WEEK 2: ENTRY 1

 Today was a tough day as well as a very insightful day at my internship. Having set up IntelliJ and Github last week, it appears that unlike other summer engineering interns, I needed a different setup because I will mainly be working on a Linux/Unix project. I thought I was set with all the environment I needed to start working on my project, but my assumptions were wrong. It appears that different teams have different setup environments because we will be developing, managing, and deploying to different environments. 

So what did I realize today? Well , I must say that I am now more startled by the difference between developing, managing, and deploying  a firm’s application compared to a personal or school project’s application. A firm’s application requires using secured DevOps tools because they are very much concerned with the security, scalability, flexibility, speed, performance just to name a few. This is not to say that a school/personal project is not concerned with these key features, but rather to emphasize how much more big companies take this into account. The setup I completed was the installations of PuTTY and Exceed. PuTTY is an open-source terminal emulator serial console and network file transfer application. You can view PuTTY like your PC’s command line(cmd). And Exceed is “a secure, high-performing X Window server that connects Microsoft Windows desktops to high-end X Window applications running on UNIX and Linux servers.”  I needed these two applications because they are very friendly and compatible with linux and unix servers.

The installation process was not as hard as I would have had thought before I got started. The reason being that I have used Linux commands during my time with the Student Software Development internship and Labor at the college. I found the Linux command line skills very handy because I was able to follow the instructions with less issues. Although, I should say that the configurations involved were very different. Apart from that it was all the familiar linux commands that I was using to make folders, cd into folders, create files etc. 


Besides, I never imagined that a firm like Goldman Sachs that is heavily concerned with security will be using an open-source environment like PuTTY and Kubernetes. I will talk about kubernetes in my next blog because I will get introduced and actually start working with it tomorrow. My initial thoughts on open-source applications are that they are very vulnerable to bugs and other security caveats and that big firms will not take a risk to use them. It turned out that I was partially right and wrong at the same time. When I asked my manager, “Are open-source applications not a bad choice  for the company to use?” He responded, “That’s a trick question, but the short answer is no.” He made it clear that the firm does not randomly install and use these open-sourced applications. Instead, they vet which ones to use and create their own configurations and security protocols that will ensure security when using these open-source applications. For instance, when new features are added to these open-source applications, the company does not just accept these features and upgrade their existing versions. They will rather have to wait and look into how these features might or might not work with the company’s existing versions. It is very amazing how my little knowledge is being tested daily in this internship.

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