My Writing

Dive into my musings on life and tech in my latest posts; a blend of introspection and innovation. Keep an eye out for fresh insights and updates!

Showing 45 of 45 posts

Building a Homelab: Choosing the Right Hardware

My journey choosing efficient, affordable hardware for a production-grade homelab. Learn how I built a 3-node cluster with mini PCs that's powerful enough for Kubernetes, Proxmox, and learning DevOps, while staying quiet and energy-efficient.

Hardware & System Design Posted on November 17, 2025

How I Built My Mini ITX Dream Machine

A personal story about building a compact yet powerful Mini ITX workstation, covering challenges, troubleshooting, and the decision-making behind each component.

Hardware & System Design Posted on November 12, 2025

My Experience Testing Gemini CLI (And How It Compares to Claude Code)

I spent a few days testing Google's Gemini CLI alongside Claude Code. Here's what I learned about their differences in practice, from context handling to code generation quality.

AI Development Tools Posted on November 7, 2025

How I Built a Distributed Training Platform on Kubernetes with Ray

Learn how to build a distributed training platform on Kubernetes using Ray. This guide covers efficient ML model development, robust autoscaling, and significant cost optimization strategies.

Machine Learning & MLOps Posted on March 15, 2025

How I Built a Distributed ML Pipeline to Cut Training Time by 44%

A case study on building a distributed ML training pipeline that reduced training time by 44%. This article details using Kubernetes, GKE, and Ray for a real-time 3D scene reconstruction system.

Machine Learning & MLOps Posted on January 1, 2025

How I Built an AI-Powered Drowning Detection System

A personal story of designing and building an AI-powered drowning detection system. This project details an AI-assisted sensor system for residential pool safety, featuring low-latency alerts and intelligent, family-aware policies.

Machine Learning & MLOps Posted on January 1, 2025

How I Implemented GitOps with ArgoCD to Manage Hundreds of Applications

A comprehensive guide to implementing a scalable GitOps workflow using ArgoCD. This article details managing hundreds of applications across multiple Kubernetes clusters, ensuring consistency and automation.

CI/CD & GitOps Posted on June 17, 2024

Zero Certificate Expiry Incidents with My cert-manager Playbook for Kubernetes

A complete guide to mastering TLS certificate management in Kubernetes with cert-manager. This playbook covers automated rotation, robust monitoring strategies, and techniques to eliminate certificate expiry incidents.

Security Posted on May 21, 2024

A Step-by-Step Guide to Installing Apache Guacamole for Clientless Remote Access

A comprehensive, step-by-step guide to installing Apache Guacamole. This article details setting up a clientless remote desktop gateway for seamless browser-based access to VNC, RDP, and SSH connections.

Infrastructure Posted on April 20, 2024

My DevOps Pocket Guide Quick-Starts for GitLab, DNS, and More

A personal collection of battle-tested quick-start guides for essential DevOps tasks. This article covers upgrading GitLab, securely backing up DNS servers, and integrating monitoring alerts with Slack.

DevOps Posted on April 15, 2024

My Guide to GKE Cluster Operations Provisioning, Shared VPC, and Upgrades

A complete guide to GKE cluster operations, covering provisioning with Hub & Spoke networking and Shared VPC. This article details managing API deprecations and performing zero-downtime cluster upgrades.

Kubernetes Posted on April 8, 2024

Zero-Downtime Releases with My Blue-Green Deployment Playbook Using Traefik

Explore a blue-green deployment strategy for zero-downtime releases. This playbook outlines how to implement instant traffic switching between application versions using Traefik's weighted routing, ensuring safe and seamless deployments.

Kubernetes Posted on March 18, 2024

Deploy with Confidence Using My Automated Canary Releases with Flagger and Traefik

Achieve confident, low-risk deployments with automated canary releases. This guide details implementing progressive delivery and automated canary analysis using Flagger, Traefik Proxy, and Prometheus metrics.

Kubernetes Posted on March 5, 2024

My GitOps Workflow Automated CD for Kubernetes with Flux2 and GitLab

A guide to implementing a GitOps workflow for Kubernetes with Flux2 and GitLab. This article details building a robust continuous deployment pipeline with automated image updates for managing applications at scale.

Kubernetes Posted on February 28, 2024

How I Build Resilient Services with Traefik Circuit Breakers and Rate Limiting

A guide to building resilient services using Traefik circuit breakers and rate limiting. This article details implementing resilience patterns with Traefik Proxy middleware in Kubernetes.

Kubernetes Posted on February 16, 2024

How I Automated Kubernetes Secret Sync with Vault CRD

A guide to automating Kubernetes secret synchronization with Vault CRD. This article details syncing secrets from HashiCorp Vault to Kubernetes using the Vault CRD and Kubernetes authentication.

Kubernetes Posted on February 8, 2024

My Guide to Autoscaling MuleSoft Runtime Fabric on Kubernetes

A comprehensive guide to deploying and autoscaling MuleSoft Runtime Fabric on Kubernetes. Learn to set up multiple environments and implement HorizontalPodAutoscalers for native autoscaling of Mule applications.

Kubernetes Posted on February 1, 2024

My Vault Operations Playbook Policies, Secrets, and Users in Kubernetes

A complete guide to managing Vault policies, creating secrets, and configuring user access for day-to-day operations in Kubernetes. This playbook covers essential aspects of a secure secrets infrastructure.

Kubernetes Posted on January 25, 2024

How I Set Up Vault with GCP KMS Auto-Unseal in Kubernetes

A guide to deploying a highly available Vault cluster in Kubernetes. This article covers using Raft storage and automated unsealing with Google Cloud KMS for enhanced resilience and operational ease.

Kubernetes Posted on January 20, 2024

Never Manually Unseal Vault Again My GCP KMS Setup Guide

A comprehensive guide to setting up Google Cloud KMS for HashiCorp Vault's auto-unseal feature. This article details creating key rings, encryption keys, and service accounts to eliminate manual unsealing.

Cloud Posted on January 18, 2024

How I Securely Manage Kubernetes Dashboard Access with Tokens

A guide to securely managing Kubernetes Dashboard access with tokens. This article covers configuring role-based access control using custom service accounts and read-only permissions.

Kubernetes Posted on January 15, 2024

How I Use Google Cloud Run for Production Serverless Containers

A guide to using Google Cloud Run for production serverless containerized applications. This article covers robust autoscaling, secure VPC connectivity, and seamless CI/CD automation for efficient deployments.

Cloud Posted on January 15, 2024

A Case Study of a 6-Month Migration of 1,000+ Workloads from AKS to GKE

A detailed case study on migrating over 1,000 production workloads from Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). This article covers a complex, large-scale migration across five clusters, completed under budget and with minimal downtime.

Cloud Migration Posted on January 1, 2024

Before You Go Live: A Battle-Tested Kubernetes Production Readiness Checklist

A battle-tested checklist for Kubernetes production readiness. This guide details essential security, monitoring, and operational steps to ensure a smooth and reliable launch for any Kubernetes cluster.

Kubernetes Posted on December 1, 2023

How I Slashed CI/CD Pipeline Times from 45 to 8 Minutes

A personal story and practical strategies for dramatically reducing CI/CD pipeline execution time. This article details methods to cut pipeline times from 45 to 8 minutes while maintaining quality and reliability.

CI/CD & GitOps Posted on September 22, 2023

My Log Aggregation Bake-Off ELK vs Loki vs CloudWatch

Compare log aggregation strategies with a practical analysis of ELK, Grafana Loki, and AWS CloudWatch. This guide evaluates each system for scalability and cost-effectiveness, detailing the decision to use Loki for production.

Monitoring & Observability Posted on September 1, 2023

How I Migrated an 8.5TB Database from AWS to GCP with Zero Data Loss

A detailed account of migrating an 8.5TB production PostgreSQL database from AWS RDS to Google Cloud SQL. This article highlights using Striim for real-time CDC and Megaport for high-speed connectivity, achieving zero data loss and minimal downtime.

Cloud Migration Posted on August 10, 2023

How I Cut Our Kubernetes Costs by 60%

Learn battle-tested strategies to significantly reduce Kubernetes infrastructure costs. This article details methods to cut monthly bills by optimizing resource provisioning, utilizing spot instances, and automating cleanup processes.

Kubernetes Posted on August 1, 2023

How I Led a Cloud Migration That Cut Costs by 56% Annually

A detailed account of leading a transformative cloud migration project. This article covers moving over 40 legacy applications to Google Cloud Platform, resulting in a 56% reduction in annual operational costs and a fully automated CI/CD pipeline.

Cloud Migration Posted on June 20, 2023

Beyond 'terraform plan': A Guide to Unit, Integration, and Chaos Testing for Infrastructure

A comprehensive guide to infrastructure testing strategies, extending beyond 'terraform plan'. This article covers unit, integration, and chaos testing, compliance validation, and chaos engineering for production environments.

Testing Posted on May 20, 2023

Achieving 99.94% Uptime with a Blue-Green Deployment Strategy

A story of implementing a robust Blue-Green deployment strategy on Kubernetes. This article details reducing deployment downtime by 75% and achieving 99.94% uptime for a high-traffic platform.

Projects Posted on March 15, 2023

A Practical Guide to A/B Testing on Kubernetes with Traefik Mesh

Explore methods for A/B testing on Kubernetes using Traefik Mesh. This guide covers implementing header-based routing and leveraging the Service Mesh Interface (SMI) for controlled feature rollouts.

Kubernetes Posted on January 20, 2023

How I Built a Scalable E-Commerce Platform on Kubernetes with 99.99% Uptime

A case study on designing and deploying a fault-tolerant e-commerce platform on AWS EKS. This article details achieving 99.99% uptime through automated deployments and robust infrastructure as code practices.

Projects Posted on November 12, 2022

How I Migrated 159 Legacy VMs to GCP with Near-Zero Downtime

A detailed account of migrating 159 legacy virtual machines to Google Cloud Platform. This article showcases using Rackware CDC for near-zero downtime and minimal business disruption during the migration process.

Cloud Migration Posted on July 22, 2022

My Guide to Production-Ready Kafka on Kubernetes with Bitnami

A comprehensive guide to deploying a production-grade Apache Kafka cluster on Kubernetes using Bitnami's Helm chart. This article covers robust external access, persistence, and high availability configurations.

Kubernetes Posted on June 15, 2022

My Container Security Playbook From Build to Runtime

A comprehensive playbook for securing containers across their entire lifecycle, from build to runtime. This guide covers essential strategies for vulnerability scanning, image signing, and continuous runtime security monitoring.

Security Posted on April 30, 2022

My Service Mesh Bake-Off Istio vs Linkerd in Production

Explore a practical guide comparing Istio and Linkerd for microservices in production. This article details implementation, performance metrics, and lessons learned from real-world scenarios.

Networking Posted on April 10, 2022

My Terraform Playbook Best Practices from 50+ Cloud Environments

A battle-tested Terraform playbook for writing maintainable, scalable, and collaborative infrastructure as code. This article details best practices from over 50 cloud environments.

Infrastructure as Code Posted on March 8, 2022

My Prometheus Monitoring Playbook for Production Kubernetes

Explore a Prometheus monitoring playbook for production Kubernetes. This guide covers configurations, alerting rules, and best practices for robust and reliable cluster observability.

Monitoring & Observability Posted on November 5, 2021

My Disaster Recovery Playbook for Building Resilient Cloud Infrastructure

A proven disaster recovery playbook for building resilient cloud infrastructure. This guide details essential patterns, robust backup strategies, and comprehensive business continuity plans for cloud-native applications.

Disaster Recovery Posted on October 18, 2021

How I Reduced Our Docker Image Size by 90% with Multi-Stage Builds

A practical guide to crafting lean, production-ready Docker images. This article details multi-stage build techniques to reduce image size, dramatically improving deployment speed and security.

Containers Posted on April 12, 2021

My Take on Kubernetes Security Hardening

A comprehensive guide to production security hardening for Kubernetes. This article covers essential strategies including RBAC, network policies, pod security, and robust runtime security to protect clusters from threats.

Security Posted on March 1, 2021

How I Use PostgreSQL ACLs to Prevent Accidental Data Deletion

Implement a robust PostgreSQL ACL security model to prevent accidental data deletion. This guide outlines a two-user approach, separating admin and service accounts, and details Kubernetes initContainer implementation for secure database access.

Database Posted on October 12, 2020

My Cloud Networking Playbook for Building Secure and Scalable Architectures

An essential cloud networking playbook for building secure and scalable architectures. This guide covers core concepts, proven patterns, and best practices for high-performing multi-cloud environments.

Networking Posted on May 5, 2020

After Building Hundreds of Helm Charts, These Are the Rules I Live By

Discover essential patterns and battle-tested techniques for creating maintainable, secure, and scalable Helm charts. This guide provides best practices for production Kubernetes environments.

CI/CD & GitOps Posted on January 1, 2020
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