DevSecOps

Building, Deploying and Observing SDKs as a Service

Maintaining and developing SDKs for a multiple of languages and platforms can be time consuming and laborious. While there are many ways to tackle such a feat, using open api spec, the biggest issue I’ve come across is generating SDKs that consume your service in a way that developers can use them. In this talk we are going to look at some ways to create your own customisable SDK generation service, Utilising openapi generator tools and ways to test against multiple language types.

Episode

November 10, 2022
Chaos Engineering for Cloud native Apps

Improve application resilience with chaos testing by deliberately introducing faults that simulate real-world outages. Azure Chaos Studio Preview / AWS Fault Injection Simulator is a fully managed chaos engineering experimentation platform for accelerating discovery of hard-to-find problems, from late-stage development through production. Disrupt your apps intentionally to identify gaps and plan mitigations before your customers are impacted by a problem.

Episode

November 3, 2022
ClickOps over GitOps

The delta between Kubernetes and a developer friendly PaaS is where the next layer of value is being created today. Many products are racing to fill the void that is called Kubernetes developer experience. This is also the place where things get opinionated, a requirement for reliable end to end workflows. In this talk you will learn about Gimlet.io’s approach on how Kubernetes UIs can be quick to use, and safe at the same time. In this talk you will see how you can create a developer platform - with the usual components Cert-Manager, Nginx Ingress etc - and deploy on it with only clicking on a dashboard. You will also see that behind the curtains, all Gimlet does is writing yamls into a git repository. ClickOps.. over GitOps.

Episode

October 27, 2022
Passwordless deployments to Microsoft Azure with GitHub Actions

Discovering passwords in our codebase is probably one of our worst fears as a developer. But, what if you didn’t need passwords at all? Join Chris, as he explores how you can use OpenID Connect to trust your cloud provider, enabling you to deploy easily, securely and safely.

Talk

October 15, 2022
End-to-end InnerSourcing and Secure Development with GitHub

Many of you may be familiar with GitHub for your own Open Source (OSS) projects. But, did you know that you can run your end-to-end development within your organization using GitHub Enterprise? Join Chris for a whistle-stop tour in the day-in-the-life of a developer with GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Actions and GitHub Advanced Security, showing how you can bring Open Source best practices into your day-to-day work (also known as InnerSource)!

Talk

October 13, 2022
Software rotting and why you need to change your approach to security

A new phenomenon stand out in recent years: security must pervade the entire software development lifecycle. Except it isn’t. Current generation of processes and tools is lacking crucial features to properly manage modern security risks. Think of the Log4J event. Were you able to identify all affected components? Were they internally developed, or you need a vendor support? How fast you were able to deliver a fix? In this talk we’ll explore the challenges, what you can do with current tools, and which gaps should be addressed by communities through better practices and new tools.

Episode

August 18, 2022
GitHub for All - Overview

GitHub is one of my passion areas. You may have realised that already, with the amount of content that I’ve written about it. That’s only going to continue, because I’ve recently been hired there as an Enterprise Advocate. I’ve been supporting customers in their DevOps journey for the past 9 years or so. Interestingly, there are some reoccurring themes that I’ve found that are common. One of those themes is that DevOps is an App Development concept. In fact, it’s something that can be applied across domains (e.g. Infrastructure, Data, etc.) This is the start of a new blog series that will address those common themes, particularly in the context of GitHub.

Blog

July 31, 2022
Using GitHub Actions and OpenID Connect to deploy Static Web Apps to Azure

Back in November, GitHub announced its OpenID Connect capability for cloud deployments was generally available. This has been on my list to try out, and I finally managed to get around to it! With scenarios like this, I prefer to do something real and hands-on, rather than mocked, or a proof of concept. I decided to refactor my GitHub Action workflows for cloudwithchris.com, removing the need for secrets stored in GitHub. In this post, I outline my journey through this.

Blog

February 22, 2022
Shift Left and Increase your Code Quality with Azure DevOps Branch Policies

This post is similar to another I recently wrote on using Branch Protection Rules in GitHub. Instead of focusing on GitHub, we’ll be looking at how you can use Branch Policies in Azure DevOps (specifically, Azure Repos). If you’re using Azure Repos, but not using Branch Policies - I’d encourage you to start using them! I hope this post helps you learn how!

Blog

September 9, 2021
Shift Left and Increase your Code Quality with GitHub Branch Protection Rules

If you’re using GitHub as your source control provider, then I’d encourage you to using Branch Protection Rules if you’re not already doing so! In this blog post, we’ll cover what Branch Protection Rules are and how they can increase your code quality.

Blog

August 30, 2021