What next for this blog
What next?
Now that this blog is up and running for a whole week, I am starting to think about what to do next.
AWS Solution Architect - Professional
My main reason for setting up this blog was to document my way through the AWS Solution Architect – Professional exam. This is the link to the main certification page on AWS
https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-professional/
and this is the link to the preparation information from AWS. https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certification-prep/”
For the Solutions Architect – Associate exam I focused on the practice exams by Whizlabs: https://www.whizlabs.com/aws-solutions-architect-associate/practice-tests/”
I had already been through several video courses about AWS and I wanted to focus on exam questions. Once I was passing each of the six practice exams with scores of 55-60+ I took the exam and passed. There were topics/questions on the real exam that were not covered by practice exams. So, for the Processional exam I want to take my study further and do more. I hope to build out the example architectures that the questions ask about. For example, I want to create a VPC with private and public subnets and see what options are available to me to connect in via a bastion host. I will keep my code in a GitHub repo and try explaining what I’m doing as I go at a level pitched to others looking to take the same exam. If you have questions that I do not cover, please ask via the comments and I’ll try answer them for you. In the long run I hope the examples and content I post here will help others pass the exam too.
Home Automation Projects
I am big into my home automation – I have a raspberry Pi running Hass.io (Home Assistant) and a bunch of smart equipment (mostly bulbs). Hooking all this stuff together the way I want it is an on-going project. I think there is a gap in the market for someone to do it on a budget and break down the steps for everyone to follow. So I hope I can fill this gap with good write ups and maybe even video content. Voice is going to be huge one people get the things they have/want hooked up to an Alexa or Google Home (I got both to compare). I’ve two small kids and they get to watch a show on Netflix after getting home from creche, so every day it was the same routine. I was tired of looking for the remote everyday, so I trained my Boardlink with the power button of the TV remote and now I can ask Google to “turn on the TV!”. It powers on straight to my Chrome Cast and all I need is a device to stream Netflix for them now. It is just easier to ask Google to do certain things than it is to find the remote or to walk across the room to the light switch. Then there is next level stuff with presence detection and sunset awareness that makes the routines of life programable and ultimately more convenient.
DevOps MSc Content
Lastly, I am studying for a DevOps master’s degree and I need somewhere to record the things I’m learning and a home for projects that I will be standing up during the two-year course. I’ve read a fair amount of the DevOps literature and after having spent years in operations, the merit of the new approach really resonated with me. In work we are undergoing an Agile transformation, so I get to apply the theory or at least put it forward.
There are just so many instances from my working history where I can see how we were misguided because we thought we needed to plan it out to the Nth degree or we couldn’t even start. Or where we fought tooth and nail to keep changes out of the scope, for fear of over running, irrespective of whether the changes where necessary so the project would actually be valuable to the business. When they call all these behaviours out in the DevOps handbook several lights went on and have not gone out. It is no longer rational to repeat the mistakes of the past, as borne out by the rigorous research on The State of DevOps surveys and published in Accelerate. I’m actually going to an even at Microsoft’s campus next Monday where Dr. Nicole Forsgren will be speaking. I only wish she could sign my audiobook.
Thinking-Out-Loud HomeAutomation Certified-Solutions-Architect