{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-author-jsx","path":"/blog/author/digitalocean/","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":10,"currentPage":1,"uid":"digitalocean","data":[{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":871,"height":441},"alt":"deploy by DigitalOcean","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/7ef77f40-dfb6-40d1-869f-e9a426a97769_DODX2538-Blog-image-870x440+%281%29.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"DigitalOcean’s virtual conference is back! Join us at deploy, Power Your Business ","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean is gearing up for another edition of its signature conference, deploy, with the goal of celebrating, educating, and connecting awesome builders from all over the world. Last year we succeeded in bringing together over 5k developers from all over the world to discuss important topics like building cloud-native apps and open source tools. On June 29th, we continue building on that success by bringing you another event that has you and your business in mind. This year’s conference is focused on helping small businesses and startups scale on the cloud. We’re excited to introduce deploy, Power Your Business.","spans":[{"start":76,"end":84,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy","target":"_blank"}},{"start":355,"end":364,"type":"strong"},{"start":595,"end":622,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The world continues to rapidly change and shift by the day, but one thing that remains constant is the increased adoption of online products and services. DigitalOcean is on a mission to simplify cloud computing and enable startups, developers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs alike to spend more time building software that changes the world. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Join us as we bring together great minds, great ideas, and the power of the cloud to take your business to the next level. Here’s a sneak preview of deploy and everything you should know about the 8-hour event so you can get the most out of your experience. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"heading3","text":"From products to pitches: Content that speaks to small businesses ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":66,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Kicking off the event, DigitalOcean’s CEO, Yancey Spruill will talk about where we're headed as a company and also share some exciting product updates. His keynote will be followed by presentations from community members, engineers, customers, and other experts that are building technologies and businesses powered by the cloud. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The content spans a wide breadth of topics relevant to anyone who is a builder - whether you are building a simple app, a business, or a body of knowledge. From learning how to scale your applications to understanding the complex world of fundraising with Techstars, this event enables businesses to set up, secure, and scale with ease.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With live Q&A and an active Discord server that connects speakers and attendees one on one, there’s ample opportunity to engage and learn something new to power your business. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Make sure to view the full agenda and create a custom schedule based on your interests. ","spans":[{"start":21,"end":33,"type":"strong"},{"start":21,"end":33,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy-agenda","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"heading3","text":"Come for the resources, stay for the real connections","spans":[{"start":0,"end":53,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Our community is bigger than us and extremely vibrant. Last year, we created a deploy Discord server, with channels dedicated to different DigitalOcean products and programs, as well as off-topic channels for sparks of creativity, fun, and general chatter. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We want to continue connecting and collaborating with you all in a remote and safe manner, which is why we’re re-opening the server. The deploy Discord is where all attendees can come together and engage directly with each other and the DigitalOcean team. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Starting June 15th, you’ll be able to pop into the deploy Discord and begin introducing yourself to the community. On conference day, we’ll open up all of the channels so that you can: ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":19,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"Ask your burning tech questions to speakers in the breakout groups.","spans":[]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"Take a break and enjoy some live entertainment in the off-topic channels.","spans":[]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"Snap selfies in the deploy photo booth.","spans":[]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"Network with fellow attendees in the #introductions channel.","spans":[]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"Follow the event on social and tag your experience with #DOdeploy. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Members of our team will be available throughout the event. Everyone is invited, from executive staff and engineers to product builders and content creators. The server will include special networking rooms, photo booths, and literary entertainment, all to ensure you have optimal access to meet and engage with fellow community members. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We’re so honored to have such an incredible community and we can’t wait to connect with each and every one of you at deploy. The time and details are below:","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Date: June 29th, 2021 @ 9 am ET ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"RSVP HERE","spans":[{"start":0,"end":9,"type":"strong"},{"start":0,"end":9,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do.co/deploy","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"#DOdeploy","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We look forward to seeing you there! ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2021-05-24","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Community","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"community"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"deploy-power-your-business"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":1537,"height":769},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/e6c04b47-bd9d-474a-9d25-ab143f47349e_Hacktoberfest2020.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"A Hacktoberfest to bring us together","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"Hacktoberfest is the monthlong celebration of open source software created by DigitalOcean to honor and uplift the community that we owe a great deal to. From the very early days of DigitalOcean, we’ve strived to invest time and money into open source foundations, projects, and maintainers. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Seven years ago, we kickstarted this celebration along with 676 excited participants contributing to open source projects and earning a limited-edition T-shirt in October. This year, we anticipate hundreds of thousands of developers participating in Hacktoberfest from 150 countries. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"It’s especially important for all of us to come together for Hacktoberfest in 2020 while the world undergoes so much change. All of us have been directly impacted – in unique ways – by the global pandemic and its rippling effects on our everyday lives. Our planet is also feeling the harmful effects of global warming, making it imperative for us to band together for the greater good. ","spans":[{"start":61,"end":74,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This October, let’s join forces and build something positive – virtually, of course. ","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Our community continues to grow every year","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/61927bec-4cde-4714-9571-5fce40967bfa_DO_Our_Values_Wall_F.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1909,"height":808}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"“Our community is bigger than just us” is one of DigitalOcean’s core values. It informs us every day to create products and programs that empower developers and entrepreneurs to easily test their ideas, build their businesses, and realize their dreams. ","spans":[{"start":49,"end":75,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/a-year-in-review-ceos-reflections/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Hacktoberfest is a great example of our communal impact. We wouldn’t be able to accomplish this program without our powerful and passionate global developer community. Whether you’re brand new to open source or you still remember your days of building with BASIC, this month is for you. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Here’s what the Hacktoberfest community accomplished last year: ","spans":[]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"131,841 participants completed 483,127 pull requests on 154,767 repositories ","spans":[]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"673 Hacktoberfest events in October in 292 cities in 73 countries","spans":[]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"61,871 participants in 142 countries earning a T-shirt","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"New experiences in 2020","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"To meet the demands of 2020, we have implemented changes to Hacktoberfest to help lower the barrier to entry, improve the quality of contributions, and level the hacking playing field. The ground rules still apply. You must complete four valid pull requests to earn a reward. But, we’ve also added a few new additions to make a positive and safe impact this year.","spans":[{"start":238,"end":257,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/details#quality"}}]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"Events are 100% online: Hacktoberfest meetups are a foundational component of this yearly celebration. We all know the value of connecting with new community members to learn and grow. To keep the meetup momentum going, we’ve updated our Hacktoberfest Event Organizer Kit to entirely focus on creating fun and seamless online events. Partnering with Major League Hacking and Mattermost, event organizers can set up an event page and automagically get a dedicated Mattermost chat room. \n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":23,"type":"strong"},{"start":238,"end":271,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/eventkit"}}]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"Pick trees, not tees: Every year, we strive to reduce the environmental impact of Hacktoberfest. By moving all events online, the carbon footprint associated with travel to hack nights is entirely removed. Still, this is not enough; we’ll also be paying for the carbon offsets associated with shipping 70,000 shirts around the world. Lastly, in partnership with the folks at Tree-Nation, we’re introducing the option to plant a tree instead of receiving a T-shirt as a reward. \n","spans":[{"start":0,"end":21,"type":"strong"},{"start":375,"end":386,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://tree-nation.com/"}}]},{"type":"o-list-item","text":"September was for Preptember: In an effort to give the community more time to get ready for Hacktoberfest, we officially announced September as the month for preparation. It has been a month full of learning how to make quality pull requests and giving maintainers more time to groom their repositories in preparation for Hacktoberfest. With 5 days left in September, we encourage you all to explore the resources we’ve provided. ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":29,"type":"strong"},{"start":392,"end":413,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/details"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We look forward to seeing all the ways in which you participate in these new experiences and hope they will enable you to be a more active and collaborative member of the open source community. ","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"We’re in this together","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This year’s Hacktoberfest promises to be the best yet because we have some phenomenal partners to help amplify your projects and contributions. Intel joins us this year alongside our previous partners, DEV. We are extremely honored to have these folks along for 2020 as well as the teams at Vonage, JetBrains, Circle CI, and our good friends at GitHub. Hacktoberfest would not be possible without all of our partners jumping on board and helping us spread the word to even more participants around the globe.","spans":[{"start":144,"end":149,"type":"strong"},{"start":202,"end":205,"type":"strong"},{"start":291,"end":297,"type":"strong"},{"start":299,"end":308,"type":"strong"},{"start":310,"end":319,"type":"strong"},{"start":345,"end":351,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Here are some of the offerings our partners are providing to elevate your experience:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Intel’s IntelPython, OpenVINO, and Kubernetes projects are all getting involved this year.","spans":[{"start":8,"end":19,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/IntelPython"}},{"start":21,"end":29,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/openvinotoolkit"}},{"start":35,"end":45,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/intel/workload-collocation-agent"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Show off your projects and find open source contributors for Hacktoberfest by dropping your project into this thread on DEV. You’ll need a DEV account, which you can sign up for here.","spans":[{"start":105,"end":116,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://dev.to/devteam/whos-looking-for-collaborators-hacktoberfest-2020-jl89"}},{"start":178,"end":182,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://dev.to/"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Read Github’s guide to maintaining open source projects.","spans":[{"start":5,"end":19,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://do/co/maintainers"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Easily set up your event with Major League Hacking’s event template and have it featured on the Hacktoberfest site. ","spans":[{"start":7,"end":24,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://organize.mlh.io/host/hacktoberfest-2020"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Receive a dedicated Mattermost chat room channel for your event attendees. ","spans":[{"start":20,"end":48,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.cloud.mattermost.com/main/channels/town-square"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Hosting daily office hours live on Twitch, with expert coaches and special guests.","spans":[{"start":14,"end":26,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://raise.dev/hacktoberfest","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Happy Hacktoberfest, everybody!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"While the world keeps spinning, we are all fortunate to pause and take a breath to appreciate what we have. This Hacktoberfest is a reminder that we have the power to realize our dreams and build a better future together with open source software. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you’ve…","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"never contributed to open source software on GitHub,","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"been excited to learn and play with a new programming language,","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"postponed documenting your project’s features,","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"put off fixing that bug for one of your favorite projects,","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"been too overwhelmed to attend a developer hack night,","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"waited all year long to celebrate open source software and earn a limited edition T-shirt,","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"…Hacktoberfest is here to make all the above possible.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you have any questions about how Hacktoberfest works, please visit the FAQ page. To attend a virtual event, visit the event listing page. For direct learning experiences from industry experts, sign up for Tech Talks. We look forward to seeing what you build.","spans":[{"start":74,"end":82,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/faq"}},{"start":121,"end":139,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/events"}},{"start":196,"end":218,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tags/open-source?q=tech+talks"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Happy Hacking!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean Team","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"*** An update on efforts to reduce spam with Hacktoberfest: introducing maintainer opt-in and more.***","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Thank you to everyone who has reached out with ideas and suggestions to help Hacktoberfest live its values of celebrating and fostering the open source community.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"After working closely with our friends at GitHub, we are happy to introduce a new measure to help significantly reduce the amount of spammy contribution. We’re making Hacktoberfest 2020 opt-in only for projects – which maintainers can do simply by adding the ‘hacktoberfest’ topic to a repository.","spans":[{"start":154,"end":297,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This was one of the primary requests from maintainers and we are hopeful that it will help alleviate some of the issues you've been facing.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We will honor all valid pull requests prior to this change, and as of October 3, 2020 at 12:00:00 UTC – and October 3 in all time zones – pull requests will only count toward earning a T-shirt or planting a tree if they are labeled as ‘hacktoberfest-accepted’ by a maintainer, or submitted in a repository classified with the ‘hacktoberfest’ topic. Pull requests in repositories with the ‘hacktoberfest’ topic will also need to be merged, approved by a maintainer, or labeled as ‘hacktoberfest-accepted’ in order to qualify. The deadline for completions, merging, labeling, and approving is November 1.","spans":[{"start":121,"end":125,"type":"em"},{"start":326,"end":347,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/topics/hacktoberfest"}},{"start":349,"end":602,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Learn more about the changes we’ve made that will affect your participation. ","spans":[{"start":0,"end":10,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/hacktoberfest-update"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean Team","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2020-09-24","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Community","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"community"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"announcing-hacktoberfest-2020"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":1600,"height":789},"alt":"walrus","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/d50103e7-a6f1-4cca-b099-f1aea64bdaf2_walrus-blog-header.