kaikeru

February 2020

Feb 14 · 4 min How I learned DevOps This post is basically how I learned to DevOps. It’s not “How to Become a DevOps Engineer”. There is no one answer. I had a lot of luck and a lot of passion. Instead, this is about my career path, and how I ended up the Lead SRE of a multi-national company. First of all, I love CLI tools. My everyday toolkit is zsh, vim, grep, ssh, and git. I learned all these at my first job working on custom hardware. At the time, I was a new CS grad with a go-get-em attitude towards proper software design and building apps. The iPhone had just come out, and I was sure I’d work on apps for the rest of my career. Side note: I have never published a single app. tags ~ devops

March 2019

Mar 13 · 6 min Docker as a CI Build System In my current position, we define continuous integration builds for all our projects in a Dockerfile. For us, Docker provides a set of guarantees that are perfect for CI. Docker builds are reproducible. Docker is available on every major OS. Docker produces universal artifacts. Builds are Reproducible Everywhere A standard Jenkins build runs directly on the system. It’s nothing against Jenkins, but if you are just building on a raw node, the underlying instance will have discrepancies. This could be security patch, library versions, or even OS versions. For us, a runner might be Ubuntu or OSX. This means out of date local packages cause build failures. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a worst case scenario. Worst case always happens in DevOps. tags ~ devopsdockercontinuous integration

February 2019

Feb 8 · 5 min JLPT This is hard for me to admit, but I’ve failed at hitting the same goal every year for the last 10 years. I want to pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). The test is broken into levels N5 -> N1. Each level tests your reading and listening skills. N5 is basic Japanese where N1 is hard enough to make fluent speakers second guess their education. The test is a bureaucratic take on Japanese language and your mastery over it. I’m added the “bureaucratic” nature of the test for two reasons. First, Japanese love certifications and most jobs require you pass the JLPT at the N2 level before they would even give you a stern look. Second, the test does little to show you are able to communicate in the every day. Nothing about speaking or writing is on this test. I have seen firsthand some Japanese language scholars passing the N1 who couldn’t hold a conversation if their dignity depended on it. That being said, if one is able to pass the N2 or N1 tests, you probably are pretty good at Japanese.

December 2018

Dec 28 · 11 min Free Website Hosting with Github and DevOps Paying for website hosting is passé. You can easily host with Wordpress, Tumblr, or many other solutions. The downside to these free hosted services (applications, really) is free means you’re the product one way or another. Maybe they put adds on your blog, maybe they sell your data. Also, what happens if that company goes under? Where does your corner of the internet go? I’m a proponent of not relying on other services to build my content if I can help it. I want to build my site so if any service I rely on goes under, I can shift to a new service with minimal fuss. It is more work, but the payoff is worth it to have a permanent home on the internet. tags ~ azure pipelinesgithubhugo