In July 2019, AWS launched Control Tower as a method to provision a new AWS account hierarchy and configuration referred to as a “landing zone”. We took a deep dive on AWS account design and AWS Control Tower to see what it all means.
AWS organised the first ever Ambassador Global Summit for the top 50 partner ambassadors to talk about specific roadmap items around various AWS services. Trent Hornibrook, one of Cevo’s AWS APN Ambassadors, attended the Global Summit and gives his thoughts here.
Presentation from LastConf 2019
In Part 1 of the series, we used the Serverless Framework to describe a full stack serverless application consisting of a JS single-page-app, NodeJS serverless function and NoSQL backend datastore. In this post, we’ll walk through the creation of a continuous integration and delivery pipeline using AWS Developer tooling
Serverless application frameworks provide an opinionated, repeatable and automated approach to build, deploy and run serverless applications. In this post, we will walk through automating the delivery of a full stack serverless application on AWS using the Serverless Framework.
In this post we explore how to test AWS services on our local machine without connecting to AWS.
GCP Service Accounts provide a simple way to acquire and use AWS IAM Role-based credentials, if you know how…and this post shows you!
In this post we explore how to integrate cfn-lint with Buildkite for testing CloudFormation templates, ensuring that the CloudFormation stack will only be deployed if it’s correct.
As an outcomes-driven consultancy, Cevo are committed to helping our customers deliver an excellent experience to their own. We recently took Amazon Connect for a test drive along with the suite of Cognitive Services designed to disrupt the contact centre industry.
Rather than building environments by hand from a checklist, turn the process into an automated and repeatable process. This is Infrastructure as Code.
The final in this series overview of the AWS re:Invent 2020 keynotes – Werner Vogels focusing on Observability, Dependability, and “meeting developers where they are”.
A quick overview and wrap-up of the major themes and product launches from the Andy Jassy Keynote at AWS re:Invent 2020.
In this post we’re pick up where we left off in the Continuous Delivery article, and cover Continuous Deployment.
In this latest video, Dave Cooper ‘sits down’ with one of our newest members of the team, Matthew Merriel. These two get into the nitty gritty about DevOps and SRE and how they fit together in the current technology landscape.
This is the first part of many items in our DevOps 101 blog series. We’re going to break down the what, why, and the how of modern DevOps practices. Today, we’re starting with Continuous Delivery.
Take the challenge out of remembering how to tag your instances by letting a few AWS Services do it for you.
Simple Systems Manager (SSM) in AWS has a feature called Session Manager, which allows you to remote into EC2 instances on Windows and Linux command line through the browser
Thanks to Cevo for helping ME to make digital payments a reality. It has been a fantastic team effort and I cannot wait to hear about the positive impact that Apple Pay has made for ME’s customers.
Given the speed and pace of new releases coming out of the AWS services factory, one could be forgiven for struggling to keep up.
The future of machine learning is MLOps: automating as much as possible for data scientists, so that they can iterate and get rapid feedback.
Thursday night 21st May 2020 saw the return of the DevOps Sydney meetup. This months meetup was the first since the working isolation has been enforced around Covid-19.
The AWS Landing Zone is a great way to provision the foundation for your consumption of AWS, with guardrails and management via infrastructure as code.
AWS recently announced ChatBot integration with Chime and Slack… let’s see how easy it is to set up and get running.
Whether you are establishing an AWS Data Lake, or migrating services to the cloud, the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) should be a tool in your toolkit. DMS is a relatively straight forward service to configure and supported by AWS Cloudformation, however there is a specific pattern that requires a customised process. Enter CloudFormation Lambda backed Custom Resources which we can leverage to automate these processes and continue to reap the benefits of deployed resources via CloudFormation
Cevo uses federated access to our AWS accounts via the Google SAML based Single Sign On (SSO) – we want to start using AWS CodeCommit to store our version controlled codebases – how well will git play with this combination of tools?
CodeGuru is a service announced at AWS re:Invent 2019, which aims to bring the power of machine learning to improving the quality of source code.
As the delivery cycle quickens, what does the future hold for our box and line drawing skills as Solution Architects?