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Introducing Walrus – DigitalOcean’s reimagined design system with accessibility & mobile-readiness at its core","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"Introducing Walrus – DigitalOcean’s reimagined design system with accessibility & mobile-readiness at its core","spans":[{"start":0,"end":110,"type":"strong"},{"start":12,"end":18,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"A simple and intuitive user experience is what originally set DigitalOcean apart in a crowded product space. The DigitalOcean cloud empowers learners, small businesses, and independent developers to do complex tasks that were historically left to experts. This human-centered approach to design enabled more people and businesses to do even more with our technology, and remains one of the greatest strengths of DigitalOcean products today.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In early 2019, the DigitalOcean design and frontend engineering team embarked on a journey to revamp our design system – a user interface’s language, with the components of a design system forming sentences and paragraphs on a page. The result of our efforts – the Walrus Design System – is beginning to roll out to our cloud application UI. ","spans":[{"start":265,"end":285,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We wanted to share parts of the process – including our successes and failures – with those who may be creating a design system from scratch or revamping one that already exists. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Naturally, our language should encompass DigitalOcean’s company values around simplicity, trust, respect, and love. Here’s how we created our new design system with those values in mind.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Guiding principles should be the framework for any design system. We began by establishing a set of principles to guide the design of individual components and foundations in the new system. These principles reflect our company values and the tenets of modern design.","spans":[{"start":64,"end":66,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Accessibility for all is critical","spans":[{"start":0,"end":33,"type":"strong"},{"start":18,"end":22,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Because DigitalOcean products are designed to empower all people to build, create, and do great things, our first focal point was on making our user experiences accessible. ","spans":[{"start":54,"end":58,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"For the first iteration of UI components, we designed with W3C’s WCAG AA Accessibility Guidelines in mind, asked many questions in the A11Y Slack community, and scoured open source design systems. When components were placed in a view, we also made heavy use of Deque’s amazing Axe Pro Tool, which identified issues when there were gaps in our own knowledge. ","spans":[{"start":59,"end":97,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/"}},{"start":135,"end":155,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://web-a11y.slack.com"}},{"start":278,"end":290,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.deque.com/axe-pro-sign-up/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Our biggest areas of progress were in color contrast and usage. The color palette was chosen to clearly reflect statuses and interactive UI elements while maintaining appropriate contrast so that users of all vision levels could use our products. We developed a color reference that mapped all possible color combinations together and highlighted which ones passed WCAG contrast guidelines, making it easy for designers to put together components and elements quickly.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/4e2660b1-28e1-436b-b307-a9e1946a36e2_walrus-blog-2.png?auto=compress,format","alt":"image blocks","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":768,"height":382}},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/1e6b670e-d5e5-44e4-854f-2493ac0055f5_walrus-blog-3.png?auto=compress,format","alt":"image blocks grid","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1127,"height":813}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This year, we’re adding even more components and improving screen reader experiences. Our component design process now includes defining aria roles and screen reader behavior. As previously mentioned, we also leverage Axe Pro to test the screen reader experience and document/remediate any issues.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"A mobile-first world calls for mobile-first experiences","spans":[{"start":0,"end":14,"type":"strong"},{"start":15,"end":55,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We’ve heard your feedback for a mobile-friendly experience, and believe that Walrus will enable you to build your ideas and businesses from any device. While DigitalOcean’s original cloud UI did not have a mobile-friendly experience, we’ve addressed and overcome this critical roadblock. We did this by starting with the building blocks.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Walrus components are mobile-first, including adequate sizes and targets for smaller screens and responsive behavior. All the pages and user flows that consume the components are also designed for both mobile and desktop-sized windows.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The table, for example, has several options for mobile screens. Designers can choose an option given the content.","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a0869b2b-bf18-42db-8746-74dd34d9b93a_walrus-blog-4.png?auto=compress,format","alt":"ip address","copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":512,"height":232}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Peer review is vital","spans":[{"start":0,"end":20,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Peer review is an important pillar in our design process. Once a component’s design is finished and documented, another designer reviews it against a set of criteria to ensure the component followed our principles. Any suggestions are then iterated on, and once the design is approved, we hand the assets over to the frontend engineering team for implementation. Once the component has been coded and added to the design library, designers test and review it again. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Keep an eye out for Walrus","spans":[{"start":0,"end":26,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"You can check Walrus out right now in the Virtual Private Cloud section of Networking. We’ll gradually be rolling out more experiences leveraging Walrus in the coming months. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We’d eventually like to open source Walrus so anybody can create accessible, flexible, and beautiful web experiences. ","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We hope you’ll join us – amongst many other great companies – in correcting the mistake of not being inclusive from the very beginning. And if you’re using the DigitalOcean console with assistive technologies, we invite you to participate in research that will help improve the experience even more. If so, please reach out to amorozoff@digitalocean.com. And if you have any feedback or thoughts, we encourage you to share them!","spans":[{"start":327,"end":353,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"mailto:amorozoff@digitalocean.com","target":"_blank"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"With love,","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The DigitalOcean Design and Engineering Team","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2020-05-21","tags":[],"_meta":{"uid":"introducing-walrus-digitaloceans-reimagined-design"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":2180,"height":1060},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/09b39170-7ab5-4e86-97b7-07e284f45a57_hatch-1.png?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"DigitalOcean Hatch partners with Twilio Startups Program","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean’s global startup program, Hatch has been on a mission to support startups as they launch and scale. After having supported an active, growing and global community of 5k+ startups, we are excited to continue our efforts to support the dreams of entrepreneurs around the world.","spans":[{"start":39,"end":44,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://digitalocean.com/hatch"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Today, we are pleased to announce our partnership with Twilio Startups program. Twilio's focus on developers and startups aligns perfectly with DigitalOcean's core values. Our companies are focused on providing simple, powerful and pay-as-you-use Cloud and Communications platforms that enable entrepreneurs to do what they do best.","spans":[{"start":55,"end":78,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.twilio.com/blog/twilio-startups-team"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Our companies had previously collaborated in 2018 for Hacktoberfest, DigitalOcean's month-long celebration of Open Source to support and engage with the global community of open source maintainers and contributors.","spans":[{"start":54,"end":67,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"What this partnership means for Hatch startups is that they will now also have access to the benefits of Twilio Startups program which includes 12 months of product credit, access to mentoring, and networking opportunities exclusive to program participants. Likewise, Twilio program startups will get access to Hatch and all the benefits of the program including DigitalOcean Cloud credits, access to priority support, mentorship and the global community of Hatchers.