce the technical debt by reducing application maintenance costs by 50% and increasing technical compliance score by 35% in the next two years.

About the Author

Prerak Patel is DevOps Engineer from the Karsun Solutions DevSecOps Practice. This practice is responsible for driving CI/CD, security engineering, SRE, pipelines and observability excellence at Karsun.

As the Great Resignation gives way to the Great Return, 4.2% of employees returned to a former employer, per Bloomberg. That story lists culture, stability, and colleagues among the reasons team members return. While this is great news for people looking for a career that best suits their needs, it is also great news for employers.

An Opportunity for Employers

A recent Comparably Insider blog post included some of the employers actively seeking these boomerang employees. Among them, Karsun Solutions. Our teams are made up of collaborators, innovators, and experts who deliver what’s possible for government agencies. And since the start of the pandemic, 18 employees have returned to Team Karsun! Already empowered to Do Extraordinary, returning team members are familiar with our collaborative culture, innovative spirit and opportunities for growth.

In particular, they are likely connected with one of our five Practice Areas hosted by our Innovation Center. These employee-centered teams, headed by a practice advocate, plan training and professional development opportunities, sponsor talks by industry experts, connect teams to prototyping and innovation resources and maintain libraries with toolkits supporting best practices. Coming into Karsun aware of these resources creates an added synergy and helps us build greater technology solutions together.

Connecting and Growing Together

Many of these team members stay connected through their managers and leaders who are personally invested in their growth and development. Karsun invests in the professional development and growth of every team member. We embrace a career journey mindset and understand some of our team may leave us to pursue their next opportunity.

Nevertheless, when former employees start a new path, we stay connected. Social media aids in this connection. This pattern is not uncommon, as Fast Company notes a survey of 5,000 US and UK employees found that 75% of respondents were interested in maintaining contact with their previous employer after resigning.

At Karsun, this is often through the same professional development organizations we supported when they were a team member. We are a longtime supporter of industry development programs like those offered through the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC). Many team members also participate in Meetups allowing them to maintain a connection with their colleagues regardless of organization.

Later, when these former teammates seek a career change, they reconnect with current Karsun team members and previous colleagues. Given the opportunity to our teams, we frequently welcome these returning employees. Whether following the Great Resignation or as a result of a different change in career, we find new and exciting possibilities to Do Extraordinary once our boomerang team members return.

Rejoin Our Team or Start Your Next Adventure

Karsun is actively hiring former and new team members to fill remote positions for teams supporting agency missions across the federal government. Recognized for culture and innovation, this is a fantastic opportunity to join an organization with over a decade of continuous growth. Open roles range from Full Stack Developer to Data Architect. Apply today at KarsunCareers.com.

About Karsun Solutions

Karsun Solutions modernizes enterprise systems enabling agencies to make the next technological advancement their next opportunity to elevate mission capability. IT solutions from Karsun are tailored to meet agencies’ unique needs and optimize operations. These solutions adapt and stay relevant to current trends while using secure, digital architecture built to last. It is a proven modernization partner whose expertise elevates agency capabilities and ensures every next opportunity is within reach.

Every year the Karsun Innovation Center (KIC) hosts a new Summer Intern class for college students in their junior year. Mentored by KIC practice advocates, they work alongside delivery teams prototyping solutions for real-life initiatives developed by Karsun. This year we introduced a new Student Intern class. Composed of exceptional high school and college students, these internship participants completed a series of technical challenges over a ten-week program. Additionally, each Student Intern selected an emerging technology topic to research throughout their time at Karsun.

Exploring Technology in Government

This new internship invited STEM students to explore different modern software development, cloud and data solutions implementations. Working in pairs, The ten-week session opened with a challenge designed to help students think about how the federal government uses technology. In this code-a-thon, students built a web application with the potential to solve a common government technical problem.

Applying Machine Learning

Similar to the Summer Interns working on the synthetic data portal, the Student Interns also had an opportunity to work on ML/AI-related work as part of their internships. In that technology challenge, students trained machine learning models to identify images of collapsed lungs. Working alongside Innovation Center experts is a key benefit of our intern programs.

Bringing It Together

The student interns wrapped up their session with a research paper. They selected from a list of topics ranging from robotic process automation (RPA) to digital twins. They explored beyond the industries where Karsun performs work to understand how these tools are implemented in exciting ways across the government.

The student interns also worked with mentors throughout the program. The mentor to each student is a graduate from a previous intern cohort and a current Karsun employee. Just as we are excited to see the careers pursued by our graduating Summer Interns, we are also excited to see what the future holds for these emerging STEM experts.

About the Karsun Innovation Center Internship Programs

The Karsun Innovation Center hosts an annual summer internship program for computer science or equivalent students, typically in their junior year of college. Occasionally, internship opportunities are available for recent graduates. In 2022, the center added a Student Internship cohort to support exceptional high school and early college students. Information on current internship openings is available at KarsunCareers.com.

Every summer Karsun embeds interns in our Innovation Center to work alongside our technology experts, prototyping solutions to support our customers. 2022 Intern Akhilesh Varanasi used synthetic data to address a common privacy concern, personally identifiable information (PII.) Using synthetic data, an artificial set of data is created to perform ML/AI work preventing exposure of sensitive PII. In the interview below, Akhilesh describes his experience in the Karsun Innovation Center and his synthetic data internship project.

First, please tell us about yourself. Where are you going to school? What are you studying? What do you like to do in your free time?

Hi all! My name is Akhilesh Varanasi. I’m currently a rising junior at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I’m a double major in Computer Science and Astronomy. In my free time, I like reading and playing basketball.

Could you share a little bit about the project you worked on as part of this internship? What challenges does it solve? What technologies and tools are you using?

For most of my internship, I worked on the Synthetic Data project. The purpose of this project was to create PII anonymized ‘fake’ data for Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence use cases. I mostly worked with Python, the Synthetic Data Vault libraries, and graphing frameworks like matplotlib. My main tasks were to create accurate Synthetic Data models and to find generic ways to graphically represent all forms of tabular data. I also worked with AWS Lambda and the AWS CLI to run tests.

What is your favorite part about working with the Karsun Innovation Center? Is there a weekly meeting or ritual you enjoy? The opportunity to learn more or get a new certification?

My favorite parts of working at the Karsun Innovation Center were the input I had in the development process and the team I worked with. I always felt like my opinion was respected at meetings, even in a room full of people that were far more experienced than me. I also had a great time working with the team, everyone was so willing to help each other and it felt like a comfortable, collaborative environment.

What is the biggest takeaway from your experience as an intern at Karsun?

My biggest takeaway from my experience at Karsun is that taking initiative is important. To be a valuable part of a team I have to research topics by myself and come up with goals to structure my approach to a problem.

Akhilesh was mentored by Srikanth Devarajan, Director, Karsun Innovation Center Data Practice.