I was recently a guest on the RunAsRadio podcast. This was the second time being on the show. The last time was 4 years ago. You can catch the old episode here: Terraform vs Bicep/ARM with Steve Buchanan.
This new episode is #924 and is titled: “From SysAdmin to Platform Engineer with Steve Buchanan“. On this new episode we talked about Platform Engineering and a bunch of other stuff.
Here is the description from the episode:
“Aren’t we all platform engineers? Steve Buchanan says yes!
But there’s more to it. Steve talks about the mindset of looking beyond individual products that we might have skills with and owning the entire problem of providing platforms for your organization to get work done.
The conversation dives into the many products that can help our applications function better and the challenge of making them secure and fast. Are containers the solution? Possibly!
It’s your platform; focus on the fundamentals and go further!“
I had a great time chatting with Richard and we didn’t even mention AI until 40 minutes in. haha
Exciting announcement for the new year. My 23rd course with Pluralsight has published! This one is a Generative AI related course. It is titled “GitHub Copilot for IT Pros“. This is my first course in 2024.
Github Copilot is not just for Developers, its also for IT pros. In today’s world, AI is ubiquitous, enhancing efficiency and acting as a valuable assistant. GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered para-programmer, accelerates coding for developers, making the process faster and more efficient. IT professionals can also leverage Copilot to enhance their efficiency across various domains, including automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
This course is for folks in roles such as Platform Engineers, DevOps Engineers, Systems Engineers, Cloud Engineers, and more. It will help you learn how GitHub Copilot can be leveraged as coding sidekick, speeding up IaC and automation script development.
This course shows you how to use GitHub Copilot, the AI-powered peer developer integrated into Visual Studio Code. First, you’ll explore GitHub Copilot and its features. Next, you’ll discover GitHub Copilot IDE integrations. Finally, you’ll learn how to use GitHub Copilot’s various features. When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge of GitHub Copilot needed to utilize GitHub Copilot as an IT pro.
Some of the major topics covered include:
What AI & Common AI Terminology is?
Understanding GitHub Copilot and its Features.
How to setup GitHub Copilot with VS Code?
How to use GitHub Copilot features like: suggestions, autofill, code testing, Copilot chat & more.
When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have a better understanding of GitHub Copilot all up and how it can be a critical tool for IT pros.
Check out the “GitHub Copilot for IT Pros“ course here:
In the Microsoft Copilot Product Journey path you will also find courses on the following (NOTE: many of the courses are still being developed):
Introduction to Microsoft Copilot Copilot for Microsoft 365 Apps (Microsoft Office) Copilot for Microsoft Teams Copilot for Web Copilot for Microsoft Windows Copilot for Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive Copilot for Power Platform: The Big Picture
I hope you find value in this new GitHub Copilot for IT Pros course. Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release new courses!
Here is the link to my Pluralsight profile to follow me:
💡 Starting the new year with another event! We kicked things off with a “Career in Cloud Panel” hosted by the Azure Community Enthusiasts (ACE) user group. Based in the UK, ACE brings together passionate individuals diving into the world of Azure.
This user group aims to create a community of enthusiasts and professionals passionate about learning Microsoft Azure. Their meetups are both online AND in-person (London or Birmingham). ACE can be found on Twitter here:
I had a blast being part of this Career in Cloud Panel with fellow panelist and long time friend Sam Ernskine (@samerskine) from the UK! Big shoutout to the hosts, friend and Microsoft MVP Kevin Greene (@kgreeneit) from Ireland, and the up and coming Nicholas Chang(@nick_cloudops), also an MVP from the UK. 👩💻👩🏿💻 It felt like a tech reunion! 🎉
We dove into some cool topics such as: what got us hooked on tech, the building blocks of tech skills throughout our careers, staying flexible by not tying the knot with one technology, whether cloud certifications are the golden ticket to landing a job, and more. Being on this panel was a total blast – a mix of fun and insightful vibes! 🌐
For those who missed it, you can catch the recording here:
This week I will be co-hosting another Microsoft Learn Live session. This one is “Learn Live: Building Resilient Intelligent Apps On AKS” in the Intelligent apps series. It is going to be action-packed full of several Microsoft technologies, AI, and AKS.
It is a part of Microsoft Reactor.
Microsoft Reactor provides events, training, and community resources to help startups, entrepreneurs, and developers. More on Reactor here: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor.
In this Learn Live, I will be co-hosting as Cloud Native Developer Advocate Paul Yu will be leading us through a workshop.
