How to create a security group allowing traffic from CloudFront only?

It is one of those problems for which there has been no satisfactory solution for years. How do you ensure that only CloudFront is grante | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Sanction Russia: Block traffic using CloudFront Geo Restriction

Russia attacked a sovereign state this week. Most states condemn the attack and impose sanctions. Among other things, sanctions are inten | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Enabling S3 Versioning is not a backup strategy

Here are three reasons why enabling S3 Versioning is not a backup strategy. Instead, you should consider AWS Backup for S3, w... | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

AWS Security: Stephen Kuenzli and Andreas Wittig on IAM

Stephen Kuenzli and I lead several cloud migration projects. In this conversation, we shared our learnings focusing on AWS security and I | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Connect to your EC2 instance using SSH the modern way

Did you know that establishing an SSH connection with an EC2 instance is possible without configuring a key pair and allowing inbound tra | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

How to set up Jenkins on AWS?

What’s the best way to run Jenkins on AWS? As Jenkins is still a popular automation server used for continuous integration and deployment | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Parental Leave (Michael)

Taking care of my family is the number one priority for me. Luckily, Andreas and I bootstrapped a profitable business that provides us tr | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

2021 in Review

The past 12 months have been an exciting time for us. We started the year with high expectations and a significant investment in video re | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Video Hosting on AWS

How to embed a video into your website? There is an alternative that looks and feels much more professional than embedding a YouTube vide | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

AWS Architect Mindset

Architecting applications on AWS is challenging. On the one hand, you need a broad understanding of AWS services. On the other hand, you | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

EBS Snapshot Pitfalls: Does your backup withstand reality?

Does your disaster recovery plan deliver what it promises? Here are three reasons why your plan won’t stand up to reality. Learn about co | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Authentic and hands-on AWS consulting. Join superluminar!

In 2015 - after building on Amazon Web Services for two years - I made a big decision. I wanted to become a consultant focusing on AWS. O | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Celebrating five years of marbot

Five years ago, we released marbot - ChatOps for AWS . Back in the day, marbot connected Amazon CloudWatch and Slack to sprea... | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Lambda function might execute twice. Be prepared

Are you confused when scheduled Lambdas execute twice, SNS messages trigger an invocation three times, your handmade S3 inven... | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Containers on AWS: ECS, EKS, and Fargate

The container landscape in general and on AWS in particular is changing quickly. AWS releases new services and features to deploy contain | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

EC2 Checklist: 7 things to do after launching an instance

Launching an EC2 instance takes minutes. Keeping your virtual machines secure and maintaining your VMs is more work. In this blog post, I | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

The AWS Security Journey (2021)

A lot has happened in the area of security at AWS over the years. By now, AWS has released an exhaustive range of security services and t | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

How to Replicate Your Data with DynamoDB Global Tables

In my last post about Multi-Region AWS Architectures, I discussed how you could reduce end-user latency and increase availabi... | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Multi-Region AWS Architectures

Running an application in multiple availability zones (data centers) in a single region is a best practice when architecting on AWS. Inte | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Choosing the best way to scale EC2 instances on demand

Migrating workloads into the cloud — and specifically to AWS — comes with many advantages. You can operate workloads in new ways. When yo | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Calculate AWS Costs in Detail

Calculating AWS costs upfront is a challenge. To get accurate numbers, you have to understand the pricing model of the used AWS services. | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Getting Started with Free Templates for AWS CloudFormation

Writing CloudFormation templates from scratch is a lot of work. You will run into many issues along the way: the documentation is incompl | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

Unboxing S3 Object Lambda

Amazon S3 Object Lambda offers a way to execute a Lambda function when someone wants to download a file (GetObject) from an S... | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 2 years ago

AWS Month in Review: July 2020

The world of AWS changes fast. This review summarizes the most important news from July 2020. The roundup does not include ve... | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 3 years ago

Use multiple AWS accounts, but keep it simple

Getting started with AWS is a challenge. Unlimited possibilities, competing solutions, and distractions. Even the first step ... | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 3 years ago

Review: AWS API Gateway HTTP APIs – Cheaper and Faster REST APIs?

An API gateway acts as an API front-end that receives API requests from clients and forwards them to back-end services. Typically, an API gateway offers the following features: Throttling Billing Aut | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 3 years ago

Terraform, can you keep a secret?

