Wolkwacht

From OrbStack to AKS: Installing Dapr on a Managed Cluster

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Transferring a Dapr-enabled application from local Kubernetes to AKS should be straightforward. The annotations, app ID, application port, sidecar API, and workload manifest stay familiar. The key difference is ownership: a temporary local setup transforms into a shared runtime that requires a version policy, availability plan, network access, identity strategy, and support structure.

This post moves the sample from Installing Dapr on Kubernetes Locally with OrbStack to an existing AKS cluster. We will compare the open-source installation path with the AKS Dapr extension, install the extension, verify the control plane, and deploy the same NGINX workload.

Installing Dapr on Kubernetes Locally with OrbStack

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

To quickly grasp Dapr on Kubernetes, it’s best to start locally rather than with an AKS cluster. Local setup allows for rapid pod creation in seconds, minimizes the consequences of mistakes, and keeps all control-plane components easily accessible for inspection.

In this post, we’ll demonstrate setting up OrbStack’s single-node Kubernetes cluster on macOS, installing Dapr in development mode, examining the creation process, deploying a simple web app with a sidecar, and accessing it via Dapr’s HTTP API. The same annotations and runtime model apply to AKS later, with only differences in the platform and installation approach.

Dapr on Kubernetes and AKS Series

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Dapr on Kubernetes and AKS

Dapr gives applications a consistent set of APIs for common distributed-systems concerns while leaving the backing infrastructure replaceable. This series starts with the mental model, builds a fast local development loop, moves the same workload to Azure Kubernetes Service, and then works through the building blocks and production concerns.

The series is written for developers and platform engineers who already know the basics of Kubernetes but are new to Dapr. Each post stands on its own; reading in order gives you the smoothest path from first principles to production.

What Is Dapr, and Why Run It on Kubernetes?

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every distributed application gathers various plumbing components. One service requires retries and timeouts, another needs a message broker client, and a third must store some state, retrieve secrets, or discover other services. Over time, each team ends up with a unique set of client libraries, connection handling methods, telemetry, and failure behaviors.

Dapr, the Distributed Application Runtime, provides a uniform API for the underlying infrastructure. Your application communicates with a local Dapr process via HTTP or gRPC. Dapr then interacts with services, the state store, the broker, the secret store, or other components on your application’s behalf. While the application retains control of its business logic, Dapr offers reusable capabilities for building distributed applications.

Secrets Management Showdown: Azure Key Vault CSI Driver vs. External Secrets Operator

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The real question is not whether to use the Azure Key Vault provider for the Secrets Store CSI Driver or the External Secrets Operator (ESO). Instead, it’s whether your workload should access secret data as mounted files or via native Kubernetes Secret objects.

That choice influences application design, rotation, incident handling, RBAC, observability, Helm compatibility, and GitOps. In short: CSI offers a more secure default for applications that consume files; ESO provides a more practical platform default when Kubernetes-native compatibility is a priority. This decision involves both GitOps and security considerations.

KubeBuddy: An Agentless Second Opinion for Kubernetes

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Kubernetes is very good at reporting desired state. A Deployment can be available while its pods restart every few hours. A cluster can show green nodes while workloads have no disruption budgets, probes, resource limits, or network isolation. Dashboards show signals; they do not necessarily connect them into an operational judgment.

That is the gap KubeBuddy tries to fill. The open-source KubeDeck project is a Go-based command-line scanner that connects through an existing Kubernetes context and evaluates cluster health, workloads, security, RBAC, networking, storage, and configuration. It can add provider-specific checks for AKS and GKE and emit terminal, HTML, JSON, and CSV output. There is no controller, Helm release, or long-running agent to install in the cluster.

Is Azure Container Apps Eating AKS's Lunch for Smaller Workloads?

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kubernetes has become so familiar that many teams don’t choose to adopt it anymore; they just start using it. When a new internal API appears, someone sets up an AKS cluster, and within weeks, the team manages node pools, upgrade channels, ingress, identity, policies, observability, and a backlog of Helm charts. None of these decisions are incorrect, but the issue is that the workload might never have required a Kubernetes platform in the first place.

Secure Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:01:01 +0000

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) removes most of the undifferentiated heavy lifting of running Kubernetes, but it does not remove your responsibility for securing what runs on top of it.

Apple container, one year on: from tech demo to a real Docker Desktop alternative

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:05:47 +0000

A cloud architect’s field notes on apple/container v1.2.0, for the devops engineers and application specialists who have to make the “what…

Reducing AKS Costs: Autoscaling, Spot Nodes, Rightsizing, and FinOps Practices

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:01:01 +0000

Introduction: Cost Is an Outcome of Scheduling Decisions

Running AI Workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service: From Platform Control to Model Serving

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 07:31:53 +0000

Most teams begin their AI journey by using a managed model API. This approach works initially but can become problematic when costs become…

Optimizing Azure Container Apps Costs: Scaling to Zero, Workload Profiles, and FinOps

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:56:49 +0000

Azure Container Apps enables teams to deploy APIs, background processors, scheduled jobs, and event-driven services without directly…

Azure Kubernetes Application Network, Part 3: AI Gateway, Observability and Production Fit