Under the Computer Science Education Advancement Act (HF 759 and SF 757) (https://csforallmn.org/cs-ed-bill-2023/), the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has been charged to form a working group that will develop a strategic plan to improve Computer Science for k-12 education in the state of Minnesota. 🎓
🔄 There is an urgent need to elevate Minnesota’s computer science k-12 education position. Minnesota is currently last in the United States when it comes to computer science.
🔄I am thrilled to share that, among 80 applicants, I have been chosen as a member of this new “Minnesota Computer Science Education Working Group” by MDE! 🌟 It’s an honor to stand alongside esteemed technologists and educators from our state. Together, we are committed to crafting a comprehensive statewide computer science education program.
Our mission is clear: bridge the tech education gap in Minnesota’s schools through a plan for long-term and sustained growth of computer science education in all k-12 school districts and charter schools. The working group will develop a robust plan, slated to be presented to legislative committees overseeing education in the state. Upon approval, this plan will be set to improve computer science education statewide.
I am thankful to work at an organization such as Microsoft that supports employees to engage in initiatives such as this. This is a testament to Microsoft’s mission to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”.
I’m very excited to announce something that has been in the works for a little while now. I was fortunate to interview the legendary Andrew Shafer (@littleidea). We had a discussion about Platform Engineering. If you don’t know Andrew here is his BIO:
“Andrew Clay Shafer helped create the tools and practices that made DevOps a word. He is fascinated with the dynamics of high-performing individuals and organizations and has a reputation for improving outcomes at the intersection of Open Source, Cloud Computing and Software Delivery working on Puppet, OpenStack, Cloud Foundry and Kubernetes before founding Ergonautic to focus on improving the way people work.“
Basically, he started this whole DevOps thing, was key in the DevOps Days events, has founded some high-profile companies, and more. He is the perfect person to chat with about Platform Engineering because if anyone knows it he does!
I chatted with Andrew in an episode of Pluralsight’s Expert Access. Expert Access is a YouTube series where we (Pluralsight authors) bring in some of the best minds in tech to hear how tech leaders are solving business challenges and their takes on what’s next.
The title of the episode is: “Pluralsight Expert Access: Andrew Shafer on platform engineering as an evolution, not a replacement“. In this episode, I interview Andrew, as he gives his take on what Platform Engineering is, what organizations are chasing to enable developers, and what’s keeping organizations from long-term success when it comes to their DevOps practices. In the discussion we tackle these questions and more:
Is Platform Engineering a result of failed DevOps efforts in organizations? Is it just a Service Catalog with the twist of it being geared towards devs?
Platforms are not a new concept in the software world. In one of your tweets, there is an interesting line “Continuous Delivery without a platform is malpractice.“ Is this highlighting that organizations have been doing DevOps without platforms? Can you break down this line for us? It seems like there may be a story behind this?
Some people may equate Platform Engineering to having an Internal Developer Platform, is this the core of PE or are there other technologies that are also core to it?
Watch the episode for more insights on the importance of changing practices–not just words–for achieving sustainable progress and seeing Platform Engineering as a holistic approach to DevOps and delivery.
Many organizations have embraced DevOps and adopted technologies like Kubernetes, cloud computing, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or Pulumi. Despite these efforts, they often face challenges in delivering on the promises of DevOps and cloud-native. Platform engineering has emerged as the next step in the evolution, breaking down barriers and empowering developers to bring software to the market faster and more efficiently.
Recently I have been working on content to help educate and share my knowledge in this space. I am happy to announce two new pieces of content on Platform Engineering including a new course and a new blog.
Course: Platform Engineering: The Big Picture
Last week my 22nd course was published on Pluralsight! I am really excited about this course because it covers something that has been really hot in tech lately. It is about Platform Engineering. Platform Engineering has emerged as the next step in the evolution, breaking down barriers and empowering teams. Being someone that works with Kubernetes and cloud native this course was right up my alley because I work directly in this space.
The course is titled “Platform Engineering: The Big Picture“. This course will help you explore platform engineering and discover how it can elevate cloud-native development, making developers’ lives easier while achieving new heights in software delivery. Platform Engineering unifies and centralizes toolchains & workflows for self-service making developers’ lives easier while achieving new heights in software delivery.
In this course, you will gain an understanding about Platform Engineering, its benefits, architecture, tooling, workflow and how to adopt it.
Some of the major topics covered in the course include:
A Platform Engineering overview and why it’s needed, how Platforms enhance DevOps and streamline cloud native.
