AWS Maniac - Posts

The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty Exam

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty Exam", which you can read here.
Here is the unofficial guide on preparing and passing the AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty exam (MLS-C01).
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5 things that look better in AWS CDK than in AWS CloudFormation

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "5 things that look better in AWS CDK than in AWS CloudFormation", which you can read here.
There are some places in AWS CloudFormation that are not just obscure but horrifying. In this blog post, we will look at those monstrosities (👹👻💀) closely, and I would like to show how AWS CDK can help there.
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The Complete History of AWS Outages

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "The Complete History of AWS Outages", which you can read here.
... at least the most major ones. 😉 This is one of those posts that I wanted to prepare a few years ago. However, I couldn't do that in an approachable form. Now I have found a really viable and interesting visualization, which may help make the topic easier to comprehend. Enjoy!
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Why should you care about AWS Community Builders program?

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Why should you care about AWS Community Builders program?", which you can read here.
As a meetup organizer and active conference participant, I strongly believe that knowledge sharing and learning have the biggest impact if it's performed in a group. Community is the strongest thing you can and should build around technology. However, that's just a tip of an iceberg! In this post, I am summarizing all benefits that are waiting in the AWS Community Builders program.
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Knowledge Evaporation Considered Harmful

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Knowledge Evaporation Considered Harmful", which you can read here.
Why are we letting evaporate our knowledge when we are sharing it? I am deliberately using Clubhouse's popularity in Poland as bait to share why, even that I was previously enthusiastic, I am now hesitant about leveraging the temporal nature of some social media platforms.
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My Personal Top 5 Announcements from AWS re:Invent 2020

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "My Personal Top 5 Announcements from AWS re:Invent 2020", which you can read here.
AWS re:Invent 2020 is over. Considering that it took almost 4 weeks, which means 800+ talks, it was hard to choose when to summarize that. Most people did that in December 2020, but I have decided to follow a different path. Instead, I have carefully reviewed new things and prepared my personal top 5 announcements based on those services' real service review and potential.
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I have watched 155 AWS re:Invent 2020 talks, so you can watch just the best ones...

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "I have watched 155 AWS re:Invent 2020 talks, so you can watch just the best ones...", which you can read here.
Each year, AWS generates a ton of video content from an annual re:Invent conference. For us, consumers of that content, that's both a good and bad situation. Good, because we have a lot of resources to learn from. Bad, because it requires a curation of such a pile of videos. Luckily there are such maniacs like me, which do that with passion and eagerness to share. Enjoy! 😉
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My First Honest Review of Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA)

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "My First Honest Review of Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA)", which you can read here.
Newly released AWS service and eager cloud architect - what can go wrong? 😅 Well, there are some significant constraints and rough edges, but the overall impression is good. And hopes are even higher. Nevertheless, I have spent a significant amount of time doing quality assurance work for AWS - and if you are looking into using Amazon MWAA, you should be aware of that. Learn from my mistakes!
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Taming AWS re:Invent 2020 sessions with AWS Glue DataBrew

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Taming AWS re:Invent 2020 sessions with AWS Glue DataBrew", which you can read here.
To prepare the best talks from the 155 that I watched during the AWS re:Invent 2020, I needed to transform and join a few different data sets, which became a great chance to test AWS Glue Data Brew in the real situation. Stay with me and learn what capabilities helped, what is missing, and the point of using that tool!
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What I miss in Amazon Kinesis Video Streams?

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "What I miss in Amazon Kinesis Video Streams?", which you can read here.
Amazon Kinesis Video Streams (KVS) is a service that satisfies a very specialized set of use cases on the surface. It's more than that! However, there are some caveats and missing things - I decided to share what it is after working for more than 12 months with it straight. Let's document that! 😉
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The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Data Analytics Specialty Exam

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Data Analytics Specialty Exam", which you can read here.
Here is the unofficial guide on preparing and passing the AWS Certified Data Analytics - Specialty exam (DAS-C01).
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Functional Programming with AWS CDK

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Functional Programming with AWS CDK", which you can read here.
As a functional programmer by training and passion, I could not resist and test how AWS CDK cooperates with functional languages. In this blog post, we will examine that from the perspective of the F#.
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Hey Azure and Google Cloud - we need the AWS CDK from you too!

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Hey Azure and Google Cloud - we need the AWS CDK from you too!", which you can read here.
AWS CDK is a first step towards treating IaC as a first-class code citizen in our projects. It can enable many new use cases. However, in a multi-cloud environment, we are still facing the domination of Terraform. But, what if other cloud providers would adopt this approach?
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Introducing AWS Solutions Constructs

Sat, 11 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Introducing AWS Solutions Constructs", which you can read here.
AWS announced that they're presenting a library of predefined CDK constructs available to use. IMHO it is an awaited element that should be available from day zero. Let's investigate what it brings to the table!
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AWS CDK? Why not Terraform?

