{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-author-jsx","path":"/blog/author/danny_arango/","result":{"data":{"prismic":{"allFeaturedblogs":{"edges":[{"node":{"featured_blogs_enabled":true,"heading":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"Featured posts","spans":[]}],"featured_blog_1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Blog","_linkType":"Link.document","blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":790,"height":395},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/6d8d81b1-971a-4313-b033-b4e125cb14a0_MondoDB-blog-header-790x395.PNG?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Introducing DigitalOcean Managed MongoDB – a fully managed, database as a service for modern apps","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2021-06-29","blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"MongoDB is one of the most popular databases, and it’s ideal for apps that evolve rapidly and need to handle huge volumes of data and traffic. It offers advantages like flexible document schemas, code-native data access, change-friendly design, and easy horizontal scale-out.","spans":[{"start":22,"end":44,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://db-engines.com/en/ranking","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"However, building and maintaining MongoDB clusters from the ground up can be a huge undertaking. Developers often complain that they have to spend their valuable time and resources on database management. Well, we’ve been listening and have some great news: accessing and managing MongoDB on DigitalOcean just got a lot simpler!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are excited to announce that DigitalOcean Managed MongoDB is now in General Availability. Managed MongoDB is a fully managed, database as a service (DBaaS) offering from DigitalOcean, built in partnership with and certified by MongoDB Inc. It provides you all the technical capabilities that make MongoDB so beloved in the developer community. Together we have ensured that you will get access to all the latest releases of the MongoDB document database as they become available.","spans":[{"start":32,"end":91,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-databases-mongodb/"}},{"start":230,"end":241,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.mongodb.com/","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Managed MongoDB simplifies the MongoDB administration. Developers of all skill levels, even those who do not have prior experience in databases, can spin up MongoDB clusters in just a few minutes. We handle the provisioning, managing, scaling, updates, backups, and security of your MongoDB clusters, allowing you to offload the complex, time consuming –yet critical – database administration tasks to us. This empowers you to focus on what really matters: building awesome apps.","spans":[]},{"type":"embed","oembed":{"height":113,"width":200,"embed_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvHQSV7jnKA","type":"video","version":"1.0","title":"Create a MongoDB Database on DigitalOcean","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_url":"https://www.youtube.com/c/Digitalocean","provider_name":"YouTube","provider_url":"https://www.youtube.com/","cache_age":null,"thumbnail_url":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NvHQSV7jnKA/hqdefault.jpg","thumbnail_width":480,"thumbnail_height":360,"html":""}},{"type":"heading2","text":"Benefits of Managed MongoDB","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Easy set up and maintenance: We create the database clusters for you. Simply choose the cluster configuration (e.g., memory, disk size, number of nodes, etc.), and the data center in which you want to host the database. Follow a few simple steps and your database cluster will be up and running in a matter of minutes. You can spin up clusters using the cloud control panel, CLI, or API.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":28,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Automatic daily backups with point in time recovery: Data is one of the most important assets of an app, so it’s critical to backup your database. We take backups of your entire clusters automatically on a daily basis, for free. We also provide a point in time recovery for 7 days, that way if things go wrong due to human error, machine error, or some combination of both, you can easily restore the database as it was at any point in the previous 7 days. \n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":52,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Automatic updates and access to latest MongoDB releases: You get access to MongoDB 4.4. This is the latest release of MongoDB and comes packed with numerous enhancements like hedged reads, rust, and swift drivers. Since we have developed Managed MongoDB in partnership with MongoDB Inc, you will always get access to new releases as they become available. With Managed MongoDB, the updates happen automatically. Just select a date and time for the updates and we take care of the rest. This makes it easy to stay up to date with MongoDB releases without disrupting your business.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":56,"type":"strong"},{"start":148,"end":169,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.mongodb.com/new","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"High availability with automated failover: If your database goes down, it can take down the entire app, leading to bad customer experiences. With Managed MongoDB, you can easily minimize the downtime for your database and make it highly available with standby nodes. Standby nodes add redundancy, so if for example the primary node fails, the standby node is immediately promoted to primary and begins serving requests while we provision a replacement standby node in the background.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":42,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Scale up easily to handle traffic spikes: As your app gains traction and the usage grows, it’s important to have a database that can keep up with the increased demand. With Managed MongoDB, you can easily scale up the size of database nodes when needed.\n\n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":41,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Secure by default: Since data is critical, it also needs to be secure. We encrypt data at rest with LUKS and in transit with SSL. When you create a new cluster, it’s placed in a VPC network by default that provides a more secure connection between resources. You can also restrict access to your nodes to prevent brute-force password and denial-of-service attacks.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":18,"type":"strong"},{"start":178,"end":189,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/networking/vpc/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The need for Managed Databases","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean’s mission is to simplify cloud computing so developers, startups, and SMBs can spend more time building software that changes the world. While databases are a critical component to any application, building, maintaining, and scaling them can be complex and time consuming. For developers that are building apps for their business, database administration is often not a core focus area. But it’s quite common to find developers that write the code and then also roll up their sleeves to maintain databases. Such users would rather offload the tedious database administration and focus their limited time and energy on building and enhancing their apps. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With this in mind, we introduced Managed Databases a couple of years ago and are excited to add Managed MongoDB to our portfolio. With this release, DigitalOcean Managed Databases now supports the following engines:","spans":[{"start":33,"end":50,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/managed-databases/"}}]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/87745cc1-1c5f-4463-b104-104b7fc30dc7_managed-databases-logos.png?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":849,"height":104}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Managed MongoDB launch comes on the heels of DigitalOcean App Platform, a modern, reimagined PaaS (Platform as a Service) that we released a few months ago. App Platform makes it very easy to build, deploy, and scale apps and static sites. You can deploy code by simply pointing to your GitHub and GitLab repos, and App Platform will do all the heavy lifting of managing infrastructure, app runtimes, and dependencies. App Platform, along with Managed Databases, helps fulfill DigitalOcean’s mission by empowering developers, startups, and SMBs to focus more on their apps, and less on the underlying infrastructure and databases.","spans":[{"start":45,"end":70,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"How Managed MongoDB works","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean provides you with various compute options to build your apps like:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Droplets: On-demand, Linux virtual machines suitable for production business applications and personal passion projects.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":8,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"DigitalOcean Kubernetes: Managed Kubernetes with automatic scaling, upgrades, and a free control plane.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":23,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/kubernetes/"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"DigitalOcean App Platform: A fully managed Platform as a Service.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":25,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"No matter which compute option you choose to build your apps, you can easily add Managed MongoDB to it. In addition to this, Managed MongoDB also integrates with the Node.js 1-Click App from DigitalOcean Marketplace making it a lot easier to build Node.js apps.","spans":[{"start":166,"end":215,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/nodejs"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Simple, predictable pricing","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Just like all DigitalOcean products, Managed MongoDB provides simple, predictable pricing that allows you to control costs and prevent any surprise bills. You can spin up a database cluster for just $15/month, or a highly available three-node replica set for $45/month. Click here for more information.","spans":[{"start":270,"end":301,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/#managed-databases"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Regional availability","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Managed MongoDB is currently available in the following regions:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"NYC3 (New York, USA)","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"FRA1 (Frankfurt, Germany)","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"AMS3 (Amsterdam, Netherlands)","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We will be making Managed Mongo available in other regions soon. Please check out the release notes for most up to date information on regional availability.","spans":[{"start":86,"end":99,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/release-notes/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Join us at deploy, DigitalOcean’s virtual user conference","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Today we have deploy, DigitalOcean’s signature user conference, which focuses on celebrating, educating, and connecting awesome builders from all over the world.","spans":[{"start":14,"end":20,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://deploy.digitalocean.com/home"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Check out the keynote session from DigitalOcean's CEO, Yancey Spruill, in which he talks about where we're headed as a company and shares some exciting product updates. His keynote will be followed by sessions from community members, engineers, customers, and other experts that are building technologies and businesses powered by the cloud. With live Q&A and an active Discord server, there’s ample opportunity to engage and learn something new. Click here to attend the deploy conference.","spans":[{"start":14,"end":69,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://deploy.digitalocean.com/agenda/session/552806"}},{"start":347,"end":384,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy-discord"}},{"start":461,"end":489,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are also launching a hackathon for DigitalOcean Managed MongoDB. Learn how you can participate, submit an app and get a t-shirt.","spans":[{"start":24,"end":66,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/mongodb-hackathon"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We hope you will give Managed MongoDB a try. Here are some sample datasets and sample apps that you can use to kick the tires. Check out the docs and let us know what you think!","spans":[{"start":22,"end":43,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://cloud.digitalocean.com/databases/new?engine=mongodb"}},{"start":59,"end":90,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/do-community/mongodb-resources","target":"_blank"}},{"start":141,"end":145,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/mongodb/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you’d like to have a conversation about using DigitalOcean and Managed MongoDB in your business, please feel free to contact our sales team.","spans":[{"start":120,"end":142,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/sales/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Happy coding!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"André Bearfield","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Director of Product Management","spans":[]}],"tags":[{"tag1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Tag","tag":"Product Updates","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"product-updates"}}}],"author":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Author","author_name":"André Bearfield","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":553,"height":547},"alt":"André Bearfield","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/fdc7c85186f0a850b04083e1d4306bd1c19772e8_andre-bearfield.