DevOps is not only a culture - Discussion Panel

Today is my second session JobStack 2023 after my previous one yesterday titled "Platform Engineering: Manage your infrastructure using Kubernetes and Crossplane", but this time it was a discussion panel with Ahmad Aabed (CTO of Zyda).

For a long time, DevOps methodologies have been the driving force behind innovation and efficiency in modern software development. You've likely encountered the popular jargon: "DevOps is not a role; it is a culture"! However, the truth is that DevOps has much more!

This session dives deep into the pillars world of DevOps, going beyond the cultural aspect to explore practices, technology stacks, mindset, and more. This is an open discussion where we will share (and encourage you to do so) the experiences of implementing DevOps. In other words, what practical steps have you taken to embrace the power of DevOps in your organization?

A shot from the recoding

At the end, I'd like to share a couple of posts I wrote before in that regard (DevOps methodologies in action):

• DevOps is not just a culture and it is also a role!: The elements of DevOps methodologies and how they could be applied differently.
• Your company doesn't need a hero but a team!: What are heroism signs in companies and how to fix that?
• J-Curve and change management: How applying DevOps needs change and project management skills.
• Let your team evolve!: Why so many people don't evolve appropriately in their career?
• The Road to Cut Production Incidents by 67% and Reduce Downtime to Zero: I used that as a particular example in the discussion.

Enjoy :-)

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Platform Engineering: Manage your infrastructure using Kubernetes and Crossplane - Presentation

Just fresh out of the kitchen, part of JobStack 2023, today I conducted a session about a great tool ... Crossplane, the open-source control plane!

I've been using Crossplane for over a year and a half, and it helped me a lot to manage my infrastructure without the need to use Terraform (I still love Terraform, but it wasn't the best for my use case).

In this session I shed the light on how Crossplane could unify infrastructure management within Kubernetes.

I gave a brief how Crossplane extends the functionality of Kubernetes and allows you to create external infrastructure. You can create Cloud resources the same way you create Kubernetes resources! I really love its declarative, cloud-native, GitOps-friendly approach to code-driven infrastructure management.

Agenda:

1. Scenario
2. What is Crossplane?
3. How it look like?
4. Crossplane Concepts
5. How Crossplane Works
6. Pros and Cons
7. Conclusion
8. Resources
9. Questions

Note: For more resources, checkout this Awesome Crossplane list.

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The slides of Platform Engineering: Manage your infrastructure using Kubernetes and Crossplane by Ahmed AbouZaid

A shot from the recoding 🙌
Watch the full session on YouTube: Platform Engineering: Manage your infrastructure using Kubernetes and Crossplane (Arabic)

Conclusion:

Crossplane is a great framework for managing infrastructure using the Kubernetes style and benefits from the that ecosystem (ArgoCD, Helm, Kustomize, etc.).

There are many use cases where it can perfectly fit in already. And at the time of writing these words (November 2023), the Marketplace has numerous enterprise and community providers configurations. Also, Composition Functions graduated to beta.

However, it's a relatively new ecosystem and still evolving, so it might not be the optimal solution for every workload. But it's probably a matter of time to grow more. So, if it's not your fit now, consider revisiting in the future.

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That's it, enjoy :-)

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Kubernetes Security Best Practices with tips for the CKS exam - Presentation

At the end of last year (2021), and after a couple of years of Kubernetes production hands-on, I found that it was time to dive more into Kubernetes security, and after a lot of reading and practising, I got my CKS certificate. Also, for the last 3 quarters, security was one of the focus areas in my team, and I was taking care of it.

For that reason, I decided to consolidate that into a session which is a combination of Kubernetes Security Best Practices and tips for the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) exam to share the knowledge in my team as well across teams.

The session is just 15 Min in total. The first 6 Min are for everyone and the rest for Kubernetes specialists or anyone who wants to dive more into Kubernetes security topics. If you are just interested in the tools, then jump to section #5 Kubernetes Security Starter Kit. If you are just interested in the CKS exam tips, then jump to section #6 CKS Exam Overview and Tips.

Agenda:

1. Introduction
2. Shift-left and DevSecOps
3. General Security Concepts
4. The 4C's of Cloud Native Security
5. Kubernetes Security Starter Kit
6. CKS Exam Overview and Tips

Note: If you want more details about CKS, checkout my previous post for more info Now I'm a Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist + exam tips.

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The slides of Kubernetes Security Best Practices session by Ahmed AbouZaid

The recording of Kubernetes Security Best Practices session

Overview:

A dive into Kubernetes Security Best Practices and tips for the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) exam.

The 1-3 sections are for everyone and will cover the container era's security. So it doesn't matter your title or background; they are a good start for anyone.

The 4-6 sections will dive more into Kubernetes security, so DevOps engineers and SREs will probably find that more interesting. But in general, anyone interested in Kubernetes security is more than welcome.

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That's it, enjoy :-)

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Moderating DevOps circle at JobStack 2022

Last Satruday (18.06.2022), I had a great chance to moderate and participate the DevOps circle in JobStack 2022 by Talents Arena. JobStack is the biggest virtual tech job fair in the region (MENA) and this was the 4rd edition.

With Hussein El-Sayed (Software engineer III at AWS) and Mohamed Radwan (Sr. Cloud Architect at T-Systems) ... we answered many different questions about DevOps. The circle or the AMA session was heavily based on a previous collaborative session between us in 2022 (DevOps! What, Why, and How? - Arabic)

The whole event was great and had a lot of fruitful sessions and discussions.

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Docker Best Practices Workshop - Presentation

Well, this is the 3rd post in the same month, I didn't do that for a long time! But Q3 2021 has been super productive and many things have been done.

Yesterday, as part of the knowledge share and developer enablement at Camunda, I delivered a Docker Best Practices Workshop which was available for the whole engineering division at Camunda.

What I really liked about this workshop, that everyone told me that they learned something new, even though they have been working with Docker for a pretty long time!

If I have a single piece of advice

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Participating in DevOps circle at JobStack 2021

Last Saturday (28.08.2021), I had a great chance to participate in JobStack 2021 by Talents Arena. JobStack is the Biggest virtual tech job fair in the region (MENA) and this was the 3rd edition.

Last year I also had a session titled DevOps for Engineers but

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Kubernetes Requests and Limits - Presentation

2 weeks ago, as a DevOps engineer and part of the knowledge share and developer enablement at Camunda, I made across teams TechTalk about Kubernetes requests and limits, aka how to manage containers resources in Kubernetes.

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DevOps for Engineers - Presentation

Yesterday, I presented at Talents Arena's virtual tech job fair which was a great event and a result of hard work!

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Introduction to Kubernetes Operators - Presentation

Well, usually I post my talk presentation when it's done. But due to the current situation with Coronavirus all meetups have been canceled (the talk is meant to be held in

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How contributing to Open-source made me a better DevOps - Presentation

Last week, I had a nice session where I talked about how participating in Open-source made me a better DevOps. Which actually started not just as a professional system engineer, but

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Developing Ansible Dynamic Inventory Script - Presentation

Last month in Ansible Berlin meetup, I had a session about my experience with writing an external inventory script from scratch for Netbox

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Introduction to InfluxDB and TICK Stack - Presentation

Last week in CrossEngage Academy we had another session. This time it was by me, about my favorite stack so far (after using it for 2 years it's still!), InfluxDB and TICK Stack!

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Getting Started with Ansible - Presentation

If you looked at the sidebar of this blog, you will find I introduce myself as linux system engineer who is too lazy to do anything manually :D

I have no problem to digging and troubleshooting an issue for hours, or dealing with new technology from zero, but

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