Daily Check-In with Ned1313

Is there anything inherently good about decentralization? Is one approach always more effective or equitable than the other? The realm of technology is lousy with example of both centralized and decentralized systems, and a constant flux between the two. As any complex system evolves, the more efficient solution will evolve as well. For all the folks proselytizing the inherent beneficence of decentralized solutions, the reality doesn't seem to agree.

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Tools and technology are mostly amoral. What matters is the intent of the individual using the tool. A system is what it does, or more accurately what one does with it. Blockchain, cryptocurrency, and web3 are neither net positive or negative. However, their implementations certainly can be. NFT scams, crypto pump and dumps, and Bitcoin global warming are great examples of the worst impulses of humanity. But can all of these also be used for good? I think the answer is a firm maybe.

Folding ideas NFT video: https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g

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I read an interesting article today talking about how you don't need the cloud. Which is true! You don't need the cloud. Then the article went on to detail all the ways they are using cloud services without calling it cloud. And I felt confused! You don't need cloud, but you're using Cloudflare? Cloud is kinda in the name! Anyways, here's my thoughts about it.

The article: https://80daystartup.com/day-11/you-dont-need-the-cloud/

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Furthering my thoughts on when to script and not, let's turn our focus to live training, presentations, and keynotes. Also, guess what I just committed to at Pluralsight? Hint: it's a bunch of courses that don't deal with Terraform!

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A listener asked about my thoughts on writing scripts for creating training videos or doing it off the top of my head. I've tried both approaches, and the answer for me is a hybrid mix. Scripted presentations and unscripted demos. If you're wondering what to do for your content, check out this episode!

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Are you feeling nostalgic about 15 years ago? Was it really that good back then? When I take an honest assessment of the things I'm nostalgic for, the rose-tinted lenses drop away and I realize that now is better than then. Yes, even with the pandemic. On the whole, my life is better now than it was 15 years ago, and I hope yours is too.

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Most things worth doing take time to do them. And time is a commitment. As I've mentioned before, you should avoid overloading yourself, so it's important to think about whether the payoff is worth the grind. That's going to depend on your own personal value system. Personally, it's worth the grind to me if I enjoy it, it will eventually make me money, or it's helping someone else.  

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I'm a restless person. It's hard for me to do a single thing for any period of time. I'm always looking forward to the next thing. Trying to achieve more, better, faster. And that is exhausting. A few key conversations and a little reflection brought me some clarity today. Maybe enough is enough. It doesn't need to be more.

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I recently had a conversation with someone about what it takes to run components of a web3 application, and where web3 apps fit into the larger picture of applications in general. It was fascinating to hear from someone deeply involved in the space, and a chance to cut through some of the sturm and drang, getting down to the fundamentals of the technology.

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Seems like everyone is changing jobs to celebrate the new year. Is this unique to 2022, or is it a more common thing? What would it take to drag me away from my life of luxury and self-employment. The answer seems to be DevRel, but don't quote me on that.

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Being a generally contrary person, I find it hard to create habits. As soon as I have a steady schedule or solid set of expectations, my contrary nature wants to subvert it. I've used that to hack my own workflow, but it's still kinda weird.

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Except they aren't. The reality is more nuanced and complicated, especially for folks early on in their career. As you grow more senior and build your professional network, the need to have a resume ready to go lessens. Personally, I haven't had to submit a resume in the last decade. Each job was through my professional network and I don't expect that to change. But early on in my career, applying to jobs required a resume and a whole lot of luck.

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2022 is upon us! And it's already off to a shaky start. Let's look back on 2021 and I'll share some of my accomplishment and things I'm proud of from the year. There was a lot of technical content created, podcasts recorded, and posts blogged. Even if it was a challenging year personally; professionally I learned a ton.

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I've found a renewed focus on writing and I believe it is improving my presentations and courses. The process of writing out a technical topic forces you to really think through how things work. It also forces you to structure your thoughts with a narrative bent. By embracing writing, I believe that even unrelated content, like videos and podcasts will also improve. Also, I forgot how much I simply enjoy the process of writing.

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As I prepare my course on Getting Started with Terraform Cloud, I am learning a lot about how companies might want to manage Terraform Cloud at scale. The answer is to use automation, and what better tool to use than Terraform itself. And if you're going to use Terraform, you might as well use Terraform Cloud. Which means I am writing a module for you to run on Terraform Cloud to manage organizations and workspaces on Terraform Cloud. What a time to be alive!