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We plan to conduct more joint office hours and online workshops with the Twilio Startups team to continue supporting startups. Check out and apply to Hatch to be a part of the growing community of startups.","spans":[{"start":150,"end":155,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://digitalocean.com/hatch"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2020-03-16","tags":[],"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean-hatch-partners-with-twilio-startups-program-a-win-for-startups"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":null,"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Reminder: Use best practices to avoid phishing scams on DigitalOcean","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"We've noticed an uptick in phishing attempts targeting our user base. These are attempts by bad actors to take over your account and use your resources or information to cause harm.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The most recent examples are emails sent to some users' inboxes which contain links to a non-DigitalOcean site (perhaps a lookalike site) to reset your password or gain control of your account. Do not click on these links!","spans":[{"start":194,"end":222,"type":"strong"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Today we learned that some DigitalOcean customers received an email designed to appear as though it was from Customer Support at DigitalOcean. Its subject was “Account Ref: [Various Number and Letters],” and the email claimed that the user account had been disabled. The easiest way to tell that this isn't a real DigitalOcean message is that it doesn't come from support@support.digitalocean.com.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Please do not click on any of the links in these emails. We do not send account recovery links in our emails for this reason. Instead, we will ask you to log in to your accounts directly.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you did click on the link and enter your account credentials, immediately try to change your DigitalOcean password by logging in at http://cloud.digitalocean.com/login. If you are unsuccessful, or if you believe your account has been compromised, please open a ticket with Customer Support.","spans":[{"start":135,"end":170,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://cloud.digitalocean.com/login"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"For increased security, we also highly recommend enabling 2FA (two-factor authentication). For how to do that, please visit How to Manage Two-Factor Authentication.","spans":[{"start":124,"end":163,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/accounts/security/2fa/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Stay safe out there!","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2020-01-24","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"News","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"news"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"use-best-practices-to-avoid-phishing"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":{"dimensions":{"width":1200,"height":592},"alt":null,"copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/af37bf4a-7e41-47fb-8a2e-7e347fa0b681_appreciating-community-2019.jpg?auto=compress,format"},"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Appreciating our community in 2019","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"The end of the year is upon us, and we're reflecting on a pretty amazing 2019 at DigitalOcean. While we're proud of what we've accomplished as a team, what really excites us is the work we've done together with our broader community.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This year alone, more than 27 million developers and aspiring developers visited our Community site to learn, explore, and share knowledge. We created more than 260 original tutorials in English, rewrote 40 to bring them up to the minute, and translated 163 to eight languages other than English.","spans":[{"start":81,"end":99,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/community"}}]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/07ee0dd0-0b36-4964-8a0c-3f9d6991a08b_appreciating-community-2.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1200,"height":500}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"And you played a huge part in this success. Via our Write for DOnations program, you contributed 146 tutorials as of mid-December. This provided funds to 28 worthy organizations, with a total value of more than $24,000.","spans":[{"start":52,"end":79,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/write-for-donations/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"You also helped answer more questions than you asked: in our Q&A section, you asked 3,229 questions and posted 6,483 answers. Now that's a community that cares.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Outside the world of 1s and 0s, we also had the opportunity to connect with many of you in person. Together, we launched The SpinUp with a16z’s Cultural Leadership Fund. Alongside Major League Hacking, we created the LocalHost™️ workshop program. Our community also participated in Cornell Tech’s Product Studio, consistently among the top three most popular offers through the GitHub Student Developer Pack. And that's not to mention the 70 community meetups organized in 17 countries!","spans":[{"start":121,"end":131,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/the-spin-up/"}},{"start":144,"end":168,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://a16z.com/2018/08/22/introducing-the-cultural-leadership-fund/"}},{"start":217,"end":237,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://localhost.mlh.io/activities/digitalocean/"}},{"start":282,"end":311,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://twitter.com/lisaironcutter/status/1204548746236837888"}},{"start":378,"end":407,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://education.github.com/pack"}}]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/4aac8883-9696-4c4a-a3f7-de2b2fec90ed_appreciating-community-hatch.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1200,"height":675}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We're also proud of our expanding Hatch community, bringing together some of the world's most exciting startups. In 2019, we welcomed 2,500 new Hatchers and gave the cap and gown (metaphorically) to 1,500 graduates of the Hatch program.","spans":[{"start":20,"end":49,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/hatch/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This was the year we launched our Solutions Partner Program, which has grown to 830 partners representing 55 countries; and our Marketplace – currently home to 125 1-Click Apps from 88 vendors.","spans":[{"start":30,"end":59,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/partners/solutions-partners/"}}]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/3764b76b-90b8-476a-b7ea-b2a8e0ab0dcb_appreciating+community+hacktober.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1200,"height":675}},{"type":"paragraph","text":" Finally, we expanded our engagement with the open source community. This was our biggest Hacktoberfest ever, with 483,127 pull requests in 154,767 repositories. Developers from 142 countries participated in Hacktoberfest, and 673 in-person Hacktoberfest gatherings took place in 73 countries.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are proud and grateful to be blessed with such an incredible global community. We're already looking forward to 2020 and working even more closely with the developer community to encourage learning, growth, and open source.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"From all of us at DigitalOcean, have a wonderful holiday season!","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2019-12-19","tags":[],"_meta":{"uid":"appreciating-our-community-in-2019"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":null,"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Meet Microweber: Open source, drag & drop website builder for ecommerce entrepreneurs","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"This is a guest post from Boris Sokolov and Peter Ivanov, cofounders of Microweber. Microweber is featured as a 1-Click App on the DigitalOcean Marketplace.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":156,"type":"em"},{"start":112,"end":123,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/microweber"}},{"start":131,"end":155,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you're looking to launch an ecommerce venture, you probably have lots of questions. Is it going to be too complicated? Take too much time? Need too many plugins and add-ons?","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"That’s why we created Microweber. It's an open source, drag-and-drop website builder specifically tailored to address the needs of ecommerce entrepreneurs.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Why we built Microweber","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We noticed that most existing website builders and CMS platforms felt clunky and lacked simple drag-and-drop capabilities. Meanwhile, platforms that did use drag-and-drop tended to lock users into their ecosystem, were expensive, and didn't offer a built-in online store function.","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/5ca697bc-90d3-4510-862b-74aac095f84b_image1.png?