Author Archives: chrisfwilliams

re:Invent Dev Chat CloudFormation Template

By | November 30, 2018

(or – OH MY GOD I TALKED AT RE:INVENT!!!) This last week was the big AWS conference called re:Invent.  I’ll have more to talk about on it later but for right now I promised the good folks who watched our Dev Chat that I’d post my CFT on github.  So here it is: https://github.com/mistwire/CloudFormationTemplates/tree/master/ReInvent_Demo_CFT 

Cross account VPC to VPC Peering

By | August 21, 2018

I’m currently playing with multiple VPCs in multiple accounts.  As a result of my home lab experiments gone awry I now find myself in need of connecting VPCs to each other that aren’t even in the same account.  This is the step-by-step process for establishing VPC peering connectivity across multiple accounts.  Before you begin, ensure that… Read More »

Using AWS Server Migration Service (SMS)

By | November 7, 2019

In my previous article I described how to establish a VPN connection between an AWS VPC and an on-premises datacenter. The next logical step is moving workloads up to the VPC! In this article we’re going to use AWS native SMS service to do just that. Pre-requisites for a VMware based environment here’s the tl;dr:… Read More »

Category: AWS

Establishing a VPN connection between the Mistwire homelab and AWS

By | June 14, 2018

I wanted to setup a VPN connection between my homelab (which is now running a Ubiquiti Networks – Unfi Security Gateway), but there wasn’t a lot of good information on the how-to of said endeavor out there. So… fodder for a new article! Phase 1 – Create a new test VPC with a VPN I’m… Read More »

Category: AWS

How to change the size of your AWS RDS with zero downtime

By | March 5, 2018

I was playing with a multi-AZ RDS the other day and noticed that I was burning money more quickly than I had anticipated/wanted, so I decided to go to a smaller instance size that wasn’t as expensive (until the environment was under production load performance wasn’t that important). Maybe I should take a step back.  AWS… Read More »

Category: AWS

Upgrading the Mistwire Network with new Ubiquiti UniFi gear!

By | December 1, 2020

My old Linksys E4200 has served me well for almost a decade… but it’s time to retire the old girl and get something made after 2010.  Every vExpert that I’ve talked to and most of my pro services friends & consultants have all said that Ubiquiti is the way to go… so this article is… Read More »

AWS re:Invent re:Cap 2017

By | December 4, 2017

This was my very first AWS re:Invent conference and there are so many things to talk about!  New announcements, new friends, a list of do’s & don’ts for the next time I attend!   AWS Services First off, I’m going to briefly talk about the new services that have were announced, but I’m not going… Read More »

Category: AWS

Learning Python in 7,832 easy steps…

By | July 1, 2020

So I’m also trying to learn a bit about programming & I’ve decided to start with Python.  I did some Java back in college and I can do a little powershell scripting, but I’m basically starting from scratch.  Here’s the list of things I’ve done so far, ranked by efficacy. Edit: I’ve gone back through… Read More »

On being a vExpert

By | October 30, 2017

     I love learning new things.  I also love sharing the knowledge that I have out to folks who are interested in it.  That’s why I started this blog.  That’s why I help to run VTUG, AWS-PUG and host/present for vBrownBag.  This is on top of my full time role at GreenPages 🙂 It’s… Read More »

Use AWS Lambda to schedule instance starts/stops and save some money!

By | September 30, 2017

I’m currently running a PoC and I only want the systems available to play with Monday – Friday, 9am to 5pm EST.  In order to save a good bit of money I’ve decided to turn off the instances at night.  I’m also super lazy, so I don’t want to have to log into the servers… Read More »

Category: AWS