I have been attended DevOpsDays Minneapolis for 4 years. Its always a great event with rockstar speakers and great content. I also always meet some great folks in the DevOps space.
This year I will be speaking at DevOpsDays Minneapolis! This is a huge honor for me as I have a lot of respect for the event organizers and its always world-class event! I will be speaking about Kubernetes and GitOps. My session can be found here: https://devopsdays.org/events/2021-minneapolis/speakers/steve-buchanan
The event is July 20th-21st. It will be a hybrid event (in-person & virtual). I will be speaking in person on the 20th.
Here is my session info:
GitOps and Kubernetes: a Winning Combo
GitOps is an emerging pattern for cloud-native applications. This operating model simplifies Kubernetes ops while simultaneously improving the developer experience. GitOps enables continuous delivery of configuration updates and application deployments to Kubernetes.
Through the lens of GitHub, Argo CD, and Azure Kubernetes Service, we’ll explore use cases and benefits, principles and practices, architecture and tooling, and what GitOps changes in our day-to-day.
Today I delivered my session on GitOps and Kubernetes: a Winning Combo. This was my first in-person event since the pandemic in the US started. I went on stage right after Ian Coldwater gave the keynote. Ian had an amazing keynote talking about community, how the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd impacted Minneapolis last year along with how the community came together. I presented to a crowd of a few hundred as well as another couple hundred online.
The online reach of this event was amazing. I even received a message that my session was watched by some folks in Japan!
In my session, we went on a journey through how companies should focus on being software businesses moving to digital, how the pandemic accelerated companies and consumers going digital as well as companies using Kubernetes and GitOps as a way to help power digital transformation.
The conference organizers did a great job pulling off another excellent event while ensuring everyone followed safety guidelines.
I was recently a guest on Microsoft’s Azure Arc Jumpstart Lighting show. In the episode of Jumpstart Lightning, I shared with Lior my thoughts around Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, industry trends, GitOps, and my new Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Getting Started course on Pluralsight.
Today Pluralsight published 1 of 2 Azure Arc courses I am building. This marks my 10th course on Pluralsight! This first course is Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes: Getting Started. Azure Arc is a key service in the Azure story extending Azure to the on-premises data center and or multiple clouds outside of Azure.
This course is just under 2 hours and packed full of information & demos to help you get started with the topic. I go into a deeper understanding of the multi-cloud market, Kubernetes in the enterprise, and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes. Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes architecture. Setting up and using Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes. And using GitOps with Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes.
I am excited about releasing this course for several reasons: #1 Azure Arc is a newer technology from Microsoft and I am happy to share my knowledge about it, #2 This one is a combination of Azure Arc, Kubernetes, & GitOps all technologies I have been working with regularly, #3 Azure is growing, Kubernetes is growing, and multi-cloud is growing all in the enterprise and this course covers all three of these.
Here is the description of the course:
Managing Kubernetes clusters across on-premises and multiple clouds can be disjointed and overly complicated. In this course, Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes: Getting Started, you’ll learn to how to manage external Kubernetes clusters with Azure Arc. First, you’ll explore what Azure Arc k8s is and how to use it. Next, you’ll discover the features of Azure Arc K8s and how to use them. Finally, you’ll learn how to how to use Azure Arc K8s and GitOps to deploy applications. When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge of Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes needed to manage Kubernetes clusters across on-premises and multiple clouds.
Here are the areas and topics of the course:
Understanding Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes
Intro and Topics
Understanding Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes
Understanding Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes Use Cases
This course is also a part of the all new Azure Arc path titled “Managing Environments with Azure Arc” on Pluralsight. There are other courses in the path already such as Azure Arc: The Big Picture, Azure Arc-enabled Data Services: The Big Picture, and Azure Arc and Azure Lighthouse: First Look and many more Azure Arc courses on the way.
I hope you find value in this new Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes: Getting Started course. Be sure to follow my profile on Pluralsight so you will be notified as I release new courses including my second Azure Arc related course!
I was recently a guest on New Relic‘s Developer Relations team podcast “Observy McObservface” with Jonan Scheffler.
Jonan Scheffler and I talk about Microsoft’s Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Linux on Azure, how Microsoft’s been successful at working in enterprise and open source, where I believe GitOps & Kubernetes is eventually going to go, and my excitement in regards to AI and blockchain as well as how they’re going to impact the world. You can listen to the podcast and read the article links below.
After 6 books with many authors from Packt, APress, & Sams/Pearson I finally had the chance to author a book with O’Reilly. This is an ebook so it can be found and read on the O’Reilly online platform.
It is a great platform that I use personally for my own learning. On their platform, you can find ebooks, books across many publishers (most of my books are on there), video training, and even live training.
This book brings together 4 exciting technologies/topics including Azure, Kubernetes, GitOps, and multi-cloud. The book is shorter than my typical books since it is an ebook. It is only 35 pages and is designed for fast & easy consumption to get an overview of the technology and get an early start.
