Hello!

This being my first entry, I want to organize my thoughts on what I will be contributing to and why I am writing. First, let me introduce myself, My name is Mike Madsen, and at the time of this writing, I am a Solutions Architect with Boxboat Technologies and IBM Company.

A little about me, In 2005, I started working for EMC, which was and is a Storage Solutions company now owned by Dell Technologies. Early in my tenure with EMC, I was introduced to VMWare, which was my introduction to what we now call the cloud. Interestingly enough, I started with EMC the same year they presented VMWare Server to the market. My time with EMC also started me on an IT Operations and IT Operations consulting journey. During this time, I worked in various operational roles from Systems Administration to systems architecture and design, primarily on VMWare stacks and as a consultant. In 2016 I was introduced to a new to me technology platform that would change my view of my profession and transform my skillset, Amazon Web Services (AWS). By chance, I was given an opportunity to take my operations knowledge and start a new journey as a DevOps engineer and work on various cloud-related projects which would cultivate my understanding of AWS. As I became more comfortable with AWS, it became apparent that the manual “configuration management” way of delivering technology was just not practical. I started to find different ways to automate configuration management and software delivery techniques. However, as I was just starting my journey, many concepts were missing. Dennis Webb and Chris Mackubin, two great architects, stepped in to help me piece together some of the missing ideas. Dennis introduced me to the idea of Docker and Kubernetes. Dennis worked to instill the notion that technology is not just a job but a passion and stood on his mantra (which I am doing my best to adopt continuously) “Automate Everything.” Chris Mackubin introduced me to the idea of microservices, which was the missing link in my mind. Chris and I worked together on a project to design and deliver an application that was built using a completely serverless solution based on AWS-provided technologies. This project was my springboard out of what I will continue to call legacy deployments. The project that Chris and I worked on together opened my eyes to the concept of software stacks deployed using independent services all working together to support a single application. I wanted to know more about microservices and their delivery model, but It wasn't until I met Boxboat Technologies that I started to understand better the idea of containerization that Dennis had planted and the idea of microservices that Chris had introduced to me. When I chose Boxboat in 2020, I believed that I was deciding between the concepts of serverless and containerization. In my mind, I decided on containerization. However, the further down the microservices, and DevOps path that I go, I see that this is not a decision to be made but an ongoing conversation. This conversation is why I want to write this blog.

This blog is about putting words to my ongoing journey of combining my two professional passions AWS and microservices strategies. I want to explore the questions that keep coming up both individually and from my peers. I want to create a place to capture my thoughts and reasoning and assess exciting technologies. I look forward to this learning journey which will start with my first discussion about my understanding of DevOps as a Philosophy.