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":948,"height":969}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We saw an enormous opportunity to create an all-in-one platform for setting up websites and online stores. We wanted it to be so dead simple that anyone without any web experience could launch an ecommerce business in a matter of minutes.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Making it simple – even for beginners","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"To make things easier for you, Microweber runs on a smooth technological duo: our Drag and Drop and special Live Edit features, which fit perfectly into our modular architecture.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Drag and drop means that you can use your mouse to drag any element or module – text fields, images, videos, layouts, you name it. This makes arranging or rearranging anything from blog posts to e-commerce catalogs easy and intuitive.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Pairing this functionality with Live Edit mode makes it particularly powerful. With Live Edit, you can work live on your page. No pop-ups, no infuriating navigation or inter-page loading times. Take a look at how it works:","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a978f2fd-c037-4adc-b661-ad17a1c16e3e_mwcreate.gif?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":774,"height":477}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Even users who consider themselves bad with technology find Microbrewer intuitive to use.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Building in a rich online store","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Building an online storefront can be taxing. Existing platforms either require external plugins or charge you a flat fee plus additional transaction fees for using their online store functions.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We didn't think that was fair. So we decided to give Microweber a built-in online store that doesn't cost you anything extra.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"To make it easier, we have included various e-commerce features such as:","spans":[{"start":44,"end":63,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://microweber.org/e-commerce"}}]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Multiple payment methods accepted (Paypal, Stripe, Authorize.net, Payza etc.)","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Management and tracking of orders inside Microweber","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Automated emails after customer purchases","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"A variety of shipping options","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Custom product fields – sizes, colors, prices, and numbers, among others","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Social network linking","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Currency options and setting your taxes as a merchant","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/ef7ad84a-0d1d-47cf-bf01-ad1d0ae1c8f3_image2.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1141,"height":768}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Everything's inside Microweber, so you don't need to deal with external plugins or suffer from additional costs when you're bootstrapping.","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/b8a9492d-ba5d-4767-bcb7-83f5e034bf5d_image5.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1139,"height":938}},{"type":"heading2","text":"Open-source and self-hosted: because privacy, flexibility and security matter","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"As the Open Source Initiative notes, open source equals reliability. With open source you benefit from a whole community rigorously testing your software for bugs, vulnerabilities, or anything else that might affect the platform. Microweber has always been open source, and our own community is constantly on the watch to give us their input. The CMS has more than 50,000 downloads and installations around the world.","spans":[{"start":230,"end":268,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://github.com/microweber/microweber"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Microweber is also self-hosted. You can use us as your hosting provider, but you're also free to use any other provider on the Web. We don't lock you in, because we believe that you deserve choice and flexibility when it comes to installations.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are also proud to be part of the DigitalOcean Marketplace! You can find us in the Blogs and Forums category, or try out our app with just one click.","spans":[{"start":36,"end":60,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/"}},{"start":85,"end":110,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/category/blogs-and-forums"}},{"start":115,"end":150,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/microweber"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"What about the templates?","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Let's be honest: functionality alone doesn't cut it. You want beautiful customization at your fingertips. In a competitive environment, appealing templates play a big role in capturing your customers' attention.","spans":[]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/3d6b81c6-79a2-4236-863d-c32d66d8de74_image4.jpg?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1363,"height":1015}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We've got good news – although we offer free and paid (premium) templates, as a DigitalOcean customer you gain free access to all templates!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Stay tuned, because we are continually adding to our template portfolio, tailoring it to the needs of ecommerce entrepreneurs.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We hope this was a useful introduction to what Microweber can do for you! We'd be thrilled if you give our CMS a try and share your feedback with us.","spans":[{"start":121,"end":148,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://microweber.com/contact-us"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2019-11-08","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Marketplace","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"marketplace"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"meet-microweber"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":null,"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Helping Remote Developers Avoid Burnout","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"This is a guest post from Debbie Chew of Arc.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":45,"type":"em"},{"start":41,"end":44,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://arc.dev/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Ever feel like the code you write is never good enough? Or that you’re constantly tired from working, but your workload doesn’t seem to ever decrease?","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"You’re not alone! Being a developer can be exhausting. To help rebuild your willpower and rediscover your sense of identity, there are lots of ways you can manage, overcome, and avoid burnout.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Burnout is a reality for thousands of developers, and it also affects those working remotely. In fact, DigitalOcean's recently published report, Currents: A Seasonal Report on Developer Trends in the Cloud – Remote Work Edition, revealed that 66% of remote developers suffer from burnout symptoms. And the percentage is even higher (82%) for developers in the United States.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":48,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://hn.algolia.com/?query=burnout&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=1&dateRange=all&type=story"}},{"start":145,"end":227,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/currents/july-2019/"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"The burnout problem is real","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The report is worrying. It reveals that burnout is a slightly higher risk (+2%) for remote developers than for in-house developers. Fortunately, working remotely can improve work-life balance, with remote developers rating their work-life balance at 7.02 out of 10 on average (as opposed to on-site developers, who score lower at 6.95).","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"So what are the biggest contributors to burnout?","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Working longer hours than expected","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Feeling like management expects you to contribute more than in-house developers","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Increased levels of stress and anxiety","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The most significant danger is that burnout can creep in slowly and unannounced. You find yourself working longer hours, spending more time on work, feeling more stressed, and not knowing when (or how) to stop.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you think this might be happening to you or someone you know, there is help available. This guide will help you understand burnout and give you practical tips that will allow you to prevent or overcome it.