We are delighted to announce that Cevo’s Trent Hornibrook has been selected as one of the 2018 AWS Partner Network (APN) Cloud Warriors. As a Cloud Warrior, Trent joins the ranks of AWS Certified individuals who are both deeply skilled on the AWS platform, and are strong technology advocates.
Trent has taken over the reigns from Colin Panisset, our previous Cloud Warrior who has now become Cevo’s first APN Cloud Ambassador.
We sat down with these two gurus to get a better idea of what it means to be a Warrior/Ambassador.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN USING AWS?
[Trent] I have been using AWS since 2008 where I investigated running a DR solution for a large website in AWS. At the time, the only services in AWS were EC2 (instance store), EBS, S3, SDB and two regions in the USA. Since that point, I’ve been a part of teams running datacenter to AWS migrations and building AWS first application solutions.
[Colin] I started in late 2010, which was still before there was a Sydney region (the ‘region’ for Australia), and before the now-mandatory network constructs like VPCs existed. There’s barely been a week when I haven’t had something to do with AWS in some way or another.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN APN CLOUD WARRIOR/AMBASSADOR?
[Trent] Being a Cloud Warrior is a great recognition for the work that I have done with customers in building really good solutions in AWS.
[Colin] To me, it’s a recognition of my personal skills and of the capabilities and effectiveness of Cevo as a team. We focus not just on technical excellence, but also on how we can best use the platform pragmatically to deliver the best value for our customers. Warriors and Ambassadors can share knowledge about AWS with each other, which helps us all provide a better service.
YOU’RE BOTH CONSIDERED TO BE ADVOCATES/EVANGELISTS FOR TECHNOLOGY AND AWS. EVANGELISE US… (BRIEFLY!)
[Trent] When I visit a client with legacy systems, I theorise ‘if we had a blank slate, what would we do, how would we do it, and what might the outcome look like’. I almost always come back to being able to build something quickly, in a controlled and coded way that is repeatable – and in the event of things going bad, being able to stop it and throw it away without committing to significant infrastructure spend. AWS ticks all of the boxes to be able to achieve these goals.
[Colin] Trent nails it there; AWS provides us with tools and capabilities to help customers achieve their goals like never before; if had told you 10 years ago that you could create an entire business IT infrastructure in 15 minutes with a single command, you’d have called me mad – but that’s exactly what we can do nowadays. The challenge now is deciding which bits to do first,and how much to do, and then zeroing in on the best way (given the constraints). There are so many options!
MOST UNDERVALUED AWS PRODUCT?
[Trent] AWS Resource Groups is one of the most undervalued product. It provides the ability to build a single pane of glass for instances & services across all regions. It’s useful to see what is running across AWS based on a specific tag.
[Colin] That’s a hard question, I value them all! I think the subtle answer is their commitment to providing access to every capability via stable, robust APIs, that allows us to automate and extend the platform in a predictable, reliable manner.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN THE AWS FUTURE?
[Trent] Cloudformation Design Template does a good job at visualizing a cloudformation stack, but I wish there was a way to produce a visualization of the entire environment within AWS, and if there are defined connections within AWS, drawing those connections too. No doubt that is on the roadmap
[Colin] I have two standard “pony requests” (“please may I have a pony?”) – for all services to be available in the Sydney region, and for Cloudformation support for all services out of the box. It’s a big ask, but I keep hoping. I’ve stopped trying to think of new services and features to wish for, they do a great job of that by themselves.
