Recently I had the honor to be a guest on my friend and fellow Microsoft MVP Mike Pfeiffer’s Cloudskills.fm podcast again! This was episode is “106: Steve Buchanan on Cloud Native, DevOps, GitOps, Kubernetes, and Azure“. I was excited to be a guest again on the CloudSkills podcast and catch up with Mike.
On this new episode, we had a chance to talk about a variety of topics like leveling up your career, what I have been up to, diversity and inclusion in the tech, of course Azure, Azure Arc, DevOps, Kubernetes, GitOps, we even touched on SAP on Azure, among other insights.
You can listen to the podcast episode 106 right here on my blog:
Back in 2019 I was a guest on the Cloudskills.fm podcast on episode # 15. The past episode was a lot of fun with more of a focus on your career in the world of IT. If you want to check that out here.
Today I will be speaking at the Omaha Azure User Group. I will be speaking on Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes and GitOps.
I am really looking forward to this user group meeting! I will be speaking on & showing real-time the power of using Microsoft Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes and GitOps, deploying a Container app to a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cluster on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). More info on my session:
Session title: Push Code, Not Containers with Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes and GitOps
Session details: Use Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes to manage Kubernetes clusters across Google Cloud Platform and Azure without running a single Kubectl command! In this session, Steve Buchanan will take you into the world of GitOps. He will show you how to deploy applications and configuration to GKE clusters and AKS clusters from a GitHub repository. Explore how we can use this new operating model for Kubernetes and cloud-native apps to declaratively describe and ensure the state of our applications and Kubernetes environments.
I have been waiting for this one to release! I was a guest on Blacks In Technology ‘s renowned podcast BITTechTalk.
On this episode we talk about; the pros and cons of having a coding background vs infra, what it’s like coming from infrastructure into DevOps, the importance of networking skills in DevOps.
We get into the fact that many folks in the tech industry have to jump ship to get the promotion & better pay, being in consulting vs internal tech, what it’s like being a Microsoft MVP, changing the narrative of blacks in tech, tech salaries and much more!
Check out the podcast episode with the BIT founder Greg Greenlee & me here:
Over the past couple of months I have been hard at work on some more Pluralsight courses. I am excited to announce that today I released 2 new courses on Pluralsight! These are both cloud related courses. One course is more DevOps focused and the other is focused more on cloud security. One of the courses is intermediate while the other is for those beginning with cloud. It’s pretty cool to have two courses listed on Pluralsight’s new releases!
Here are the courses:
Heroku: The Big Picture
This course will teach you the basics of Heroku from; architecture components, developer and operational tooling, along with limitations and benefits of using the platform.
Heroku is a cloud PaaS service that enables companies to speed up the application lifecycle; building, delivering, monitoring, and scaling applications without the headaches of standing up infrastructure to support the application.
Some of the major topics covered in this Cloud Computing course are:
Learn about the components of the Heroku platform and how it works including the architecture, idea to running app, the runtime, Dynos and the various Heroku services.
Gain an understanding about the benefits and limitations of the Heroku platform such as pricing, language support, and ecosystem.
Insight into the developer and operational experience on Heroku.
And you will also see demos on the Heroku Dashboard, Using the Heroku Estimators, and deployment of an application to the Heroku platform.
By the end of this course, you will gain a better understanding of the Heroku platform all up including how to build and operate an application on it.
Cloud Computing Fundamentals: Governance, Risk, Compliance, and Security
This course will teach you the fundamental knowledge needed to understand the essentials of cloud Governance, Risk, Compliance, and Security.
Some of the major topics covered in this Cloud Computing course are:
Identifying the importance and impacts of compliance in the cloud
Understanding cloud policies or procedures
Recognizing risk management concepts related to cloud services
Security concerns, measures, or concepts of cloud operations
This Cloud Computing course will help you prepare for the CompTIA Cloud Essentials+ exam. This course is also useful if you don’t plan to take the CompTIA exam and just need to ramp up on cloud security.
Take this course if you want to learn cloud essentials, what it takes to successfully adopt cloud, the impact of cloud on IT service management, how security, and risks apply to cloud as well as consequences. This course is for someone with some exposure to cloud technologies and a general background in Information Technology at the minimum of a business analyst level.
I hope you find value in each of these courses. These two courses bring me to a total of 5 courses now published on the Pluralsight platform. Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release new courses! I will be releasing more courses soon!
I decided it was time to branch out into other clouds. We live in a multi-cloud world and it does not hurt to at a minimum understand what other clouds offer and how they work. I decided to go after the base level AWS certification. On 7/24/2020 I took the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam and passed!
I am still primarily Azure focused but you might see me working with AWS a little more. I may decide at some point to pursue some more AWS certs and potentially GCP.
Here is what I used to study:
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner course on Pluralsight:
I am also happy to announce that I was a tech reviewer on the first study guide for this cert titled “HashiCorp Terraform Certified Associate PreparationGuide“. You can find it here: https://leanpub.com/terraform-certified/. This guide was authored by fellow Microsoft MVP Ned Bellavance and Microsoft CSA Adin Ermie. Huge thanks guys for letting me be a part of this project!
If you work with Terraform I hope you get certified and be sure to use the study guide!
Recently I was a guest on the “Day Two Cloud” podcast hosted by fellow Microsoft MVP/Pluralsight author Ned Bellavance.
