After years of manually upgrading my self-hosted WordPress installation, I decided it was finally time to apply some devops principles (namely automation) to this process. This site runs on an EC2 instance on AWS, so I decided to use AWS Systems Manager (aka SSM). I started out by creating the following Command Document (which happens […]

My latest course “Architecting for Security on AWS” is now available on Pluralsight! You’ll learn how to secure your data and AWS services using a defense-in-depth approach, including: Protecting your AWS credentials using identity and access management Capturing and analyze logs using CloudTrail, CloudWatch, and Athena Implementing network and instance security Encrypting data at rest […]

Puzzled by networking on AWS? Check out my AWS networking deep dive series! AWS Networking Deep Dive: Route 53 DNS Configure Route 53 for any domain name, and configure health checks and routing policies.   AWS Networking Deep Dive: Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Create secure and scalable VPCs. Implement multi-VPC topologies, build peering connections, network […]

Many of you have been asking for months when my Route 53 course would release. Well, it’s finally here! AWS Networking Deep Dive: Route 53 DNS is now available on Pluralsight. Topics covered include: Configuring Route 53 to work with any domain name, even one registered with a different registrar DNS concepts and how Route […]

You probably know the popular Google DNS server IP addresses by heart: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Before those were around you might have even used Level3’s 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2. Of course, everyone else uses these too, which means these popular servers are under a pretty heavy load. Fortunately, there are faster public DNS servers out there. […]