Amazon Lightsail offers an easy entry to AWS with instance hosting akin to Digital Ocean. A look at its features, costs, and potential limitations.

Thoughts on Amazon Lightsail

I am still catching up on all of the announcements from the AWS re:invent 2016, one of the ones I was interested in was Amazon Lightsail. I have always found Digital Ocean to be useful for launching instances, doing some test installations of XYZ and then terminating them. It makes perfect sense that Amazon would offer a service which allows you to consume resources in the same way Digital Ocean allow their users to, they have the infrastructure to provide as well as an established customer base who probably already use Digital Ocean. ...

December 18, 2016 · 6 min · Russ Mckendrick
Discover Microsoft SQL Server on Mac via Docker, along with .NET Core & Visual Studio. A glimpse into technology's evolving integration.

It’s a UNIX system, I know this.

I am late to the party with this post due to other projects↗ and work↗ taking up nearly all of my time, but its one I have been to write for a while. Who would have though that after I first wrote about Docker back in early 2014; Docker↗ that I would be writting a post like this … Microsoft SQL Server 2016 on a Mac, using Docker Given that I don’t use Windows much I thought it would be interesting to see how simple it would be for me to install and use the latest version of MS SQL. ...

December 13, 2016 · 3 min · Russ Mckendrick
Get insights on monitoring & managing Docker contns with Russ McKendrick's chapter. Free ebook download!

Monitoring & Managment with Docker & Containers ebook

I am pleased to able to say that I have contributed a chapter to the final book in the current The New Stack↗ ebook series on Docker & Containers. The ebook, which is free, is called “Monitoring & Management With Docker & Containers” Container and service-oriented architectures present a complex challenge for monitoring and performance management. Service-driven systems have dramatically increased the number of components monitoring tools interface with. Read how developers and vendors are tackling performance and monitoring in operational and production environments, and what obstacles are unique to managing containerized systems. ...

December 12, 2016 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick
Explore Russ Mckendrick's top ten albums of 2016, including works by David Bowie, Radiohead, and Knifeworld. Dive into the diverse sounds of the year.

2016 Top Ten

So here they are, my top ten albums of 2016. Like last year they are all ones I physically own rather than stream or have brought digitally … ...

December 12, 2016 · 2 min · Russ Mckendrick
Discover a workaround for an annoying quirk in Ansible playbook execution. Learn why pre-tasks were ignored and how to ensure their execution.

Annoying Ansible Quirk

I am not sure if this a bug or not, but I spent an hour scratching my head today trying to figure out why part of playbook which was working seemingly suddenly stopped. I have a playbook which executes each morning to create a staging version of a site from the previous night’s snapshots. Each weekday morning at 0730am it … Bootstraps an AWS environment (VPC, ELB and all the other acronyms) Launches a RDS instance from the previous nights snapshot Launches an instances and deploys an application and then creates an AMI Creates an auto-scaling group and launches three instances using the new AMI behind an ELB The base operating system is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 which does not ship with any AWS tools installed by default, so before the tasks which start interacting with the instance and application I run the following; ...

November 19, 2016 · 5 min · Russ Mckendrick
Pre-order 'Docker Data Management with Flocker' by Russ Mckendrick. Gain early access to the ebook by purchasing from Packt.

Pre-Order Docker Data Management with Flocker

Note ...

November 7, 2016 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick
Discover Russ Mckendrick's October 2016 playlist, featuring a curated selection of tracks to set the mood for the month. Tune in and enjoy the eclectic mix!

October 2016 Playlist

I have been writing a lot again this month so not a lot to post, however, I have been listening to a lot of music … You can listen to it all here …

October 30, 2016 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick
Get 50% off Russ Mckendrick's Docker books today only. Dive into Docker with comprehensive guides at an exclusive discount. Limited time offer!

50% Off Today Only

The two books I wrote about Docker are available for 50% off today from the Packt web site, click here to goto the deal↗ .

October 2, 2016 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick