Notes on AWS & cloud infrastructure
Field notes from 20+ years of running cloud infrastructure: cost audits, Terraform, containers, and architecture.
The Disaster Recovery Project Everyone Blamed
What I found inheriting a disaster recovery initiative that had stalled for six months, and the lessons from actually getting it delivered.
The CI/CD Mistake That Was Costing Us 180 Redundant Docker Builds
Build-time environment variables were silently forcing a rebuild for every environment and region combination. Switching to runtime variables cut CI/CD build time 60%.
How I Cut Terraform Plan Time From 20 Minutes to 2 (a 90% Reduction)
A single 1,000+ resource Terraform workspace was making every plan take 20 minutes. Here's how restructuring it into scoped folders and states fixed it.
Designing Terraform Modules Teams Actually Want to Reuse
A few rules of thumb for keeping Terraform modules small, composable, and safe to change without a scary blast radius.
A 30-Minute AWS Cost Audit Checklist
The quick checks I run first on every new AWS account to find easy wins before diving into a full audit.