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 06:14:44 +0000

Part 1 introduced AppNet, while Part 2 demonstrated its use in zero-trust and multi-cluster patterns. This concluding section explores a…

Azure Kubernetes Application Network, Part 2: Zero-Trust and Multi-Cluster Patterns

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:18:29 +0000

In Part 1, we discussed the AppNet architecture, setup process, and waypoint model. This second part shifts focus from mechanics to…

Azure Kubernetes Application Network, Part 1: What AppNet Is and How to Get Started

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:00:05 +0000

The space between 'we have ingress' and 'we run a full service mesh with sidecars on every pod' has always been a challenging middle…

When Your Cluster Isn’t Sufficient: Introducing Virtual Pools in AKS

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 08:32:23 +0000

There’s a moment in every Kubernetes journey when the cluster begins to feel… heavy. Not broken, not misconfigured, but stretched in ways…

GitOps on Azure Kubernetes Service: Building a Production-Ready Platform with Flux

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 07:42:06 +0000

Kubernetes platforms seldom fail due to the technology itself; instead, failures are usually caused by operational issues.

When Kubernetes Lies:

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 07:29:00 +0000

Truth inside AKS with Inspektor Gadget

Cloud Security Is a System, Not a Stack

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 08:50:22 +0000

Part 6 of the Cloud Security series

Security Fails Quietly When Nobody Owns It

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:40:04 +0000

Part 5 of the Cloud Security series

Architecture Decides the Blast Radius

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 08:42:36 +0000

Part 4 of the Cloud Security series

You Are Logging Everything — And Seeing Almost Nothing

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 13:41:29 +0000

Part 3 of the Cloud Security series

Identity Is the Perimeter You Forgot to Guard

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 10:05:37 +0000

Part 2 of the Cloud Security series

The First Security Conversation You Have Too Late: Hardening an Existing Azure Environment

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:45:32 +0000

Most cloud security stories begin in the wrong place.

The Unseen Work of a Cloud Architect: A Story About Building Azure the Hard (and Right) Way

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 13:02:59 +0000

The Unseen Work of a Cloud Architect: A Story About Building Azure the Hard (and Right) Way

The story of implementing an Azure cloud environment rarely starts with technology. It begins with a seemingly simple conversation: someone in the business has a goal, a team has a new initiative, or an executive has read an article promising faster innovation, better resilience, or lower operational costs. The request sounds straightforward: “We want to move to Azure.” But it’s never that simple. Not because Azure is inherently complex, though it can be, but because cloud architecture is more about managing people, expectations, culture, pressure, and an ever-changing regulatory landscape.

Operating AKS from your workstation

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 13:04:13 +0000

Inside Microsoft’s New AKS Desktop

Beyond the Cloud: Running Kubernetes with Talos: Comparing Talos, k3s, AKS, and EKS

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 07:53:31 +0000

“If Kubernetes is the engine, Talos is the chassis built specifically for it.”

Application Gateway for Containers: The Future of Cloud-Native Ingress

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:21:46 +0000

Exploring the concept behind Azure’s next-generation ingress platform

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 12: The Future of Multi-Cluster

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 13:06:57 +0000

Fleet, Arc, sovereign clouds, and the edge-first world of 2030

Using the AKS-MCP Server in Day-to-Day Operations

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 06:26:36 +0000

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) has long been the leading platform for containerized workloads on Microsoft Azure. While AKS offers…

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 11: Governing the Chaos

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 07:57:15 +0000

Unifying identity, policy, networking, and observability across clouds and edge

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 10: Kubernetes at the Edge with k3s

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 09:28:48 +0000

From Raspberry Pi retail stores to 5G towers — the hidden force reshaping enterprise IT

Running Containers the Apple Way: A First Look into Apple Container on macOS

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 13:21:58 +0000

For years, running containers on macOS has involved compromises. Docker Desktop used HyperKit to virtualize Linux, which was simple to use…

Azure Kubernetes Security Demystified: From Nodes to Pods

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 09:21:22 +0000

Azure Kubernetes Security Demystified: From Nodes to Pods

Introduction

Kubernetes has become the standard for hosting containerized applications, with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) being one of the most popular managed options. AKS simplifies management by handling the control plane, but securing the environment remains the customer’s responsibility. The shared responsibility model requires you to focus on strengthening worker nodes, controlling cluster access, and ensuring that workloads and pods operate with the least privileges.
Security in Kubernetes involves multiple layers. The base layer is the host security of the virtual machines in the node pools. Next is the cluster layer, where identity, networking, and governance must be carefully established and maintained. At the top, securing pods and containers that run your business logic is crucial to prevent privilege escalation or unauthorized communication. This approach, known as “defense in depth,” emphasizes addressing security across various boundaries instead of relying on a single tool or configuration for full protection.

