CI/CD

I have extensive experience working with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes. I am proficient in a variety of tools and technologies related to CI/CD, including CloudPipeline/CloudBuild, GitLb CI, and Jenkins.

I’ve previousle been responsible for implementing CI/CD pipelines supporting feature environments. A feature environment is an automatically created dynamic environment for every feature developed, that is isolated from any other environemnt. This can easily be implemented for Kubernetes but is not limited. I’ve workted with complex pipelines for both mono repositories as well as for multi repository strategy.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

I have many years of experience working with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools and technologies. I am proficient in a variety of tools related to IaC, including Terraform, CloudFormation, and CDK.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a powerful way for managing complex infrastructure, but it can quickly become burdensome if not used correctly. As an experienced AWS architect, I am well-versed in best practices for implementing IaC in a scalable and maintainable way.

One common pitfall with IaC is falling into anti-patterns, such as sharing state between environments like production and development. This can lead to situations where developers require production access just to modify the infrastructure configuration for a development environment. I have seen firsthand how this can cause significant headaches and delays for development teams.

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid these issues. By using the tools properly, I can ensure that each environment is isolated and has its own state, but still able to share modules and reuse code. This not only simplifies the deployment process but also makes it easier to maintain and troubleshoot the infrastructure over time.

Landing Zone

A landing zone is a well-architected, multi-account AWS environment that is a starting point from which you can deploy workloads and applications.

Organizations is a powerful AWS feature that provides a landing zone setup for managing multiple AWS accounts within an organization. As an experienced AWS architect, I can help you set up a robust Organizations configuration that includes consolidated billing and Service Control Policies (SCPs).

SCPs are an essential component of a secure and well-managed AWS environment. They allow you to restrict access to specific AWS services, even for users with administrative access. This is important for maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements and ensuring that only authorized users have access to sensitive data or services.

In configuring your Organizations setup, I can help you define and enforce SCPs that align with your organization’s security and compliance needs. I can also assist with establishing best practices for managing AWS accounts, setting up consolidated billing, and creating a centralized logging and monitoring solution.

Once an Organization has been established, creating new AWS member accounts can be done easily and efficiently using Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Security

AWS offers a range of services that can help protect your data, accounts, and workloads from unauthorized access. However, many overlook the importance of investing time in security, which can result in a lack of attention to this critical area.

With my knowledge and expertise in securing environments, I can provide valuable assistance in the following areas:

• Configuring IAM properly for both machines and users to ensure proper access control.
• Protecting AWS accounts with Service Control Policies (SCP), AWS CloudTrail, and AWS Config to monitor and prevent unauthorized activity.
• Securing the network with public, private, and internal subnets and implementing proper security groups to control access. VPC flow logs can be used to log network traffic.
• Implementing encryption in transit, at rest, and end-to-end encryption to ensure data privacy and security.
• Monitoring the environment using services such as GuardDuty and Security Hub, and setting up security alarms to detect security breaches, such as those outlined in the CIS Benchmarks.
• Implementing secure solutions for site-to-site VPN and Client VPN.

In addition to providing these security measures, I can also help you avoid common anti-patterns such as using IAM users for Kubernetes pods or other machines.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an extremely popular container orchestration tool known for its highly modular ecosystem, and its popularity continues to grow. With several years of experience working with EKS, kOps, and OpenShift, I have witnessed firsthand the benefits of using Kubernetes for container management.

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) offers excellent integration with other AWS services. For example, EKS can run fully serverless with the help of Fargate for the Pods. Secret Manager and SSM Parameter Store can be synchronized with Kubernetes secrets, and IAM roles can be directly integrated with Kubernetes Service, while security groups can be integrated with deployments/Pods. This seamless integration allows EKS to leverage the security services provided by AWS, providing a secure and reliable platform for container deployment.

In addition to Kubernetes, I have also worked with other container orchestration tools such as ECS and Docker Swarm.

Serverless

In a serverless architecture, the cloud provider manages the infrastructure and automatically allocates computing resources as needed to execute and scale applications. As a result, developers can focus on building their applications without worrying about underlying hardware or infrastructure.

One of the main benefits of serverless computing is cost efficiency. For example, with Lambda functions, you only pay for the milliseconds the software is running, compared to traditional Virtual Machines (VM) that charge for the hours they are running, even if they are idle for most of the day. This cost efficiency makes it possible to get started with serverless architecture for almost nothing, and it also reduces “soft costs” since there is no need for additional operations work, as everything is outsourced to the cloud provider.

Another benefit of serverless computing is scalability. The cloud provider automatically scales computing resources up or down based on application demand, allowing applications to handle fluctuations in traffic without infrastructure constraints. This scalability also provides improved application performance and more efficient use of resources.

As someone who has experience working with fully serverless architecture, I can help with architectural challenges and implementation.