Author Image

Hi, I am Strafo

Andrea Straforini

Senior Consultant at Minsait

I am a passionate software engineer with five years of experience. I primarily work on enterprise system software, where I develop applications and integrate OSS solutions into event-driven architectures, both on-premises and in the cloud. I specialize in the Kubernetes platform, which I also use in my homelab for my workloads. I am a generalist who loves system design and tackling large-scale architectures. For this reason, I am trying to learn various aspects of system design to become a system architect. In my spare time, I enjoy building things in my homelab and practicing Muay Thai as an amateur.

Google Cloud Certified Associate Cloud Engineer
Certified Kubernetes Administrator
Certified Kubernetes Application Developer

Featured Posts

Hero Image
Integrating Influx Alerting with Event-driven Architecture

Business Case In a project where numerous time series from IoT devices are stored, the following architecture is in place: A Kafka broker that holds the measurements obtained from the IoT devices. A simple sink connector that writes the measurements to the InfluxDB database for historical storage. A legacy backend service for process configuration, which uses MySQL for saving configurations. To ensure that the measurements are being stored in the time series database, we want to create an alerting mechanism that can notify the user if data from an “active” IoT device stops arriving at the database.

    Wednesday, November 20, 2024 | 13 minutes Read

    Skills

    Kubernetes
    Kubernetes

    Experience in deploying and managing applications on K8s using Helm and Operators. Experience in managing OpenShift and K8s clusters.

    Hypervisors
    Hypervisors

    Experience in managing a hyper-converged development environment. I’ve used vSphere and Proxmox at work, and my home lab is based on Proxmox.

    Java
    Java

    I use it as one of my main languages for professional work to leverage the immense ecosystem of libraries for interacting with all types of systems.

    Go
    Go

    Used on multiple occasions at work but not proficient. I am actively working to improve my skills in this area.

    Spring
    Spring

    Used on various occasions at work to create different backend microservices using OpenAPI, JPA, and event-driven architectures based on Kafka.

    Python
    Python

    Proficient and used on numerous occasions for both work and personal projects.

    Kafka
    Kafka

    Extensively used at work, proficient in administration and tuning. I’ve used Kafka Connect and Kafka Streams APIs to create sinks/sources and scalable analytics software.

    Cloud Computing
    Cloud Computing

    Experienced with Google Cloud Platform. Both for work and personal projects.

    Docker
    Docker

    Dockerized everything! Experienced with multi-stage, multi-arch build process.

    Databases
    Databases

    Experienced with various types of databases: SQL, NoSQL, and in-memory. Primarily worked with MySQL, PostgreSQL, InfluxDB, and Redis.

    Prometheus Stack
    Prometheus Stack

    Capable of setup, configure Prometheus metrics. Experienced with PromQL, AlertManager. Also, experienced with writing metric exporters.

    Linux
    Linux

    Using Fedora as my main operating system. Experienced with system administration and shell scripting.

    Git
    Git

    Experienced with git-based development, using mostly trunk-based methodology, primarily on GitLab. Also experienced in working with GitHub.

    C++
    C++

    Know basic C/C++ programming. Used for various university projects.

    JavaScript
    JavaScript

    I extensively used TypeScript with React during my years at Reply. I also have experience with Node.js for minor personal projects.

    Rust
    Rust

    Used for developing real-time applications. Experienced with multithreading and async programming with tokio.

    Education

    IANUA - University of Genoa
    2022-2023
    Postgraduate Master's Degree, Science and Technology for the Information Society
    Taken Courses:
    • Decision making
    • Cyber Security and Internet of Things
    • Quantum Information Processing
    • New ICT Technologies for Transportation
    University of Genoa
    2019-2022
    M.Sc. in Computer Science
    Taken Courses:
    • Binary analysis and secure coding
    • Internet of things
    • Data protection & privacy
    • Digital forensics
    University of Genoa
    2016-2019
    B.Sc. in Computer Science

    Courses

    Domain Models in Practice Workshop: DDD, CQRS and Event Sourcing
    Marco Heimeshoff - Avanscoperta

    This intensive online workshop explores the technical relationship between code, culture and architecture and you’ll learn how to model and implement software from a business perspective.

    View Certificate
    Observability in Cloud Native apps using OpenTelemetry
    Michael Haberman - Udemy

    A comprehensive course for software engineers, DevOps, and SREs focused on mastering observability in cloud-native applications using OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, and Prometheus, covering fundamentals, hands-on projects, and best practices for enhanced performance and reliability.

    Introduction to Testing in Go (Golang)
    Trevor Sawler - Udemy

    This course focuses on writing unit and integration tests in Go, guiding you through building and thoroughly testing four applications, including a CLI, web app, REST API, and SPA, while covering key testing techniques such as application routes, handlers, database operations, and user authentication.

    Apache Kafka Series - Learn Apache Kafka for Beginners v3
    Conduktor Kafkademy - Udemy

    An in-depth Apache Kafka course covering fundamentals, ecosystem architecture, and hands-on Java-based projects, designed to make learning Kafka accessible without prior knowledge.

    Apache Kafka Series - Kafka Connect Hands-on Learning
    Conduktor Kafkademy - Udemy

    A comprehensive course launched in April 2017 for mastering the Apache Kafka Connect framework, featuring hands-on training in connector deployment, configuration, and management, with practical exercises in both distributed and standalone modes.

    Apache Kafka Series - Kafka Streams for Data Processing
    Conduktor Kafkademy - Udemy

    A hands-on, Java-based course in the Apache Kafka Series focused on mastering Kafka Streams, covering data transformation, aggregation, and deployment with practical exercises and theoretical insights into APIs and Exactly Once semantics.

    Kubernetes Certified Application Developer (CKAD) with Tests
    KodeKloud Training - Udemy

    A detailed Kubernetes course that enhances your DevOps skills with hands-on labs and animated lectures, focusing on deploying and managing cloud-native applications while preparing you for certification and real-world proficiency.

    Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) with Practice Tests
    KodeKloud Training - Udemy

    A hands-on Kubernetes course for mastering containerized application deployment and administration, preparing for certification with practical labs and real-world assignments.