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 9: EKS in the Enterprise

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:47:46 +0000

Why Amazon’s Kubernetes service is a compliance lever, not just duplication

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 8: Fleet in Focus

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:36:24 +0000

Azure’s multi-cluster powerhouse — and where it falls short

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 7: The Multi-Cluster Reality

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 07:00:03 +0000

From the dream of one perfect cluster to the messy truth of enterprise sprawl

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles: Multi-Cluster Edition

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 08:01:27 +0000

From Fleet to Edge — navigating Kubernetes across clouds and continents

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 6:

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 10:31:37 +0000

Managing Multiple AKS Clusters with Azure Fleet

Digital Sovereignty and the Public Cloud:

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 07:07:40 +0000

Navigating Azure in a European Context

Harnessing Chaos: Implementing Chaos Engineering with Azure Chaos Studio and Gremlin on AKS

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 12:42:28 +0000

Chaos Engineering is a crucial practice for modern cloud operations, enabling teams to identify hidden weaknesses and potential failures in…

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles part 5:

Wed, 07 May 2025 06:53:40 +0000

Autoscaling with KEDA

From Code to Cloud: A Hands-On Guide to Azure Container Apps

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:48:31 +0000

As a cloud professional, I constantly seek ways to streamline application delivery while reducing operational overhead. Whether you’re building APIs, microservices, or event-driven backends, choosing the right platform can significantly impact speed to market and maintainability.

Introducing Azure Container Apps (ACA) — a fully managed, serverless platform designed specifically for running containerized workloads without the complexity of orchestrating and managing Kubernetes infrastructure. Built on top of Kubernetes and powered by open-source technologies like Dapr and KEDA (Kubernetes Event Driven Autoscaling), ACA offers the best of both worlds: the power and flexibility of containers with the simplicity and developer focus of a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles part 4

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 10:41:00 +0000

Dataprotection

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles part 3

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 07:07:29 +0000

Observability

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 09:17:00 +0000

Networking using eBPF

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 08:05:02 +0000

Container Network Interfaces

Challenging the Cloud Cost-Saving Myth

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 09:04:19 +0000

A Closer Look at Azure and cost control

Zero Trust in the Cloud

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 08:29:37 +0000

A Simple Path to Securing Cloud Infrastructure

Recap of 2023

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 14:37:16 +0100

Article description.

Confidential Computing

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 15:43:00 +0100

The implementation of confidential compute on Azure

Devopsdays Amsterdam 2023

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 13:59:17 +0200

Recap of Devopsdays Amsterdam 2023

Azure Day on Kubernetes + KubeCon/CloudNativeCon Europe 2023

Sat, 22 Apr 2023 09:56:20 +0200

Recap of KubeConEU 2023 and Azure Day with Kubernetes.

AKS Edge Essentials

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 09:09:51 +0200

First look at AKS Edge essentials

Kubernetes Community Days Amsterdam 2023

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 09:49:29 +0100

Report of the Kubernetes Community Days Amsterdam 2023

Calico Big Cats Ambassador program

Mon, 16 May 2022 09:28:37 +0200

Short update: I’m happy to announce that I have been admitted to the Calico Big Cats Ambassador program. Thanks to Tigera, Chris Tomkins and Project Calico. In the last months I have been busy with gettting my Calico certifications. At the moment I have the Calico Certified Operator:Level 1 and Calico Certified Operator: AWS Expert. I’m still pursuing the Calico Certified Operator: eBPF. My plan is to finish this training in the coming week or next week.

AWS Certifications

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 15:00:16 +0200

I started 2021 with a focus on Microsoft Azure and also passed two exams which I also mention in earlier posts. In August I changed jobs. At my current employer there is more a focus on AWS as a cloud provider. Unfortunately my AWS certification had expired, so I had to start over again. My goal for 2021 was to pass at least the Solutions Architect Associate exam. I achieved that goal and also passed to other exams.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Sat, 01 May 2021 09:48:16 +0200

Article description.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Today I passed my first Azure exam for this year, Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate. My goal is to achieve two other certificates in the coming two months, Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert and Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert. For the first certification this is one of the required exams. Next will be AZ-400 Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions

In preparation for this exam I read the blueprint and the modules offered on Microsoft Learn. Also I used AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Exam Certification 2020 by Scott Duffy on Udemy.com and I also followed AZ-303: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies training which was offered by my company and has some overlap with AZ-104 topic wise. Next to that I used a free account on Azure to get hands on experience with Azure. The exam itself is not difficult and consist only of 65 multiple choice questions. I had some questions where I was not allowed to go back to the earlier question and didn’t show up in the question review screen. The last four questions where around a case study. All in all a very doable exam if you have some hands on experience and of course make sure that you read the questions! View my Azure Administrator Associate credential on Credly.

KubeCon / CloudNativeCon Europe Virtual

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first day of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe Virtual. Originally this event was planned for the end of March/ beginning of April in Amsterdam. I was really looking forward to it because Amsterdam is very near where I live. Because of covid-19 is wast decided to postpone the event and finally they made it a virtual event. Despite of the fact that it is now a virtual event I’m still happy that Kubecon + CloudNativeCon is being held. I think the CNCF, sponsors, speakers and everybody that is involved with creating this event deserve kudos for organising it. I’m ready to attend the sessions, visit the virtual booth’s and participate in this event. I will not be able to fully focus this whole week on KubeCon so I making choices in which sessions I will follow. During the conference I will share topics that interest me.

