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 …

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!

2022 Update: If you want a clear technical explanation of the OSI model, click on the cover of my book CCNP Enterprise Certification Study Guide: Implementing and Operating Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies for a free preview of Chapter 1 which explains each layer of the OSI model in intricate detail.

I …

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.

I decided to use AWS Systems Manager (aka SSM). I started out by creating the following Command Document (which happens to be in YAML format because …

If you’ve ever created a private hosted zone in Route 53, you may have noticed it always assigns the same name servers:

1 ns-1536.awsdns-00.co.uk.
2 ns-0.awsdns-00.com.
3 ns-1024.awsdns-00.org.
4 ns-512.awsdns-00.net.

The numbers don’t seem to be coincidental.

1536 is the RFC number for “Common DNS Implementation …

Tell them what you’ll tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.

This advice, although well meaning, isn't always the best approach. Although repetition has its place, repeating information three times is by no means the gold standard of teaching. I want to explore a different and perhaps more …

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 …

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 …

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 …