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "AWS CDK? Why not Terraform?", which you can read here.
In many cases, the community treats Terraform as a sane default for the infrastructure as code. I can't entirely agree with that statement, mainly if this is wrongly motivated. Today, I would like to present the unique selling points that show when using AWS CDK is a better-suited tool for the job.
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Using aspects in AWS CDK

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Using aspects in AWS CDK", which you can read here.
AWS CDK introduces not only tooling, wrappers, constructs, and patterns, but also additional elements that allow us to leverage the expressive power of programming languages. Today I'd like to show you such items: aspects that would enable us to do cool stuff that is very hard to achieve otherwise.
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Troubleshooting AWS CDK: part 2 - Explicit Dependencies

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Troubleshooting AWS CDK: part 2 - Explicit Dependencies", which you can read here.
In the previous article, we have overcome two relatively straightforward and expected issues (especially if you have some experience with CloudFormation). Now we have a much bigger problem that we need to face.
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Troubleshooting AWS CDK: part 1 - Nested Stacks

Fri, 12 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Troubleshooting AWS CDK: part 1 - Nested Stacks", which you can read here.
Now it's time to polish our project and face reality, what to do when we observe some problems. Today, we will talk about the prevalent AWS CloudFormation issue surfacing through AWS CDK.
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Sharing resources in AWS CDK

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Sharing resources in AWS CDK", which you can read here.
Cloud resources do not exist in isolation, as when it comes to Infrastructure as Code, we deal with infrastructure graph. It means that we need to create relationships between them, and AWS CDK has to support that - so let's learn how to do it!
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How to parametrize our AWS CDK stacks?

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "How to parametrize our AWS CDK stacks?", which you can read here.
Because we use AWS CDK in some areas, we need to adjust our previous approach based, which is based on experience. Parametrizing stacks is such a place, and today, we will address that difference.
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Our first Construct in AWS CDK

Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Our first Construct in AWS CDK", which you can read here.
Okay, so after understanding the bootstrap, testing, and why we have chosen TypeScript - it's time to define our first Construct and understand how to use this foundational element in AWS CDK.
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Which Programming Language is the best for AWS CDK?

Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Which Programming Language is the best for AWS CDK?", which you can read here.
Controversial question? Well, maybe - however, I will try to find an objective answer for that critical question in the following blog post.
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AWS CDK and Tests

Sun, 10 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "AWS CDK and Tests", which you can read here.
Now we need to talk about testability! AWS CDK gives us unique selling points and mechanisms related to testing.
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Why do we need CDK bootstrap?

Mon, 04 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Why do we need CDK bootstrap?", which you can read here.
Let's talk about one very important aspect of the CDK structure: bootstrap. Why we need it, and how CDK works under the hood.
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Creating our first VPC in AWS CDK

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Creating our first VPC in AWS CDK", which you can read here.
Today, we would like to start building our workshop infrastructure, which includes a dedicated VPC for each participant. VPC sounds hard, right? Let's see how we can implement it in AWS CDK.
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How Serverless Can Impact Your Business Model

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "How Serverless Can Impact Your Business Model", which you can read here.
You must have heard the term serverless. It is 2019, and everyone in IT is buzzword driven. Many of the companies are actively participating in or seriously considering taking part in the serverless revolution. Is it worth it? What is in it for you? I would like to focus on not-so-obvious advantages that technology brings to the table, particularly business-wise.
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Introduction to AWS CDK

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Introduction to AWS CDK", which you can read here.
In August 2018, AWS announced that a new kid, called Cloud Development Kit, arrived on the block of Infrastructure as Code. What is it, and how it can help us with a daily struggle with CloudFormation?
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The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional Exam", which you can read here.
Here is the unofficial guide on preparing and passing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional exam (SAP-C01).
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Is Infrastructure as Code suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "Is Infrastructure as Code suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?", which you can read here.
This question popped into my mind recently. After several sessions with the AWS CDK, when I worked through typical tasks that we all do as Cloud Architect/DevOps Engineers on AWS, I realized that we did not arrive at the breakthrough in Infrastructure as Code space recently.
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The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Database Specialty Exam

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "The unofficial guide to AWS Certified Database Specialty Exam", which you can read here.
Here is the unofficial guide on how to prepare and pass the AWS Certified Database Analytics - Specialty exam (DBS-C01).
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How formal methods helped AWS to design amazing services

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "How formal methods helped AWS to design amazing services", which you can read here.
It is a longer article about my research, how AWS used formal methods - in particular, TLA+ to design their outstanding services like Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon EC2, or Amazon S3.
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When is it smarter to choose Amazon Web Services over Google Cloud Platform?

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "When is it smarter to choose Amazon Web Services over Google Cloud Platform?", which you can read here.
If you are struggling with the choice of the cloud computing vendor and choosing between AWS and GCP, you may be interested in the following article. I tried to show you the benefits of Amazon Web Services, and when is it smarter to choose AWS over Google's Cloud.
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AWS CloudFormation versus Terraform

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

I have published a new post "AWS CloudFormation versus Terraform", which you can read here.
Choosing the best tool for your Infrastructure as Code is not an easy task. On the one hand, you are aware of the cloud providers' risks, including vendor lock-in. On the other hand, external tools impose many limitations. How to wisely choose the proper one? Let's find out!
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