Recovering from a failed AWS Tape Gateway

If you deploy an AWS tape gateway that encounters an unrecoverable failure, you can "potentially" recover any virtual tape data that has already been uploaded to AWS to another tape gateway.  I say "potentially" because I have experienced the corruption of (1) virtual tape; this could happen if your tape gateway experiences its fatal failure … Continue reading Recovering from a failed AWS Tape Gateway

AWS – Converting EC2 from an On-Demand to Reserved Instance

I could be dead wrong, but I imagine that many customers begin their AWS journey using on-demand instances in order to "test the water" to avoid making rash long-term commitment.  Now let's assume the initial testing of an organizations application(s) in AWS is successful and the organization is ready to go "all in" the cloud, … Continue reading AWS – Converting EC2 from an On-Demand to Reserved Instance

Did you manually delete a resource created by AWS CloudFormation?

"There's no compression algorithm for experience.  You can't learn certain lessons without going through the curve." Andy Jassy, CEO AWS There's no substitute for experience, I'm sure this is a lesson we've all learned many times.  I had a refresher course in this recently while trying to further refine a CloudFormation template I've been working … Continue reading Did you manually delete a resource created by AWS CloudFormation?

AWS re:Invent Notes: GPSTEC319 — GPS: Build Once, Deploy Many: Architecting Deployments CloudFormation

Here are some raw notes from GPSTEC319  --  GPS: Build Once, Deploy Many: Architecting and Building Automated, Reusable Reference Deployments with AWS CloudFormation what they learned from building over 50 reference deployments by automating deployments, we can reduce human error A day in the life of IT (stages) discover solutions to a business problem (partner, vendor, … Continue reading AWS re:Invent Notes: GPSTEC319 — GPS: Build Once, Deploy Many: Architecting Deployments CloudFormation

Setup #AWS Inter-Region VPC Peering

Last week, AWS announced support for Inter-Region VPC Peering: Amazon EC2 now allows peering relationships to be established between Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) across different AWS regions. Inter-Region VPC Peering allows VPC resources like EC2 instances, RDS databases and Lambda functions running in different AWS regions to communicate with each other using private IP addresses, … Continue reading Setup #AWS Inter-Region VPC Peering

AWS re:Invent Notes: GPSTEC302 — GPS: Anti-Patterns: Learning from Failure

I must be getting tired.  Honestly, I thought posting my session notes would be a pretty straightforward task but because I love documentation so much, I've made it harder than it needs to be.  My note taking problem is that I try to jot down everything as opposed to what may ultimately matter.  Anyway, on … Continue reading AWS re:Invent Notes: GPSTEC302 — GPS: Anti-Patterns: Learning from Failure

AWS re:Invent Notes: GPSTEC321 — GPS: VMware on AWS Cloud Technical Deep Dive & Native AWS Services Integration

As you might guess, there was a lot of interest in this topic as the session was filled to capacity.  At a high-level, VMware on AWS architecture was reviewed along with how to use native AWS services with VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) workloads with the goal that those attending would walk away with practical … Continue reading AWS re:Invent Notes: GPSTEC321 — GPS: VMware on AWS Cloud Technical Deep Dive & Native AWS Services Integration

AWS re:Invent Notes: SID331 — Architecting Security and Governance Across a Multi-Account Strategy

Here's a couple interesting fun facts in the form of numbers from yesterday (11/27), 6.46 and 0.  Going to and from the various sessions, I walked 6.46 miles yesterday and I had 0 desserts.  0 desserts!  I had a dessert Sunday night, a good one called "The cookie jar".  The cookie jar was a big, … Continue reading AWS re:Invent Notes: SID331 — Architecting Security and Governance Across a Multi-Account Strategy

AWS re:Invent Notes: FSV301 — Security Anti-Patterns: Mistakes to Avoid

Before you read any further, I want to make it clear once again, that these are my notes from the AWS re:Invent sessions I'm attending.  I certainly want these to be helpful and informative, I hope they fuel your desire to learn more about AWS, I just don't want you to take them "as gospel … Continue reading AWS re:Invent Notes: FSV301 — Security Anti-Patterns: Mistakes to Avoid