Certified Rancher Operator

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 08:20:32 +0200

Last week I completed Certified Rancher Operator: Level 1. I already had some experience with the products of Rancher Labs. I wrote some posts about the K3S product and I have implemented a Rancher based solution at a customer. Next to that I was part of team tht build a Rancher based platform to host different teams in a muli tenant setup. I already heard that Rancher was thinking about certifications for their products. I have to say that I like their approach. It is very easy to start. You have to go the Rancher Academy and create a account. Currently there is one training available but during the training there are references being made to the next training and at the end of the course they talk about some of the topics the level 2 training will contain. The training is a mix of presentations and demo’s, via Youtube videos, and excercises you can do. The excercises are not mandetory but will help you understand the material better. The trainers Adrian Goins and William Jimenez are doing a good job in presenting the material. It easy to follow and complete because the videos are split up in small chunks so that you are able to complete parts of the training without having to block large parts of your day. After you have completed the training and passed the final test you get a certificate. You can see my certificate here

Blog updated and migrated

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 11:41:28 +0200

In 2015 I started with a personal blog which was called Mindmelt.nl. This blog was based on Wordpress and up until now my blog was running there.Last year I talked with some colleagues about which platform they were using and some of them mentioned Hugo. I really like Hugo and also the fact that when you can check your post local before publishing, push it to a git repository and have it automatically being hosted online. So with the ‘intelligent lockdown’ we are in due to Corvid-19, I thought it was a good idea to migrate my current blog, based on Wordpress, to a new blog based on Hugo. I also decided to change the domain name from Mindmelt.nl to JurgenAllewijn.nl. When I decided to move to a new blog, I didn’t want to loose all my old blogposts so I tried some of the tools which were mentioned on the Hugo website. I was not very happy with the results of the tools I tried. Then I came over an article about migrating from Wordpress to Hugo by Christopher Kirk-Nielsen. As written in his article he used a tool called blog2md. First I logged on to my Wordpress site and exported all my posts to an xml file. With blog2md I converted this xml to markdown so that I had all my post as seperate markdown files. For the images I had to choose another approach. I installed the plugin WP file manager on my Wordpress site. With WP File Manager you get access to your Wordpress site. You can then select all images in the Upload directory and download them as an archive. I had now all the components I needed to start my new blog. First I installed Hugo using Homebrew:

k3s: Enable Traefik dashboard

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:37:20 +0000

If you install k3s with the default settings it also installs Traefik as a load balancer. Traefik also offers a dashboard which is very easy to enable. If you go on your k3s machines to the path /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests you can find their traefik.yaml. To enable the Traefik dashboard you have to add dashboard.enabled: “true” to the yaml.

root@k3s-master-1:/var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests# cat traefik.yaml
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: traefik
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  chart: https://%{KUBERNETES_API}%/static/charts/traefik-1.77.1.tgz
  set:
    rbac.enabled: "true"
    ssl.enabled: "true"
    metrics.prometheus.enabled: "true"
    kubernetes.ingressEndpoint.useDefaultPublishedService: "true"
    dashboard.enabled: "true"
root@k3s-master-1:/var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests# cat traefik.yaml
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: traefik
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  chart: https://%{KUBERNETES_API}%/static/charts/traefik-1.77.1.tgz
  set:
    rbac.enabled: "true"
    ssl.enabled: "true"
    metrics.prometheus.enabled: "true"
    kubernetes.ingressEndpoint.useDefaultPublishedService: "true"
    dashboard.enabled: "true"

After a few minutes you will see some extra pods getting started.

Google Certified Associate Cloud Engineer

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 19:57:11 +0000

Today I got the email from Google saying that I passed the Google Cloud Associate Engineer certification. Last Friday I took the exam at a Kryterion test center and got the pass score but had to wait till the final approval from Google.

At my current job I don’t work with Google Cloud but more with Microsoft Azure, AWS and data center environments. Google certification was on my list of certifications I wanted to look into. When A Cloud Guru also started with the offering of course around Google Cloud I bought it. I already knew them from the AWS courses and I really like their approach. I started also with the training but didn’t finish it.

KubeCon | CloudNativeCon Europe 2019 part 2

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 18:48:02 +0000

As I already explained in my earlier post, this was my first KubeCon | CloudNativeCon that I attended. What I liked about KubeCon was the diversity in sessions and that it was often a difficult choice per time slot which session to attend. For me this congress was next to attending sessions also about networking with vendors and other attendees. There were a lot of good opportunities and I spoke to a lot of people.

KubeCon / CloudNativeCon Europe 2019 part 1

Fri, 17 May 2019 08:38:52 +0000

This year I’m going to KubeCon | CloudNativeCon which is held in Barcelona from Monday, May 20, 2019 - Thursday, May 23. This is my first KubeCon and I’m really looking forward to the sessions and the meetings I have scheduled

Here is list of tips which kind of apply to every conference I have attended.

