The phrase “coronavirus hype bubble” refers to misinformation and hyperbole about the novel coronavirus. The virus is not a hoax. It is mild for most people, but it can cause serious disease in certain populations, particularly the elderly. Early in the Spring, it seemed that some of the response to the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was not based on evidence. And I think many of us in the technology world thought the same thing.

Whether you prefer to read or watch a video, here are some AWS certification training resources I’ve put together for you. Study Guides The following study guides include hundreds of assessment questions and answers as well as online access to graded practice exams. The AWS Certified Solutions Architect Study Guide: Associate by David Clinton and myself covers more than you need to know to pass the exam. If you don’t believe me, just click the link and look at the reviews on Amazon.

You took one of the Cisco CCNP exams. You went to the exam center, sat down, and started the exam. About 2 hours later, you saw the dreaded news appear on the screen: You didn’t pass. I’ve failed certification exams in the past, so I can relate to the facepalm-worthy feeling you get when you realize you dropped a couple of Benjamins on an exam that you just failed. I know the feeling of wanting to give up, the thoughts of thinking that this whole certification thing is stupid, and the desire to assign blame to whomever or whatever led to your failure.

Masks don’t work, evidence suggests. On top of that, a lot of people find it difficult to wear a mask. Some of them do it anyway because they feel like they must, perhaps because of peer pressure or to avoid being harassed. But if they just had a step-by-step guide to tell them how to go maskless, they would probably feel confident enough to at least give it a try.

January 31, 2020 update: No, you’re not crazy. Cisco changed the exam number from 300-401 to 350-401. For your convenience, I’ve put together the following list of my Pluralsight courses that cover the new CCNP ENCOR exam. By watching and following along with the hands-on demos in these courses, you can’t go wrong. Routing Cisco Enterprise Networks: Basic Networking and IP Fundamentals Cisco Enterprise Networks: Implementing OSPF

While playing around with AWS CloudWatch Log Insights to analyze VPC flow logs, I thought of a couple of fun ways to identify (probably) malicious traffic. Finding Vulnerability Scanners These are the guys that hammer your box looking for anything from silly SQL injection attacks (so 2005) to CSRF vulnerabilities. The tell: look for hosts that reuse the same source port. The Query filter (srcPort > 1024 and srcAddr !

As an AWS customer, you share responsibility with AWS for the security of your data the cloud. There’s a mantra: AWS handles the security of the cloud, but you handle security in the cloud. But it turns out that’s not quite true. For more, check out my guide _Operating within the AWS Shared Responsibility Model_.

As someone who works in IT, I hear and read a lot of comments about science. One common but unfortunate claim is that “science is not about finding truth.” While I won’t get into the underlying philosophical reasons behind this claim, I do want to at least respond to it on its face. Etymology of the word “science” The word science comes from the Latin scientia, meaning knowledge. Plato said that knowledge is “justified true belief.

People use the term “operational excellence” in a lot of different ways. In its vaguest sense, it means continuous improvement as applied to operations. But you’re interested in what it means in the context of technology operations. And I’m here to tell you that it means automation. Operational Excellence is one of the five pillars of the AWS Well-architected Framework. The AWS whitepaper lists six design principles for achieving operational excellence.

Ready to get your AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification? Sybex has recently released the _AWS Certified Solutions Architect Study Guide: Associate SAA-C01 Exam 2nd Edition_, authored by David Clinton and myself. Go check it out!