Migrating a Workload Between Cloud Providers Without Downtime
Most of a provider migration is inventory and DNS, not servers. A sequence that keeps the old environment running until the new one has proven itself.
Monitoring a Cloud Server Without a Large Observability Stack
Four signals and three alerts will catch most of what goes wrong on a small deployment. What to watch, what to ignore, and how to keep alerts worth reading.
Snapshots vs Backups: What Each One Actually Protects
A snapshot is a fast copy of a disk in the same account. A backup is a tested, separated copy of your data. Conflating the two is how people lose everything at once.
Firewall Rules for a New Cloud Server: The Minimum Safe Default
Two firewalls, one policy: deny everything, then open exactly what you serve. What belongs open, what never does, and why management ports are the whole game.
SSH Keys and the First Login: Securing a New Cloud Server
A new public IP is scanned within minutes. The small set of changes that turns a default server into one that survives the internet, in the order they should be made.
Account Age, Verification and Why New Cloud Accounts Are Limited
New cloud accounts start with low limits and heavier checks. Why providers do that, what it means for planning a launch, and how to raise limits the supported way.
What a 99.99% Uptime SLA Actually Promises
An SLA is a billing agreement, not an engineering guarantee. What the percentages translate to in minutes, what the credits are worth, and where real availability comes from.
Egress and Bandwidth Charges: The Line Item People Forget
Data leaving a cloud network is usually billed, and it is the item most often missing from a cost estimate. How egress works, where it hides, and how to design around it.
Block, Object and File Storage: Which One Your Workload Wants
Three kinds of cloud storage that are not interchangeable. What each one is good at, what it costs you in practice, and the mistakes that come from picking the wrong one.
How Much RAM a Cloud Server Needs, and How to Tell
Memory is the resource that fails hardest when you underestimate it. How to size it from measurements instead of guesses, and what the symptoms of getting it wrong look like.