Wear comfortable shoes
Take a powerbank/ adapters with you
Build your agenda using the agenda builder
Leave time between session. You need time to process the information you get from different sessions
Take time to network with other attendees or vendors
Check the sponsors on the Sponsor showcase
Install the Sched app to have your schedule on your mobile
Enjoy the event :)

You can book your agenda via this link, https://kccnceu19.sched .com/ . Below is my schedule as it currently is within the app. I selected a session for every slot but that will not be doable as I have also meetings planned and like I said in my tips you should als to time to process the information and of course visit the booths of the sponsors. So this schedule will definitely change during the conference.

k3s: Kubernetes Dashboard + load balancer

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 19:31:14 +0000

In my post about first experience with k3s I blogged about setting up my k3s based cluster on Raspberry PI’s. Since that post I have added two more nodes Raspberry Pi’s and also updated to the 0.3.0 version of k3s.

pi@k3s-master-1:~ $ kubectl get nodes
NAME           STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
k3s-master-1   Ready    master   4h11m   v1.13.5-k3s.1
k3s-node-1     Ready    node     129m    v1.13.5-k3s.1
k3s-node-2     Ready    node     118m    v1.13.5-k3s.1
k3s-node-3     Ready    node     119m    v1.13.5-k3s.1
pi@k3s-master-1:~ $

Next step for me was getting the Kubernetes Dashboard up and running. I used the information from Web UI (Dashboard) First downloaded I the kubernetes-dashboard.yaml

k3s: release v0.2.0 released

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 07:34:42 +0000

Rancher has released v0.2.0.of k3s. Information of the new release is in this article. As soon as I have some time and I have added two extra nodes to the cluster, I’m going to add the cluster to my Rancher server. I have upgraded my Raspberry Pi’s to v0.2.0. The process of upgrading is really simple. Just download the new version and replace the old version of k3s with the new version and restart.

k3s: Lightweight Kubernetes Distribution first experience

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 16:25:56 +0000

Rancher introduced alsmost week ago k3s, a lightweight Kubernetes Distribution. In the YouTube video below you hear Shannon Williams and Darren Shepherd from Rancher talk about K3S, what it is, the usecases and demo of K3S.

https://youtu.be/5-5t672vFi4

k3sis a fully compliant, production-grade Kubernetes distribution that maintains an absolutely tiny footprint. Weighing in at less than 40 MB, it only needs 512 MB of RAM to run. This means it’s perfect for all kinds of computing that requires a minimal about of memory and space.

Docker Certified Associate

Sat, 11 Aug 2018 12:59:01 +0000

Earlier this week I passed my Docker exam, and so I can call myself now Docker Certified Associate. For the official certificate, check here. Achieving this certification is the first step in the path to Docker Accredited Consultant. Next step is attending the DAC (Docker Accredited Consultant) workshop which I attended in the second week of July. This certification is also a part of the shift I want to make to more cloud native and also moving away from the infrastructure layer higher up in the stack.

Containers Today 2018

Sun, 01 Jul 2018 13:00:27 +0000

On the 28th of June the event Containers Today was held in the Fokker Terminal in The Hague. This event was organized by Amazic and Lef Marketing. KPN ICT Consulting was one of the sponsors of this event, next to Docker, Amazic etc. A booth and a session were part of the sponsor package.

It was very nice weather and as a result of that sometimes a bit hot inside the building. The event was visited by around the 330 people and had a variety of sessions divided in three different tracks, Business, Operations and Developer. The event started with a keynote session by Bradley Wong, Director of Product Management within Docker. As part of Bradley’s presentation were some slides with numbers of Docker downloads, Docker Hub usage and also the number of job listings which included Docker knowledge as a requirement.

Containers Today announcement

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 12:22:36 +0000

On the 28th of June the event Containers Today is being organized by Amazic. My employer, KPN ICT Consulting is one of the gold sponsors of this event and I will be one of the speakers during one of the breakout sessions. Hope to see you there or on the booth. Containers Today - Experience the exciting world of containers While digitization is more important than ever before and many professionals work with an innovative portfolio to realize this progress - think of clouds, data centers and application architectures - progress is being countered at the same time by existing applications and related infrastructure (legacy). The solution? With container technology, you can run applications without depending on the underlying servers and software versions, both on-premise and in the cloud, managed and secured from a single platform. Do you want to know what containerization can mean for your organization? On June 28 a.s., we will talk about containerization in one day: how does your organization benefit from container technology? What is the difference between containerization and virtualization? How do you save costs? How do you manage a hybrid infrastructure and containers in the cloud? To answer all questions as well as possible, we divide the day into three different tracks: Business Track - Developer Track - Operations Track For whom On this day we expect more than 300 Dev / DevOp’s, ITDM’s, Architects, Project Managers, CTO’s & CIO’s. There is something for everybody

VMware vExpert 2018 awarded

Sat, 10 Mar 2018 10:01:42 +0000

This morning, very early I received the e-mail that I received the vExpert award. This was for me the 2nd time that I got this award. The first time I applied in December 2016 for the vExpert 2017 award, which I got. Last year I also succesful applied for the vExpert Cloud 2017, one of the three sub awards.

Happy to be a part of the vCommunity and looking forward to again participate in the community and share information and knowlegde. Thanks to Corey Romero and his team for his efforts for making this possible.

VMware Certified Professional 6 -Network Virtualization 6.2

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 14:04:58 +0000

Today I passed my VMware Certified Professional 6 -Network Virtualization 6.2 certification. Last year I already took the course but at that moment I was too busy with other stuff to also take the exam. Now after reading again the course material, the online training Clear and Simple VMware NSX 6.2 and vSphere Virtual Networks from Rick Crisci via Udemy.com and the use of hands on labs I felt up to the exam.

