Photo Courtesy of Kim McMahon

ChefConf 2018: DevOps is Not War

If you read DevOps’ish, you already know I spoke at ChefConf 2018. I was able to meet 1,400 new friends while I was in Chicago (not really but kinda). I presented my talk, DevOps is Not War to a standing room only audience. From a speaker’s perspective, I have never felt more prepared for a talk. There were speaker office hours every week for 10 weeks before the event to address any questions we may have had. On top of that, Anna Boynton, was available to all speakers to coach us through some of our not so great points. Anna looked at video from DevOpsDays Atlanta 2018 to help me hone the talk to a very tight time slot while hitting every main point needed. ...

May 29, 2018 · Chris Short

DevOps Hiring Guide

The opensource.com DevOps Community and The Enterprisers Project teamed up to create the quintessential guide to hiring for DevOps talent. I contributed the Introduction and the article, “DevOps hiring strategies to attract top talent”. This was a significant amount of work from all parties and I love how quickly and beautifully it came together. Hats off to Jason Hibbets and the folks at Red Hat that helped put this together. To discuss attracting talent I brough in a fantastic recruiter to bounce questions off of; Ken M. Middleton. I met Ken during my job search last year. He’s a pretty awesome person and one of the only recruiters I can legitimately recommend for DevOps folks. ...

May 16, 2018 · Chris Short

AWS Michigan: Heaven is Not a Cloud

I recently spoke at AWS Michigan about cloud migrations. The talk wasn’t AWS specific but we sure did talk about it a ton. From defining cloud to addressing priorities to preventing cost overruns we covered a lot during the meetup. I was peppered with questions by a lively audience. After speaking on stage at DevOpsDays Atlanta 2018, there was this awkward moment for me when the first question was asked. I wasn’t mentally prepared for questions during the talk but, adjusted quickly. ...

April 30, 2018 · Chris Short
Photo courtesy [**Elissa Shevinsky**](https://twitter.com/ElissaBeth)

DevOpsDays Atlanta 2018: DevOps is Not War

I went to DevOpsDays Atlanta for the first time this week. I hadn’t been in Atlanta in a very long time. It sure has changed a ton. Originally, I was going to help run the SJ Technologies booth. But, a speaker had to back out at the last minute and I was asked to fill the spot. I was working on a talk for ChefConf so I quickly finished that up and gave it to the good folks at DevOpsDays Atlanta. ...

April 19, 2018 · Chris Short

Lessons Learned from Cloud Migrations: Planning is Everything

Abstract “Migrating to the cloud saves money!” “Not running your own infrastructure reduces your bottom line!” “Lift and shift is a legitimate first step towards moving to the cloud!” These are all potential pitfalls if you’re not careful. Proper planning prevents piss poor performance. Using a real chaotic cloud migration as a guide, we’ll walk through the pitfalls of cloud migrations and how to avoid them and the terrifying vendor lock-in (when it makes sense). ...

March 7, 2018 · Chris Short