Learning OpenDaylight. A gateway to SDN (Software-Defined Networking) and NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) ecosystem

OpenDaylight is an open source, software-defined network controller based on standard protocols. It aims to accelerate the adoption of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and create a solid foundation for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV).SDN is a vast subject; many network engineers find it difficult to get started with using and operating different SDN platforms. This book will give you a practical bridge from SDN theory to the practical, real-world use of SDN in datacenters and by cloud providers.The book will help you understand the features and use cases for SDN, NFV, and OpenDaylight.NFV uses virtualization concepts and techniques to create virtual classes for node functions. Used together, SDN and NFV can elevate the standards of your network architecture; generic hardware-saving costs and the advanced and abstracted software will give you the freedom to evolve your network in the future without having to invest more in costly equipment.By the end of this book, you will have learned how to design and deploy OpenDaylight networks and integrate them with physical network switches. You will also have mastered basic network programming over the SDN fabric.

Remote Usability Testing. Actionable insights in user behavior across geographies and time zones

Inge De Bleecker, Rebecca Okoroji

Usability testing is a subdiscipline of User Experience. Its goal is to ensure that a given product is easy to use and the user's experience with the product is intuitive and satisfying. Usability studies are conducted with study participants who are representative of the target users to gather feedback on a user interface. The feedback is then used to refine and improve the user interface.Remote studies involve fewer logistics, allow participation regardless of location and are quicker and cheaper to execute compared to in person studies, while delivering valuable insights. The users are not inhibited by being in a new environment under observation; they can act naturally in their familiar environment. Remote unmoderated studies additionally have the advantage of being independent of time zones.This book will teach you how to conduct qualitative remote usability studies, in particular remote moderated and unmoderated studies. Each chapter provides actionable tips on how to use each methodology and how to compensate for the specific nature of each methodology. The book also provides material to help with planning and executing each study type.

Apache Spark 2.x Machine Learning Cookbook. Over 100 recipes to simplify machine learning model implementations with Spark

Siamak Amirghodsi, Shuen Mei, Meenakshi Rajendran, Broderick Hall

Machine learning aims to extract knowledge from data, relying on fundamental concepts in computer science, statistics, probability, and optimization. Learning about algorithms enables a wide range of applications, from everyday tasks such as product recommendations and spam filtering to cutting edge applications such as self-driving cars and personalized medicine. You will gain hands-on experience of applying these principles using Apache Spark, a resilient cluster computing system well suited for large-scale machine learning tasks.This book begins with a quick overview of setting up the necessary IDEs to facilitate the execution of code examples that will be covered in various chapters. It also highlights some key issues developers face while working with machine learning algorithms on the Spark platform. We progress by uncovering the various Spark APIs and the implementation of ML algorithms with developing classification systems, recommendation engines, text analytics, clustering, and learning systems. Toward the final chapters, we’ll focus on building high-end applications and explain various unsupervised methodologies and challenges to tackle when implementing with big data ML systems.

Hands-on Design Patterns with Kotlin. Build scalable applications using traditional, reactive, and concurrent design patterns in Kotlin

Alexey Soshin

Design patterns enable you as a developer to speed up the development process by providing you with proven development paradigms. Reusing design patterns helps prevent complex issues that can cause major problems, improves your code base, promotes code reuse, and makes an architecture more robust.The mission of this book is to ease the adoption of design patterns in Kotlin and provide good practices for programmers. The book begins by showing you the practical aspects of smarter coding in Kotlin, explaining the basic Kotlin syntax and the impact of design patterns. From there, the book provides an in-depth explanation of the classical design patterns of creational, structural, and behavioral families, before heading into functional programming. It then takes you through reactive and concurrent patterns, teaching you about using streams, threads, and coroutines to write better code along the way By the end of the book, you will be able to efficiently address common problems faced while developing applications and be comfortable working on scalable and maintainable projects of any size.

Mastering Java Machine Learning. A Java developer's guide to implementing machine learning and big data architectures

Uday Kamath, Krishna Choppella

Java is one of the main languages used by practicing data scientists; much of the Hadoop ecosystem is Java-based, and it is certainly the language that most production systems in Data Science are written in. If you know Java, Mastering Machine Learning with Java is your next step on the path to becoming an advanced practitioner in Data Science.This book aims to introduce you to an array of advanced techniques in machine learning, including classification, clustering, anomaly detection, stream learning, active learning, semi-supervised learning, probabilistic graph modeling, text mining, deep learning, and big data batch and stream machine learning. Accompanying each chapter are illustrative examples and real-world case studies that show how to apply the newly learned techniques using sound methodologies and the best Java-based tools available today.On completing this book, you will have an understanding of the tools and techniques for building powerful machine learning models to solve data science problems in just about any domain.

Mastering VMware vSphere 6.7. Effectively deploy, manage, and monitor your virtual datacenter with VMware vSphere 6.7 - Second Edition

Martin Gavanda, Andrea Mauro, Paolo Valsecchi, Karel Novak

vSphere 6.7 is the latest release of VMware’s industry-leading, virtual cloud platform. It allows organisations to move to hybrid cloud computing by enabling them to run, manage, connect and secure applications in a common operating environment.This up-to-date, 2nd edition provides complete coverage of vSphere 6.7. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples and self-assessment questions, you will begin with an overview of the products, solutions and features of the vSphere 6.7 suite.You’ll learn how to design and plan a virtual infrastructure and look at the workflow and installation of components. You'll gain insight into best practice configuration, management and security. By the end the book you'll be able to build your own VMware vSphere lab that can run even the most demanding of workloads.

Ansible 2 Cloud Automation Cookbook. Write Ansible playbooks for AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and OpenStack

Aditya Patawari, Vikas Aggarwal

Ansible has a large collection of inbuilt modules to manage various cloud resources. The book begins with the concepts needed to safeguard your credentials and explain how you interact with cloud providers to manage resources. Each chapter begins with an introduction and prerequisites to use the right modules to manage a given cloud provider. Learn about Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and other providers. Each chapter shows you how to create basic computing resources, which you can then use to deploy an application. Finally, you will be able to deploy a sample application to demonstrate various usage patterns and utilities of resources.

Practical Game AI Programming. Unleash the power of Artificial Intelligence to your game

Micael DaGraça

The book starts with the basics examples of AI for different game genres and directly jumps into defining the probabilities and possibilities of the AI character to determine character movement. Next, you’ll learn how AI characters should behave within the environment created.Moving on, you’ll explore how to work with animations. You’ll also plan and create pruning strategies, and create Theta algorithms to find short and realistic looking game paths. Next, you’ll learn how the AI should behave when there is a lot of characters in the same scene.You'll explore which methods and algorithms, such as possibility maps, Forward Chaining Plan, Rete Algorithm, Pruning Strategies, Wall Distances, and Map Preprocess Implementation should be used on different occasions. You’ll discover how to overcome some limitations, and how to deliver a better experience to the player. By the end of the book, you think differently about AI.