VMworld 2017 (Day 3)

Fri, 15 Sep 2017 07:49:47 +0000

Yesterday was the third and last day of VMworld 2017 Europe. I had two sessions scheduled. Both were VMware Cloud on AWS related. First session was: Protecting Virtual Machines in VMware Cloud on AWS.

In this session, VMware and Dell EMC also presented their capabilities for this subject. Interesting solutions in which you see the added value of AWS as an endpoint for storing backups on S3 for instance. My second session was VMware Cloud on AWS: An Architectural and Operational Deep Dive. This session was about the architecture of the environment, the vCenter permissions of the customer and how the host remediation process on AWS works. After the sessions I had lunch and had a last quick walk over the solution exchange. Before I went to the airport I spend time on filling out the surveys that I had not processed. If I summarize my visit to VMworld 2017, I think it has been an interesting event. My focus in the sessions was mostly with VMware Cloud on AWS. I had some nice discussions with employees of VMware, peers and vendors and I have gotten a lot of useful info. For me the highlights were:

VMworld 2017 Europe (day 2)

Thu, 14 Sep 2017 07:14:03 +0000

Today I decided to not go to the general session but instead follow it on the big screen in the VMvillage. This gives you the possibility to get coffee during the keynote :). The keynote started with Pat Gelsinger, Sanjay Poonen and Ray O’Farell answering questions that the VMworld attendees could submit yesterday. After that Ray O’Farrel, Chris Wolf and Purnima Padmanabhan went more into depth about VMware HCX, Wavefront, NSX-T, VMware Pulse IoT Center and Functions as a Service (FaaS). After the keynote I attended two sessions. Both were around VMware Cloud on AWS. The last two sessions, Service Overview for VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS: A Technical Deep Dive, were really interesting. The first session was focussed on service, the support and separation of the responsibilities between the customer and VMware. They also showed the online support that was available for this product and the automatic actions that VMware takes to keep the customer environment healthy. The second session showed in more detail the components that made the VMware Cloud on AWS product. The session touched on compute, storage, networking and security. After the sessions I went back to the solution exchange and visited several booths and also spent time on networking with the vendors, colleagues and other attendees. In the evening I went to the VMware Customer Appreciation Party featuring the Kaiser Chiefs. I think it was without a doubt the best band and the VMworld party.

VMworld 2017 Europe (day 1)

Wed, 13 Sep 2017 06:30:23 +0000

For me VMworld already started on Monday with the Partner Exchange and the TAM day. It started today with the keynote by, amongst other speakers, Pat Gelsinger and Sanjay Poonen. They talked about the strategy for VMware. Pat was saying that tech was breaking out of tech. Alan Renouf was, together with Pat Gelsinger, a way of managing your environment via VR. Following announcements were done:

VMware Integrated Open Stack 4.0
vSphere Integrated Containers 1.2
VMware HCX

After the keynote I had no session scheduled so I made a short visit to the solution exchange. Lot of interesting vendors and of course also the usual suspects. Also got some of the swag from some vendors.

VMworld Partner Exchange

Mon, 11 Sep 2017 16:31:28 +0000

Today VMworld 2017 started for me. Yesterday I flew in to Barcelona and got my badge and the backpack with, amongst other things, the water bottle and the shirt. Today is the partner exchange and the tam day. I had only sessins in the partner track scheduled. My first two sessions were about VMware Cloud on AWS. The first session was less technical but the second session went into more depth about the technology behind VMware Cloud on AWS. After that I attended the general partner sessions. Amongst the speakers there were Pat Gelsinger, Maurizio Carli, Ross Brown and Brandon Sweeney. The told us about the strategy and the partner organisation. After the keynote it was time for lunch. While not everybody who will be attending VMworld was already there, it was still very crowded.

VMworld 2017 Europe

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 15:05:31 +0000

This year VMworld Europe will again be held in Barcelona, but unlike previous years it will not be in October but already in the second week of September. Just as last year, my employer made it possible for me to attend VMworld Europe. I have to finalize my schedule but as it available, I already started planning which sessions I would like to attend. When I have finalized my schedule I will also post it here. As my interest are shifting to the public cloud, I’m really looking forward to the session around VMware on AWS. So mostly my schedule will filled with that as there are many sessions around VMware on AWS. Next to that I’m still interested in devops and container related sessions. Interesting links: VMworld parties, gathering and events Sneak peek VMworld bag Content builder VMworld Europe First-Timer’s Guide to VMworld

Amazon Web Services certification 1/8

Thu, 29 Jun 2017 13:34:32 +0000

AWS offer a range of certification types including Associate, Professional, and Specialty. The certifications focus on gaining technical knowledge on the AWS Platform across several roles and specialties.We offer associate certifications covering the roles of Solutions Architect, Developer, and SysOps Administrator. Once you have completed an Associate Certification in any of these roles, you may progress to a Specialty in Advanced Networking or Big Data, or a Professional Certification in Solutions Architect or DevOps Engineering.Specialty Certifications offer advancement for someone interested validating their expertise in a specific area. Professional Certifications are our highest role-specific certification.

