2022 Year in Review: DevOps Consultant
I will start with saying the year gone by rather fast. Most of my colleagues I had come to be accustom to have move on to pastures new. ECS no longer exists nor does the management team I had become accustom to. The year for me can be best described as “a year where everything is changing and it doesn’t feel the same”. I would say this description could be adopted by many of my colleagues as well. For me the rate of all this change has left me feeling nostalgic. Remembering times now gone from when I first joined ECS Digital, the things I learnt the people and characters I met. That is not to say I haven’t met new equally interesting people this year, but a sense of loss and change has left me feeling wanting.
Looking back over the year I have spent most of my time working on PKI enterprise deployment for a quantitative finance research firm, and although my work was meant to be predominantly design based I ended up getting hands-on throughout my time on the project. From building GitOps pipelines to building small POC’s to helping colleagues onboard and pick-up work when they off boarded. Planning new work and helping build a roadmap for deployment on PKI in a enterprise environment. Picking up the baton to help the project move forward when things started to look like they were about to stall to even sacrificing my personal development time to help get the project over the line.
This engagement probably would be best described as last man standing. Just about every member of the original team from GlobalLogic to client side left the project either to work on something new or move on to pastures new. I mention it here because, resiliency is a trait that I have come to noticed that I have demonstrated throughout my time as a DevOps Consultant and would describe it as an essential trait for a consultant having to deal with the shifting dynamics of team movement to changing requirements and directional change of a project.
Enterprise PKI was not a subject I was familiar with, what I brought to the table was familiarity with client and my experience as a DevOps consultant and my attitude, I was more or less prepared to do whatever it takes to get the job done and delivered to a high standard.
I had basic understanding of certificates and had to build my knowledge while on-site this wasn’t a secret, the client was aware. I believe what made me successful on staying on the project was my ability to find answers to questions and raise questions at right time whilst providing possible solutions and voicing alternative options and adapting based on feedback. Understanding the pro’s and con’s of an offline CA vs online CA, how to test a CA hierarchy in an automated way were some one topics I had to cover as well how to introduce controls into the CA hierarchy itself to prevent abuse. Ownership of assets not all assets wanting a certificate will have a DNS and some DNS entires may not even resolve. How do you deal with tying up existing assets to a new CA hierarchy life cycle.
3-Peaks Challenge, my biggest failure
The 3 peaks challenge was best described as my biggest failure of the year and most humbling experience. The 3-peaks challenge to race to the top of 3 highest peaks in U.K within the span of 24 hours. The whole adventure was actually in aid of a good cause, and charity sponsorship event organised by GlobalLogic to “End Youth Homelessness” and to honour those colleagues that fell during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
This was a team effort, starting from Ben Nevis and then Scafell Pike before completing on Snowdon. I had done Snowdon many years ago when I was younger. I thought I could handle this challenge because I walked 20,000 steps each day as I walked into client offices in London every week. In my a hubris, self-confident in my own abilities, and arrogance that I did not test my equipment or do proper training would prove to be my undoing. The flat ground of London streets was no test for the rugged terrain of Scotland’s Ben Nevis. I ended up being the slowest in team, even when I did finally managed to over take my colleague on the descent and after praising myself for my little achievement. I stopped and reflected on the moment and put my thoughts to my colleague who throughout this endeavour would be ahead of me and I always felt she held back so I was not alone. I stopped and turned and asked her if she was OK. Her replied was the knee was playing up. I accomplished nothing after all. We stayed together until we reached the waiting guide, and which point I said to the guide he needed to stay with her due to her knee. We were a team and needed to look out for each other. The guide said OK and explained the route I needed to take to get off the mountain. In the end I was still to slow and the girl with the crippled knee still managed to keep up with me and overtake me. My personal humiliation was complete I spent the decent alone having a real conversation with myself with some real choice words. I should of prepared better like I always try to when on engagements, my focus for this challenge was inadequate. After cursing myself my own legs finally had enough of my incandescent complaining and finally gave up and collapsed, “…fine f**k you too…” was the feeling as I dropped my walking sticks would to slip off the cliff edge along with me and my backpack. I had overpacked the backpack and had stored a battery pack in the hood which decided to smack me at the back of the head edging me ever closer off the mountain side ever so more, I could also hear my own voice “…what a loser…” as I could closer to the edge, for some strange reason I wasn’t scare of falling off in the moment and dying. I eventually manage to stabilise myself and literally crawled to the waiting guide and explain my situation with my legs. Fatigue had hit them to the point of failure I have only ever experience a similar sensation working out in the GYM doing squats.
The guide would aid me off the mountain carrying my backpack for me and propping me up every so often. I felt like Pinocchio on strings and points.
The guide would mention as we made our way off the mountain that he could happily carry me off too. Declining the offer I used the walking sticks the drag myself off the mountain. I’d notice the guide checking his watch every so often on the corner of my eye. He was ex British forces, but my respect for him and our British force grew that day because he let me keep my dignity and let me get of that mountain on my own steam.
I started the challenge enthusiastically reminding myself I can walk for hours and indeed do so on a regularly weekly basis. Clocking in around 20,000 steps at least 3 times a week. But it wasn’t enough and even though I wanted to take part in the challenge it was a group effort and with my legs in the condition they were in I had to give up for the sake of the, rest of the team and my own safety I was not ready for the challenge. Once I reached the waiting van I would meet my colleagues waiting for me patiently. The team had split into two, faster team and a second slower team, no guess which team I was in. I would not be alone in making the sacrifice other members of the team had also abstain of tackling the second mountain due to injuries.
I am reminded of the quote from movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. “The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few or the one”. This situation it seem appropriate.
