Tag Archives: containers

Deep Dive into ECS

I spent a fair bit of time in 2017 re-architecting the carnival.io platform onto Amazon ECS, including working to handle some tricky autoscaling challenges brought on by the nature of the sudden high-load spikes experienced when we deliver push messages to customers.

I’ve now summed up these learnings into a deep dive talk on the Amazon ECS architecture that I presented at the Wellington AWS Users Group on February 12th 2018.

This talk explains what container orchestration is, some key fundamentals about ECS, how we’ve tackled CI/CD with ECS and going into details around some of the unique autoscaling challenges caused by millions of cellphones sending home telemetry all at once.

This talk is technical, but includes content appropriate for both beginners wanting to know how ECS functions and experts wanting to see just what can be accomplished with the platform.

 

Christchurch Day 3

It’s been a bit of a gap since my last post, unfortunately a large project (think 80 hr week) took away my spare blogging time, so now I’m playing catchup game, with blog_* folders all over my desktop of content to be posted.

Firstly, a couple pictures missed from day 2:

Trying some local brew picked up from a dodgy bottle store along the side of some highway.

Unimpressed kitty cat is unimpressed!

Day 3 in Christchurch was the big day of Lisa’s friend’s wedding, so I decided to excuse myself from the family madness taking place and went for a walk into the CBD to enjoy a coffee before attending the wedding with Lisa.

Hagley Park

Bit small for a river, bit large for a stream?

One thing I really noticed heaps whilst in Christchurch was the insanely annoyingly low angle of the winter sun –  I guess New Zealand’s South Island is getting pretty close to the bottom of the planet so winter angles are going to be a bit low, but I think it would drive me insane trying to live there with the sun always hitting me in the eyes. :-/

Whilst I'm naturally good looking and tool, the sun is amplifying the effect a bit here.

Aside from the sun however, the weather is amazing, with cool, crisp mornings – setting up on the container having a coffee in the chill air is just an amazing feeling, kind of like being back in Wellington again. :-)

Sitting on top of a shipping container, having a coffee, looking out to a giant demolition zone.... Christchurch is WEIRD.

Even the coffee here needs to get a little shaken first. ;-)

I ended up walking back to the motel in Riccarton – I can get around Christchurch pretty quickly on foot, it’s pretty much all flat so easy to go fast and not even work up a sweat.

I see why the bridge was closed now...

I'm a train!! :-D

More shipping container stores in a random suburb.

Thou shalt not pass!

I spent the evening with Lisa, her family and the soon-to-be-wed couple and their friends in the private function space of a pub, enjoying some amazing food and good times.

Lisa scrubs up pretty well :-P

Amazingly good Sumac and Mushroom soup at the wedding. I must find a way to recreate this.

Whilst it's meaty horribleness, I have to like the presentation style.

The tree of light!

Narcissist Jethro loves reflective skylights!

All up a pretty good and laid back day, skipping all the family business and rushing around pre-wedding was quite a good plan, I greatly prefer the company of a fine laptop and a fine coffee than chaos. :-)