vExpert 2017

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 17:47:05 +0000

Yesterday VMware published the list of vExperts for 2017. This is the first time that I applied for the VMware vExpert program and I’m honored to have been chosen as one of the few vExperts this year. What is the vExpert program? The VMware vExpert program is VMware’s global evangelism and advocacy program. The program is designed to put VMware’s marketing resources towards your advocacy efforts. Promotion of your articles, exposure at our global events, co-op advertising, traffic analysis, and early access to beta programs and VMware’s roadmap. The awards are for individuals, not companies, and last for one year. Employees of both customers and partners can receive the awards. In the application, we consider various community activities from the previous year as well as the current year’s (only for 2nd half applications) activities in determining who gets awards. We look to see that not only were you active but are still active in the path you chose to apply for.

VMworld 2016 Day 3, be_Tomorrow

Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:00:28 +0000

Today is the last day of VMworld 2016 Europe. It has been an interesting congress with a lot of topics and also a lot of ways to get information. The last day of VMworld is always the Thursday and you see already of the attendees leaving as they travel back home. The venue gets quieter by the hour. This last days I had three interesting sessions scheduled:

Your Open-Source Datacenter
VM’s and Containers: Extending Docker to vCloud Air
Introducing VMware Cloud Foundation

Your Open-Source Datacenter, was a session given by two enthusiastic guys, David Lloyd and Ramon Tarnavski. They talked about the advantages of Source:

VMworld 2016 Day 1, be_Tomorrow

Wed, 19 Oct 2016 09:36:23 +0000

Today is the first day of VMworld 2016. The day starts with the general keynote session. First speaker during the general session was Jean-Pierre Brulard, general manager EMEA. He started with some statistics. This VMworld there are 10k attendees, 300 sessions. This is the first time that VMworld and a AirWatch connect are held together. The second speaker was Pat Gelsinger,CEO. Pat spoke about the world in which you control nothing but are in charge. This is a good base for the hybrid cloud. Pat talked about Digital transformation, which is according to him the new buzzword. He said he rather used Digital Business as also legacy applications are still there. Pat also announced vSphere 6.5 and VSAN 6.5. After that Pat talked about the cross cloud architecture. Part of it is the cross cloud service consisting of two parts, Cloud Foundation and a set of SAAS applications which will become available in 2017. These SAAS applications will offer you cloud control over your cross cloud environment. Pat also addressed the AWS announcement. More details below in this post and other posts to come. After the general session I did a quick walk around at the Solution Exchange which also openend today. After that I went for an early lunch because I didn’t want to miss the session VMware Cloud on AWS. Last week AWS and VMware announced this new partnership. This partnership was also mentioned during the keynote and also yesterday during Partner sessions. VMware Cloud on AWS gives customers the possibility to run their workloads in the cloud with a lot of the benefits that AWS has to offer. One of the benefits is elastic drs, which causes in times of shortage of resources to automatic provision an extra host. This includes cpu, memory and storage. VMware Cloud is based on vSphere 6.5, NSX and VSAN.VMware Cloud will be managed and operated by VMware people on AWS hardware. This new service will be available mid 2017 starting with the Oregon location. After that all other AWS locations will follow. Not all information is yet public available but more information will follow in the coming months. I think this offering helps a lot of customer in their decision for moving forward with their current environment to the cloud. For more information about VMware Cloud, you can also visit http://www.mindjudo.nl. The last session of the day is From Zero to VMware Photon Platform. VMware also made announcements around Photon Platform. Photon Platform now supports Kubernetes next to Cloud foundry. Photon Platform also support now VSAN and NSX. VSAN is not required as local storage is needed. Shared storage is only needed for storing of the images that are used by the environment. Photon Platform uses vSphere as a base but doesn’t use functionality like drs and ha.This kind of functionality should be taken care of by the application itself. Photon is primarily a command line driven environment but there is also a basic guide available. If you want to try Photon Platform you can download it here .

VMworld 2016 Day 2, be_Tomorrow

Wed, 19 Oct 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Today was the second day of VMworld, which started with the general session. First speaker was Sanjay Poonen. Sanjay talked about the digital transformation that is already happening in healthcare and education and how the vision of VMware fits in this. After that Sanjay spoke about Workspace One. VMware Workspace ONE is a simple and secure enterprise platform that delivers and manages any app on any device by integrating identity, application and enterprise mobility management. It is available as a cloud service or for on-premises deployment. Ray ‘o Farrel was the second speaker on stage. His main topic was SDDC and the components it consists of within VMware, vSphere, VSAN, NSX and vRealize . He focused first on vSphere 6.5 and all the new features it offers. More info can be found here. Yan Bing Lee came on stage to talk about VSAN 6.5 and the new features it offers but also what was in the beta for successor of the just released version. More information on what is new in VSAN 6.5 can be found here and on the site of Duncan Epping. After Yan Bing, Rajiv Ramaswami came on stage to talk about NSX and the challenges that NSX helps to address. These challenges are around security, automation and application continuity. Last speaker of the general session was Kit Colbert. Kit talked about Photon Platform. Photon Platform delivers core IaaS capabilities including VMs, Networks, and Persistent Disks on-demand to developers. Resources are provisioned quickly and reliably, supporting the needs of devops tools that programmatically allocate resources at scale. Photon Platform enables you to deliver Kubernetes as a Service to multiple tenants from a single shared pool of hardware. Each tenant gets access to API, CLI and GUI tools which allow them to provision dedicated Kubernetes clusters on the fly. Users get a dedicated kubernetes cluster with strong isolation from other tenants. Photon Platform automates the provisioning and high availability of these clusters, automatically replacing failed nodes with no human intervention.The Kubernetes service will become available in Q4 of 2016. VMware will offer end to end support for Kubernetes running on Photon Platform. I will post more on Cloud Native Applications and specific Photon Platform in other post. After the general session I attended two other session. First session was VMware Cloud on AWS - a Closer Look . In this session the technical background behind VMware Cloud on AWS. Important takeaways of this sessions are:

