Recap of 2023
In 2023 a lot has happened. The company I work for Luminis became part of Yuma. I achieved several certifications. Next to attending conferences I also was a speaker at several conferences. This year I was for the first time a guest in a podcast. In the technology space also a lot happened. With ChatGPT, Bard, Dall-E, Copilot and others AI became a very hot topic. There was also a lot of attention for sustainability, how can IT help in reducing the carbon foot print.
Certifications
I started the year with KCNA: Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate. After that I focussed on the security oriented Microsoft Azure exams. I passed the following 2 exams:
By passing those two exams I also achieved the status of Microsoft Certified: Cybersecurity Architect Expert. Later in the year I also renewed both of them as Microsoft certifications are valid for a year and a half before expiring it is possible to renew them. I also renewed two other Microsoft exams, Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate and Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert. After the Microsoft exams, I followed the cloud security path. I passed the ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC).
Conferences and meetups
In 2023, next to attending several conferences and meetups I also was a speaker at some of them. For me the conference season started with the Kubernetes Community Days Amsterdam on the 23rd and the 24th of February. At this conference I gave, together with Dinant Paardenkooper, a workshop Kubernetes 201 and also had talk AKS unlighted, but what about Security and Multi-tenancy?. Read this blog post for a recap of the conference. On the 8th of March, I spoke at the meetup session The Azure journey of Gemeente Amsterdam, organized by the Dutch Azure Meetup, about the new data platform that the municipality of Amsterdam is building on Azure. In April I went, from the 18th to the 21st, to The Azure Day on Kubernetes and KubeCon Europe. For more details on this event, you can read my blogpost. On the 1st of June I attended the AWS Summit in Amsterdam. Next event in June were the Devopsdays Amsterdam, where I gave the sessions AKS unlighted, but what about Compliancy, cost and Multi-tenancy? together with Dinant Paardenkooper. Next to speaker and attendee I also manned the Luminis booth. Also my colleague Lutske de Leeuw gave a workshop Machine Learning 101. You can read more about my experience on the Devopsdays in this blog post. During the Microsoft event, App Modernization Customer Success Stories Conference - Do More With Less!, I gave together with Dinant Paardenkooper the presentation Gemeente Amsterdam - "AKS unlighted, but what about Compliancy, cost and Multi-tenancy?" on the 26th of June. On the 20th of September I attended Edgecase 2023. Very interesting conference around the usecases of Kubernetes in the edge. I really liked the customer case of Chick-fil-a. On the 12th of October, I went to meetup session Empowering Sustainability and AI Advancements with Azure OpenAI Service at the Luminis office organized by the Dutch Azure Meetup.
Podcast and webinar
This year was also the first year that I participated in two podcasts. The first podcast was a Luminis Tech Talk which was hosted by Nico Krijnen and together with my colleague Edi Recica we talked about Cloud Security. I also participated in a podcast of the Nederlandse Kubernetes Podcast together with Dinant Paardenkooper. This podcast is at this moment not yet online.
For Yuma the company which Luminis I gave a webinar Container Security. In this webinar I explained what container security is and why it is important.
2024
In 2024 my goal is to focus more on cloud security. I have started with my CCSP certification. I have no concrete ideas about talks or sessions I want to give this year but I have some ideas. My plan is also blog more frequently this year.