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Your personal AWS setup (and how to not get hacked)

Avoid huge bills and getting locked out of your account

In 2016 hackers compromised my personal AWS setup. Within a matter of hours I received an AWS bill for $3000 dollars 😱😱.😱.😱.

When you’re a Cloud Native Engineer one of the best ways we can learn is through experimenting directly on cloud platforms, like AWS. But, doing so can be fraught with difficulties if you’re not careful when you setup and use your cloud account. An incorrectly setup account is vulnerable to hackers and you could even end up with a massive bill!

By the end of this article you’ll know all the steps to take before accessing your AWS cloud account so that you can experiment and learn about AWS. 

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The 6 concepts you need to know before trying Serverless

What you need to know before building serverless applications with confidence.

So you’ve been hearing a lot about Serverless? Serverless is a really awesome technology in the realms of Cloud Native Software Engineering. But, it can be a bit of a hard concept to get your ahead around if you’re not already familiar with many concepts of serverless.

Serverless computing as a principle is fairly easy to understand. But in order to effectively work with Serverless there are some other concepts that you should know about before you get going. And today we’re going to cover some of these unknown unknowns for working with serverless.

Today we’re going to discuss the following 6 concepts you need to know in order to get going with Serverless: Cloud Provider Knowledge, Microservices, Distributed Systems, Deployments, Monitoring & Observability and Infrastructure as Code.

By the end of this article you should know the main concepts related to serverless and you should be confident in developing your own Serverless application!

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Infrastructure as Code: A quick and simple explanation.

And why ALL infrastructure should be in code

One of the most essential topics when you’re a Cloud Native Software Engineer is a concept called Infrastructure as Code. And it’s becoming an even more essential topic with the growth in Cloud Native technology like Serverless as Infrastructure as Code is a key Serverless concept.

Yesterday as I started writing the second part to the series on monolith to Microservice series I realised I couldn’t start the post until I had addressed the essential topic of Infrastructure As Code.

Just like many concepts in technology, infrastructure as code sounds scary. But in reality it’s a simple concept that any software engineer (or would be software engineer) can easily understand. I promise. Once you get over the first few hurdles you’ll wonder why you didn’t explore it sooner.

By the end of this article you will understand what Infrastructure as Code is, why you need it and why you should ALWAYS create infrastructure in code and not manually. 

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What is a Cloud Native Software Engineer?

And what it means for a Software Engineers Career.

Knowing just the basics of Software Engineering isn’t enough to thrive in today’s market. Many Software Engineers need to have drastically more knowledge of cloud platforms than they currently do.

Why? That’s today’s question. We’re going to be discussing what a Cloud Native Software Engineer is, why they exist, what their skills are and ultimately what that means for you as a Software Engineer.

By the end of this article you should know exactly what a Cloud Native Software Engineer is and why that matters for your career in Software Engineering.

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ACloudGuru Review: AWS SysOps Exam Prep.

Have you thought about taking an AWS certification? If you have you might have stumbled across a learning platform called ACloudGuru?

I had thought about taking an exam for quite some time to help with various projects. But I finally got around to it and I’m currently about half way through my preparation for the AWS SysOps administrator exam using a site called ACloudGuru.

Today I wanted to talk you through some of my initial impressions using the ACloudGuru product and my motivations for taking an exam. Lastly I’ll give you some insight into the whole process to help you better understand if taking an AWS exam could be for you and whether ACloudGuru could help.

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Setting up a REST API on Serverless Framework

Part 1: The Monolith to Serverless Series

Hello all and welcome to the first in an in-depth multi-part series on breaking down a monolithic application into a Cloud Native Lambda-based architecture!

Can you say #buzzword!?

Only kidding — we’ll be low on jargon but high on details today. I’ve not (yet) done a real series on this site, so I’m pretty excited!

By the end of this article you’ll know how to get setup and running with the Serverless Framework on AWS to create an HTTP Lambda-based API.

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Docker Performance Tips and Tricks

Here is my latest post for Stackify.

Docker is now everywhere. Over the past few years, a lot of modern-day software has now moved to become packaged in a Docker container, and with good reason.

One of the biggest benefits touted about Docker containers is their speed. But you don’t get lightning-fast performance out of the box without some performance tuning.

Today, we’re going to discuss some of the tips, tricks, and areas to look into to ensure you are utilizing the real speed of containers. We’ll break down the following into two parts.

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Node.js Performance Tuning and Testing

Here is my latest post for Stackify.

We know Node.js for its lightning-fast performance. Yet, as with any language, you can write Node.js code that performs worse for your users than you’d like. To combat this, we need adequate performance testing. Today, we’re going to cover just that with an in-depth look at how to set up and run a performance test and analyze the results so that you can make lightning-fast Node.js applications.