My first year with my AWS blog

Introduction

Hello! I am Alejandro Lazaro, AWS community builder, and I want to share with you all my experience after 1 year with my own blog about AWS.

It has not been easy, writing articles takes a lot of time, and in this year I have published 17 articles about different topics (the blog itself; IaC & DevOps with SAM & CDK; Security; Machine Learning; Multi-account approach; Open-source tools...), but let's start at the beginning.

Why I decided to create my personal AWS blog?

I know, there is a lot of content on the Internet, and the official AWS content is awesome, but I had two main reasons to do it:

• The main goal was to create periodic AWS-related content and share it publicly. Learning something is good, but sharing it is the next level, and I wanted to do that.
• The secondary goal was to have an excuse to keep learning and practicing with AWS resources. I like to use the expression "play with AWS"... and so, my blog is https://playingaws.com

Lessons learned

There are a lot of lessons learn but the 3 more important for me are the following:

• Write articles requires A LOT of time. If you are thinking whether create or not your own blog... my recommendation is YES! It will not be easy of course but you could learn a few things in the way. Take the opportunity and do it!
• Keep it simple: it's important to keep things as simple as possible, and to explain concepts in plain language that anyone can understand because this helps to make the content more accessible and useful to a wider audience.
• Feedback is a treasure: I always want feedback to know what I should improve or what I am doing wrong, but feedback is a treasure, is very hard to get it! However, when you have it, you have to take it very seriously. I had a few very good comments in the legacy comment system of my blog but unfortunately I changed it (the comment system) and I am starting from scratch again.

Content of the blog

About the blog and technologies used

This is the architecture of my blog:

Deciding how to create the blog took me a while, and in this article I explain how I decided on the technology behind the blog https://www.playingaws.com/posts/the-technology-behind-this-blog/

My first technical article about one AWS service was about Amplify Hosting. I used it to deploy my blog (I use Jekyll as static site generator) and wanted to share the experience. This AWS service really simplifies the deployment of a website and manages the entire application lifecycle for you. Here's the article: How to deploy a website with Amplify Hosting https://www.playingaws.com/posts/how-to-deploy-a-web-with-amplify-hosting/

IaC (CDK and SAM)

I published articles about CDK and SAM to create infrastructure and serverless applications.

Personally I love CDK and I think you should try it and give it a try.

• How to create infrastructure with CDK: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/how-to-create-infrastructure-with-cdk/
• How to add CI/CD to my CDK project: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/how-to-add-ci-cd-to-my-cdk-project/

And if you don't know SAM (Serverless Application Model) you should check it out:

• How to create serverless applications with SAM: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/how-to-create-serverless-applications-with-sam/
• How to add CI/CD to my SAM project: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/how-to-add-ci-cd-to-my-sam-project/

Finally, with CDK + SAM you can combine the best of both solutions:

• How to create serverless applications with CDK and SAM: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/how-to-create-serverless-applications-with-cdk-and-sam/

Security

These articles will help you think about and improve the security of your AWS accounts.

• Getting Started with AWS Security: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/getting-started-with-aws-security/
• How to improve your account security: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/how-to-improve-your-account-security/
• Amazon GuardDuty: Deep dive: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/aws-security-hub-deep-dive/
• AWS Security Hub: Deep dive: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/amazon-guardduty-deep-dive/

 Multi-account approach

Then, I published these 2 articles about the multi-account approach. When do you need a multi-account solution? Why do you need a multi-account solution? AWS multi-account approach in detail: AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower:

• Getting started with AWS Multi-account approach https://www.playingaws.com/posts/multi-account-approach/
• AWS Control Tower Deep Dive https://www.playingaws.com/posts/aws-control-tower-deep-dive/

Machine Learning

This article about machine learning is specific of AWS DeepRacer. If you are not familiar with this AWS service I recommend you to check it out. It is a fun way to learn machine learning!

• DeepRacer - First steps with Machine Learning: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/deepracer-first-steps-with-machine-learning/

Open-source tools

Lastly, I have posted 3 articles about open source tools that can help you with your AWS account and your AWS code.

• Getting started with AWS open-source tools: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/aws-open-source-tools/
• Open source tools to analyze your AWS environment: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/aws-open-source-tools-environment/
• How open source tools can help you with your code: https://www.playingaws.com/posts/aws-open-source-tools-code/

What's next?

I will follow publishing regularly about some AWS topics. I have a lot of topics and I just need time to do it!

And as I said, feedback is like a treasure and I would appreciate it very much, here or on any of my blog posts!

Feel free to comment, share and enjoy. Thanks for reading to the end!