We talked about how native Azure governance & management tools Azure Policy, Tagging, and Blueprints can be used to bring order to your cloud environments. Listen now here:
At Experts Live Europe 2019 I presented a session titled “Master Azure with VS Code”. This was a fun session with an engaging audience that took to twitter after the session. There was some chatter asking this session was recorded. It was not. I did note that I planned to write a blog post on this topic.
Here is that blog post and it is the first one of 2020 for me! In this post, we are going to dive into how VS code is helpful when working with Azure and many extensions I find useful when working with Azure. This post is not set to be an end-all to using VS Code with Azure but from my experience. Use this post as a starting point or a reference for expanding your use of VS Code with Azure. Also, check out the many other community experts and Microsoft MVPs for their additional knowledge plus tips and tricks on this topic.
VS Code Overview
First off if you are not using VS Code stop reading this right now, go download it and install it then come back to finish reading. 🙂 VS Code is a must-have in your toolbox and it is free! For those that are new to VS Code, it is an open-source – code editor developed by Microsoft that runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Here is a shortlist of the many benefits of VS Code:
Has support for hundreds of languages.
Has Integrated Terminal.
Also powerful developer tool with functionality, like IntelliSense code completion and debugging.
Includes syntax highlighting, bracket-matching, auto-indentation, box-selection, snippets, and more.
Integrates with build and scripting tools to perform common tasks making everyday workflows faster.
Has support for Git to work with source control.
Large Extension Marketplace of third-party extensions.
Note that yes, VS
Code is for the “IT Pro”. Not just developers.
Azure Extensions in VS Code
VS Code has a ton of
extensions in general. There are a number of Azure specific extensions and you
can work with Azure directly from VS Code.
If you go to the VS Code Marketplace here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/vscode and search on Azure you will see results for many published by Microsoft and many community based extensions for Azure. As of the time of writing this blog post, there are 93. Here is a screenshot showing some of the results:
You can also go
directly to the Azure Tools extension from Microsoft here:
In the rest of this post, I am going to share some key extensions I use with Azure. I will post the marketplace links at the end of each extension I talk about and if it is maintained by community or Microsoft.
Deploy to Azure using VS Code
It is important to
note that not all of the Azure extensions available in VS Code can be used to
deploy to Azure. Some can but most can’t here is a list of the services that
you can deploy to from extensions in VS Code.
Azure Service
Description
Azure Functions
Build and manage Azure Functions serverless apps directly in VS Code with the Azure Functions extension.
App Service
Manage
Azure resources directly in VS Code with the Azure App Service extension.
Docker
Deploy your website using a Docker container.
Azure CLI
Create,
deploy, and update a website using a terminal and the Azure CLI.
Static website
Create,
deploy, and update a static website on Azure Storage.
NOTE: This list is current at the time of
writing this blog post. This will change over time.
Azure Cloud Shell in VS Code
Cloud Shell is something you should be using with Azure to make your life easier. It is an interactive command-line shell. You are authenticated to your Azure account when you launch it, It typically runs in the browser and is used for managing Azure resources. When you launch it you can choose the shell experience that best for you, either Bash or PowerShell. With VS Code you can launch Cloud Shell directly in VS Code!
Cloud Shell is a part of the Azure
Account extension. Here are some key points on using Cloud Shell with VS
Code:
Free (storage consumed has costs.)
Launch Azure Cloud Shell directly in VS
Code.
Launch Bash, PowerShell, or Upload.
Works in the Integrated Terminal.
Azure and open-source Tooling in Cloud Shell:
Azure Tools: blobxfer Azure CLI and Azure classic CLI Azure Functions CLI AzCopy Service Fabric CLI Batch Shipyard
You get the following PowerShell modules in Cloud Shell: Azure Modules (Az.Accounts, Az.Compute, Az.Network, Az.Resources, Az.Storage) Azure AD Management (Preview) Exchange Online (In development) MicrosoftPowerBIMgmt SqlServer
Next week I will
travel across the pond again to speak at Experts Live Europe 2019. I am excited
to reunite with many friends and fellow Microsoft MVPs in the Microsoft
community. I am honored to be a part of this conference again. I will be
speaking about Azure, participating in Ask the Experts as a cloud expert, and
will sit on an Azure Stack Hub panel.
Here are the details
for the sessions I will be a part of:
Master Azure with VS Code
22nd of November, 3:30pm – 4:20pm
Description
There are many ways
to work with Azure and its services including the: Azure portal, CloudShell,
Azure CLI, and Azure REST APIs. And there are even more tools to choose when it
comes to working with other services on Azure such as Docker, Kubernetes and more.
It can be overwhelming to decipher what Azure tool to use for your day-to-day
Azure administration and deployment.
VS Code to the
rescue!!!! You can deploy and administer Azure and supporting services direct
from VS Code through the plethora of extensions built for Azure. These
extensions can be used to work with ARM Templates, Storage, App Service,
Docker, Azure Kubernetes Service, Functions, Logic Apps, Event Hub, Cosmos DB,
and more. Also, VS Code brings CloudShell directly in so you can work from a
single tool!
Azure Stack Experts Panel
21st of November, 5:00pm – 5:50pm
Description
Join this global list of Azure Stack Experts for an open question and answer session as we discuss real-world scenarios.
Fellow panelists
include: Kristopher Turner Global Azure Stack Hub CSA, Dino Bordonaro Microsoft
Azure MVP, and Thomas Maurer Cloud Advocate at Microsoft.
19