VMworld 2016 Partner and TAM day

Mon, 17 Oct 2016 18:00:00 +0000

[ Today VMworld 2016 started for me with the partner and tam day. I already checked in yesterday, but still it was an early start as I had my first session at 8:30 in the morning. During the day I was also able to change my schedule and put some sessions about VMware and AWS in I started with Building & Enabling a Hybrid Cloud with vCloud director - a Perspective for Service Providers. The session was focused on the use of vCloud director, what is available now and what is on the roadmap. After that I attended Route To Market Session - vCloud Network Service Provider Partners. This session focused on the possibilities that VMware offers to their partners. After this session was the general session. A lot of interessting announcements will come tomorrow during the general keynote session.Also there was some basic information about the AWS partnership. After the general session it was time for the lunch. The food was as alwys very good. The lunch was in the same room as the hands-on labs, the partner lounge and the alumni lounge. After the lunch and visiting the lounge space and the VMware store I attended the Building Value of Data Center Virtualization and Hybrid Cloud Extensibility. This was a quick talk about what were the possibilities for cost savings. The last session of the day is The Practical Path to NSX for Partners.This session was about use cases for NSX and the vision of VMware around NSX. The day closes with the Partner Exchange Networking reception. Looking forward to the sessions in the coming days when the event really starts.

AWS Enterprise Summit

Mon, 26 Sep 2016 08:12:51 +0000

Last Tuesday, I was together with two colleagues at the AWS Enterprise summit in the World Forum in The Hague. This was for me the second AWS summit that I attended. The event started with a keynote from Ian Massingham, Chief Evangelist (EMEA), AWS. Ian spoke about the impact that cloud has on enterprise IT. After the keynote, there was a plenary session by Hans Koolen, Senior Director, Philips IT Global Services. He posed the statement that a private cloud doesn’t exist.

Docker Randstad Meetup: March 2016

Fri, 25 Mar 2016 09:44:09 +0000

Yesterday was the 3rd birthday of Docker. Docker Randstand Meetup organised two meetup sessions. I attended both of the sessions.

Docker 3rd birthday celebration - Introduction to Docker
Docker 3rd birthday plus book signing with Adrian Mouat

The meetups were in the W in Amsterdam and sponsored by Microsoft. The Introduction to Docker meetup was basically a hands-on workshop where you were you the tutorials provide by Docker to create the birthday app. If you were not familiar with Docker, there was also a getting started tutorial in which you could get acquainted with Docker and the basic commands. After you had created the app you could upload it to Docker and show that you had participated in the birthday event. During the meetup there were also pastries and good coffee available. Overall a good organized meetup.

Passed my VCP6-DCV certification

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 10:27:30 +0000

My VMware certifications were going to expire on the 12th of March, To keep that from happening I took and passed the VCP 6 - Data Center Virtualization delta exam. Since I only used selfstudy to achieve my VCP 5 certification I thought it was a smart idea to follow one of the suggested training courses. I attended the VMware vSphere: What’s New [V5.5 to V6] course. Next to that course I also attended the VMware vSphere: Certified Professional Exam Preparation Workshop [V1.0]. The training and the workshop are very helpfull towards the exam but not enough. I also installed the VMware ESXi 6.0 and VMware vCenter appliance in a test environment to get some hands on experience with the product. Useful links: VCP 6 Study guide VMware practive exam VMware product walkthrough

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

About Jurgen Allewijn, the cloud architect and Microsoft MVP behind Wolkwacht.

Aerial Field Notes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aerial photographs of castles, fortifications and landscapes by Jurgen Allewijn.

Check your inbox

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Confirm your email address to complete your Wolkwacht newsletter subscription.

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d like to get in touch, reaching out to me on LinkedIn is the simplest way. Feel free to also follow or send me a message on Bluesky or Mastodon. I look forward to connecting with you!

Privacy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Website analytics

Wolkwacht uses Umami Analytics to understand how visitors use this website. This includes aggregated information such as page views, referring websites, browser and device types, and approximate geographic location.

The standard Umami tracker does not use cookies and is not intended to identify individual visitors or track visitors across different websites.

Analytics information is used solely to understand website traffic and improve the content on Wolkwacht.

For more information, see the Umami privacy policy.

Welcome to Cloud Signals

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Your subscription to the Wolkwacht newsletter is confirmed.