In Part 1 of the series, we used the Serverless Framework to describe a full stack serverless application consisting of a JS single-page-app, NodeJS serverless function and NoSQL backend datastore. In this post, we’ll walk through the creation of a continuous integration and delivery pipeline using AWS Developer tooling
Serverless application frameworks provide an opinionated, repeatable and automated approach to build, deploy and run serverless applications. In this post, we will walk through automating the delivery of a full stack serverless application on AWS using the Serverless Framework.
In this post we explore how to test AWS services on our local machine without connecting to AWS.
Data initiatives tends to be long and painful affairs. Let’s take a look at how applying DataOps coupled with Cloud technologies can help accelerate your data projects
In this post we explore how to set up a flexible and secure way to access the AWS CLI using the Open Source tool `aws-google-auth` developed and maintained by the team at Cevo.
A technique for estimating feature delivery dates when velocity data is not available but the scope of features/epics/stories is well defined.
In this article, we show an opportunity to reduce costs when multiple Application Load Balancers (ALB) are in use. By using one of the ALB’s features and minor changes to the environment, it’s possible to save some money on your AWS bill.
Let’s peel back the covers on the Cevo hive mind, and watch the team take on the tricky subject of cloud agnostic solutions.
Have you wanted to get started with pipeline as code, but don’t have a CI/CD server? Want to do more with Docker than just putting code into containers? This post is for you
The current mainstream approach to Test Driven Development can lead to having tightly coupled tests locking us into an implementation. In this (possibly controversial) article I present how the popular approach to TDD can lead to increasing technical debt, and introduce an alternative which allows for more agile development.
Highly recommended for any automation engineer who wants to control their Cloudformation via a pipeline.
In this post I talk about one of my favourite futurespective techniques, the Future-Backwards and how you can utilise it effectively to quickly identify the ‘Path to Good’.
There are a few key criteria I look for in CloudFormation – If I’m in a multi-account strategy then I must be able to deploy the CloudFormation in all accounts and/or regions. Additionally I must be able to stand up multiple copies of the same stack in the same VPC and account and/or regions.
The topic of ECS autoscaling is a vast area of heated discussions and broken dreams.
My presentation and InSpec demonstration at LastConf 2018 Melbourne.
Automatic scaling of the provisioned capacity in the DynamoDB can be confusing at times. Let’s examine resources needed to configure autoscaling and the limitations it brings.
A multitudinous method to make a HTTP request meet a matching HTTP response.
An introduction to deploying an autoscaled Jenkins cluster on AWS ECS using code all the way down.
Our team wanted to validate the Application Load Balancers (ALBs) in our environment after a deployment – the problem was they were lost amongst all the other ones in there. They were tagged, but we couldn’t work out how to find them – until we saw the Resource Tagging API.
As the number of AWS accounts a team uses increases, so does the headache of access and credential management. Identity accounts can help. We called ours Bakery.
Compliance is a thing. A big thing in most big organisations. Meeting compliance obligations, whether they are based on regulation, code of conduct or risk, can be arduous. Fortunately, automation can help!
Sometimes using Excel to look at data works really well. Other times, such as when you are trying to make sense of a 170MB file of AWS EC2 pricing data it just sucks. Luckily R exists and can do the job really well! In this post I’ll run through some of the features of R and produce a nicely formatted CSV of on-demand EC2 pricing data.
An introduction to creating validated AMIs without using Packer.
Think back to a successful deployment or a project and try and attribute the success to a single thing. It seems ridiculous, and that’s because it is. It’s easy to see that many things that had to go right for success.
Practical steps for reducing costs and improving the user experience.
This is an excerpt from a talk I gave at LASTConf Melbourne 2017 on Web Performance Optimisation.
Have you thought about how to make your work a product?
Trent Hornibrook theorises that the “us”/”them” culture in some organisations is a symptom of the social psychology concept ‘Deindividuation’.
Trent Hornibrook gave a recent thought experiment talk at the Infracoders meet-up regarding the tech decisions one would make when running a starting a start-up
As the cycle times for providing new servers and services decrease, the demands on infrastructure developers is increasing. To cope with this increased demand, we need new ways to think about building and validating servers.
There is much written about the changing roles of Development and Operations staff when organisations undergo agile/devops transformations. But what about the changing role of the Team Leader? In pre-agile environments, as a Team Lead, your role is one of structure and co-ordination, it is through you that work routes. You know the skills and capacity of your team and are regularly making decisions about what can and can’t be done. You might find yourself asking “Do we need Team Lead’s in an agile/devops culture?” and If so “What value can I provide?”
Just like the agile transformations of the past, there is a difference between ‘Doing Agile’, and ‘Being Agile’. ‘We do standups’ – therefore we are Agile. With the increase in adoption of devops practices, are we ‘Doing devops’ or are we ‘Being devops’? In this post we look into the four values that support a successful devops transformation.
From DevOpsDays 2016 our own Hannah Browne and Steve Mactaggart explore why we do what we do. We all know DevOps is not about the tools or the process, it’s about a deeper cultural movement. But all too often we think about what DevOps is, and miss the focus on Why we do it in the first place.
Have you ever wondered just what would break if that system (you know the one) went down? Do you actually know what systems depend on it? How do the reports get from it to Marketing? In this post, I’ll describe a simple technique I’ve developed to surface and share all this juicy, interesting information.
Cevo enables continuous evolution in enterprises through Application Modernization and Windows Migration services of legacy workloads.
Migrating to the cloud enables businesses to make substantial IT cost savings, reducing the risk of project failure, increasing security and becoming more agile to drive future innovation.
We start working through the questions of a Well Architected Review with the “Operational Excellence” pillar and how to identify what your priorities are.
In this post we look at one of the most common problems Terraform encounters – managing rolling updates to AWS AutoScaling Groups – and how you can utilise CloudFormation to solve this.
Some of the challenges and pitfalls that await you on this journey of migrating your SQL Server data and codebase over to PostgreSQL, as well as a discussion about the AWS tools available to help you along the way.
In this post, we explore how the WAF can go beyond the bounds of being a pure application architecture assessment to drive a discussion around improved operational insight and observability of system health and performance.
This post outlines various considerations for the operation of a DR solution in AWS using CloudEndure based on recent DRaaS work carried out for a customer.
One of the key challenges for an enterprise that is just getting started with AWS is establishing a sensible cloud platform for people to work in.
From theory to practice; following on from Part 1, in this post I demonstrate how to implement a Windows container workload
In this post, I’ll explore some of the ins and outs of running a containerised Windows workload on the AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) platform.
In this post we look at the 3 key areas you need to consider before diving headlong into a cloud migration project.
Through continuous compliance, continuous integration and continuous delivery we’ve reduced the cycle time for deploying changes – but how do you know these are the right changes? Enter the AWS Well Architected Framework.
Whether you are establishing an AWS Data Lake, or migrating services to the cloud, the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) should be a tool in your toolkit. DMS is a relatively straight forward service to configure and supported by AWS Cloudformation, however there is a specific pattern that requires a customised process. Enter CloudFormation Lambda backed Custom Resources which we can leverage to automate these processes and continue to reap the benefits of deployed resources via CloudFormation
Anything big happening in the world? The recent governmental response to COVID-19 has significantly affected the Australian to US financial exchange rate. A downside of the government stimulus and effects on the global supply chain is that your AWS bill has just increased by 15% over the past month!
This blog will focus on the access and authorisation approach for databases in AWS and how this should be of the first things you look at as you migrate databases from on-premises to the cloud.
In this article, we show an opportunity to reduce costs when multiple Application Load Balancers (ALB) are in use. By using one of the ALB’s features and minor changes to the environment, it’s possible to save some money on your AWS bill.
The AWS Lambda PowerTools for Python is an open source framework library that assists in building well-architected serverless applications. It implements a number of observability best practices across the three core observability pillars: logging, metrics, and tracing. In this post, we’ll take a sample serverless application and implement a number of observability best practices using the AWS Lambda PowerTools.
CloudWatch Lambda Insights is a monitoring and troubleshooting solution for serverless applications running on AWS Lambda. It collects, aggregates, and summarises system-level metrics including CPU time, memory, disk, and network. It also collects, aggregates, and summarises diagnostic information such as cold starts and Lambda worker shutdowns to help you troubleshoot health and performance issues with your Lambda functions.
This post looks at how we can apply familiar Docker toolchain commands and workflows used for local application development with containers to integrate with Amazon ECS.