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Solving the problem of burnout","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"These tips will help you protect your passion for coding, be more productive, and avoid burnout:","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"1. Assume responsibility for your time","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"When working in-house, someone else is often responsible for directly managing you. But when you work remotely, this responsibility falls on you. If you don't manage your time, no one will (at least until it’s time for your performance review). Don't be your own worst enemy!","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Everything your manager previously did for you, you must now do for yourself. This includes setting your schedule – deciding when you work and for how long, when you take breaks, and more. What's most important is sticking to the decisions you make: without being disciplined, you will create additional stress for yourself.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"2. Set clear boundaries","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"You must understand your nonnegotiables. What are the things that, as a remote developer, you would not be happy doing? Maybe working in the middle of the night is one of them. Or perhaps you're not happy with your employer demanding that you work during specific hours.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In \"A Programmer Burnout Story,\" Lorenzo Pasqualis recommends active communication to help remote developers remain on the same page as the rest of their team. This will help combat any potential expectation that you have to contribute more than you physically can.","spans":[{"start":3,"end":32,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.coderhood.com/a-programmer-burnout-story-how-to-recognize-it-and-avoid-it/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Communicating nonnegotiables with your team will help set boundaries in regards to your availability and what you're willing to do.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"3. Set a fixed working schedule & stick to it","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean's report also reveals that 52% of remote developers find themselves working longer hours than they thought they would. One of the reasons may be a lack of time management skills.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The best thing to do to start learning how to manage your time better is to begin setting a fixed schedule. After you communicate your working times to your remote team, diligently stick to them. By doing so, you will avoid straying from what you need to do.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Also resist the urge to check email or lurk on Slack outside your working schedule. You may feel that doing so means you're contributing more, but usually this isn't the case.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"4. Create a routine","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"If you don't establish a routine to help reduce the amount of information you have to process, your stress levels may increase. A routine helps you always know what you need to be doing next.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"It's good to have a routine in the early morning when you wake up, and also before going to bed. This helps your mind separate work from other activities, while helping you maintain work-life balance.","spans":[{"start":13,"end":27,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://zapier.com/blog/daily-routines/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Another good practice is not checking your email first thing in the morning. It's better to wake up and prepare your breakfast, and only then check email. You can also use this time to prioritize your tasks for the day.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"5. Take multiple breaks","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Making time for multiple scheduled breaks from coding during the day is essential to increase productivity and reduce stress levels. Planning these breaks will help you develop the discipline to actually sign off when the time comes. Even going for a short walk around the block or doing a small task in the home can help.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"6. Exercise daily","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Daily exercise is phenomenal for your health. You should set aside 30 minutes to an hour every day for exercise. It's a great way to de-stress and unplug – 61% of developers find that physical activity lowers their stress levels. Science backs this up. So take advantage of those endorphins!","spans":[{"start":230,"end":252,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/exercise-and-stress/art-20044469"}}]},{"type":"heading4","text":"7. Don't eat while you're working","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Cooking and eating are great activities to save for your breaks. Taking the time to eat will help your mind unplug from work and relax. Enjoy the process of making your food, and take a moment to savor it. You'll find that you return to your monitor more refreshed and ready to take on the challenges that await.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"It's also a good idea to prepare healthy food, which gives you an energy boost and keeps your mind sharp.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"8. Don't forget about friends & family","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"When you're in work mode, it's easy to forget to set time aside for friends and family. To avoid this, try to schedule social events ahead of time. They will help you disconnect from work and make your life about more than just what pays the bills.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"It’s important to remember that keeping in touch with loved ones will make you more fulfilled, help prevent stress, and ultimately make you happier and more productive at work. According to the DigitalOcean Currents report, 67% of developers say spending time with friends and family is the best way for developers to de-stress. (And let’s not forget pets too!)","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"9. Make time for yourself","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Don’t forget to have some \"me time\" too. Leaving some time in the day for yourself will help you do other things that you enjoy. Playing video games, reading, or listening to music are all great de-stressors.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Another thing to consider is pursuing a hobby or other creative endeavor and learn more in this time. You can even study a different tech stack and improve your skills – even if you’re an experienced developer.","spans":[{"start":170,"end":209,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.codementor.io/blog/updating-your-best-practices-7gzzfh3vrx"}}]},{"type":"heading4","text":"10. Take vacations","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Lastly, taking a vacation is a very effective way to disconnect from work and recharge your batteries.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Unfortunately, most remote workers take limited vacation, often out of fear that they are not working enough compared to their counterparts.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"You should take a vacation if you feel like you need one. Your productivity will actually increase after taking necessary time off, making it a win-win for you and your employer.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Remote work should be enjoyable","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"By establishing healthy routines and boundaries, along with prioritizing your wellness, health, and both personal and professional relationships, you’ll learn to manage and overcome burnout – which will help you become a happier, more productive developer. You’ll get to truly enjoy remote work and all its benefits (flexible schedule, no commuting, ability to work from anywhere, and more) without the downside.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Arc (formerly CodementorX) is a platform that connects developers with top companies hiring great developer talent. If you're a remote developer looking for your next opportunity, consider joining the Arc network.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":213,"type":"em"},{"start":180,"end":212,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://bit.ly/2lYPQUQ"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2019-09-18","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Culture","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"culture"}}},{"tag1":{"tag":"Engineering","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"engineering"}}},{"tag1":{"tag":"Community","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"community"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"avoiding-burnout"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":null,"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Meet Marketplace Partner Restyaboard: Self-Hosted Kanban Boards, With a Little Extra","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"This is a guest post from Jimmy Johns, cofounder of Restyaboard.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":63,"type":"em"},{"start":52,"end":63,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://restya.com/board"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Cloud platforms, mobile apps, and IoT are just a few technologies that are merging workspaces and living spaces. While the benefits of a remote workforce may seem obvious for the worker, there are many operational benefits for organizations when they enable a remote workforce culture. This includes access to a greater talent pool, real estate and overhead savings, higher productivity levels, and even employee retention.","spans":[{"start":123,"end":153,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/currents/july-2019/"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"However, with the rise of virtual companies, having a distributed workforce can make it especially challenging to coordinate plans and track deliverables across remote teams that may comprise vendors, partners, clients, and stakeholders. Collaboration and transparency across remote teams and external stakeholders becomes even more complex and critical.