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This year was a fantastic year for creating educational content. My Pluralsight catalog grew by six courses, and I started working on a series of liveProjects for Manning. I thought I would reflect on what I accomplished in the past year, and look to the future and my plans for 2022.

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The Terraform Associate exam is meant to test those with an associate level understanding of Terraform and about six months of solid experience with the software. How can you prepare yourself to pass the exam? What can you do beyond videos and books? The answer, of course, is time in front of the keyboard! To learn it, you must use it.

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A few things have coalesced in my brain in the last couple weeks. The first is something I've strived to do in my career, and it has really paid off. That thing is being kind and approachable. The second is to approach interactions without a transactional mindset. If you go into a conversation with genuine empathy and interest, not only will you be rewarded with a better conversation, you'll also find new opportunities you weren't even looking for.

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Blockchain, cryptocurrency, web3? Is it all just a solution in search of a problem? Or is there something real underneath. I believe there is a real use for blockchain, but it's not the revolutionary technology that will free us from the shackles of our oppressors. At best, it's a way to have a non-fungible identity you can use on a platform. And that's not totally useless!

Continuing my thoughts on the need for a CDK when developing IaC, I came across an interesting post (hat-tip Scott Lowe) about Crossplane and the concept of Infrastructure as Data. While I'm not convinced that Crossplane is the way of the future, it does push me closer to the idea of static IaC files as an artifact of the build process.

The software that HashiCorp creates has had a profound effect on my life. And the people behind that software are some of the best folks I know. I've never been prouder to be part of the HashiCorp Ambassador programs, and I wish nothing but the best for them as they move into this new phase as a publicly traded company. Well done!

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In Terraform, I was trying to do a data transformation and it broke my brain for a bit. I've since recovered, but it got me thinking about the proper place for data manipulation for infrastructure as code. The solution might be to use a general purpose programming language and a CDK, instead of the domain specific languages directly.

Yes. Yes you can. The recent AWS outage today served as a reminder that even cloud services fail, no technology is infallible, and you should always plan for downtime. It will also be a chance for people who know nothing to spew platitudes about availability zones and multi-region architectures into the social media ether. Please ignore those people. You know what is best for your applications, not them.

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This week's Day Two Cloud is all about Azure Arc and Microsoft's Hybrid strategy. Is hybrid cloud really a thing? You bet your sweet bippy it is. 78% of respondents to the 2021 Flexera State of the Cloud report said they were functioning in a hybrid capacity, and I only expect that to grow.

For the first time in a while, I wrote a technical post on my blog and it immediately got attention from Microsoft. It reminded me that there is a significant difference between writing and other forms of media. I think it might be time to start writing more, maybe even weekly.

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Do you need a platform team at your organization? The answer is probably yes. The platform team delivers a consistent experience to your application development teams, and works with specialized folks like InfoSec and Compliance to make sure your organization is following best practices.

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Every overnight success is years in the making. The recent growth of the Day Two Cloud podcast has caused me to reflect on how much work it took to get to this point, and how that applies to more than just podcasting.

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Sending good vibes your way, I had myself an excellent Monday. Excellent podcast recording, got my home lab working, and finished the demos on a project for Manning. I know it's a short week, but I already feel like I'm three steps ahead!

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Today was all about automation in my corner of the world, and it got me thinking about some lessons learned. In a nut shell, automation is hard, try not to make it harder. Don't do too much at once. Do processes manually the first time. And never trust a pipeline that passes on the first go. You missed something.

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My YouTube channel has been a bit stagnate lately. In case you're wondering why, I've got some answers and some plans for the future. More content is on the way, but it's gonna be a minute.

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Multi-cloud is a reality for many organizations, as is multi-region. The question becomes, how do you effectively tie together the networking for your cloud presence and your on-prem datacenters and branch offices. Prosimo told us at #CFD12 they have a solution that can leverage the native constructs in each cloud and their massive backbone to provide high-performance, low-latency connectivity from an orchestrated SaaS solution. I only wish their website did a better job of breaking down the details for engineers like me.

The folks at Ondat presented their solution for Kube-native storage at #CFD12. The term kube-native was new to me and I struggled a little at how it's different from cloud-native. Ondat set me straight, they are laser focused on supporting stateful workloads on Kubernetes and nothing else. Their solution seems solid, but it lacks some features I see in competitors. Will their recently launched SaaS offering be enough, or have they got some work to do on the core product? Time will tell.

MemVerge presented their AppCapsule technology at #CFD12 and it got my mind buzzing. There are so many potential applications for this technology! I think the team at MemVerge is doing the right thing by focusing on developing the product further and listening to their customer base. But there is a chance for them to make a huge impact in the next five years as their solution matures and they discover new use cases. This is a company to watch!

Yotascale was one of the presenters at #CFD12 and I was impressed by the depth of analytics and integrations offered in their multi-cloud cost management solution. It's clear that they are heavily focused on creating and enforcing consistent tagging across providers to gain real insight into cloud spend. While their recommendations engine is a little undercooked, I don't think that should be their primary focus. Let the cloud economists worry about recommendations, Yotascale can give them the data they need to do their job.

Even at the best of times, my endurance for continuous social interaction is not that high. #CFD12 last week showed me just how out of practice I am. Now that I'm back home, I'm ready to hole up in the basement and hibernate until the Spring.

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Yesterday I successfully recertified for the AWS SA Professional certification. I remember studying for months to pass the first time, and this time I studied for 6-8 hours before sitting the exam. There really is no replacement for practical experience I guess! If you're curious about my strategy for taking the exam or what I used, let me know!

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We look at your cloud. We tag your cloud. Yota, yota, yota. You save money. What we can't yota over the money saving part? That's right, you can't. Yotascale is looking to control cloud costs through automatic tagging and anomaly detection. But will that really make a big difference? Can they provide deeper insight into my cloud architecture? And what about alternative clouds? I've got questions. Let's see if they have answers at Cloud Field Day 12.

Multi-cloud networking is still in its infancy. Lots of vendors are vying to be the right solution. @Prosimo_io is one of those vendors, and I think their solution is intriguing. They are trying to leverage the best of virtual appliances and native cloud constructs to deliver a robust solution. I can't wait to hear more at Cloud Field Day 12 (#CFD12).

I always felt that PMEM was a solution in search of a problem, but @MemVerge has built a whole platform on the premise that I am wrong. At Cloud Field Day 12 (#CFD12) they will be presenting their solution and I have a TON of questions. Hybrid storage arrays were notoriously finnicky and I want to know how they are solving for those problems in memory.

Cloud Field Day 12 (#CFD12) is happening in-person next week! I'll be one of the on-premises delegates serving as a proxy for you. One of the presenters is Ondat, formerly StorageOS. I thought I would do a quick review of Ondat's solution and what I know about it so far. Consider this a bit of homework for next week's main event.

Cloud Field Day 12: https://techfieldday.com/event/cfd12/

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All my life I've been reticent to deeply identify with a pursuit. To go all in on a hobby. To join and participate in a community. I'm not a joiner. Never have been. There's a certain level of freedom that comes with not being a joiner, but it can also be a lonely gig. Can't change it though, it's who I am.

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My buddy Keith Townsend had an interesting post on his substack about whether VMware should buy HashiCorp? I like his reasoning, especially the light criticism of how they have developed their Tanzu product portfolio. Do I think VMware should buy HashiCorp? Maybe. Do I think HashiCorp should accept the offer? Definitive No.

Yesterday Ethan and I recorded a fascinating episode of Day Two Cloud with Ben Weissman. He brought the knowledge about Azure Arc and its Data Services. That led to me thinking deeply about the plans Microsoft laid back in 2017 with SQL on Linux and investments in Kubernetes, and how its paying off now in Azure Arc. Don't be surprised if there's some big stuff coming down the pike for Arc, especially with Microsoft Ignite around the corner.

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Is just a fancy reverse proxy if we're being honest. HashiCorp announced the preview of Consul API Gateway during the day two keynote of HashiConf Global. Initially, I was feeling pretty sceptical about Consul entering such a crowded market. But as I considered the state of the market and the rationalization of ingress gateways, API gateways, and service meshes, I started to realize this might be a really canny move. Time will tell!

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HashiConf Global is this Tuesday and Wednesday. I thought I would review what I've watched so far and make some recommendations on what to watch once everything is available on demand. If you're invested in the HashiCorp stack, there are going to be some awesome sessions!

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For the first time in a while, I've had to edit my own Pluralsight course. It's reminded me how essential the editing process is to improving my presentation and communication skills. Since I no longer edit a podcast on a weekly basis, the outlet to listen to myself and look for improvement has dried up. Taking the chance to edit my own course has shown me that there is always room for improvement, and I have embraced the opportunity.

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I'm tired of talking about tech and content creation today. Let's talk about awesome music we're listening to! We got good stuff like Spiritbox, Manchester Orchestra, Remi Wolf, and a tiny bit of Turnstile. What are you listening to? Let me know!

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