github Blogging with Github and Jekyll I've been using Ghost to blog for some amount of time, but recently I was turned onto Jekyll for blogging with markdown. More to the point, Jekyll is the backend used by Github
Azure Azure Powershell Functions: Extending, Automating and Securing In our last post we covered the creation and testing of a powershell based Azure Function. It was able to list contents of a single storage account. But how might we extend that
Azure Azure Powershell Functions: Getting Started Recently I've had a lot of work that has involved powershell in a variety of tooling and the need to move powershell workloads into the cloud. Microsoft actually has a rather straightforward method
istio Service Mesh Observability: Kiali When working with Service Meshes, some questions that are often asked are; what microservices are included in my mesh and how are they connected? Additionally, how are they performing and is it safe
Azure DevOps Work Item Automations in Azure DevOps This past year for the OSN 2021 Speaker Series, I gave a talk on "Full Stack CICD of Kubernetes Microservices using DevOps and IaC". During that talk, I quickly reviewed WIQ based Automations
AWS Ingesting and Processing Emails In our last blog entry I covered creating AzDO work items from a static feedback form and then using AWS SES and Azure Logic Apps to send email. However, we may want to
Azure DevOps Feedback Forms to AzDO: Adding Email In our last post we created a feedback form that updated Azure DevOps with a new work item (feature) based on content from a static web form. Next we would like to expand
Azure DevOps Feedback Forms to AzDO Work Items An issue that has come up in my professional life recently a few times has been how to take in bugs, features, etc from users external to a private Azure DevOps organization or
AKS Dapr Part 7: Securing externalized services One of the challenges to exposing Dapr workflows, or any Kubernetes based flow really, is securing it. We generally want to avoid enabling business logic orchestration that can be invoked unauthenticated. Luckily there
Cryptocurrency Crypto Mining Intro (not for profit) All the chatter about dogecoin and then my colleagues chatting about mining got me interested in seeing how hard it is to get started in crypto mining. Today we'll check out mining on
Harbor Harbor: Getting Started with on Prem Container Registry Harbor is an open-source solution and graduated CNCF project. It's matured to having a solid helm chart and deployment model. In the past, I have tried to launch instances but due to it's
dapr Dapr: Getting started A colleague of mine has several times asked me about Dapr and what I thought. Dapr finally released a 1.0 in February this year and I figured it was time to give
k0s K0s: Mirantis' tiny k8s distro I was chatting with some folks from Mirantis about Lens and some of their offerings and they highly encouraged me to try out K0s ("K Zeros"). This week I took some time to
logging LogDNA: Logging and Alerting LogDNA has been around about six years and I became familiar with them at DevOps Days in Minneapolis 3 years ago. Their offering has matured a lot since then and it was time
Azure DevOps Azure DevOps: Secrets in Files We've discussed AKV and Hashi Vault, but one simple pattern for secrets storage and decimation is to use encrypted file storage. While not as elegant, it can be more than sufficient, fast and
AKS Chef: Getting Started Chef has been around a long time as is definitely a key player in deployment suites. What started out as OpsCode over a decade ago is now part of Progress Software. They have
nomad Nomad: Getting Started There is one Hashi Tool I really haven't dived into much and that is Nomad. Nomad has been the Hashi product for deployments, containerized and otherwise for a while and some large companies
hashicorp Terraform Cloud: Getting Started Hashicorp has had the Terraform Cloud offering now for the last year. It’s been something I really wanted to try since HC 2019. Interest was so high at that time, there was
Azure DevOps Azure DevOps Pull Request Checks One of the nice features of Azure DevOps Repos is the ability to control Pull Requests with PR Policies. Policies such as minimum number of reviewers, PR build checks, comment response and Work
Azure DevOps Azure DevOps Agent Pools: The Power of VMSS Most recently in conversation with my colleague Jason, I brought up the power of VMSS backed agents. I covered them in my WhizLabs course, but haven’t discussed them, to date, here in
rollbar Rollbar: Getting Started What is Rollbar? They bill themselves as the Continuous Code Improvement Platform with real time AI-assisted workflows.Interestingly enough I found them through a mobile advert and subsequently signed up on my phone.
Oracle Oracle Cloud: VMs, K3s, and Container Registry There is one cloud I’ve avoided. I have feelings about their business policies and treatment of the open source community. However, since Oracle is buying Tik Tok to leverage their Cloud, I
observability Observability: Epsagon Epsagon was one of the KubeCon sponsors this year that caught my eye. They have a tracing suite with a free tier that seemed interesting. One can track a thousand traces a month
Container Registry AliCloud: Container Registry I created an AliCloud account a long time back to test their initial K8s offering but never figured out the UI. I went back to see what they had to offer by way
Container Registry Container Registries: IBM Cloud I have yet to try IBM Cloud and decided with Docker’s latest rate limiting on free accounts, it might be worth looking into alternate stores for containers. IBM Cloud has a small