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"andre-bearfield"}},"_meta":{"uid":"introducing-digitalocean-managed-mongodb"}},"featured_blog_2":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Blog","_linkType":"Link.document","blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":790,"height":400},"alt":"Droplet Console","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/710499ae-78cc-4179-afc1-15793637b200_DODX3727-790x400-logo-2.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Securely connect to Droplets with SSH key pairs using a new Droplet Console","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2021-08-10","blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"The famous author Ken Blanchard once said, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.\" This is something we truly believe at DigitalOcean, and we always strive to enhance our products based on customer feedback.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With this goal in mind, we are excited to introduce a new Droplet Console that will make it much easier to connect to your Droplets securely. The new Droplet Console provides one-click SSH access to your Droplets through a native-like SSH/Terminal experience. It also eliminates the need for a password or manual configuration of SSH keys. Starting today, we’re pleased to announce that the new Droplet Console is now available to all Droplet users.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Why you should be using Secure Shell (SSH) ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Password-based security is notoriously insecure due to password fatigue and the overuse of passwords such as ‘123456’. Secure Shell or SSH is a network communication protocol that solves this by using passwordless solutions for encryption, enabling two computers to communicate and securely share data. At a high level, SSH works by creating cryptographic key pairs consisting of a public and private key, which are computer generated and stored separately to ensure their security. ","spans":[{"start":80,"end":117,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://cybernews.com/best-password-managers/most-common-passwords/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"SSH has become the default encryption protocol for many industries, but it was difficult to use SSH keys with DigitalOcean’s current Recovery (VNC) console, which is why we developed our new Droplet Console. The new Droplet Console is backed by an agent that security supervises the key pair, while also providing one-click SSH access to our users. You can see the full list of features below.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The new Droplet Console: More time saving, less time wasting ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The new Droplet Console is for everyone who is looking to build fast, secure apps and avoid hassles with SSH access & usability issues.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In addition to easier SSH access, the new Droplet Console comes with:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Copy/paste text: Instead of typing lengthy key pairs and text manually, you can use copy/paste to save time. ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":17,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Multi-color support: Multi-color support makes the console more useful and intuitive, and breaks the conventional standard appearance which is black text on a white background. ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":41,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Multi-language support: DigitalOcean’s new Droplet Console supports multiple languages, meaning you can now type and view any content in any language that is supported by UTF-8","spans":[{"start":0,"end":24,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"OS/images supported: Linux distributions (Ubuntu(16.04 - 20.04), Fedora (32 & 33), Debian (9), CentOS (7.6 & 8.3), CentOS 8 Stream, Rocky Linux and Marketplace images.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":20,"type":"strong"},{"start":148,"end":159,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The new Droplet Console is available by default on any new Droplets you spin up. You can also enable it manually on older Droplets. Click here to learn more!","spans":[{"start":132,"end":157,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/connect-with-console/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Check out this short walkthrough video that shows the new Droplet Console in action: ","spans":[]},{"type":"embed","oembed":{"type":"video","embed_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt7QihVuxiE","title":"Access Your Droplet Terminal Through the Web Console","provider_name":"YouTube","thumbnail_url":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qt7QihVuxiE/hqdefault.jpg","provider_url":"https://www.youtube.com/","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_url":"https://www.youtube.com/c/Digitalocean","height":113,"width":200,"version":"1.0","thumbnail_height":360,"thumbnail_width":480,"html":""}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We hope you’re excited about the new Droplet Console. You’re welcome to spin some Droplets up right now, and try out the new Droplet Console – why wait?","spans":[{"start":72,"end":103,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://cloud.digitalocean.com/droplets/new"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Happy coding!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Harsh Banwait, Senior Product Manager","spans":[]}],"tags":[{"tag1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Tag","tag":"Product Updates","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"product-updates"}}}],"author":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Author","author_name":"Harsh Banwait","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":399},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/e83ff690-b20c-4d88-a2b6-57e562558cd6_download.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"harsh-banwait"}},"_meta":{"uid":"new-droplet-console-ssh-support"}},"featured_blog_3":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Blog","_linkType":"Link.document","blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":790,"height":400},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/588e28d3-d41e-480b-937b-8c3b19201f6e_DODX3568-790x400-Blog.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"How to scale your SaaS product without breaking the bank","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2021-06-22","blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"These days, if you are in the business of software, chances are you are delivering or plan to deliver your services using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. A combination of internet-based delivery, subscription-based pricing, and low-friction product experiences have made SaaS solutions valuable tools for their users, and an excellent vehicle for software builders looking to distribute their products.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"These factors have made SaaS solutions ubiquitous; SaaS is the largest segment in the public cloud market, and is used to provide functionality ranging from personal finance apps for consumers, to productivity software for businesses, and even tools and services for software developers themselves to compose their applications and simplify their workflows. It is also not uncommon to find micro-SaaS applications being built for specific industries such as retail, job functions such as accounting or marketing, or tasks such as event management. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The best thing about this SaaS wave has been that it has allowed a new generation of software builders to build and monetize applications and participate in the digital economy. Previously, you had to be a big company with lots of resources, name recognition and distribution networks to successfully sell software products. Now, irrespective of whether you are a single person working on a passion project, a small team of developers in a startup, or a small and medium-sized business (SMB), the SaaS model enables you to express your ideas in the form of software and deliver them to customers anywhere in the world.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The unique challenges of building SaaS solutions","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Despite the opportunities that come with the widespread adoption of SaaS products, software builders still have to answer key questions in their journey to building successful SaaS products. Understanding what customers to target, features to prioritize, how to price your product, and how to acquire customers are all critical questions to figure out while you are also doing the important job of actually building and operating the product. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Writing the code, testing, deployment, monitoring the usage in production, and ensuring that your apps are able to handle the additional demand when customer base and usage grows are all essential and time-consuming tasks.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Additionally, being able to test multiple ideas, pivot, and double down on the ideas that actually work is critical in early stages of SaaS development. Once growth comes, it is equally important to scale up without compromising on performance or reliability. Needless to say, all of this needs to be economically viable as well, since not everyone has the resources of large SaaS providers like Salesforce or Adobe.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Cloud Computing enables builders but also poses challenges","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Fortunately, for the act of building and operating your apps, cloud computing can help take some load off your shoulders. Unless you have the scale and resources of Facebook, chances are you are not going to set up your own data centers to host the computing infrastructure that powers your SaaS company. Public cloud infrastructure providers can bring great value to SaaS builders by providing on-demand computing services with usage-based pricing. However, just like how the legacy software companies weren't built for the SaaS model, the early (and big) cloud computing services were not optimized for the unique needs of small SaaS building teams. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Smaller SaaS teams face challenges with large cloud computing providers, including:","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Too many technology options","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"There are just too many options for tech stacks on which to build your SaaS - programming languages, application development frameworks, libraries, runtime environments, architectural patterns, and deployment models - and the list is growing by the day.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Complexity of cloud computing services","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Even when you have decided on a technology stack, there is a lot of cloud vendor-specific terminology you need to learn and heavy lifting you need to do to build on the cloud, not all of which contributes to making your SaaS applications successful.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Unpredictable costs","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The experimentation necessary in early stages of SaaS development, as well as the scaling of applications required during the growth phase, call for affordable and predictable pricing from your cloud provider. The last thing SaaS teams want is surprising and indecipherable bills from your cloud provider. Unfortunately, smaller businesses often experience unpredictable costs with cloud providers who are busy serving only the large enterprises.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"DigitalOcean provides a simple, cost effective solution for SaaS builders","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Fortunately, at DigitalOcean we have a laser focus on small software development teams, who are trying to build the next generation of applications. Today, DigitalOcean customers are already building SaaS applications which serve all kinds of customers.","spans":[{"start":191,"end":217,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/solutions/saas/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We believe SaaS builders should focus on building apps that power their business, and not spend their valuable time on managing infrastructure. That is exactly what we have been able to enable through our intuitive products that are built for scale and reliability.","spans":[{"start":205,"end":223,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/products/"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Vidazoo is an advertising technology company specializing in video streaming and serving. It serves video ads to thousands of websites and handles close to 10 billion requests per day. \n\n“We are as much a data company as an adtech company. Our business relies on speedy and accurate data processing at massive scale. DigitalOcean provides us the perfect set of tools to operate our SaaS business profitably, while not making us feel the need to become full time system administrators. We plan to move a lot of our apps to DigitalOcean App Platform and other fully managed products.” - Roman Svichar, CTO of Vidazoo","spans":[{"start":0,"end":7,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://vidazoo.com/"}},{"start":187,"end":583,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We believe in meeting customers where they are. If they already have an understanding of cloud infrastructure technologies, they should be able to leverage that knowledge and get started with our products without any further ramp up.","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Whatfix is an enterprise SaaS provider that offers a digital adoption platform to businesses. The company helps enterprises gain the full value of their investments in enterprise applications by providing real-time, interactive, and contextual guidance to users of those applications. \n\n“What we really love about the DigitalOcean platform is the ease of use. We feel like we know infrastructure and can handle most of the configuration and management. What we needed from a cloud was not bells and whistles but efficiency and reliability. DigitalOcean provides us a platform to build our apps and then gets out of the way. Just how we like it.” - Achyuth Krishna, Director of Engineering of Whatfix","spans":[{"start":0,"end":7,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://whatfix.com/blog/driving-the-future-now-were-excited-to-announce-our-90-million-series-d-funding/"}},{"start":287,"end":648,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We understand that scaling while maintaining reliability of applications and profitability of business is important, so we provide robust solutions which minimize downtime.","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Centra is a SaaS-based e-commerce platform for global direct-to-consumer and wholesale e-commerce brands. Centra provides a powerful e-commerce backend that lets brands build pixel-perfect, custom designed, online flagship stores. \n\n“How do we enable our customers to create differentiated online experiences? How do we ensure their e-commerce apps stay up and running at all times? How do we scale on-demand when traffic grows or new customers come in? These are the questions that we ask ourselves every day. Thankfully, we have a partner in DigitalOcean that provides just the platform to answer those questions enabling us to guarantee 99.9% uptime for our clients.” - Martin Jensen, CEO of Centra","spans":[{"start":0,"end":6,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://centra.com/"}},{"start":233,"end":673,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"These are just a few examples of SaaS businesses finding success on DigitalOcean. We are constantly amazed by the creativity and innovation that software builders are utilizing our platform for. If you are interested in learning more about product updates, technical deep-dives and best practices for building SaaS products and businesses, please contact us to learn how we can help you get started. ","spans":[{"start":340,"end":357,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/migrate/?utmmedium=blog","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Come build with DigitalOcean!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Looking to migrate your SaaS to DigitalOcean? Leverage free infrastructure credits, robust training, and technical support to ensure a worry-free migration.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":156,"type":"strong"},{"start":0,"end":156,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/migrate/?utmmedium=blog","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Raman Sharma","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Vice President, Product & Programs Marketing","spans":[]}],"tags":[{"tag1":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Tag","tag":"Developer Relations","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"developer-relations"}}}],"author":{"__typename":"PRISMIC_Author","author_name":"Raman Sharma","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":512,"height":512},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/497b4b14-d192-493a-8b66-7ae176ba99f3_raman.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"raman-sharma"}},"_meta":{"uid":"how-to-scale-your-saas-product-without-breaking-the-bank"}}}}]}}},"pageContext":{"limit":12,"skip":0,"numAuthorPages":1,"currentPage":1,"uid":"danny_arango","data":[{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"Danny Arango","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":639,"height":532},"alt":"Danny Arango","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/2a71f76a56ff0dd23e1c0d72a7ab688e434c23fe_13912913_10104133684160610_7874376075980757732_n-1.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"danny_arango"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":784,"height":418},"alt":"Illustration of people wearing shirts with one letter on them standing together they spell out interns","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/46d70b47b1b2af3007c2472ff03b7e213733ec8e_interns_blog.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Meet the Minnows: Stories from DigitalOcean's Inaugural Intern Program","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"This is the second installment in a two-part series about DigitalOcean’s first internship program. In this post, we share more stories from interns in our inaugural class. (Read the first installment here.)","spans":[{"start":0,"end":206,"type":"em"},{"start":173,"end":205,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://blog.digitalocean.com/interns/"}}]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Alisha KC, Cloud Engineering Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"During my internship, I worked on an event error monitoring system which is used internally by the teams at DO. I owned many parts of the product from data discovery and data collection to metrics presentation. My manager always supported and encouraged me to make my own decisions about the project while teaching me how to use new tools and navigate the codebase. My service tracks event information as it progresses across the cloud with the help of some information from DO’s datastore. It then stores the metrics in the Prometheus server. These metrics are then visualized in a dashboard in various ways, using Grafana, allowing users to quickly and easily recognize different relationships between the events. The service provides better insight into event processing failures and paves the way for additional metrics collection.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"My manager was conscious in making sure that I was using tools and technologies that are recognizable in the real world instead of using just DO’s internal tools. I got the opportunity to learn and work with the Go programming language, protocol buffers, Prometheus, SQL, and Grafana, among others. Working with so many technologies in such a short period of time has given me the confidence to pick up and try new technologies that I was previously nervous to use.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Anand Vyas, SWE-NET (Cloud Engineering-Networking) Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"My team and I worked on a project for isolating private customer networks that involves building overlay tunnels. The design requires more active control of the network using SDN, as opposed to legacy network infrastructure like traditional routers and switches. I worked on the ping responder in IPv6. Because Echo requests and NS (Neighbor Solicitation) messages both use ICMP in IPv6, I've laid the foundation for an IPv6 Neighbor Discovery service as well. With this added control, we can eliminate excess traffic from traversing our physical network by creating a service the responds to ARPs and pings closer to the requesting Droplets.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"A challenge for me was having to learn the Go programming language from scratch. It is quite different from the programming languages I had experience in. It was difficult to adapt at first, but now I feel quite comfortable using it and can also see a lot of benefits in its design. Also, learning the technical details of software-based networking and having a deep understanding of the project's architecture and how each part functions was a challenge I had to overcome for the success of this project.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DO wasn’t afraid to entrust the responsibility of such a complex project to an intern. Everyone has a singular goal: the success of the project(s) at hand. And they will do anything and everything to achieve that. All in all, the team has been very supportive and they sincerely cared about my growth. This makes me feel very fortunate to have been a part of this amazing team.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Jordan Shea, Frontend Infrastructure Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"I was placed in the Frontend Infrastructure team under Phil Tobias. Unlike me, Phil is a remote employee working out of California, so I was initially unsure about how we would collaborate effectively. But DO has seemingly mastered remote work, because I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better or more supportive manager.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With the guidance of Phil and my DigitalOcean mentor, Iheanyi, I was able to construct a timeline that would map out the milestones for my internship project: the ChatOps system. The ChatOps system would serve as an alternative means for DO users to spin up or destroy Droplets through the use of a Slackbot named Sammy (Sammy the Shark is DO’s mascot). For Slack and other similar applications, bots can be called upon to perform special commands, such as reminding a user about a meeting or for silly things like posting GIFs. The hope was that by the end of my internship, I would have a working product that could be inherited by another team and eventually deployed to the public. I didn’t want to create something that would simply be put to the side, but rather something that would have real value to a customer. Whether it be managing Droplets, searching through community articles to answer user questions, or providing the user access to speed tests, I wanted the ChatOps system to be the jack of all trades.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The ChatOps system served as a creative catalyst for me, and it gave me the chance to see the evolution of something that I had built from the ground up. Furthermore, it inspired me to design other Slackbots for DigitalOcean, such as creating a Daily Stand-up bot for the Frontend Infrastructure team. For both of these products, I can say the most enjoyable experience was seeing my team members get excited when they saw the requested features or improvements implemented the very next day. For me, that was the most valuable part of my internship: feeling the joy and support from the consumers that you code for.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Andrew Rouditchenko, Compute Engineering Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"As DigitalOcean scales to support new customers and products, we need reliable tools to monitor our internal services. On the Compute Team, a subset of us focus on our fleet of hypervisor services. Hypervisors manage all kinds of Droplet events, including creates, destroys, and resizing. We collect and monitor tons of aggregated information about our hypervisors that allow us to ensure their health. While we previously had a method to survey hypervisor performance across the board, we lacked the tools to provide introspection to specific hypervisors. Given a problem with a hypervisor, it took specific domain knowledge to gain access to it and retrieve helpful information.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"During my internship, I was responsible for improving our services and creating new tools to make this information more readily available. My new tools provide a straightforward way for engineers to observe the status of events and Droplet configuration on any hypervisor. This functionality reduces the time it takes to debug hypervisor problems. The new interfaces will help engineers transition our services to new internal architectures. These tools provide immediate value to our team, and they leave a framework for future extensions. It will be straightforward to expose this information in a GUI so that support teams can also benefit from it.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"When I applied for this internship, I sought a technical and applied experience at a fast-paced company. This internship was a great fit for me as I was able to get an in-depth experience on an engineering team and learn more about my excitement for industry and research. From each conversation I’ve had with people on my team, I’ve been able to sample the kinds of exciting challenges that each person solves. In particular, I was able to speak with several engineers with research backgrounds. These conversations have been instrumental in helping me shape my career goals and decide what experiences I need to pursue in the future to reach them.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Kevin Wei, Demand Generation and User Growth (Marketing) Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"I’ve always been interested in tech startups and the VC scene. As a VC-backed startup, DigitalOcean was a perfect opportunity for me to get a look inside what it’s like to work for a late-stage startup. Additionally, DigitalOcean competes against large market incumbents, so it’s been very enlightening to see DO’s strategy and differentiation strategy as an “upstart” in the cloud infrastructure market.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"I was definitely interested in working on the business side of a startup to get a handle for strategy, business models, and scaling. I think working in marketing here has definitely given me that experience, since I’ve been able to work on nitty-gritty details of user acquisition and help with community projects as well as remember marketing’s broader goals of market positioning and business strategy. My team—David, Hollie, Michelle, Andy, Mitch, and countless others—were always very willing to help me learn new things and understand how my projects would be useful for the organization as a whole.