In this book, we take a journey into one of Microsoft’s newest cloud services Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes (Arc K8s). We explore what Azure Arc K8s is, how it extends the Azure control plane to Kubernetes clusters to manage, secure, and govern them, as well as how GitOps sits are the core of application deployment to Kubernetes clusters and a driver of consistent configuration management for Kubernetes clusters.
Azure Arc is a Microsoft product that promises to extend the Azure control plane for Kubernetes across multiple clouds and on-premises, but how does it do this? In this ebook we will dissect Azure Arc K8s and how it becomes a secret weapon for managing Kubernetes clusters across on-premises, multiple clouds, and regardless of your own rolled Kubernetes clusters or managed services based Kubernetes clusters such as GKE, EKS, etc. I also want to give a shout-out to Michael Levan for reviewing this ebook!
Key Areas from the ebook include:
-Understand the new management challenges that multicloud brings -Learn how Azure Arc drives consistent governance, security, and management across multicloud -Gain valuable insights into Microsoft’s Azure ARM control plane for Kubernetes -Learn how Azure Arc manages Kubernetes clusters across on-premises and multiple cloud deployments -Explore the GitOps technology pattern and operating model for cloud native applications and Kubernetes -Use Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes and GitOps to deploy configurations and applications to Kubernetes clusters
I will be speaking at the LASU TechX conference on Friday. I will be talking about the “Available Container Technologies in Azure”. I will go into what containers are, how they compare to VM’s, types of containers, things to consider before containerizing applications, what container service in Azure to use in what case, and more.
About The Event:
LASU TechX conference is an event that is aimed at attracting students and all tech enthusiasts within and outside the university (Lagos State University). This event is co-organized by Kazeem Adegboyega.
Speakers include:
Microsoft MVP – Samuel Erskine Microsoft MVP – Isidora Kitanic Chris Hoard Microsoft MVP – Adnan Hendricks Microsoft Employee – Holly Lehman Microsoft MVP – Steve Buchanan Ayodeji Folarin
Here is a flyer for the event:
For more details on the event and to register go here:
There is another wave coming. This wave is GitOps. GitOps is a technology pattern and operational framework. It is often used for Kubernetes however is really for cloud-native applications in general. Being that a large amount of cloud-native applications these days are designed and built to run on Kubernetes it is no surprise that GitOps is commonly adopted in Kubernetes environments. If you are running Kubernetes or looking at it chances are you may have heard of GitOps. This is how I define GitOps:
“GitOps is an operating model pattern for cloud native applications storing application & declarative infrastructure code in Git as the source of truth used for automated continuous delivery.”
Well, that sums up with GitOps is but it still is a mouthful and can take a bit to wrap ones head around it. In a nutshell GitOps is shifting everything to code, storing everything in Git, making Git the source of truth, and using an operator deploy what is described in Git in your environment including the application and the configuration. With GitOps you describe the desired state of your entire system and GitOps makes it so. It simplifies operations and makes the experience for developers much better allowing them to work out of a tool they are familiar with (Git). Here is a basic sample diagram to give you a visual idea about what GitOps is and how it works:
So in the case of Kubernetes you would have your app code in Git, your container images in Git, and your Kubernetes manifest files. Now there is more to it and how it works but we will not get into all of that in this blog post. This is a good Segway to purpose of this blog post.
The purpose of this blog post is that I just dropped my 7th Pluralsight course GitOps: The Big Picture! This was a fun course to build as I am passionate about and like working with Containers, Kubernetes, and cloud.
A quick shoutout to both Fellow Microsoft MVP/Pluralsight Author Tim Warner and Jason Alba for amplifying my new course!
This course teaches the fundamentals of GitOps, the need for GitOps, GitOps architecture, GitOps workflow, GitOps principles, practices, & tooling such as Flux, Argo CD, AND Jenkins X. Also in this course, GitOps: The Big Picture, you’ll learn what it takes to adopt GitOps. First, you’ll explore what GitOps is and its benefits. Next, you’ll discover GitOps Tooling NS Architecture. Finally, you’ll learn how to use GitOps Workflows. When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills & knowledge of the GitOps framework needed to take the next steps with GitOps.
In the course I give a couple of demos so you can see GitOps in action. The first demo is on “deploying an application using Argo CD” and the second demo is on “GitOps in Action with Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes using Flux”. Another interesting fact about GitOps is we are starting to see the major cloud providers bring GitOps into their offerings such as Azure Arc and or couple GitOps with their services like with GCP GKE as well as create content on using GitOps with their managed Kubernetes services like with AWS EKS.
GitOps is going to continue to grow right along with the continued growth of Containers, Kubernetes, and Cloud. I am all in and you will see blogs, books, courses, speaking at events, and more from me around GitOps as I continue on my personal journey with it.
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 on topics around Azure, GitOps, SAP on Azure, & Kubernetes courses soon!
