Robert Bala

Generation X, long in IT — but most at home with what you can touch: doing things yourself, proven solutions, and knowledge earned in practice. Digital order on one side; soil, tools, the farm, and life closer to nature on the other. I build software that shows whether your wealth is real after inflation.

Practical independence

Windy Farm is about learning to stand on our own feet — in the field, in the kitchen, and in how we think about money.

Energy — off-grid solar, field measurement, water filtration logistics, and resilience. Off-grid energy series · WindyFarm PV Survey · WindyFarm Water Filters
Food — garden and pantry from the land. Farm & kitchen writing
Financial — tools for real purchasing power (apps in development).

Projects

Software under the Windy Farm umbrella — support and product pages (privacy stays linked from Support).

LiveBill Capture
Scan receipts and bills — support and product overview.
LiveWater Filters
Stages, FIFO stock, shop lead time — farm water filtration.
PreviewPV Survey
Measure panel orientation in the field — Align, sun path, honest kWh.

Hybrid lakehouse

Production decisions for manufacturing hybrid architectures — catalog, brownfield reality, then the silver bill.

Author essays

Architecture and systems writing from the author portfolio.

Start here

Iceberg Won. Your Catalog Choice Is Now the Real Architecture Decision

Open table formats made multi-engine lakehouses possible. In manufacturing IT, the catalog — not the format — defines governance, hybrid SLA, and whether production planning can…

Read essay

WindyFarm Water Filters — User guide
Complete user guide: first run, catalog, stock FIFO, Today, shop, QR labels, backup — with iPhone Simulator screenshots.
Why Nobody Tells You the Hard Part: CDC Lakes, Silver Layers, and the Azure Bridge
We thought the hard part was getting CDC into the lake. It wasn’t — silver materialization, delay after T0, and what Azure should actually consume.
Brownfield Lakehouse: When You Cannot Turn Off the Nightly Batch
Three hundred tables still run on nightly batch while CDC incubates on-prem. Warehouse and finance data reach billions of rows. Chief IT Architecture in…

On Windy Farm

Farm, energy, and kitchen writing on the main blog.

From Four Panels and PWM to a Full Off-Grid Energy Storage System
How we built an off-grid solar setup — from 4 panels and a PWM charge controller to a 48V energy storage system with MPPT and plans to add microinverters.

Work with me