Learn how AWS Amplify is being used to modernise traditional web and mobile application development.
Following on from Part 1 in our intro to AWS Amplify series, in Part 2 we will create the skeleton of our new Amplify application and host it in a repository.
Our new series of articles see us walk through the process of building out a web application using AWS Amplify. It will be a typical todo application written in React and Node JS and we’ll use the Amplify CLI to configure and deploy it into both a test and production environment.
AWS Amplify is an opinionated full stack serverless framework and set of cloud services that enables developers to build web and mobile applications that are highly available, scalable, secure, and cost effective.
This post outlines various considerations for the operation of a DR solution in AWS using CloudEndure based on recent DRaaS work carried out for a customer.
Standing up Amazon Connect and stitching together with Zendesk to build a decent inbound and outbound call centre integrated with a ticketing system.
The future of machine learning is MLOps: automating as much as possible for data scientists, so that they can iterate and get rapid feedback.
From theory to practice; following on from Part 1, in this post I demonstrate how to implement a Windows container workload
In this post, I’ll explore some of the ins and outs of running a containerised Windows workload on the AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) platform.
Thursday night 21st May 2020 saw the return of the DevOps Sydney meetup. This months meetup was the first since the working isolation has been enforced around Covid-19.
I think Amazon Connect is a fantastic product, however being aware of some of its misgivings can help you better plan and design your solution to avoid any one way doors you might come across.
In this post we look at the 3 key areas you need to consider before diving headlong into a cloud migration project.
Over the last few days I have had a chance to play with Amazon Lex, and used the time to make a simple bot for the current hot topic – Covid 19 statistics.
AWS recently announced ChatBot integration with Chime and Slack… let’s see how easy it is to set up and get running.
Recently I had the opportunity to attend the AWS Partner bootcamp program for Amazon Connect. To my surprise, having never worked closely with the product previously, it didn’t take long to find my way around and, with its UI simplicities and clear guidance from AWS, to be able to start implementing a semi-advanced call centre solution.
Cevo uses federated access to our AWS accounts via the Google SAML based Single Sign On (SSO) – we want to start using AWS CodeCommit to store our version controlled codebases – how well will git play with this combination of tools?
As the delivery cycle quickens, what does the future hold for our box and line drawing skills as Solution Architects?
In Part 1 of the series, we used the Serverless Framework to describe a full stack serverless application consisting of a JS single-page-app, NodeJS serverless function and NoSQL backend datastore. In this post, we’ll walk through the creation of a continuous integration and delivery pipeline using AWS Developer tooling
Serverless application frameworks provide an opinionated, repeatable and automated approach to build, deploy and run serverless applications. In this post, we will walk through automating the delivery of a full stack serverless application on AWS using the Serverless Framework.
In this post we explore how to test AWS services on our local machine without connecting to AWS.
An automated solution in a cost effective way to have RDS snapshots shared on a timed schedule with different AWS accounts in order to centrally manage the data also in a different location. The solution mainly caters for standing an infrastructure and bringing the system back to continue the operations for the business continuity within the approved RPO and RTO when any of the disaster events kicks in.
Today, I’m going to talk about fast feedback, what it is, why it’s important, and walk through an example of how we made it happen in one of our own projects.
As I write this, I’m currently waiting for a Cloudformation script update to deploy a lambda version of a product to a development environment. This is an implementation of Infrastructure as Code, where code stored in version control defines how we build, deploy, and run our product. There’s just one problem.
Rather than building environments by hand from a checklist, turn the process into an automated and repeatable process. This is Infrastructure as Code.
In this post we’re pick up where we left off in the Continuous Delivery article, and cover Continuous Deployment.
This is the first part of many items in our DevOps 101 blog series. We’re going to break down the what, why, and the how of modern DevOps practices. Today, we’re starting with Continuous Delivery.
The future of machine learning is MLOps: automating as much as possible for data scientists, so that they can iterate and get rapid feedback.