2020 was an extraordinarily tough year with many downs for so many people all over the world. For me losing 3 people in a week and a half (not to COVID) along with all the funerals to follow was rough. Also, the injustice in my home city with the murder of George Floyd and unrest was unbelievable but not a surprise with injustice going un-noticed for so long. It was amazing to see the world wake up and acknowledge what has been happening for so long.
In spite of all of the bad stuff from 2020, there was a tremendous amount of good stuff happening and progress. I believe there is always an opportunity in the middle of chaos. To see the opportunity it is needed to take a step back, slow down, and analyze the board. In this post, I am going to recap the positives from this year as I have done in the past few years.
Let me start off with the fact that I was renewed for my 9th year as a Microsoft MVP! I was re-awarded in the Azure category for the 3rd year. I never take the Microsoft MVP award for granted as it is never guaranteed. I am honored to once again be among such a talented group of people across the globe!
The next thing I want to call out is a message I received from someone from my home city after listening to one of the podcasts I was featured on. In this message this upcoming tech star talked about how he was inspired by the episode and how he can relate to me. This message was inspiring to me as this is a huge part of what I want to do through sharing my story. I hope to see more of it in the future. Here is the message:
Ok, now lets get into the list of activity from 2020!
-Podcasts-
In 2020 I was honored to be featured on 7 podcasts! Some of the podcasts in the US, Europe, and Africa! Here are the podcasts:
Guest on “Lisa at the Edge” Podcast EP13: In the podcast episode Lisa and I talked about: Evolving your career as technology evolves, Transformation of IT dept to Strategic Business Partner, DevOps, Containers 101, Azure Kubernetes Service, Diversity in tech. Episode link here
Was a guest on Tech Talk Wednesday podcast and radio show with Kazeem Adegboyega Topic: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) in 30 minutes. Streamed online via Microsoft Teams and aired in Lagos, Nigeria on Lagos State University (LASU) radio (95.7).
Guest on Headinthecloud Heartinthecommunity a community show by Isidora Katanic and Holly Lehman.
-Pluralsight Courses-
In 2020 I developed 5 new courses for Pluralsight bringing the total to 6! This is an opportunity to continue sharing my knowledge with the world through Pluralsight’s global platform. You can find my Pluralsight Author page here:
One more highlight from my journey with Pluralsight in 2020 is that my AZ-900 course broke into the top 100 courses on Pluralsight! This actually stayed here for multiple months!
I am excited about the potential with Pluralsight for 2021!
-Speaking-
In 2020 I presented at some conferences and user groups. Here is where I presented in 2020:
Inside Azure Management event conference
I was a speaker during the “Inside Azure Management Summit” on 7/23/2020. This was a free community event. It featured Microsoft cloud experts from the authoring team of “Inside Azure Management” book, Microsoft MVP’s, and community experts from around the world. I presented on Azure Policy! My session can be watched here:
I was one of the experts in several Ask the Expert sessions during Microsoft Ignite 2020! Sessions included PowerShell on Azure, Kubernetes on Azure, and Azure Migrations.
I was featured on AzureCrazy.com in an article! In the Interview we discuss being a #Microsoft MVP, getting certified in #Azure, the positive impact #PowerShell can have on your #ITCareer, getting started with #AKS, #AzureStackHub & more. Check it out here:
I also spent time writing blogs, volunteering with some youth tech programs, as well as shared a couple of scripts on GitHub! Here are some posts about some of these:
2020 was a full year. I already have plans and stuff in the works to make 2021 an exciting year continuing with a focus on Azure, Containers, Kubernetes, IaC, Terraform, GitOps, and more! Please check back here often for new blogs, scripts, and more.
I am excited to announce that I am one of the experts in several Ask the Expert sessions during Microsoft Ignite 2020 this week.
I will be a part of a variety of sessions with topics ranging from Linux and PowerShell on Azure, Kubernetes on Azure, Azure Migration, and Transforming Windows Server workloads in Azure.
Here is the link to the Ignite home page myignite.microsoft.com. I hope to see you on the digital Ignite event and in one of the Ask the Expert Sessions!
Update 9/30/2020
Being a part of several Ask the Expert sessions was really fun! My most memorable session was the Ask the Expert: Linux and PowerShell on Azure session.
This session was packed full of superstars from Microsoft product groups and fellow MVPs including; Jeffery Snover, Jason Helmick, Janaka Rangama, and Alexander Nikolić. Here is a screenshot from the session:
After the session, I tweeted about the session and shared some wisdom about PowerShell, and both Jeffery Snover and Jason Helmick retweet my tweet!
2020 is not all bad. It’s pretty cool when the inventor of PowerShell and the PowerShell Program Manager retweet you!
Today I went on “Tech Talk Wednesday” a podcast and radio show with Kazeem Adegboyega The topic was “30 Minutes of Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)“. It streamed online via Microsoft Teams and aired in Lagos, Nigeria on Lagos State University (LASU) radio (95.7).
I had a great time talking with Kazeem! Even Sam Erskine made a guest appearance. If you missed the live show you can watch it on YouTube:
