Packer is a powerful tool that enables the creation of identical multi-platform virtual machine images from a definition file. In this article we will discuss how to create base virtual machines for testing and deployment with nmdpacker. One of the bigger challenges we face when working with team based infrastructure management is how to provide… Continue reading Building Base Boxes with Packer
Test Driven Development with RSpec and Chef
Test driven development (TDD) ensures that you’ve properly defined your code’s goals, that your code has achieved these goals, and that future changes to the code will not break existing functionality. Now that we have addressed the fundamental concepts of using Chef data and cookbooks, it’s useful to step through a specific example using the… Continue reading Test Driven Development with RSpec and Chef
Setting Up to Develop with Chef Data and Cookbooks
Think of the chef repo as your snowflake, or the data that makes your organization unique. One of the hardest challenges, at this stage, is keeping the unique pieces of your data contained in such a way that it supports the principles we touched on at the beginning of this series. When you work with… Continue reading Setting Up to Develop with Chef Data and Cookbooks
Sharing a Local Vagrant VM With Other Devices
In Drupal-lamp we usually have a private virtual machine when in development. Under this scenario you can only access the site from the host machine where you spun up. However, there are situations where you would want the vm to be available to other devices on your network. (e.g., testing a site on a mobile… Continue reading Sharing a Local Vagrant VM With Other Devices
Drupal Settings Per Environment
We have a need at NEWMEDIA for certain Drupal settings and configurations to be present in production, in staging, and while on a development machine. I will be outlining the problem and a solution we use here at NEWMEDIA. Problem We develop and release sites at NEWMEDIA in phased releases. During each iteration new functionality… Continue reading Drupal Settings Per Environment
Denver’s Top Software Developers 2014
NEWMEDIA has been honored with a recognition by Denver Business Journal in its selection of “Top Denver-Area Software Developers.” April 29, 2014– Announcing a special recognition appearing in the March, 2014 issue of Denver Business Journal, New Media Solutions was selected for the following honor: “Top Denver-Area Software Developers.” This is quite an honor for… Continue reading Denver’s Top Software Developers 2014
Denver’s Top Website Developers and Designers 2014
NEWMEDIA has been honored with a recognition by Denver Business Journal in its selection of 2014’s “Top Denver-Area Web Developers/Designers.” April 29, 2014– Announcing a special recognition appearing in the March, 2014 issue of Denver Business Journal, New Media Solutions was selected for the following honor: “Top Denver-Area Web Developers/Designers.” In fact, we were ranked… Continue reading Denver’s Top Website Developers and Designers 2014
Getting Started with Chef Cookbooks
A challenge faced by users of Open Source lies in understanding how to properly evaluate and use a given piece of code. Let’s walk through evaluating and getting set up to work with an opscode chef cookbook in the context of our ideal system. These examples will focus on our nmdbase cookbook from a development… Continue reading Getting Started with Chef Cookbooks
Ruby Dependency Management with Bundler
Managing dependencies is a difficult task in any system. Bundler makes it almost enjoyable for Ruby! Bundler is a dependency manager for Ruby. Projects that are cognizant of dependency management are more favorable than those that rely on manual management. Bundler creates project (or folder) specific bundles of gems with specific versions for that project’s… Continue reading Ruby Dependency Management with Bundler
Ruby Version Manager
In this post we learn to manage Ruby versions with the Ruby Version Manager or RVM. Ruby is a useful language and we use it extensively. As developers we need the ability to quickly move between installed versions of Ruby as necessary to work against. This need was recently highlighted by the release of OSX… Continue reading Ruby Version Manager