1 min read
Infrastructure as Code Best Practices: Lessons from 100+ Deployments
IaC is a skill that compounds. These practices become second nature and save countless hours of debugging and recovery.
Bicep
16 articles
1 min read
Infrastructure as Code Maturity: Where Are You on the Journey?
IaC maturity is a journey, not a destination. Start where you are, establish good practices early, and continuously improve. The goal is infrastructure that…
7 min read
Azure Landing Zones: Accelerator, Terraform Module or Your Own Bicep
What an Azure landing zone is in early 2022, and how to choose between the portal accelerator, the Terraform module and your own Bicep.
6 min read
Azure Blueprints Is Still in Preview: Hedging With Bicep and Template Specs
Azure Blueprints has sat in preview since 2018; here's how to keep landing zone governance portable with Bicep, Template Specs, Policy and locks.
8 min read
Azure Policy as Code: Repo Layout, Pipeline and Staged Rollout
How to run Azure Policy from a Git repo with Bicep: what to version, how to stage controls safely, and how to test without a local evaluator.
7 min read
ARM What-If in CI/CD: Reviewing Bicep Changes Before They Ship
How to use ARM what-if to review Bicep deployments in pull requests, what its output really tells you, and the noise and blind spots to plan around.
6 min read
Bicep Private Module Registry: Publishing and Versioning with ACR
How to run a private Bicep module registry on Azure Container Registry: publishing, aliases, immutable versions, and when template specs fit better.
6 min read
Bicep at v0.4 in January 2022: Ready for Production, With Caveats
Where Azure Bicep stands in January 2022: what v0.4 gives you in production, the gaps that still bite, and when I'd still pick Terraform instead.
7 min read
Azure Hybrid Benefit as Code: Only Claim Licences You Can Prove
Set Azure Hybrid Benefit in Bicep, audit it with Resource Graph and Azure Policy, and size core licences so the discount never becomes a compliance finding.
7 min read
Azure Spot VMs: Eviction Policy, Max Price and the 30-Second Notice
Azure Spot VM eviction explained: capacity vs price eviction, Deallocate vs Delete, max price, and handling the Scheduled Events Preempt notice in Python.
8 min read
A New AKS Cluster Baseline for 2022: What Changed in Late 2021
The AKS features that reached GA in 2021 and change how I'd build a new cluster in January 2022: Azure RBAC, no local accounts, auto-upgrade and Key Vault CSI.
8 min read
Azure Container Apps Preview in Bicep: Revisions, Scaling and Dapr
A closer look at the Azure Container Apps preview API: how revisions, KEDA scale rules and per-app Dapr components behave, and where the preview falls short.
1 min read
Infrastructure as Code Maturity: Beyond the Basics
IaC maturity in 2021 meant treating infrastructure code with the same rigor as application code. The tools support it; the discipline makes it work.
1 min read
Bicep Modules for Modular Azure Infrastructure
Bicep modules enable clean, maintainable Azure infrastructure code. By separating concerns into modules, you create reusable components that can be shared…
1 min read
Azure Resource Manager Templates Best Practices
I've written a lot of ARM templates in the past three years, and I've also inherited a lot of ARM templates written by people who were having a bad day. The…
6 min read
Azure Bicep v0.2: Learn It Now, Hold Off on Production
What Azure Bicep v0.2 can and can't do in January 2021, how to build and deploy it today, and why I'd learn it now but wait for v0.3 before production.