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This new market dynamic has created space – and demand – for cloud-based productivity and project management tools, and the success of tools like Trello is a testament of a growing market demand. While list-tracking tools have become the mainstay for organizations, privacy and security are at the forefront of deciding which application to go with. If you love Trello but are concerned about security and data privacy, you may want to consider a self-hosted option, which means you install, run, and manage an app by yourself – on your own cloud server.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading3","text":"Enter Restyaboard","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"\nRestyaboard is an open-source, enterprise-rich application designed to track and visualize the progress of the project. Using a simple and familiar card-based layout for tasks, users can consolidate boards from Trello, Asana, Github, Kantree.io, Pipefy, Taiga, Taskwarrior, and Wekan into a single pane of glass.","spans":[{"start":178,"end":206,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://restya.com/board/features"}}]},{"type":"image","url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/1761c5969317e0f7a3c4695a2c4921411d9c1f0b_image3.png?auto=compress,format","alt":null,"copyright":null,"dimensions":{"width":1614,"height":497}},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Other features include calendar syncing, version tracking, two-factor authentication, the ability to define user roles and work offline, and flexible view options to nest comments, expand cards, or color code lists.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"While these are some of the prominent features of the app, there are many use cases for Restyaboard that enhance workplace productivity.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Secure Collaboration for Agencies, Clients & Vendors","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Restyaboard is an extensible platform that can be shared securely to groups of people outside of the organization – agencies, clients, vendors, etc. With security features and role-based privileges, users can easily and securely share links and attachments on projects. Due-date features allow you to implement and modify deadlines, with tasks automatically syncing to Google Calendar. And whether you work autonomously or as part of a team, you can use collaboration features to store ideas, start discussions, and find new approaches to the problems.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Management for Content Strategy, Production & Promotion","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"For quick and accurate planning and execution, you can create cards that are color-coded, templatized for faster production, and customized with notification settings. Flexible organization options allow you to create a card for each blog post or batches of articles – or to store everything in a single card. You can also add post topics, keywords, and backlink requirements, and you can keep your content calendar up to date. With Google Docs integration, writers can share the link in the card where stakeholders can add comments directly to the document or cowrite with several writers.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Guided Project Review & Approval Process","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The reviewing features are tailored for content creators and designers alike, allowing tasks to be reviewed by several team members at once and minimizing the likelihood of errors. User can comment on and edit copy, and designers can share multiple mockups for feedback and rounds of revisions. Primary stakeholders can perfect and approve deliverables before they are published or shared with a client.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Streamlined Email Marketing Workflow","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"By using a single card for each goal of your email marketing strategy, you can add a mailing list to a single card, the email copy, images to be used, and the newsletter design or code, ensuring all assets are housed in a single place.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Any project can be templatized and repurposed to speed up creative cycles and maintain brand consistency.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading4","text":"Dynamic & Continuous Feedback Within Your Team","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Once a project is complete, teammates can add feedback to associated project cards. Encourage them to share what went well, what didn’t work, and how processes could be improved going forward. These retrospectives result in continuous improvements and allow for local and distributed teams to provide feedback and contribute to projects, no matter where they are in the world. Moreover, seeing colleagues’ comments can encourage shy people to add their insights to the cause.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Restyaboard is designed for expansion, and we currently offer several application and widget integrations to help optimize capabilities – including Slack and GSuite. We likely have an integration option for you already, and we're we’re constantly adding new tools to this list.","spans":[{"start":184,"end":210,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://restya.com/board/integrations/all"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We hope you give Restyaboard a try! Check out our 1-Click integration on DigitalOcean's Marketplace, and let us know what you think.","spans":[{"start":46,"end":99,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/restyaboard"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2019-08-06","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Marketplace","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"marketplace"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"meet-marketplace-partner-restyaboard-self-hosted-kanban-boards"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":null,"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Extending Cloud Beyond the Cloud","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"This is a guest post from Kevin Walsh, advisory board member at Vitalpointz.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":76,"type":"em"},{"start":64,"end":75,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"http://vitalpointz.io"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"There was a time, not too long ago, when phrases like “private cloud” or “on prem” were forbidden within the offices of cloud providers. The mindset was clearly that everything – and they meant every single thing – ran better as a workload in the cloud.","spans":[{"start":194,"end":212,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"And while it certainly is the case that most things run more reliably and less expensively in the cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) technology and use cases have changed the cloud-only mentality (or, at least, changed the meaning of “cloud”). By definition, a workload running on a thing cannot run in the cloud. But also, it clearly must run in conjunction with the cloud. Does the thing connect to the cloud or does the cloud extend to the thing?","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Recent advances in IoT software tools and platforms create an infrastructure in which the traditional boundaries of the cloud are blurred and extended out to potentially millions of endpoints with compute horsepower and massive date generating capacity. This extension of cloud infrastructure beyond the boundaries of the data center is happening at all major cloud providers and portends a rich trove of new applications and use cases that can be engineered by business and industrial users.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Key to achieving that “cloud extension” is the ability to rapidly establish the foundational underpinnings for a robust IoT infrastructure. This foundation, which Vitalpointz delivers, includes:","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Device onboarding and subsequent lifecycle management (including initial connectivity, device authentication, certificate management and periodic over-the-air software and configuration updates)","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"MQTT & secure-MQTT traffic ingestion and normalization","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"User authentication","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Drag-and-drop flow processing for ingested data streams","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Alerts and notifications","spans":[]},{"type":"list-item","text":"Data visualization","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Our vitalpointz IoT Core Lite product allows developers to quickly build IoT infrastructure and onboard devices so that they can focus on application development on top of that infrastructure and integration with disparate enterprise systems.