Author Archives: romeel

Google Cloud functions

In this blog we take a look at Google Cloud functions. Google Cloud functions is a Serverless platform for building event driven logic that is small in execution time (don’t use it for running long running processing jobs), Cloud functions are Google’s equivalent Serverless offering compared to AWS Lambda and Azure functions. Key features CloudContinue reading “Google Cloud functions”

Azure DevOps and Chechov

In this post we demonstrate how to use the open source security and compliance tool called Checkov with Azure DevOps to verify your Azure infrastructure is secure. Introducing Checkov Checkov is a great tool for engineering teams to harness as part of their Cloud environment deployments. https://www.checkov.io/ Checkov currently supports scanning the following scanning capabilities:Continue reading “Azure DevOps and Chechov”

Azure container apps

Another container service? Recently Microsoft released a new container service called Azure container apps. Those familiar with Azure should know that the platform already supports containers in numerous forms. AKS Pros Need full orchestration of containers then use AKS and managed service. Provides full Kubernetes feature set, integrated into Azure control plane services such asContinue reading “Azure container apps”

Google Cloud first impressions

I have been working on GCP for the last five months. In this blog post I share what I have learned and observations. Global network Compared to some other public clouds, GCP has a global fibre backed network. As a result of this the GCP VPC (virtual private cloud) is a global resource that spansContinue reading “Google Cloud first impressions”

Intro to DAPR part1

What is DAPR? DAPR stands for distributed application runtime. It is an open source project started by Microsoft. As of November 2021 it is officially endorsed by the CNCF as an incubator project https://www.cncf.io/blog/2021/11/03/dapr-distributed-application-runtime-joins-cncf-incubator/ What can you use it for? DAPR is essentially a set of APIs, built on a concept of building blocks forContinue reading “Intro to DAPR part1”

Why microservices?

With the advent of Kubernetes, the term Microservices has become the latest trend in software architectural styles. However, are many engineering teams really taking a clear step back and asking the fundamental question: Do we need Microservices? Remember SOA? I remember during my early days of software engineering the term SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) wasContinue reading “Why microservices?”

Finally, Start and Stop AKS

This feature request has been around a year or so. https://feedback.azure.com/forums/914020-azure-kubernetes-service-aks/suggestions/36035578-add-a-start-stop-cluster-button-to-the-aks-panel In AKS you pay for the worker nodes, but for dev test it would be good if you could start and stop the cluster. Those ephemeral environments are costing you!! Finally we have a preview feature that allows you to do this. Enabling theContinue reading “Finally, Start and Stop AKS”

Pulumi – Just another IaC? – Part 1

Pulumi infrastructure as actual code! Pulumi allows you to write code in your favourite language. It supports languages such as Python, Javascript, C# and more. The obvious benefit is your team can use their language of choice to write IaC. Lets be frank, DSLs are never going to be same compared to the expressiveness ofContinue reading “Pulumi – Just another IaC? – Part 1”

Shifting Security left – moving to a DevSecOps model

As more and more organisations shift their infrastructure and applications to Public cloud one of the biggest questions arises is how will they approach security. Organisations who are leveraging the dynamic nature of cloud with modern DevOps practices are also realising that traditional approaches to security are outdated. With the advent of Infrastructure as Code,Continue reading “Shifting Security left – moving to a DevSecOps model”