About a month ago, I spoke with a long time friend and we discussed the current challenges of automating NetApp’s ONTAP Cloud. Specifically, I pointed out that there had to be a better way to handle the provisioning of new systems. Currently, I have to pre-provision these ONTAP Cloud for AWS machines and then I can use them […]
When auto engineers design a new car, they spend weeks and probably months studying the designs and thinking about the different conditions and values. They create computer generated models to test and validate their designs. The thing is that you can’t just stop there. You have to build the car with every step and component before […]
Over the last two months, I have planned and thought about several posts but finding the time has been, well, a challenge. I started several new and exciting projects and each of those has eaten every ounce of free time that I have had available. The great thing is that I did make some cool […]
We have all seen the latest trend in mobile gaming. Freemium applications that entice us with energy refreshes, extra lives, or special unlocks but only at a price. Like many of you, I found myself sucked into this world. My game of choice is the EA hit Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. I will freely admit […]
On a recent cookbook, I found an interesting use case for conditional data_bags. In my use case, the client wants to give a license file to install the application. Since the license file is an XML document and not a key, this posed an interesting question on how do we handle this to cover the most […]
Yesterday, the world paused as an AWS outage in Virginia brought down hundreds of businesses, websites, and applications. The full root-cause is still unknown but the impact was definitely felt. Many companies could do nothing more than watch as their business ground to a halt or felt serious stutter-step pains as applications faltered. Entire websites […]
I am working on a very large project around CHEF and CHEF automate. As part of this project, I built a full lab in AWS to mirror my client’s environment. Yesterday, I ran into an interesting issue and decided to share the results of what I found. The solution is a highly-available CHEF server environment […]
The other day, I had an interesting conversation about migrating applications to the cloud. We started discussing the merits of ONTAP Cloud from NetApp and if it was more of a marketing opportunity than a real problem solver. The point being made is that it doesn’t seem like a clear direction for the product. This […]
One of the most critical aspects to any development project is a solid test plan. Over the years, I have learned my lesson the hard way that everything should include some level of testing. I started our like many of you by simply writing a script and manually trying different scenarios. This ‘trial-and-error’ style of […]
Today, I had an interesting discovery in a PowerShell DSC project. The issue that I faced centered on an optional parameter that I had cast as Boolean. I want to make sure that the only valid options are $True or $False as these are the only valid values. Everything worked perfectly until I realized that […]