Backplane Journal: Coding, Dismantling and Home Automation

Backplane Journal is an independent US site for people who run backend services, message pipelines and home automation gear, and it publishes in three sections: Lessons Learned, Tutorials and Q&A. As of October 2026 the archive behind those sections holds six posts, starting with logging home automation updates to a database in 2010 and reaching enterprise logging and alerting with RabbitMQ and NEsper. Other pieces cover a build pipeline with Jenkins and NAnt, C# exception handling, and an FHEM setup on Windows Home Server.

Backplane Journal’s Computers & Computing sections

Backplane Journal splits its publishing into three sections, and each one answers a different question about the same stack.

Section	Content
Lessons Learned	What broke in a backend service or on a home lab machine, the trace that located it, and the change that fixed it.
Tutorials	Repeatable builds: CI pipelines, central logging stacks, sending .NET logs to RabbitMQ with log4net, C# exception handling.
Q&A	Short answers to specific operating questions from people running the same hardware and software.

The tool names in the archive date it. One tutorial carries two CI server names because the project was renamed in January 2011: “Oracle has told us that they have trademark applications filed in both the EU and US for Hudson” — Andrew Bayer, in “Hudson’s future” on the Jenkins blog, January 11, 2011.

Who writes Backplane Journal

Backplane Journal is written by a systems engineer who has spent fifteen years building backend services, wiring up message pipelines and maintaining a home lab, writing here between incidents. The subjects follow that work.

Backplane Journal FAQ

What is Backplane Journal?

Backplane Journal is an independent US site for engineers and buyers who build backend services, run message brokers and keep home automation hardware working. It publishes in three sections over an archive that starts in 2010.

Who does Backplane Journal write for?

Backplane Journal writes for US engineers and IT buyers who already run build servers, brokers and home automation hubs. The posts assume working knowledge of .NET and Linux and skip vendor marketing.

Which sections does Backplane Journal publish?

Lessons Learned, Tutorials and Q&A are the three sections on Backplane Journal. Lessons Learned covers failures and fixes, Tutorials covers repeatable builds, and Q&A covers single questions.