navneetlal — writingField notes on distributed systems, data platforms, and large-scale migrations.https://navneetlal.in/en-usMigrating 45 services from EC2/systemd to EKS — and cutting deploys 4.5×https://navneetlal.in/writing/migrating-45-services-to-eks/https://navneetlal.in/writing/migrating-45-services-to-eks/A field report from leading a platform migration of 45 services and 250+ instances at a multi-tenant SaaS company.Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTMigrationsEKSKubernetesSREWhy we replaced analytics on Mongo with StarRockshttps://navneetlal.in/writing/replacing-mongo-analytics-with-starrocks/https://navneetlal.in/writing/replacing-mongo-analytics-with-starrocks/What broke when analytical queries shared a tenant cluster with OLTP — and what moving to a real OLAP engine actually gave us.Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTData PlatformsStarRocksKafkaAnalyticsCascading dep hell: Java 8 → 17 across 35 serviceshttps://navneetlal.in/writing/java-8-to-17-cascading-dep-hell/https://navneetlal.in/writing/java-8-to-17-cascading-dep-hell/End-of-support runtimes don't just block CVE fixes — they block every transitive update that depends on them. A field report from a 35-service upgrade.Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTMigrationsJavaDependenciesBuilding a CDC pipeline with Debezium — without breaking the sourcehttps://navneetlal.in/writing/cdc-pipeline-with-debezium/https://navneetlal.in/writing/cdc-pipeline-with-debezium/Lessons from tailing a multi-tenant Mongo oplog into Kafka without putting the source database under more load than it already had.Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTDistributed SystemsDebeziumKafkaMongoCDCNormalizing GPS telemetry from 8k vehicles across half a dozen sourceshttps://navneetlal.in/writing/normalizing-gps-from-8k-vehicles/https://navneetlal.in/writing/normalizing-gps-from-8k-vehicles/Polished APIs, flaky devices, customer-internal feeds — what cross-source GPS normalization actually looks like in production.Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTDistributed SystemsGPSTelemetryLogisticsNormalizationA lakehouse with Iceberg and Airflow — bronze, silver, goldhttps://navneetlal.in/writing/lakehouse-with-iceberg-and-airflow/https://navneetlal.in/writing/lakehouse-with-iceberg-and-airflow/Why the three-tier lakehouse pattern works for replacing OLAP-on-OLTP, and what each tier actually does in practice.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTData PlatformsIcebergSparkAirflowLakehouseOpenTelemetry: trace, log, metric — one stack, three signalshttps://navneetlal.in/writing/opentelemetry-stack-trace-log-metric/https://navneetlal.in/writing/opentelemetry-stack-trace-log-metric/What it actually costs to consolidate observability onto OTel + Grafana + Loki + Tempo + VictoriaMetrics, and what you get back.Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTDistributed SystemsOpenTelemetryObservabilityGrafana