BenkoTIPS

Reviewing Julie Ng's CI/CD Checklist

I recommended a video by Julie Ng, who has a blog and a video thing on YouTube you can subscribe to that provides some great information about containerization, kubernetes and Azure. The video is CI/CD Review - How DevOps in Real Life & Mature Organizations works | Julie Ng

Here's some tools and links from Julie's talk

The Right Things

I was watching the movie "The Right Stuff" over the holiday week and was impressed by how far we've come in terms of technology and using it to help us accomplish amazing things. From the story of Chuck Yeager chasing the demon in the sky limit of Mach 1 in the Bell-X1 to how they developed the Mercury project to launch space exploration, I loved seeing how the people and technology were used to make it possible. Of course there were mistakes, but without trying how do you learn? 

Doing things right is a mindset that is a requirement if you want to get in the game anymore. It's no longer good enough to think we can just show up and get paid, we have to provide value. The value of being willing and able to make decisions and try the impossible, by reaching for the sky we don't come up with a handful of mud. But is doing enough?

Doing Things Right

In the movie Apollo 13 we see Tom Hanks play Jim Lovell as the commander of the crew that experiences what can go wrong, and we see how the team responds to see if they have what it takes to bring them home. The challenge comes when one of the oxygen tanks malfunctions and damanges the return ship on their way to the moon. The drama plays out, but ultimately by thinking outside the box the team on earth comes up with ways to repair enough of the damage to bring them home.

Doing things right means having the right people in the right places there when you need them. Knowledge of what's possible, how to do things, what tools work for which jobs, all of these are important. Knowing how and when to combine the ingredients are what separates the star baker of the week from the one who gets voted off the island. It might mean finding someone who's done it before and knows the things to avoid. Doing things right is a whole lot easier than doing it poorly and doing it again and again.

For example, in the work that I do we're talking about containers and infrastructure and cloud. It is important to understand Docker and Kubernetes, as well as DevOps and Infrastructure as Code options like Terraform or Bicep. Doing things right means combining these tools to develop and deliver solutions where we follow sound project management practices. Whenever I come across a new project there's good questions to ask so you can get an idea of where things are at.

But Because you Can Doesn't Mean You Should

With that said, does the use of these tools and technologies mean success? Should we use containers and DotNet Core with WebAPI's? Should we use Agile and 2 week sprints with daily scrum meetings? We are putting together a team and it's going to go in and solve the challenge and keep the world safe for technology!

Sometimes we immediately prescribe an answer, using our best practices and ensuring we're using the right stuff to deliver value, but we fail to hear the requirements and understand the lay of the land. We kick off the project and by hook or by crook we drive the daily scrums and manage the sprints and work like crazy. We dedicate ourselves to the task at hand and make sure everyone participates. We deliver our solution, then realize it solves the wrong problem.

Do the Right Things

We fail to ask the right questions, so we end up doing the wrong things. Who is our team, and what is their experience? How much learning do we need to do to bring people up to speed? What is the timeline and who is the audience? The consultant's answer is it depends. Who do you ask? What is the vision and how is it related to the mission we're working on? Based on this are we ready to move on to new tools and technologies? Are we ready to make smart decisions that fit the reality we are in? 

As 2023 starts out it's apparent to me that we need to make time to reflect and give some space to think before we act. Doing is good, but sometimes not doing or doing something else is better.

Agile DevOps West 2022

This week in Las Vegas at the Agile DevOps West conference I'm presenting the session Permit to Cloud - Land with Confidence in Azure!

We'll talk about a lot fo things, but the goal is to provide an introduction to how to get started with Azure in a way that will help ensure continued success in taking advantage of the promises the cloud offers. For the code and demos I've published them to https://github.com/benkotips/askdad - Check it out!

DevUp 2022

Guess What? In person events are a thing again,  and I'm back on the road. It's great to be back to St. Louis, this week I'm delivering sessions at DevUp on how to work with Azure and Infrastructure as Code topics. 

  • Permit to Cloud : Land with Confidence in Azure
  • Cosmos DB Performance Tuning
  • Infrastructure as Code Bake-off : Comparing ARM, Bicep, Terraform and Pulumi

The link to the code is on GitHub at https://github.com/mbenko/du22-ptc - Check it out!

