Network on firstfinger

The Userspace Tax Behind Protocols - QUIC(UDP) vs TCP

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:24:43 +0000

When you’re building a service that requires inter-node communication, one of the earliest decisions is choosing a transport protocol. Nodes need to talk to each other reliably, consistently, and fast. That means picking a foundation to build on.

At the transport layer, there are really only two foundations: TCP and UDP. Everything else is built on top of one of these two. On top of TCP, we have protocols battle-tested in production for years like HTTPS, gRPC, WebSocket, and other custom protocols. These inherit TCP’s reliability, ordering, and congestion control for free because TCP handles all of that at the kernel level. On top of UDP, the most prominent protocol today is QUIC. Designed by Google, standardized as RFC 9000, and powering HTTP/3, QUIC is the one that keeps coming up when teams discuss transport choices.

Why Your App is Still Slow After Optimization?

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 12:31:22 +0000

You have optimized your database queries, your API responds in under 100ms, and your CDN is correctly configured. Yet users still report slow load times, and performance monitoring shows latency spikes that appear without explanation.

The issue often lies outside your application or infrastructure. Two core network protocols can directly impact performance. TCP congestion control may make inefficient decisions about how data flows under varying conditions, and BGP routing can send traffic along longer, suboptimal paths across the internet.

Layer 4 vs Layer 7 Load Balancing Explained

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 09:37:04 +0000

When you browse Instagram, stream Netflix, or shop on Amazon, robust load balancing technology works silently in the background, handling millions of simultaneous requests across multiple server. This critical infrastructure component prevents system overloads and ensures consistent user experiences even during traffic spikes.

Load Balancing Fundamentals

Load balancing distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes overwhelmed. This improves application responsiveness and availability while preventing server failures. The choice between Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancing represents a crucial architectural decision with significant implications for performance, security, and functionality.

What is Kernel TLS (kTLS) and Why Offload TLS to the Kernel or NIC?

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 18:34:19 +0000

Most applications today handle TLS encryption in userspace, which creates performance bottlenecks that many developers don’t realize exist. When your web server processes HTTPS requests or your API handles secure connections, every byte of encrypted data requires CPU-intensive cryptographic operations performed by your application process.

This approach works, but it leaves performance on the table. Linux Kernel TLS (kTLS) offers a better way by moving TLS operations closer to the hardware, potentially freeing up significant CPU resources for your actual application logic.

What's Inside My Home Lab?

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 08:45:00 +0000

Picture this: It’s 2 AM, and I’m staring at my AWS bill with a mix of horror and fascination. Another $100 gone, just for experimenting with some Kubernetes deployments and testing a few CI/CD pipelines. As a DevOps engineer, I live and breathe infrastructure, but those cloud costs were eating into my wallet faster than I could learn.

That’s when it hit me – why not bring the cloud home?

Ansible vs Terraform

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 20:00:50 +0000

Imagine, As your business grows bigger, setting up and configuring things like servers, databases, and networks becomes a real pain if you do it by hand. Spinning up new servers one by one, copying and pasting commands, and keeping track of everything is super time-consuming and mistakes happen easily. Keeping all your servers configured the same way, installing updates, and deploying new code versions is a nightmare without help.

That’s where tools like Terraform and Ansible come to the rescue. Terraform is awesome at setting up your infrastructure like servers, networks, and databases. Instead of doing everything manually, you write code that describes what you want, and Terraform handles it for you. Need 10 new servers? Terraform gets it done with just a few commands.

Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Web3 Explained for Kids

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 05:05:00 +0000

🗄️ What is Blockchain?

Let’s think of blockchain as a special diary that is copied among many different computers. This diary can be used to record transactions - like person A sending money to person B.

The exciting part is that once a transaction is written in the diary, it can never be erased! And for a new transaction to be added, all the computers have to agree that it is valid. This prevents anyone from cheating or changing the records.

How Companies Are Saving Millions by Migrating Away from AWS to Bare Metal Servers?

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 13:30:46 +0000

These two Companies OneUptime and Prerender are finding that migrating from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bare metal servers hosted in colocation data centres can lead to substantial cost savings. They have cut costs by over 50% by taking control of their infrastructure while maintaining performance and reliability.

OneUptime was spending $456K+ annually on a 28-node AWS Kubernetes cluster.
Prerender projected over $1M per year on AWS services and data transfer.

📈 The Hidden Costs of Cloud

For many startups and tech companies, AWS seems like an easy choice. It allows you to spin up servers and scale rapidly without investing in your hardware upfront. But as these companies grow, the operating costs on AWS start to add up:

DevOps vs SRE vs Platform Engineering

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 06:30:56 +0000

Originally, DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineering were just new ways of thinking - cultures and philosophies. But over time, they’ve turned into real roles at companies with specific focuses and responsibilities. This profile of job titles can create confusion - What exactly do these roles for? How do they interact and differ?

Of course, all these new job titles can get confusing. DevOps engineer, SRE, and platform engineer - they sound pretty similar, right? But while they’re related in some ways, the work these roles do is also very different.

13 Tips to Reduce Energy Costs on Your HomeLab Server

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 07:13:57 +0000

HomeLab provides a great environment for learning new technologies, testing software, and exploring your interests hands-on. However, they can also lead to surprisingly high electricity bills if you are not careful. Multiple power-hungry servers, disk arrays, and networking gear can quickly make your HomeLab an energy sinkhole.

Selecting Efficient Server Hardware Components

The foundation of any energy efficient homelab starts with choosing the right server hardware. Old enterprise gear may seem appealing, but it comes at the cost of high idle power usage.

DevOps vs SRE vs Platform Engineering - Explained

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 05:52:15 +0000

AWS Lambda vs. Lambda@Edge: Which Serverless Service Should You Use?

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 11:30:20 +0000

If you are familiar with cloud computing, you may have heard of AWS Lambda, a service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. AWS Lambda is a popular choice for building serverless applications, as it automatically scales, charges only for the compute time you consume, and supports a variety of languages and frameworks.

But did you know that AWS also offers another service called Lambda@Edge, which allows you to run Lambda functions at the edge locations of the AWS network? Lambda@Edge is a feature of Amazon CloudFront, a global content delivery network (CDN) that speeds up the delivery of your web content to your users.

VPN vs. Zero Trust Network: Which is More Secure for Remote Access?

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 21:38:27 +0000

In today’s digital landscape, data breaches and cyberattacks are growing more sophisticated and prevalent. Traditional network security models centred around perimeter defences have proven insufficient to protect against modern threats. Zero trust networking has emerged as a new security paradigm to prevent data breaches and stop malicious actors.

But what exactly is zero-trust networking? How does it differ from technologies like VPN? And what are the main components required to implement zero trust architecture? First, let’s understand “What is tunnelling?”