Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Modern software systems are complex, with services distributed across data centers, in many zones, all around the world. Gone are the days when we managed individual servers dedicated to our organization, comfortable with the knowledge of the unique quirks of our setup. Now we rely on others to manage massive data centers where we borrow small slices of virtual space on shared hardware, traveling over shared networks, all in a system we call the cloud.

Here at Pepperdata, we put a premium on individuals whose skills and experience can help us reach our goals. We believe our team is composed of the best people in their respective fields. Our “Pepperdata Profiles” series gives a spotlight on our gifted individuals and allows us to highlight our employees’ experiences.

When we think of NGOs we usually think of organizations that take action regarding children, diseases, education, or poverty, but most of the time we don't think of privacy. In fact, there are tons of non-governmental organizations working hard to protect everyone's basic right to privacy. Many people are out there right now dedicating their daily lives to safeguarding our freedom and privacy in the digital era. Supporting them is more important than you can imagine.

In 2020, we started an internal project to price our data center systems to understand what they might cost to run in the AWS or Azure cloud environments. We initially used some of the online pricing tools available from these vendors, but they were slow and difficult to use in bulk. You can find the public cloud tools here: AWS and Azure. We were forced to add individual systems one at a time and pick options for each because of the nature of these tools.

When your organization uses the cutting edge of technology to function, you may feel like it takes all your time and energy to stay on top of emerging trends. How are you supposed to anticipate what the future will hold when you have to balance those considerations with how to best provide for your customers’ needs today? It’s okay if you don’t have your finger on the pulse 100 percent of the time.

This is the second part of our EKS with Terraform series. In Part 1, we talked about Infrastructure as Code and its benefits. We also mentioned the tools we will be using. This time we will actually start using Terraform to create a VPC and EC2 instance.

For SaaS companies, the cloud plays a significant role in product creation and delivery. As one of the top drivers of COGS, cloud costs have a major impact on key financial metrics and can dramatically impact revenue and valuation. However, that creates a scenario ripe for conflict: Engineers make important decisions about features and functionality without clear insight into how those decisions will impact spending—and finance continuously gets surprised by seemingly exorbitant cloud bills.