A comparison of DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineering.
You will learn about Platform Engineering Architecture, its tooling landscape, and Internal Developer Platforms.
Check out the “Platform Engineering: The Big Picture“ course here:
I hope you find value in this new Platform Engineering course. Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release new courses!
Here is the link to my Pluralsight profile to follow me:
Blog: 8 tools every platform engineer should know about
I am also excited to announce my second Platform Engineering-related blog post on Pluralsight. This one is titled: “8 tools every platform engineer should know about”. In Platform Engineering there are a lot of tools that can make up a platform. It can be confusing and hard to know what tools to focus on in the Platform Engineering space. In this blog post, I list 8 tools that are a must-know when you are in the Platform Engineering space.
I am excited to announce my second ever blog on Pluralsight.com. This blog is about Platform Engineering. In this post I break down what platform engineering is, the business problems it solves, and how to know if your organization is ready to roll it out yet.
In the blog post, we explore why there is so much hype around platform engineering, if Platform Engineering is a replacement for DevOps, how Internal Developer Platforms help resolve the infrastructure gaps, and more. Be sure to check it out!
This week my 21st course published. In this course I take you on a journey to build a web app in JavaScript. JavaScript is the top web programming language today with 12+ million active developers and 97% of all websites using it. It is a great language used to build dynamic and interactive web apps given its flexibility, frameworks, and modules.
JavaScript is a must-have skill in your toolbelt when building web apps. In this course, Building a Web Application with JavaScript, you’ll learn to build a dynamic and interactive web app.
First, you’ll plan and set up your web app project. Next, you’ll discover how to build the layout, style, and CRUD for your app with HTML and CSS. Finally, you’ll learn how to code your app’s dynamic functionality in JavaScript and publish the app when done.
When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge for planning, building, styling, and publishing a web app in JavaScript needed to go from an idea to a fully functioning web app in JavaScript.
Check out the “Building a Web Application with JavaScript“ course here:
Hey everyone, today I’m super excited to tell you about a recent episode of Azure Friday that I was lucky enough to be a guest on.
Azure Friday is a weekly video series hosted by the legendary Scott Hanselman, where he interviews experts and developers on various Azure-related topics. In this episode, we talked about Automated Deployments for AKS, a new feature that makes it super easy to deploy your apps to Azure Kubernetes Service.
If you’re not familiar with AKS, it’s a managed Kubernetes service that lets you run containerized applications on Azure without having to worry about the complexity of managing the cluster. It’s a great way to scale your apps and take advantage of the benefits of Kubernetes, such as high availability, load balancing, and service discovery.
But what if you’re not familiar with containers or Kubernetes? What if you just have some code in a GitHub repo and you want to run it on AKS? That’s where Automated Deployments for AKS come in. It’s a feature that simplifies the Kubernetes development process by taking care of the tedious work of containerization for you. It uses a tool called Draft, which automatically detects the language and framework of your app, creates a Dockerfile and a Helm chart for you, builds and pushes the image to Azure Container Registry, and deploys the app to AKS. All with just a few clicks in the Azure Portal.
Sounds amazing, right? Well, that’s what I wanted to show Scott in this episode. I had an app hosted in a GitHub repo that I wanted to run on AKS. The app was a simple web app that displayed some data from a database. I had already created a few resources in Azure, such as a resource group, an Azure Container Registry, and an AKS cluster. All I needed to do was use Automated Deployments for AKS to get this app from code to running on a cluster.
So how did it go? Well, you’ll have to watch the episode to find out. But spoiler alert: it was super easy and fast. In just a few commands, I went from code to an app running on AKS. Scott was impressed and so was I. We had a great time chatting about how Automated Deployments for AKS works under the hood, some of the benefits and limitations of using it, and how it can help developers get started with containers and Kubernetes.
With Automated Deployments, Microsoft is opening up new avenues for developers to embrace the power of containers and AKS, enabling them to effortlessly build scalable and robust applications.
If you’re interested in learning more about Automated Deployments for AKS, you can check out the documentation here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/automated-deployments. It’s available today in public preview, so you can try it out for yourself and see how easy it is to run your apps on AKS.
That’s all for today. I hope you enjoy this episode of Azure Friday as much as I did. It was an honor and a pleasure to be a guest on Scott’s show and talk about one of my favorite topics: Azure Kubernetes Service. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment or reach out to me on Twitter at @Buchatech. Thanks for reading and happy coding!
