dev.to year in review (2019)
Tags: kubernetes, java, azure, showdev
Published: 2019-12-28 09:53:38

... well, not exactly a year since I posted my first blog in Sep 2019 ([shortly after joining the Azure Advocates team!](https://medium.com/@abhishek1987/joined-microsoft-as-a-developer-advocate-9f1c144f7c82)) 😉 But, since then its been a steady blogging cadence and I have been loving it so far 💖 

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/prsVOti94aE2k/giphy-downsized.gif)

Here is a quick rundown of the content over the past few months. Hopefully, you will find some of these useful 😀 As always, I would love to get your [feedback and comments](https://twitter.com/abhi_tweeter)!


### Kubernetes

Most of the Kubernetes topics revolved around the basics, which I decided to cover as a part of the **"Kubernetes in a Nutshell"** blog series. It might come in handy if you want to learn about Kubernetes foundations such as [Stateless app orchestration](https://dev.to/itnext/stateless-apps-in-kubernetes-beyond-pods-4p52), [Volumes](https://dev.to/itnext/tutorial-basics-of-kubernetes-volumes-part-1-jhm), [Services](https://dev.to/azure/how-to-access-your-kubernetes-applications-using-services-5626), etc. 

> I plan to focus on wrapping up the "Kubernetes in a Nutshell" series and cover other topics in the near future.


### Apache Kafka

Kafka blog posts had a Kubernetes flavor as well - [Kafka Streams application Kubernetes](https://dev.to/azure/learn-how-to-develop-a-kafka-streams-application-for-data-processing-and-deploy-it-to-kubernetes-25li) and [the Kubernetes components required to run stateful Kafka Streams applications](https://dev.to/azure/learn-about-the-kubernetes-components-required-to-run-stateful-kafka-streams-applications-44jl). One-off blogs included [connecting to Azure Event Hubs Kafka endpoints using Sarama Go client](https://dev.to/azure/tutorial-connect-to-azure-event-hubs-for-kafka-using-go-203i) and [an frequently asked question](https://dev.to/itnext/kafka-is-it-a-topic-or-a-queue-4lom).

### Open-source technologies


So far, I focused on [Dapr](http://dapr.io/) (a platform for microservices development) and [KEDA](https://keda.sh/) (a component for scaling any Kubernetes workload). 

Dapr topics were integration focused on demonstrating how to [use Dapr for pub/sub with NATS](https://dev.to/azure/how-to-connect-dapr-applications-using-nats-pubsub-gd9), [Azure Event Hubs](https://dev.to/azure/learn-how-to-use-azure-event-hubs-with-the-dapr-framework-333h) as well as [Azure Blob Storage](https://dev.to/azure/tutorial-using-azure-event-hubs-and-blob-storage-with-the-dapr-framework-59dc).

KEDA related blogs include [how to auto-scale your Kubernetes apps with Prometheus and KEDA](https://dev.to/azure/how-to-auto-scale-your-kubernetes-apps-with-prometheus-and-keda-39km) and [a short write-up for those who want to hack on the KEDA project](https://dev.to/abhirockzz/hacking-on-the-keda-project-c8j)

> More OSS focused content coming next year! 🙌


### Azure

This was a mix of [Azure Kubernetes Service](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/aks/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-abhishgu), such as [adding persistent storage to your Kubernetes apps on Azure](https://dev.to/azure/how-to-add-persistent-storage-to-your-kubernetes-apps-on-azure-2kb2), [using AKS service principal to access other Azure services](https://dev.to/azure/azure-tip-how-to-get-your-kubernetes-cluster-service-principal-and-use-it-to-access-other-azure-services-2735), etc. as well as other posts covering topics such as:

- [Tutorial on how to build a Serverless API backend for Slack](https://dev.to/azure/funcy-a-serverless-slack-app-using-azure-functions-4m84), 
- [Developing apps with Azure Cognitive Services](https://dev.to/azure/tutorial-use-azure-cognitive-services-to-build-a-translator-app-hosted-on-azure-app-service-4pp1), 
- [Quickly testing connectivity to your Azure Event Hubs for Kafka cluster, without writing any code](https://dev.to/azure/how-to-quickly-test-connectivity-to-your-azure-event-hubs-for-kafka-cluster-without-writing-any-code-4la1), etc.


### Golang

I love [Go](https://golang.org/) and kickstarted ["Just Enough Go" blog series](https://dev.to/itnext/how-to-work-with-json-data-in-go-2m9g) with a few posts as of now but more coming soon!


### Java EE

If you're interested in learning about the options [Azure](https://azure.microsoft.com/free/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-abhishgu) offers for JavaEE workloads, you might want to check this (yet another) blog series on [deploying Java EE applications on Azure](https://dev.to/itnext/deploying-java-ee-apps-to-azure-part-1-217e). 

That's it for me. How was your `dev.to` journey in 2019 😀 ? 

See you in 2020!

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/PiiSP8kyBXqnLSAGjS/giphy.gif)