Did you know that Terraform state can - and most likely does - contain sensitive data? A few examples of sensitive information stored in the Terraform state: Initial password for an RDS instance. Une | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 3 years ago

Scaling Container Clusters on AWS: ECS and EKS

Containers are a powerful tool to streamline your development and deployment process. However, a container cluster - no matter if you are using ECS (Elastic Container Service), EKS (Elastic Kubernetes | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 3 years ago

Advanced AWS Networking: Pitfalls That You Should Avoid

AWS offers shiny and powerful networking services. However, you should know about the pitfalls when designing advanced networking architectures for AWS. I will share some pitfalls that came to my atte | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

How to analyze and reduce S3 storage usage?

S3 is an object store, not a file system. Object storage comes with significant advantages: unlimited storage capacity, high availability, and durability. However, there are some disadvantages too. Fo | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Review: Amazon Connect – A Programmable Telephone System

Do you provide services to consumer or business clients? Which channels do you provide for clients to get support, leave feedback, or let off frustration? Amazon Connect provides a contact center solu | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

EC2 Instances 2.0 to Update Your Toolbox

Managing a mutable EC2 instance comes with many responsibilities. In this post, I show you how to solve everyday challenges by leveraging the latest and greatest capabilities of the AWS platform. | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

How to secure your DevOps tools with ALB authentication?

Secure your DevOps tools by adding an extra layer of security: authentication provided by the Application Load Balancer (ALB) | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Dockerizing Ruby on Rails

Did you dockerize your Ruby on Rails application already? You definitely should! It simplifies deploying your application a lot. Learn how to create a Dockerfile to build a Docker image for your appli | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

All you need to know about AWS re:Invent in 2019

Our re:Invent recap discusses the 10 most important announcements that you should not miss. | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Checklist: Is your application ready for a container cluster?

Is your application ready to run on a container cluster? Use this checklist to find out whether you are good to deploy your application on Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) and AWS Fargate or any | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Dead Man's Switch with CloudWatch

While writing this article, I’m traveling from Frankfurt to Stuttgart by high-speed train (ICE) with a top speed of 280 km/h. It is reassuring to know that a dead man’s switch stops the train immediat | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Rapid Docker on AWS Out Now

As a developer or DevOps engineer, you want to focus on shipping great experiences to your customers. Therefore, we have designed a fast and easy way to bundle your application into Docker containers | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Review: Amazon Aurora Serverless – A production-ready relational database?

It was never easier to scale your compute layer. EC2 Auto Scaling, Fargate, and Lambda enable horizontal scaling. But how do you scale your database? Use a NoSQL database like DynamoDB, one could say. | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

EC2 Instance Connect is an insecure default

You can also listen to this topic in our podcast! Two months before, Michael wrote about why AWS SSM is a trojan horse. Shortly after that, AWS released EC2 Instance Connect, which is even worse. I | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Review: AWS Backup – A centralized place for managing backups?

AWS releases a new service with a lot of marketing noise. 🎉 You can’t resist, you want to use that new thing now. But soon you discover that: the service is missing essential features the service is | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Dockerizing Legacy Applications with Confd

This blog post is an excerpt of our book Rapid Docker on AWS. A legacy application typically uses files to read configuration parameters. But working with configuration files is cumbersome when buil | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

How to Dockerize Your PHP Application for AWS Fargate?

This blog post is an excerpt of our book Rapid Docker on AWS. The biggest game-changer for Docker on AWS was the announcement of AWS Fargate. Operating Docker containers could not be easier. With A | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

AWS CloudTrail: your audit log is incomplete

Recently, I was investigating the size of a security breach caused by leaked AWS credentials. The first place to go in such a scenario is the audit log recorded by CloudTrail. When configured correctl | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

AWS SSM is a trojan horse: fix it now

Recently, I held a security workshop together with a team of engineers. At some point, the team demonstrated how they use AWS Systems Manager (SSM) to run commands on a machine. What the team didn’t k | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

More than 25 SSL certificates with ECS

Both the Application Load Balancer (ALB) and the Network Load Balancer (NLB) provide TLS/HTTPS listeners allowing you to encrypt the data in transit from the clients to your cloud infrastructure. Toge | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Download YouTube Videos with AWS Lambda and Store Them on S3

Recently, I was faced with the challenge to download videos from YouTube and store them on S3. Sounds easy? Remember than Lambda comes with a few limitations: 512 MB of disk space available at /tmp | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago

Six new ways to reduce your AWS bill with little effort

The last time we wrote about how to save AWS costs was at the end of 2015. AWS has changed a lot since then. It’s time for an update with six new tips to save AWS costs with little effort. EC2 AMD I | Continue reading


@cloudonaut.io | 4 years ago