# flashbuilds Published articles for flashbuilds. This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles. ## Outage Resolution Through Automation DevFeed: [Outage Resolution Through Automation]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Target Brands, Inc Published: 2014-12-29T06:00:00Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Target]() Topics: [dashboards](), [Monitoring](), [Automation](), [GitHub](), [Jenkins](), [Ruby](), [Agile](), [data](), [Script]() Tags: [agile](), [automation](), [code](), [dashboards](), [devops](), [flashbuilds](), [github](), [jenkins](), [metrics](), [monitoring](), [outage](), [ruby](), [server](), [support]() ### AI overview The article describes Project Argus, a monitoring-as-code initiative that used GitHub, Chef, Kitchen, Jenkins, and Ruby to build dashboards, automate metric processing, and alert support teams about missing data. It also introduces an outage in the monitoring data-processing servers that caused the dashboards to go blank. ### Source excerpt Recently we launched Project Argus, a 30-day "monitoring challenge" to improve visibility of key performance indicators (KPIs) across our technology stack prior to our peak retail season (in Greek Mythology, Argus is a 100-eyed giant). This effort was structured as a mix between a FlashBuild and agile. We used two day sprints, twice a day stand-ups, and feature tracking through Kanban boards. Quickly in this effort we decided to build our product as monitoring-as-code. Through the use of tools such as GitHub, Chef, Kitchen, Jenkins, and Ruby, we were able to quickly build several monitoring and dashboard solutions for use within our Technology Operations Center. These dashboards and the iterative process we use to continue delivering more content have been embraced by our support teams who now heavily rely on them to proactively detect and resolve issues. One deliverable from Argus includes a cookbook per core business function that represents the KPIs identified by each business product owner. When run, the cookbooks establish connections to our data sources, build the scripts that process our data, and create crontab entries to automatically run the scripts at our predefined intervals. All of these resources and actions are defined in code. We designed our solution so that the dashboards are decoupled from our centralized processing and metric creation. Additionally, our cookbooks are written to be dashboard agnostic and independent so that anyone can make changes to the appearance and we can switch dashboard solutions easily. The processing of our metrics is centralized and managed on-site with each cookbook receiving its own server. Finally, our dashboard solution detects lapses in data and generates alerts that post into our persistent chat client. This allows us to close the loop on the health of the monitoring system, which can be a painful endeavor! ##The Problem Unfortunately, on 2014-12-06 at around 1:30pm the servers we use to process the monitoring data ## Target FlashBuilds DevFeed: [Target FlashBuilds]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Target Brands, Inc Published: 2014-11-10T06:00:00Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Target]() Topics: [DevOps](), [Agile]() Tags: [agile](), [communication](), [devops](), [flashbuilds](), [process](), [scrum](), [team]() ### AI overview Target describes FlashBuilds, one-day sessions combining two agile sprints, needed participants, and facilitation to address difficult business and delivery problems. The approach aims to improve delivery speed, collaboration, communication, and organizational learning, although some sessions may not produce a finished product. ### Source excerpt At a couple of recent conferences around DevOps (MSP DevOps Days and DevOps Enterprise Summit), Heather Mickman and Ross Clanton from Target explained some high level concepts and actions we're taking to break our mold of working on complex problems. When presented with an opportunity to work differently and challenge our normal delivery of IT assets - from plan to decommission - what would that look like? First, we asked some questions: What can we do to address the barriers within our organization; can we remove that impact on our ability to get things done? What can we do to remove time spent moving from meeting to meeting, often recapping the same discussions that you had in your last meeting 2 weeks ago? What process barriers exist that can be included in the delivery and built as part of the 'service'? And then we asked ... What if we could alleviate all of these problems (and more) all at the same time, all while you build team morale and actually have fun (gasp!) building stuff? What if? Two simple words that can: spark amazing conversations; generate innovation and excitement; challenge the status quo; break through to show how DevOps philosophies break through - even with the big horses. A ton of this post is simply about getting stuff done (GSD) but also to get into some specifics around how we approached fixing a business problem in some new ways - at least for us. So let's embark on some early details around Target's journey to challenge the traditional approaches to get stuff done and take control of the 'how' ... to redefine our working philosophies, principles, and minimize the impact radius of our efforts while still going deep with the teams and persons engaged. Any endeavor such as this has to have a name ... We affectionately call this process FlashBuilds! What is a FlashBuild?! Glad you asked! FlashBuild: A one-day session that includes 2 agile sprints, all the smart people that you need to build stuff, a facilitator, and a whole lot of positive focus