2025 is fast approaching, but we have just enough time left to take a look at 2024's most popular articles on application development, as well as some standout learning paths and e-books.
The top 10 most popular app dev articles of 2024
This year's most popular topics include Kafka data storage and migration, API management, simplifying software security and identity access management. Solutions like Red Hat Developer Hub also garnered a lot of attention as engineering teams continue to seek ways to eliminate friction in the development process.
#10: How to navigate API evolution with versioning
APIs and API management form critical pieces of an enterprise’s technology landscape. With the evolution of business needs and the enterprise and technology landscape, changes to APIs become inevitable. With the evolution of business needs and the enterprise and technology landscape, changes to APIs become inevitable. The only constant is change, and APIs are no exception. Therefore, it is important how well enterprises are adapted to change when it occurs—because it is bound to occur.
To better manage changes to APIs, the API management artifacts need to be versioned just like any other software. This article is a strategic guide to versioning intentionally. For a glimpse of versioning in action, the API Versioning solution pattern dives into how a fictitious retail company evolved to handle new versions of an API across all layers: backend, API management platform, API consumers.
Read it here: How to navigate API evolution with versioning
#9: Protect applications with Red Hat build of Keycloak using Kerberos & Active Directory
This article demonstrates how workstation users authenticating to Active Directory with the Kerberos protocol can use Simple and Protected GSSAPI Negotiation Mechanism (SPNEGO) tokens with Red Hat build of Keycloak technology for single sign-on to web applications.
By extending the standard Red Hat build of Keycloak image with a Kerberos client and configuring User Federation with Active Directory in Red Hat build of Keycloak, users with an account on Windows Server and using Kerberos to authenticate to their workstation, can still access web applications deployed on Red Hat OpenShift.
Read it here: Protect applications with Red Hat build of Keycloak using Kerberos & Active Directory
#8: Red Hat Trusted Software Supply Chain is now available
By Markus Nagel
The article gives an overview of Red Hat Trusted Software Supply Chain, a product family that addresses the many challenges of managing security risks in modern application development, particularly with Kubernetes, container images, and third-party libraries.
Tools like Red Hat Trusted Application Pipeline and Red Hat Developer Hub provide solutions like automated code signing, vulnerability scanning, Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), and compliance checks. Together these capabilities help simplify security for developers and operations teams while ensuring security-focused, efficient application deployment in containerized environments.
Read it here: Red Hat Trusted Software Supply Chain is now available
#7: Red Hat build of Keycloak high availability: A simplified approach
As of Red Hat build of Keycloak 22, creating a highly available Keycloak solution can introduce operational complexity and performance issues. For example, to have multiple instances of Keycloak that share the same session information, a common cache that is available to all Keycloak instances is a must (in this case, Red Hat Data Grid common to two Red Hat OpenShift clusters) as well a common database (that is highly available and/or fault tolerant).
This article describes a proof of concept for creating a highly available Keycloak configuration using Red Hat OpenShift without relying on a shared cache or database. It also walks through the steps to configure the infrastructure for the potential solution, including OpenShift clusters, Postgres database, and Keycloak setup.
Read it here: Red Hat build of Keycloak high availability: A simplified approach
#6: What is platform engineering and why do we need it?
The sheer amount of tasks and decisions in a developer's day can surpass what's manageable, leading to a significant slowdown in actual development. Terms like "cognitive load" and "burnout" come up for a reason. Development and Ops teams must balance mastering complex technologies in development and production while also integrating them securely and in accordance with company standards.
How do we break the overwhelming Dev/Ops cycle without stifling developer freedom? Platform engineering is the answer because it provides developers with a foundation: infrastructure, tools, and established processes. This helps them be more effective and reduces repetitive tasks.
Read it here: What is platform engineering and why do we need it?
#5: Enable fine-grained API authorization using Keycloak and 3scale
This article introduces the Keycloak authorizer custom policy and details how to integrate Red Hat 3scale API Management with Red Hat build of Keycloak Authorization Services to decouple your API authorization policies. Red Hat build of Keycloak is based on the Keycloak open source identity and access management solution, which provides features like single sign-on (SSO), user management, OAuth 2.0/OpenID Connect support, and authorization services.
Learn how to externalize API authorization decisions from the API gateway and your microservices by leveraging Keycloak Authorization Services as a centralized authorization component.
