PinnedWhat is the hardest thing in software development?Naming, but not in the way you think. — Phil Karlton once said, “there are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.” One is a real problem; the other is a problem of defining reality. A misbehaving cache algorithm compromises the system’s integrity. Inadequate names can compromise the system’s entire existence. On the surface…Programming14 min readProgramming14 min read
Published in Better Programming·PinnedAre You About to Leave the Cloud?Make your travel preparation list for the long journey ahead. — Cloud spending is always an exciting topic, and I mean exciting in the wrong way. Money is a sensitive subject. People get understandably nervous when they feel they may lose their grip on the budget. …Cloud14 min readCloud14 min read
Published in Better Programming·PinnedHow to Outperform a 10x DeveloperFirst awareness. Then productivity. — Jeff Foster wrote a great story on the origins of the expression “10x developer,” contrasting the value of outsized code-writing skills against the ability to focus on the product. From a DevOps perspective, its all-inclusive reach from development to operations demands collaboration. Focusing on the product trumps coding skills every…Productivity15 min readProductivity15 min read
PinnedEffective CI/CD strategies for updating GitOps repositoriesWith Git at the heart of GitOps, it is natural to consider adopting the core CI/CD concepts of continuous integration, delivery, and deployment to validate changes to a GitOps repository. CI/CD for GitOps still needs a strong focus on automation for validation and rollout steps, but dealing with infrastructure significantly…Kubernetes9 min readKubernetes9 min read
Oct 31, 2022Running Knative services on AWS spot instancesCapacity when you need it, minimal costs when you don’t. — (I originally published this story in my technical blog.) This article is a technical exploration of several technologies to reduce the cost of running workloads in Kubernetes. The exploration goes into how the characteristics of each of these technologies favor certain types of workloads and ultimately combines all these components…Knative20 min readKnative20 min read
Oct 19, 2022The art and science of probing a Kubernetes containerLook ready, and stay alive. — (I originally published this story in my technical blog*) Keeping containers alive in a Kubernetes cluster can feel more like art than science. In this article, I dive into the sea of madness awaiting those responsible for authoring container probes, with particular attention to the relatively new addition of startup…Kubernetes11 min readKubernetes11 min read
Sep 17, 2022Why you should keep using CPU limits on KubernetesOr why staying away from unused CPU may be good for your containers — I wrote this article as a counterpoint to “For the love of god, stop using CPU limits on Kubernetes.” I like that article and consider it a great read. I agree with its recommendations about setting container memory requests and limits and the recommendation always to set CPU requests. My…Kubernetes9 min readKubernetes9 min read
Published in Better Programming·Jun 29, 2022Are You Spending Too Much on Kubernetes?Probably, yes. — Anyone running a fleet of Kubernetes clusters knows it takes sustained investment in hardware and operations personnel to keep everything online. That level of investment keeps Kubernetes in a rarefied layer of architecture diagrams reserved for companies managing large environments, often in regulated industries that need to run them on-premises. …Kubernetes9 min readKubernetes9 min read
May 23, 2022GitOps repos: Five lessons on what to include and what to skipThis article provides a decision framework to help practitioners choose what to manage with GitOps and what to avoid. It is a companion to my previous article on structuring GitOps repositories. With the advent of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) frameworks like Terraform and Pulumi and their ability to build entire…Gitops5 min readGitops5 min read
May 10, 2022Infinite scaling with containers and KubernetesThe total perspective vortex — Containerizing the best code in the world means nothing if that container does not have the resources to do its job. The idea for this story started while writing about effective container probes. …Kubernetes11 min readKubernetes11 min read