Azure Office Hour Fridays

Thinking about going to Cloud? I've been consulting around Azure for the last 8 years since I left Microsoft where I helped launch it in 2009. I want to offer my support, so I'm starting a thing called Azure Office Hours on Fridays, where anyone can block out 15 minutes to chat about anything Azure.

  1. Find a time that works - https://bit.ly/BnkAzHrs 
  2. Let me know what you want to talk about
  3. Let's chat! 

I speak at conferences and have LinkedIn learning courses on Azure and DevOps including templating, compute, storage, messaging, networking and governance topics.

My calendar is open. Let's connect!

Using Cosmos DB for my Blog

Have you thought of using new/different technologies to explore the impact of using new tools? I'm presenting a new session at Minnesota Developer Conference on Tuesday 5/4/2021 (Star Wars day) that will explore the technology and implementation details to make this type of implementation work.

Check it out!

Cosmos Tools for the Relational Developer

Tuesday 5/4 at 11:00 am - MDC 2021 | Minnesota Developers Conference (mndevconf.com)

Understanding how your data works is crucial to taking advantage of the capabilities and power of Cosmos DB, from setting up and migrating data, to querying to understanding performance consequences of data manipulation. These tasks become easier thanks to a growing ecosystem of tools around the Cosmos DB platform. In this session we'll look at how Cosmos DB tools available from Microsoft and 3rd parties make it easy to make the transition from the relational to Cosmos.

The topics we'll cover include:

  • Why Azure Cosmos DB
  • Provisioning a Cosmos DB from the Azure Portal
  • Code patterns for working with Cosmos
  • Data Migration
  • Data Modeling and strategies for performance and cost optimization

Some reference links:

Enjoy!

5 Minutes to Code

I'm working thru an idea for a video series that I call "5 Minutes to Code", where I would record some short videos that show how to accomplish a concept, procedure or task related to working with code. The goal is to deliver on a regular cadence some content that developers can use to learn how to do something. Lately I've been working with Azure as a cloud engineer working on infrastructure (like ARM and Terraform), delivery (like Azure DevOps and from developer tools), and coding (like .NET Core and web development). I have created a new page on my site where I'll publish a list of links to these, and this will give me the chance to work on my html and JavaScript skills.

Enjoy!

Thank you Microsoft - MVP 2019-20

I’m pleased to say that I’ve been included in a list of the top MVPs to follow on Twitter!

Following my renewal as a Microsoft MVP earlier this month, I’ve been given a shout out on Nigel Frank’s Microsoft MVP Class of 2019 roundup, which shines a light on MVPs from across the community who’re doing great things online. 

I feature alongside some fantastic fellow MVPs, so check out the post and check out some of the fine people working to make the Microsoft ecosystem a smarter, more exciting place!

https://www.nigelfrank.com/blog/class-of-2019-25-microsoft-mvps-you-should-be-following/ 

Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event - MSP

Since Visual Studio launched 22 years ago it has evolved to become a favorite IDE of the casual to professional developer. With the launch of Visual Studio 2019 Microsoft again steps up their game with improvements to make it easier to work and debug Cloud, Mobile and Web, as well as bring the developer a number of productivity improvements.

Join us for a chance to participate in the launch with a live viewing party at the Microsoft Office in Edina. It's a chance to be a part of the next generation of developer tools and you get to see all the compelling new features and capabilities of Visual Studio! Join us in Edina on April 2 - http://bit.ly/vs19msp - to join the live streamed event and share the fun!

TechMasters After Dark and the Technical Interview

Do you ever have “unexpected time” on your hands? Need to brush up your job interviewing skills? Want to know more about the technical talent market in the Twin Cities? TechMasters After Dark – Job Interviewing Skills, is a free workshop delivering job interviewing strategies, interviewing tips, and Q&A with a panel of recruiters. The audience has the opportunity to practice with group exercises called Table Topics. Join us Thursday, Feb 21, doors open at 5:30 pm at Improving's MN office at 3600 American Blvd, #115. We have a slate of experts and a panel of recruiters who will answer your questions about how they ask questions.

More info at http://bit.ly/tmad1901. See you there!

 

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