Node.JS Boston: ::this.octoberBostonNodeJsMeetup

We're back!

After a busy summer it's time to get back into the spirit of our regular meetups. We have a lot of speakers on deck and will be continuing our monthly meetups through the fall into the winter. Our friends at Autodesk have offered up their awesome space again; it seems to have gone over well for our space needs. Come on down for some awesome Javascript, NodeJS, Security and networking related presentations, and for some free pizza, beer, and wine. I know many of your have had busy summers attending various other meetups, conferences and Javascript events - would love to hear about your experiences while at our next meetup.

And yes - this is a few days before Halloween. We will try to have some Halloween themes. Come dressed up in-costume! If we get enough we will have to vote for best costumes. The possibility of halloween candy being provided is extremely high. :)

We have a high-powered line-up for this October meetup - come down and check them out. Details are as follows.

Dan Dahlberg

Understanding DNS and how it relates to your applications

The Domain Name System (DNS) protocol forms an integral part of the successful operation of nearly all web applications today. It allows for both users and browsers to easily navigate your application, and forms an important part of validating the authenticity of your resources. This talk covers how DNS works, who is in charge, basic configuration and terminology, attacks against the system, and even the use of the DNS protocol as an obfuscated transport layer to tunnel malicious, or non-malicious traffic, out of a semi-protected network.

As a Research Scientist as BitSight, Dan (@dandahlberg (https://twitter.com/dandahlberg)) is responsible for researching the latest vulnerabilities and threats to understand at a technical and practical level how they affect the risk profile of organizations. He is also responsible for discovering new sources of data, and improving and ensuring the quality of BitSight's third-party data vendors while working with the team to integrate new components into the Security Ratings and Discover products. He also performs internal security research of third-party products and audits BitSight's products and services. Before BitSight, Dan worked at Cisco Systems for five and a half years in their Security Technologies Group contributing to the AnyConnect IPSec and SSL VPN Client and Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance products.

Rob Ide

Optimal performance of your Node.js applications

As the popularity of Node.js is exploding among the enterprise, so is the need to monitor the performance of your mission-critical applications. This talk will introduce the top performance KPIs you should be aware of to ensure optimal performance of your mission-critical Node.js applications in production. We'll cover a range of topics, including an overview of how to define a metric around distributed transactions, how to diagnose memory leaks, understanding the event loop, and managing external dependencies.

Rob Ide (@ride462 (https://twitter.com/ride462)) is Senior Solution Architect with AppDynamics with 20 years of experience working as a resident consultant at some of the largest financial services organization in the world; JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Credit Suisse. His speciality is High Performance Computing; he is also certified SpringSource Developer, certified Scrum Master, and an expert at leading Agile initiatives.

Rags Srinivas

API management with Swagger, LoopBack framework and Bluemix

Enabling other developers and organizations to use your APIs through their own applications and services provides a compelling system for innovation and monetization. The Swagger Spec (v2.0), which has been recently donated to the Open API Initiative (OAI) is part of an open source project for better creation and documentation of APIs.

We will introduce Swagger and cover examples of how to use a Swagger specification for creating APIs, associating a plan, publishing it for general consumption. We will look at the LoopBack framework that is at the heart of the implementation. The APIs will be managed via Bluemix.

After attending this session attendees will be able to walk away with an understanding of how Swagger can help in creating APIs, and how to use LoopBack framework and Bluemix to create, publish, consume, secure and manage the APIs.

Raghavan "Rags" Srinivas (@ragss (https://twitter.com/ragss)) works as an Architect/Developer Evangelist at IBM with a mission to help developers build highly scalable and available systems. His areas of focus are containers, Open Source and DevOps. His general interest is in distributed systems, with a specialization in Cloud Computing and Big Data. He worked on Cloud Foundry, OpenStack and Hadoop during its early stages. He has spoken on a variety of technical topics at conferences around the world, written for developer portals, and organized Hands-on Labs and taught graduate and online classes in the evening.

Rags brings with him over 25 years of hands-on software development and over 15 years of architecture and technology evangelism experience. He has evangelized and influenced the architecture of a number of emerging technology areas. He is also a repeat JavaOne rock star speaker award winner.

Rags holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from the Center of Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He likes to hike (has hiked the Everest Base Camp when he was a few pounds lighter), run and generally be outdoors but most of all loves to eat.