Michael Levan 👨🏻‍💻☕️

Michael Levan | Substack Consolidating 15 years of software engineering, cyber security, DevOps, and cloud into bitesized bits. Click to read Michael Levan, a Substack publication. Launched a day ago.

Consolidating 15 years of software engineering, cyber security, DevOps, and cloud into bite-sized bits 👇

Posting daily as I'm working.

Sharing tips and tricks as I go

michaellevan.substack.com

Security is actually pretty simple:

1. Ensure that the data is secure
2. Ensure that any third-party libraries/packages you're using in your code are secure

Well... since that's 100% of security, I guess security isn't all that simple lol

Ohhh, I have to hear more. I have a finished basement that I haven't done anything with since I bought my house and I've been thinking of doing this exact same thing.

1. Continuous monitoring of networks.
2. Tie specific malicious behavior to an IP address to see where it originated.

Both of these really fall under the vulnerability assessment category.

One of the biggest pieces to remember with CDR is how data is being traversed and who has access to what.

Network Detection and Response (NDR) provides two primary capabilities:

This could be larger cloud-based environments like Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Amazon Web Services (AWS), or smaller clouds like Vultr and Digital Ocean (DO).

The primary goal of a CDR is to have a deep understanding of the environment.

(cont)

Cloud Detection Response (CDR) and Network Detection Response (NDR) 👇

Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) focuses purely on cloud environments.

(cont)

#kubernetes #devops #platformengineering

That means the apps/tools you're running locally to reach the k8s Service won't be able to reach it either.

That means if you're trying to access the resource locally (for example, connecting to the DB running in k8s), you have to do it from your local terminal.

If you try it from a cloud shell or something that isn't local, you won't be able to hit it via localhost.

(cont)

An important reminder when using `port-forward` with Kubernetes.

If you run something like `kubectl port-forward svc/service_name portnumber:port:number`

You're bringing the traffic from the Kubernetes to your local computer.

(cont)

#kubernetes #devops #platformengineering

I updated KoaPerf to include:

1. AWS Support! You can get recommendations for containerized apps running in AWS now.
2. A better UI (more visually appealing)

Check it out at the link below 👇

koaperf-apeseqd2cehnhjgh.z03.azurefd.net

#kubernetes #devops #platformengineering

Here are a few tips when thinking about what platforms to use, how to use them, and what to think about when managing them.

For any organization, big or small.

Enterprise or startup.

Figuring out the workflow of how environments should be deployed, managed, and most importantly, what should be deployed and managed is the make or break.

(cont)

#kubernetes #devops #platformengineering

And the goal is to add AWS EKS and AWS ECS.

KoaPerf is a scanner that tells you based on performance, cost, and resource needs where you should deploy a containerized workload.

The current recommendations it gives you are between:
✅ Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
✅ Azure Container Apps (ACA)
✅ Azure Container Instance (ACI)

Instead of scanning a Kubernetes Manifest to tell you the best place to deploy, it'll read a description that you add in or an architecture doc you upload.

I built a free tool to tell you the best place to deploy containerized workloads.

koaperf-apeseqd2cehnhjgh.z03.azurefd.net

(cont)

#kubernetes #devops #platformengineering

After planning and deploying a Kubernetes environment, you're left with:

✅ Performance optimization
✅ Monitoring and observability
✅ Upgrades

and a few other specifics that are necessary to ensure k8s is running as expected.

#kubernetes #devops #platformengineering

Keeping The Lights On: Pipeline Differentiations for CICD

However, before using ArgoCD, it has to be deployed to the cluster.

CICD pipelines are still the best way to get workloads and infrastructure initially deployed in an automated fashion.

I break down my thoughts about it in the link below.

buff.ly/3GWl2wy

Keeping The Lights On: Pipeline Differentiations for CICD

The tool needs to be deployed before it can be used.

ArgoCD is a great example of this.

Argo is implemented for workloads in k8s to be deployed automatically based on an interval instead of having to run a bunch of `kubectl apply -f` commands locally or in a pipeline.

(cont)

Optimizing AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) As you develop environments, infrastructure, and orchestration platforms (like k8s), you'll begin to notice that there are several directions to go in. There's a joke that goes something like "line up...

and a few other aspects that are super crucial to implementing EKS (and Kubernetes in general) within any environment.

In this blog post, I break it all down.

buff.ly/WYBXgqU

Optimizing AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) As you develop environments, infrastructure, and orchestration platforms (like k8s), you'll begin to notice that there are several directions to go in. There's a joke that goes something like "line up...

I was recently on a consulting project and the goal was to optimize AWS EKS.

It came down to a few key aspects including:
1. Workload isolation
2. Multi-az
3. Cluster security around multi-tenancy
4. Performance optimization

(cont)

Therefore, security really just ensures that there are people on the team who know the system/platform/application exceptionally well.

If they do, they can secure it.

More importantly - security, and I mean proper cyber security, can only occur when you know a system/platform/application VERY well.

You must know the ins and outs in every capacity.

(cont)

I never thought about security as a specialty.

i.e - DevOps Security, Cloud Security, Network Security, etc.

The reason is that security should be embedded in all of our jobs.

(cont)

GitHub - AdminTurnedDevOps/DevOps-The-Hard-Way-AWS: This repository contains free labs for setting up an entire workflow and DevOps environment from a real-world perspective in AWS This repository contains free labs for setting up an entire workflow and DevOps environment from a real-world perspective in AWS - AdminTurnedDevOps/DevOps-The-Hard-Way-AWS

I just updated DevOps-The-Hard-Way-AWS for the first time in 4 years.

✅ Removed the creation of a VPC for EKS with CloudFormation
✅ Terraform Modules for EKS and VPC creation
✅ Simplified the steps for the labs

and A LOT more.

Link below 👇

github.com/AdminTurnedD...

You're not late to learning Cloud/DevOps/Platform Engineering, you're right on time.

Open up that new DevOps course.

Learn Kubernetes and why orchestration is important.

Understand networks, systems, and design.

You'll never reach a point where you "know it all".

It'll turn into:
1. Tech debt
2. No one will know how to troubleshoot
3. No one will know how to add specific functionality for your edge cases

And worse, everyone that finds a bug will have ZERO knowledge on how to actually fix it.

In the world of AI programming with things like Cursor...

If you don't spend the time now getting really good at programming, you're going to fail drastically.

If you let "the AI thing" do it all for you without you understanding what's happening underneath the hood...

(cont)

All Kubernetes implementations start with:

✅ Proper planning and architecture
✅ Security
✅ Teamwork

Ensure you know exactly what's being deployed, managed, and by whom.

#kubernetes #devops #platformengineering