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Unlike other interns, I worked on a large variety of projects. The bulk of my work was with Hatch, our startup success program. I streamlined various parts of the Hatch process (such as onboarding and communications) and I worked on a lot of other projects such as our net neutrality activism. Interning at DO has given me a lot of experience with both Excel and Google Sheets. I’ve been using spreadsheets non-stop for various things, learning to script in both VBA (for Excel) and Google Scripts (for Google Sheets), and this is definitely a skill that will be very useful for me going forward.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Sasha Krutiy, Data Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"I was on a search to find an internship that would allow me to accomplish a few things, like working alongside people who are good at—and love—what they do, being able to use new software or technologies, and working on something notable. I sought an environment that would give me the chance to see what the industry is really like, expose me to the type of work that I would want to do for my career, and the type of people I would work with.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"At DO, I met a lot of people who enjoy what they do, and are always willing to help me in any way possible, whether it is by giving me an overview of something I don’t know much about, helping me with an issue I may be stuck on, or just helping me find the right resources. I feel as if I’ve gained a lot from the people alone, whether it be tips on using a certain tool or learning more about how to better work with others. In addition, I got the opportunity to use and in turn, learn, new tools that I had only heard of before. From starting to pick up a new coding language (Python), to figuring out how to write an automation script (Ansible), I definitely have many more much needed skills under my belt.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Having one big project for the entire duration of my internship taught me the importance of pushing through no matter what. I am now less intimidated by bigger projects, those that will take at least a few weeks to complete. This was an amazing opportunity because I received help from a passionate and intelligent group of people and I also given the chance to create something that has the potential to be of use to a sizable customer base.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Interested in becoming one of our interns? Apply for a spot in our 2018 intern class.","spans":[{"start":43,"end":84,"type":"strong"},{"start":43,"end":84,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/company/careers/#summer-engineering-interns-2018"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Danny Arango is a Senior Tech Recruiter at DigitalOcean. He’s passionate about building diverse teams and finding the right fit for the right people at the right time. He’s also a raging Arsenal fan (both in the positive and negative sense) and will debate anyone on the merits of 1994 being the best year in hip hop history. Follow Danny on Twitter @ElPibe627.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":361,"type":"em"},{"start":350,"end":360,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.twitter.com/ELPibe627"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2017-12-12","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Culture","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"culture"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"interns-part-2"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"Danny Arango","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":639,"height":532},"alt":"Danny Arango","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/2a71f76a56ff0dd23e1c0d72a7ab688e434c23fe_13912913_10104133684160610_7874376075980757732_n-1.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"danny_arango"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":784,"height":418},"alt":"People wearing shirts with a letter on them standing together they spell out interns illustration","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/46d70b47b1b2af3007c2472ff03b7e213733ec8e_interns_blog.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Tales from DigitalOcean’s Inaugural Intern Program","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"This past June, DigitalOcean welcomed its first-ever group of summer interns (who we endearingly called “minnows”). For 10 weeks, our interns worked in teams across the organization—from data to cloud engineering to marketing—based out of both our New York City HQ and Cambridge, MA office. (If you’re interested in becoming a Minnow, apply for a spot in our 2018 intern class (UPDATE: applications are now closed), or send us your questions at internships@digitalocean.com. We’re hiring interns for various teams including Product Management, User Experience, Engineering, Data & Analytics, and Marketing & Communications. And in the meantime, learn more about the hiring experience at DO.)","spans":[{"start":445,"end":473,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"mailto:internships@digitalocean.com"}},{"start":662,"end":690,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://blog.digitalocean.com/people-first-hiring-experience/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The program was the culmination of years’ worth of research, planning, and recruitment. We knew companies large and small were reaping enormous quantitative and qualitative benefits by introducing internship programs, and we took a lot of care to craft something that would be an enriching experience for our interns, while providing real value to the teams they would be working with. We feel fortunate to have been able to support a talented cohort of people. (Three of them recount their experiences later in this post as they share what they worked on during the program.)","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Determining The “Why” of an Internship Program","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"To answer the question of when the right time would be to start an intern program, we considered a few things: How much does leadership buy into the concept? Can the program be structured in such a way that interns and their mentors get the guidance they need to be successful? Can we recruit a set of talented and diverse interns to bring added value to the company? For us, it started with a simple premise: how can we pay back our experiences to our community, especially younger technologists who love using DO to learn about tech? We wanted to pay it forward to young people who wanted to work in the cloud and help build the next set of great companies.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"At a startup, every team member’s time is critical. We knew we wanted to structure a program that allowed students the opportunity to network with our employees, learn from them, and contribute to the organization. Orienting their growth, with some guidance from the people who love developers and want to build tools for them, helped identify other areas they could explore. We were lucky to have this first set of great interns and we look forward to having more of them join our ranks in the coming years!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"(The Inaugural 2017 DO Intern Class. From top left to top right: Luke Grgas, Sasha Krutiy, Alisha KC, Evan Mena, Jordan Shea, Devin Morgan, Mariano Salinas, Anand Vyas, Kevin Wei. From bottom left to bottom right: Shweta Agrawal, Moises Eskinazi, Andrew Rouditchenko)","spans":[{"start":0,"end":267,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/8a66237971ddf34ee436c9fc850291fbd56a43b8_img_6128-2.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1600,"height":1200}},{"type":"heading2","text":"Meet the Minnows","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"For more on our inaugural class of interns, read some of their stories below. (We’re publishing a second post with even more intern stories later this fall—stay tuned!)","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Devin Morgan, Support Tools Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean invests a significant amount of time and resources into monitoring for Droplets being used in DoS attacks, which I’ll call the Flood Monitoring System (FMS). The FMS uses data structures called FloodAlerts and FloodOccurrences to track when a Droplet has been flagged for “flooding” and to record information about the Droplet while it is flooding. This information then gets sent to an internal team that manually combs through the provided data and determines whether or not a flagged Droplet is acting legitimately or maliciously. However, as DigitalOcean’s customer base grew, the need to automate or semi-automate this process was becoming more serious. But, before DO could begin automating the FMS, certain infrastructure changes needed to be made.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"I also had to create a dashboard that displays real time, visual representations of information derived from the FloodAlert and FloodOccurrence (FAO) data. Because this job heavily involved distributed systems, some of the technologies that I worked with included Apache Kafka, Apache Hadoop, Apache Hive, and Apache Spark. Other technologies that I used included Golang, Python, gRPC, and PrestoDB.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Both parts of this project were technologically challenging and forced me to learn a substantial amount in a short amount of time. I was very fortunate that the team I worked with knew their codebase and their tech stack inside and out and were incredibly willing to answer questions when I had them.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Shweta Agrawal, Product Management Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"I was looking for firsthand experience owning a product and making an impact. I felt that owning a product as a PM intern would be valuable because it was actionable and results-oriented. I wanted to further hone my leadership skills, and learn how to scope down to an MVP feature and release it within a few weeks. My DO summer project was to improve One Click Apps, responsible for setting the vision for the product, and coordinating all aspects of One Click Apps product development, from creating the business case for adding new features to deciding when and what features should be retired.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"It was valuable to compare the product’s historical metrics with the success criteria, to see how it had been performing over time. I took time to research what users were really like and what goals they were trying to accomplish. I analyzed the data, looked at customer support tickets, and interviewed a few customers to figure out the problems users were having.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The next step was to find solutions to these problems. I began by building hypotheses related to customer behavior and emotion. I had to wear several hats throughout the summer: I was responsible for identifying opportunities in the One Click Apps, launching two new One Click Apps to market, oversee them, and analyze metrics to ensure that they met the adoption goals. From writing specifications, prioritizing features, finalizing go-to-market, writing documentation, analyzing data, and coordinating with internal teams, I did it all.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Evan Mena, Insights Team intern","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"As a hobbyist developer I’ve worked with many different programming languages and technologies to create things that I wanted for myself. While I tried to include what I considered to be relevant industry tools, such as git, into my independent workflow I’ve always wondered just how different the real world was from my solo and small team projects. During my internship, I was given the chance to participate in the development environment and cycle on the Insights team. I got the chance to work on a real feature that will provide value to both the company and end users. My code received the same care during review as a full time engineer, and getting feedback on my work as a software developer was wonderful.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"My project for the summer was to provide users a way of establishing webhooks for alerts related to their Droplets. A webhook is a way for an application to provide real time information to another application over HTTP. As an end-user you’ll register your webhook, receive a request with a challenge message on your webhook URL from DigitalOcean then verify that you control that URL by responding with the challenge message. Once the URL is verified it will be sent JSON payloads with information related to alerts when they occur. This is a fantastic addition to alert notifications as webhooks allow end-user developers to act programmatically when alerts occur. Rather than receiving an email or slack notification, a developer could write a small program that would receive webhook payloads and do nearly anything with them. They could log alerts and generate graphical output, make use of DigitalOcean’s API and adjust their server’s storage size automatically, or a myriad of other countless options. I developed this particular feature from end to end, working in EmberJS in the UI and writing request handlers in Go on the backend.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In our next post, we’ll hear from interns who worked on our Cloud Engineering, Marketing, Networking, Data, Compute, and Frontend Infrastructure teams.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Danny Arango is a Senior Tech Recruiter at DigitalOcean. He’s passionate about building diverse teams and finding the right fit for the right people at the right time. He’s also a raging Arsenal fan (both in the positive and negative sense) and will debate anyone on the merits of 1994 being the best year in hip hop history. Follow Danny on Twitter @ElPibe627.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":361,"type":"em"},{"start":350,"end":360,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.twitter.com/elpibe627"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2017-10-25","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Culture","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"culture"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"interns"}}}]}}}