The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few or the one
By Leonard Nimoy, playing Fictional character, Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, directed by Nicholas Meyer (1982).
The lessons were clear, treat the mountain with respect it deserves, sometimes you need to make sacrifices for good of everyone and thats OK. Your a team and that means looking out for others and not becoming a liability when you know your limits. In fact “teamwork”, a GlobalLogic company value along with, Integrity, Openness and Innovation.
Upon returning back to my flat streets of London, explaining what had happened was a little humiliating but the truth was the truth and I needed to face up to it. For more than the first two weeks all could think about was returning to the mountain. I will have to retain in the new year and return to the mountain that humiliated me in the new year but this time it will be on my own terms and not a race to the top I will take the time to enjoy the beauty that I saw on the way up and use the time to reflect. There was much beauty in Glasgow where I flew into to start that somber adventure from.
Conferences
Those that know me, know I like attending IT conferences I attended some online and others in-person. AWS Summit I managed to convince my client to attend with me on this event and used the event to bond with my client although we had kinda of already bonded by attending some of the poshest wine, cocktail bars and restaurants in London anyway.
To list some of the conferences:
- HashiConf Europe, conference on HashiCorp products. I am a certified HashiCorp consultant for GlobalLogic and was using their products on my engagement.
- AWS Summit London, I’m certified in AWS DevOps Pro and have a active interest in Cloud technologies and architectures.
- AWS re:Invent 2022, this is probably best described as the biggest IT conference of the year held annually in Las Vegas. I attended with a group of GlobalLogic consultants. There will be further blogs on this from GlobalLogic channels.
- GlobalLogic Gathering, a new version of the old ECS Digital Knowledge Week. A week of internal training I spoke at this event myself on the topic of “Year End Review 2022 — DevOps Consultant”, essentially this rather large blog.
AWS re:Invent, was amazing experience I learnt a lot there was about 119 new AWS Services and features launched at the conference which lasted for 5 days. Some on the announcements that resonated with me:
- Event Bridge Pipes, offers the ability integrate streams of event data between event producers and consumers. Works similar in fashion to unix pipes.
- AWS Inspector, detecting vulnerabilities in AWS Lambda functions
- Amazon Security Lake, combing security data from AWS services and a range of Enterprise Security data sources (Splunk) under Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF)
The conference is annually held Las Vegas, and is the biggest IT event of the year by far. However I would say even though the conference took up the whole of the Las Vegas strip requiring shuttle buses to get to sessions on either end of the strip. To me the conference seems smaller than pervious ones. Whether thats a circumstance of COVID or state of cloud remains to be seen. Our trip to the conference is best summed up by my colleague Alan Blain, who I had the pleasure to meet and get to know during my re:Invent trip. When he sent a message on the groups WhatsApp chat: “Of all the things in Vegas that could prove to be a man’s downfall…. It was the cakes that did for us”.
In short there were lots of cakes available at hand the conferences offered a large selection and when you can expense your meal, what’s a person to do in Las Vegas?
“Of all the things in Vegas that could prove to be a man’s downfall…. It was the cakes that did for us”
Alan Blain, 2022, Dec
Travelling
I was fortunate enough to travel this year some of the places I travelled to were:
- Scotland, Glasglow
- England, Wales
- U.S LasVegas
- U.S Hawaii, Kauai
- U.S L.A
I only got a see less than a fraction of Glasgow and look forward to seeing more of the beauty that Scotland has to offer. Las Vegas I experienced through my time at the AWS re:Invent conference however I did get visit the art of Richard MacDonald, a favourite contemporary figurative sculptor, there is a permanent exhibition presented by Cirque Du Soleil in the Bellagio casino.
After Las Vegas, I went on to Hawaii and return to L.A for a few days before returning to U.K to present at the GlobalLogic Gathering summit. I absolutely needed the break however this trip was expensive everything is now almost double in price since pre covid and now that we have the cost of living crisis due to wars going on.
Health
Around the start of year I caught covid I was triple jabbed with the vaccines I made sure I was extra careful avoid crowded public places and public transport opting to walk for hours on end. However after attend a leaving party for my old CEO Andy Cureton I managed to catch the virus. The 3-peaks highlighted that my legs and general health isn’t good at all. I took up running and found the experience quite interesting I signed up to various blogs and the experience of running around the park itself brought interesting sensations in the sense I read about shin splints, backaches, and various other ailments due to poor running technique. This experience has spurred me to look further into the experience to see what I can learn and shed some body fat. I’m still sporting a post covid body.
What’s next
- Trekking, the 3-peaks has reminded me how much I love just walking around nature taking in the beauty. Not necessarily living it rough with nature, I don’t do the leaf thing. I will try to do more of this and visit Ben Nevis again, for round 2 but this time it won’t be a race up and down the mountain.
- Walking in general, walking to work made me realised something that I enjoyed doing just walking around London talking in the sights and reflecting stopping to watch people go about their business the pleasantries you see from Londoners that you don’t see in other cities.
- Running, this is something I plan to continue I enjoyed the learning experience even though some of it resulted in pain. Mastering correct technique should be a new years goal.
- Learning to say ‘No’ there is an art to saying no and setting boundaries for yourself 2022 has taught me I need to set more boundaries.
- Professionally I started learning Kubernetes and I continue my journey there while look to resit my exams for my existing certifications that are about to expire in the new year.
- Sort out my health by just getting more active I’ve been more active this year than in last 5 years.
- Reduce my bad habbits like using phone late at night and watching Netflix. I have loads of books and Udemy courses I could be going through and generally this year showed me the value of just disconnecting from technology. The holiday in Hawaii show me that and if I can afford it in the new year I’d like to take a trip back to Italy, Florence.
