Essays

Lessons in Designing Blast Radius The Hard Way; One Mistake Crashes Facebook For Hours

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are deeply integrating into many aspects of daily life for many communities and business. One networking misconfiguration reminded 3.5 billion users of just that.

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Can We Improve How Lyft Handled Service Discovery on AWS In 2016?

In late 2016, Lyft demonstrated the service discovery engine they built on AWS. Five years later, how well does that design hold up? What could we improve given the services and features available today?

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Instagram delays launch of app for kids

On my tech column with CBC Ottawa Morning, Dr. Tracy Valliancourt and I explain the challenges with Instagram Kids and the latest research from Facebook about its impact on teens.

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How to build strong security guardrails in the AWS Cloud with minimal effort

Misconfigurations are the number one security concern in the cloud. Guardrails can help you prevent misconfigurations from happening. This talk shows you the principles behind sustainable, useful guardrails.

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How To Run Just One Container With AWS App Runner…Hopefully

As a new user in the AWS Cloud, is AWS App Runner the service that'll get your one container up and running quickly? This post explores that question.

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How a New User Can Run Just One Container in the AWS Cloud…Maybe

As a new user in the AWS Cloud, what does it take to get one container up and running? What service do you user? How many steps are there? This post explores that question.

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What AWS re:Inforce 2021 Means for Cloud Security…and Cybersecurity in General

The second installment of AWS re:Inforce was entirely virtual and gave a great view of the state of security in the AWS Cloud. Here's what the event says security practices and how to set yours up for success.

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Microsoft Edge Experiment 'Super Duper Secure Mode' Aims To Reduce Openings for Hackers

The Microsoft Edge browser team is conducting an experiment in an attempt to increase the cybersecurity of the browser and how it handles javascript. At stake? One of the major performance features.

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