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We are delighted to share that vitalpointz IoT Core Lite is now available as a 1-Click App in the DigitalOcean Marketplace! We look forward to continuing to stretch and extend the definition of \"cloud\" together.","spans":[{"start":31,"end":122,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/vitalpointz-iot-core-lite"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2019-05-31","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Marketplace","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"marketplace"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"extending-cloud-beyond-the-cloud-2"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":null,"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"A Message About Intel’s Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) Vulnerability","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"Update: June 6, 2019","spans":[{"start":0,"end":20,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Today, we’re happy to share that we have completed Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) mitigations across our fleet. While we applied microcode to mitigate the potential impact of the vulnerability to a majority of our platform several weeks ago, we were awaiting a microcode to apply to a small percentage of servers. Earlier this week, we received the updated microcode from Intel and our team has been working to update the microcode as quickly as possible, and completed those efforts today.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"MDS vulnerability mitigations have been deployed across our entire platform, but we do strongly recommend that all users take steps to ensure your Droplets are up to date and secure, if you have not done so already. If you have already updated your Droplets, no additional action is required.","spans":[{"start":135,"end":181,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/how-to/kernel/upgrade"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Original Post: May 14, 2019","spans":[{"start":0,"end":27,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Today, Intel released a statement regarding Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) – also referred to as ZombieLoad – a significant security vulnerability that affects cloud providers with multi-tenant environments, including DigitalOcean. Left unmitigated, this vulnerability could allow sophisticated attackers to gain access to sensitive data, secrets, and credentials that could allow for privilege escalation and unauthorized access to user data.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We have been working closely with Intel to understand the impact of these vulnerabilities and the best courses of action to protect our platform and our users. We have received updated microcode from Intel and developed a set of kernel updates to mitigate the vulnerability, and we are rapidly rolling out these mitigations with no downtime to our users.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"We also recommend taking steps to ensure your Droplet is up to date and secure. This is especially important if you are running multi-tenant applications or untrusted code inside your Droplet.","spans":[{"start":34,"end":78,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/droplets/how-to/kernel/upgrade"}}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In addition to sharing this blog post, we’re reaching out to all users via email. We’ll continue to post informational updates here, and we will reach out directly to users should any additional action be required.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The security of our platform and our users’ data is our top priority, and we’re taking every measure to ensure our customers remain secure. For more information about MDS, you can read Intel’s initial statement.","spans":[{"start":185,"end":210,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/mds.html"}}]}],"blog_post_date":"2019-05-14","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Engineering","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"engineering"}}},{"tag1":{"tag":"News","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"news"}}},{"tag1":{"tag":"Trust & Security","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"trust-security"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"may-2019-intel-vulnerability"}}},{"node":{"author":{"_linkType":"Link.document","author_name":"DigitalOcean","author_image":{"dimensions":{"width":600,"height":600},"alt":"Sammy avatar","copyright":null,"url":"https://images.prismic.io/www-static/a10e3c2eb15b74ee43f872be3044313423b1c9a9_sammy_avatar.png?auto=compress,format"},"_meta":{"uid":"digitalocean"}},"blog_header_image":null,"blog_headline":[{"type":"heading1","text":"Creating a Parent-Inclusive Workplace","spans":[]}],"blog_post_content":[{"type":"paragraph","text":"This is a guest post from Laurel Kiskanyan, Senior Recruiter here at DigitalOcean.","spans":[{"start":0,"end":82,"type":"em"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"This Mother’s Day I’m also celebrating my daughter’s first birthday. Whereas this time last year I was struggling to keep a tiny human (and myself for that matter) alive, this year I’ve had a chance to reflect on what is important to me as a working parent in the tech industry.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"DigitalOcean’s culture of inclusivity makes us all feel like real people (not just employees). As a new parent, here are some aspects of our company culture that I've found particularly welcome.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"A no judgement zone","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Didn’t have time to throw anything on today other than jeans and a sweatshirt? Is every weekday a bad hair day? Have to miss happy hour? Need to run out in the middle of that 5pm meeting to get to daycare before closing?","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"It's all good. Enforcing a dress code isn't a priority for anyone at the company. We ensure that there are plenty of ways to bond with colleagues, such as over (free!) lunch every day overlooking our beautiful neighborhood, or during a virtual coffee hangout with employees around the world. And results are what matter: being the last one in the office isn’t seen as the one true sign of hard work (apparently this is mind-blowing in NYC).","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Flexibility","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Parents know that having a child helps with time management and multitasking more than almost anything else imaginable. Being efficient is key as a parent, and because DigitalOcean gives you true ownership over your schedule, we parents are just as kick ass as our peers at getting our work done. As Stefania Lagna, Manager of Tax, put it, “It’s great to work at a company where the level of flexibility – such as working remotely and an unlimited time off policy – makes it easier to be a great parent and be good at your profession.”","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Recently, at lunch I reflected over a recent New York Times article with Lisa Montin, our Director of Business Operations. The gist of the article was that many women feel forced to work part time to support their families and their partners' careers. Reacting to this, Lisa said, “We're so lucky that DigitalOcean doesn't force us to make this tradeoff. Moms can have interesting and challenging roles that also allow us to complete our work within business hours.”","spans":[{"start":38,"end":67,"type":"hyperlink","data":{"link_type":"Web","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-greedy-professions.html"}}]},{"type":"heading2","text":"A comfortable work environment","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"As we all know, sometimes it can feel less hectic at the office than at home. We’re set up for all different work styles. An open office format doesn’t work for everyone, so we have a quiet room called The Reef, lots of comfy chairs and couches, and a roof deck to catch some sun midday. If you’re still nursing or pumping, our Mother’s Room might become your new office – it certainly rivals the executive offices in style.","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"Generous parental leave","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Everyone needs time for baby bonding – but let’s face it, parental leave might be even more about recovery and adjustment. DigitalOcean sent me everything I needed for baby’s first bathtime delivered right to my door – baby shark outfit and all! Knowing my company cares for me as a person and a parent was especially meaningful during those challenging first few days.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The standard maternity policy at DO includes four months of leave plus a two-month transition period of part-time work (all fully paid). Most new moms would agree with Shweta Saraf, our Director of Network Engineering, who took advantage of six months of maternity leave which she felt “allowed for a natural transition back to work.”","spans":[]},{"type":"heading2","text":"A sense of real community","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"There are various #parents slack channels to browse and share in, where new and veteran parents alike can share war stories. And, when you're tired of talking about pediatricians and nighttime routines and just want to browse cute pups, there's always #dogpix to release some stress.","spans":[]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"In the end, inclusion is about belonging. This Mother's Day, I'm proud to be part of a workplace that treats me – and all parents – as though we truly belong and our experiences matter.","spans":[]}],"blog_post_date":"2019-05-12","tags":[{"tag1":{"tag":"Culture","_linkType":"Link.document","_meta":{"uid":"culture"}}}],"_meta":{"uid":"creating-a-parent-inclusive-workplace"}}}]}}}