Whether you are establishing an AWS Data Lake, or migrating services to the cloud, the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) should be a tool in your toolkit. DMS is a relatively straight forward service to configure and supported by AWS Cloudformation, however there is a specific pattern that requires a customised process. Enter CloudFormation Lambda backed Custom Resources which we can leverage to automate these processes and continue to reap the benefits of deployed resources via CloudFormation
Presentation from LastConf 2019
In this post we explore how to test AWS services on our local machine without connecting to AWS.
Have you wanted to get started with pipeline as code, but don’t have a CI/CD server? Want to do more with Docker than just putting code into containers? This post is for you
There are a few key criteria I look for in CloudFormation – If I’m in a multi-account strategy then I must be able to deploy the CloudFormation in all accounts and/or regions. Additionally I must be able to stand up multiple copies of the same stack in the same VPC and account and/or regions.
Let’s look at adding Python to your cloud development toolbox to increase reliability and dependability of your development and operations practices.
The topic of ECS autoscaling is a vast area of heated discussions and broken dreams.
A strategy to perform re-producible deployment from any computer.
An introduction to deploying an autoscaled Jenkins cluster on AWS ECS using code all the way down.
#TWTechRadar: Watchmen project gets the nod in the 2018 ThoughtWorks Technology Radar.
Compliance is a thing. A big thing in most big organisations. Meeting compliance obligations, whether they are based on regulation, code of conduct or risk, can be arduous. Fortunately, automation can help!
Automation is fantastic for many reasons – it saves time, reduces errors, and enables people to perform extremely complex tasks with little to no understanding of what is being done directly. But by automating everything are we setting ourselves up for disaster? What happens when something goes wrong and the people who built the automation have all left?
Have you thought about how to make your work a product?
Just like the agile transformations of the past, there is a difference between ‘Doing Agile’, and ‘Being Agile’. ‘We do standups’ – therefore we are Agile. With the increase in adoption of devops practices, are we ‘Doing devops’ or are we ‘Being devops’? In this post we look into the four values that support a successful devops transformation.
Recently, I did something I haven’t done in quite some time….. create a new Master Billing Account for a customer. This actually tripped me up a little bit as it raised a question I haven’t had to think about due to the wonderful world of automation; “What do I need to do to a new AWS Master Billing Account?”
One of the key challenges for an enterprise that is just getting started with AWS is establishing a sensible cloud platform for people to work in.
Standing up Amazon Connect and stitching together with Zendesk to build a decent inbound and outbound call centre integrated with a ticketing system.
I think Amazon Connect is a fantastic product, however being aware of some of its misgivings can help you better plan and design your solution to avoid any one way doors you might come across.
Recently I had the opportunity to attend the AWS Partner bootcamp program for Amazon Connect. To my surprise, having never worked closely with the product previously, it didn’t take long to find my way around and, with its UI simplicities and clear guidance from AWS, to be able to start implementing a semi-advanced call centre solution.
As an outcomes-driven consultancy, Cevo are committed to helping our customers deliver an excellent experience to their own. We recently took Amazon Connect for a test drive along with the suite of Cognitive Services designed to disrupt the contact centre industry.
We start working through the questions of a Well Architected Review with the “Operational Excellence” pillar and how to identify what your priorities are.
In this post, we explore how the WAF can go beyond the bounds of being a pure application architecture assessment to drive a discussion around improved operational insight and observability of system health and performance.
Through continuous compliance, continuous integration and continuous delivery we’ve reduced the cycle time for deploying changes – but how do you know these are the right changes? Enter the AWS Well Architected Framework.
To support migrations at scale and at pace, we’ve partnered with VMware to incorporate the VMware Cloud on AWS solution into our migration toolkit for those workloads that are just too hard to migrate and transform at the same time.
Amazon WorkSpaces is a managed, secure Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solution. As a remote or office-based worker, you can ‘remote desktop’ into your own Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment and work from wherever, on whatever local device you want.
In this post, we explore how the WAF can go beyond the bounds of being a pure application architecture assessment to drive a discussion around improved operational insight and observability of system health and performance.
Given the speed and pace of new releases coming out of the AWS services factory, one could be forgiven for struggling to keep up.
From theory to practice; following on from Part 1, in this post I demonstrate how to implement a Windows container workload
In this post, I’ll explore some of the ins and outs of running a containerised Windows workload on the AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) platform.
Linux and Mac users love working on Docker, why should Windows get left behind?!
