You just found someone who can actually help.
Achieve both operational stability AND cost efficiency in your cloud-based platforms WITHOUT long-term consultants.
Are you:
- lacking senior DevOps / Cloud staff?
- needing to urgently ship services but don't have a cloud platform?
- experiencing scalability issues as your customer load increases?
- trying to cut IT costs while maintaining efficiency and stability?
- facing an operational or architectural crisis with your cloud-based platform?
- running into challenges in implementing DevOps processes for bespoke or non-standard platforms?
In any of these cases, and many more like them, you don't need a long-term consultant. You need a knowledgeable, capable and experienced expert who shows up fast and makes sense of chaos.
That's what I provide. I solve problems like these every day. I provide On-Demand DevOps / CloudOps services focused on solving operational problems in urgent or critical situations. I deal with all aspects of systems engineering and SRE / DevOps processes, with special focus on IaaS, CI/CD, HA/DR design, Azure/AWS architecture and data-driven platforms.
I work with clients of all sizes all over the world.
Clients often call me in for urgent implementation or remediation services. Here are some examples of past work I've done like this:
- Go-live architectural review to address possible performance and scalability issues
- Debugging and fixing of Kafka issues (broker, connect) in large clusters
- Remediation of Cloud security gaps (private routing/endpoints, firewall rules, NSGs, hardened images)
- Filling monitoring and logging gaps in complex Cloud-based systems
- Reverse engineering manual cloud infrastructure setup for conversion to Terraform
- Set-up of a new AWS/Azure region/AZ for DR purposes
- Implementation of DevOps pipelines using GitLab, GitHub, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, etc.
My technical specialisations include: Azure & AWS (infrastructure, architecture, scalability, performance, networking, security), DevOps (Terraform, Azure DevOps, GitLab, GitHub, DevSecOps) and data-processing technologies (Kafka, Solr, Lucene, Elasticsearch, Mongo, RDBMSes, Hadoop, Storm).
Generally I price these engagements by the day or as a monthly retainer, obviously depending on the situation. Contact me to find out more.
I've been doing DevOps long before it was called that. As a system engineer or sysadmin back in the day, my approach was always holistic. To this day, wherever I work I focus on automating and improving processes like testing, deployment, change control, logging, monitoring and remote management.
I have extensive experience in designing and implementing one-click deployments, automatic full-stack failover or single-pane-of-glass dashboards.
Some examples of my past DevOps work include:
- CI/CD design and setup using Gitlab and Github
- Multi-cloud IaaS using Terraform
- Custom test pipelines using packer and pxe-boot
- Greenfield DevOps IaaS & CI/CD design & deployment using Terraform and Azure DevOps
- Python-based SRE scripting for monitoring custom federated clusters using Consul, Vault, Nomad
- Organisational-level DevOps tooling and security implementations
- Single-pane-of-glass dashboard design in Datadog, Splunk and Azure
- Design and implementation leadership for a holistic logging & monitoring approach across a complex hardware infrastructure
I have been designing and implementing cloud architectures for 15 years, starting with AWS, OpenStack and then Azure. I've architected pure-Cloud, hybrid-Cloud and multi-cloud infrastructures and applications.
What I have learned during all this time is that there is no reason why you can't have an architecture that meets your requirements for scalability, performance, security and availability AND doesn't break the bank. Many times I find overly complex application designs using a sprawling complex of cloud services when a small bit of smart coding is all that is needed. There are nearly always ways to implement simpler, more stable and more cost effective designs.
My unique approach uses cloud technologies intelligently. I only recommend designs and technical strategies that are practically feasible and easily implementable. I never design anything without having built at least a prototype of it, and I never recommend any technology without having personally used it.
Some examples of my past cloud work include:
- Design, deployment and management of a global Azure infrastructure supporting multiple high-performance services
- Infrastructure design and deployment of a custom global, multi-cloud, Kubernetes-based PaaS (AWS and Azure)
- Cloud architecture design for a bespoke enterprise cloud
- Implementation and management of large Kafka clusters in AWS and Azure
- Holistic logging & monitoring of complex Azure/AWS-based systems
- Disaster recovery (vm to regional-level scenarios) design and implementation
I have 30 years of experience in every area of IT and with dozens of technologies and paradigms. But most importantly, I have a track record of designing and building highly-performant, highly-stable, easily-manageable and cost effective IT systems. My success is based on my talent for modelling complex systems and processes in a way that addresses not just core business requirements, but the concerns of project management, functionality, stability, performance and long-term management.
Long before the term DevOps was invented, I realised that the only way to increase operational stability and efficiency in IT was to create technologies and processes for infrastructure automation, disaster recovery, logging & monitoring and deployments. From home-grown tooling to today's technologies, I've consistently helped my clients achieve faster service delivery and greater stability for their applications, regardless of whether of the deployment model - traditional bare-metal, cloud, multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud.
As a senior DevOps expert, I know how to spot technical bullshit that would otherwise cost clients money and risk outrages for their customers. I know how to build stable and reliable systems that can rapidly evolve to meet changing business needs. I know how to implement practical and long-lasting SRE / DevOps processes that ensure successful, continuous service delivery ... and all while saving clients money.
Working with me is simple and tuned to your needs.
The first thing is to get in touch: book a 15-minute intro via Calendly below:
I mostly work off a menu of fixed-price services, which are usually best suited to most small- and medium-sized organisations. For larger companies or special situations I will charge by the hour or day. The fastest way to get a quote is simply to call.
When clients hire me I am generally able to start within 1 or 2 business days, sooner in emergency situations. During the engagement clients will have direct access to me by phone or Slack; I don't use any intermediaries.