Read it here: Enable fine-grained API authorization using Keycloak and 3scale
#4: Red Hat Developer Hub: Your gateway to seamless development
By Markus Eisele and Hugo Guerrero
In the dynamic world of software development, teamwork and efficiency are essential, and the Backstage project promises to simplify and save development teams headaches. The essential elements that contribute to Backstage’s effectiveness include its plug-in system, the dynamic catalog of project components, and the ability to create templates that can be shared across projects. Backstage is more than just a portal—it's a tool that transforms the way development teams prioritize and complete tasks.
This article dives into the core concepts of Red Hat Developer Hub to ensure you're well-equipped to use it to leverage the power of Backstage.
Read it here: Red Hat Developer Hub: Your gateway to seamless development
#3: Kafka tiered storage deep dive
By Federico Valeri and Luke Chen
Tiered storage is a new early access feature available as of Apache Kafka 3.6.0. This article explores the need for remote storage in Kafka, particularly for retaining historical data critical for various use cases like disaster recovery, data analytics, and machine learning. It focuses on tiered storage implementation, which allows you to scale compute and storage resources independently, provides better client isolation, and faster maintenance of your Kafka cluster.
The introduction of Kafka tiered storage presents a standardized, built-in solution. By leveraging different storage tiers based on data access patterns, performance needs, and cost considerations, tiered storage optimizes resource utilization while ensuring efficient data management.
Read it here: Kafka tiered storage deep dive
#2: Mastering Kafka migration with MirrorMaker 2
By Radu Domnu and Etienne Dubois
Kafka MirrorMaker is a tool that replicates data between Kafka clusters. This article dives into its architecture, use cases, and components and explains how to deploy MirrorMaker 2 when using Red Hat AMQ Streams. You'll also see how to fine-tune MirrorMaker 2 settings for better performance, a crucial step for anyone using this tool.
Read it here: Mastering Kafka migration with MirrorMaker 2
#1: What's new in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 8.0
By Philip Hayes
Our most popular article in the application development category summarizes top features for developers in Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 8 (JBoss EAP), an application server runtime platform for building, deploying, and hosting highly transactional Java applications and services.
Learn about these capabilities in detail, including Jakarta EE 10 compatibility, a new provisioning system, security enhancements, and enhanced migration tooling to help users migrate from older versions of JBoss EAP.
Read it here: What's new in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 8.0
Other application development learning resources
Explore developer learning paths, e-books, and cheat sheets created by Red Hat experts to help you build key tech skills, whether you’re just starting out or looking to strengthen the knowledge you have.
Red Hat Developer Hub
- Developer Portals: Prepare to Perform with Red Hat Developer Hub: Download our developer’s guide to developer portals for a thorough introduction to Red Hat Developer Hub.
- Install and configure Red Hat Developer Hub and explore templating basics: In this learning path, you will learn how to install the Red Hat Developer Hub internal developer platform and learn the concepts and skills you need to install your IDP, configure simple GitHub authorization, and explore templating basics.
- Application development with Red Hat Developer Hub: Learn how to onboard an application developer onto Developer Hub, so they can import and use the relevant template and run the application in the development environment.
Software supply chain security
- A practical guide to software supply chain security: This short e-book covers key concepts for building security into your software supply chain. You’ll learn best practices for implementing software supply chain security in containerized and Kubernetes environments.
- Maturity of Software Supply Chain Security Practices 2024: Download the report to learn about practices that developers can implement to improve their security-focused developer productivity resilience.
JBoss EAP
- Develop modern Java applications with JBoss EAP 8: Learn how to develop modern Java applications using JBoss EAP 8 and deploy them to Red Hat OpenShift with Helm charts for scalability and observability.
- Deploy applications to middleware servers (JBoss EAP, WildFly, Tomcat) with the IntelliJ IDE extension: Learn how to deploy applications to multiple application servers via Tomcat, JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP), and Wildfly with the IntelliJ IDE extension.
Kafka, DevOps, and more
- Kafka 101: Learn about the fundamentals of Apache Kafka and its components.
- The Modern DevOps Lifecycle: Shifting CI/CD and Application Architectures: Discover where the DevOps industry stands today and discover where it’s headed in 2024 and beyond in this 16-page report.
- How to manage microservices using OpenShift Dev Spaces and JKube: In this exercise, you will deploy and update a distributed application on the fly using Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces and Eclipse JKube.
- How to create a Camel integration and deploy it as a serverless service: This activity walks through how to create an Apache Camel integration and deploy it as a serverless service using the VS Code extension Karavan.
The rest of the best
That's a wrap. We'll be back with more technical blogs and tutorials in 2025. In the meantime, don't miss the rest of our 2024 year in review:
