# Chris Reddington — Full Content Index > Hey! I'm Chris Reddington, a seasoned Developer Relations expert and tech enthusiast who loves bringing development teams and end-users closer together. Dive into my portfolio, explore the latest in cloud computing, DevOps, and software development, and get a glimpse of what I'm working on. Whether you want to learn something new or collaborate on exciting projects, let's connect! ## All Blog Posts ### [The Jury Pattern: a mixture of critics for AI code review](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/mixture-of-critics/) - Date: 2026-06-03 - Tags: AI, GitHub Copilot, Agentic AI, Context Engineering, Developer Experience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/mixture-of-critics/index.md One model reviewing its own plan tends to agree with itself. So I built a cleanup workflow shaped like a jury: separate critics from a deliberate mix of model families weigh the evidence, with a simple forcing function that keeps neighbouring reviewers off the same family. The orchestrator presides as judge, refuting rather than merging, votes promote shared findings, and a post-approval diff check can overrule a verdict that was unanimous and still wrong. ### [Agentic memory: what agents should and shouldn't remember](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/agentic-memory-what-agents-should-remember/) - Date: 2026-04-10 - Tags: AI, GitHub Copilot, Agentic AI, Context Engineering, Developer Experience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/agentic-memory-what-agents-should-remember/index.md Conversation state and retrieved context lead naturally into memory, but only if we're clear about what memory is for. Rules, skills, and instruction files package what you already know. Memory should capture what the work itself teaches the system, and that means reflection, verification, and forgetting matter just as much as recall. ### [AGENTS.md and SKILL.md: building a reusable agent toolbox](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/building-your-agent-toolbox/) - Date: 2026-04-08 - Tags: AI, GitHub Copilot, Agentic AI, Context Engineering, Developer Productivity - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/building-your-agent-toolbox/index.md Context engineering gets more useful when the knowledge it depends on is packaged for reuse. In this post I map the portable core (AGENTS.md and SKILL.md), Copilot-specific concepts like custom instructions, agents and prompt files, and how to decide what knowledge belongs where. ### [Context engineering: more context isn't better context](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/context-engineering-more-isnt-better/) - Date: 2026-04-05 - Tags: AI, GitHub Copilot, Agentic AI, Context Engineering, Prompt Engineering, Developer Experience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/context-engineering-more-isnt-better/index.md Better prompts help, but they're only part of the story. Context engineering is the craft of designing what an AI agent sees, when it sees it, and how that changes across the session. The goal isn't a bigger context window. It's a more effective one. ### [The DevRel randomisation trap (and how to stop it)](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-randomisation-trap/) - Date: 2026-03-31 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Measurement, Research - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-randomisation-trap/index.md There's a pattern I've seen play out across dozens of DevRel conversations, confirmed in my MBA dissertation research: teams without a clear golden thread from company strategy to daily activity get 'randomised' by whoever asks most urgently. Here's what the research says about why it happens and how to build your way out of it. ### [The feedback loop: how DevRel bridges community and product](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-feedback-loop/) - Date: 2026-03-22 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Community, Product Feedback, Measurement - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-feedback-loop/index.md DevRel is often framed as the voice of the developer. My research suggests a broader job: gathering representative feedback, reducing friction, and showing developers what changed. ### [From tactics to strategy: the DevRel measurement gap](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-tactics-to-strategy/) - Date: 2026-03-22 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Measurement, Research - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-tactics-to-strategy/index.md Of the 13 DevRel leaders I interviewed for my MBA dissertation, only two could clearly demonstrate a coherent link between tactical activity and organisational strategy. In this post, I talk through how focusing on the developer journey can help bridge that gap. ### [Why developer communities are not brand communities](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-communities-not-brand-communities/) - Date: 2026-03-21 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Community, Research - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-communities-not-brand-communities/index.md Academic research on brand communities can help DevRel, but only up to a point. The bigger lesson is where the model breaks: developer communities run on trust in the technology, not loyalty to the brand. ### [Company context: the conditions that shape DevRel strategy](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-company-context-lifecycle/) - Date: 2026-03-19 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Developer Communities - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-company-context-lifecycle/index.md Two companies can have similarly capable DevRel teams doing similar work and still get different results. In my research, company type, lifecycle stage, and technology cycles kept shaping what DevRel could realistically do. ### [The four pillars of DevRel (and the foundation they rest on)](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-four-pillars-authentic-foundation/) - Date: 2026-03-16 - Tags: Developer Relations, Developer Advocacy, Strategy, Developer Experience, Research - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-four-pillars-authentic-foundation/index.md Education. Success. Marketing. Programs. These four pillars describe what Developer Relations teams do. But the more important question is what makes that work credible, useful, and trusted by developers. ### [Developer experience: prerequisite and product of DevRel](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-developer-experience/) - Date: 2026-03-14 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Developer Experience Audit, Product Adoption - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-developer-experience/index.md Developer Experience isn't just central to DevRel strategy. It's both what your team depends on before it can succeed, and what it actively shapes through its work. ### [Developer Relations is more than marketing. It's co-creation.](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-value-co-creation-not-marketing/) - Date: 2026-03-12 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Value Co-creation, Developer Advocacy, Community, Developer Marketing - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-value-co-creation-not-marketing/index.md Developer Relations is sometimes equated to marketing. Incorporating insights from 13 interviews, I explain why DevRel is better understood as value co-creation. ### [How does Developer Relations (DevRel) create value? What 13 interviews revealed.](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-value-creation/) - Date: 2026-03-11 - Tags: Developer Relations, DevRel, Strategy, Developer Experience, Research, Measurement, MBA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/devrel-value-creation/index.md The question of how Developer Relations (DevRel) teams create value has been answered plenty of times (though rarely through systematic research). In 2024 I looked into it properly through 13 interviews with DevRel leaders, culminating in an MBA dissertation at Warwick Business School, unearthing a couple of surprises along the way. This series works through what I found. ### [Context windows, Plan agent, and TDD: What I learned building a countdown app with GitHub Copilot]() - Date: 2026-01-20 - Tags: AI, GitHub Copilot, Testing, TypeScript, Developer Experience - Markdown: Learn how I managed context to keep Copilot focused, used the Plan agent to sharpen vague requirements, and required Test Driven Development practices to catch bugs before users. ### [Adding Bluesky Comments to My Hugo Site](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/bluesky-comments-integration/) - Date: 2025-11-18 - Tags: Hugo, Static Sites - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/bluesky-comments-integration/index.md I've been exploring ways to bring social engagement into my blog posts. Taking inspiration from Ashley Willis' implementation, I've integrated Bluesky comments and likes into my Hugo site using the AT Protocol's public API. ### [Building smarter interactions with MCP elicitation: From clunky tool calls to seamless user experiences]() - Date: 2025-09-04 - Tags: AI, GitHub Copilot, Model Context Protocol, TypeScript - Markdown: Explore how MCP elicitation transforms AI tool interactions by gathering missing information upfront. ### [Building your first MCP server: How to extend AI tools with custom capabilities]() - Date: 2025-08-22 - Tags: AI, GitHub Copilot, Model Context Protocol, TypeScript, Developer Experience - Markdown: Learn Model Context Protocol by building a turn-based game server that shows how to extend GitHub Copilot with custom tools, resources, and prompts. ### [Debugging UI with AI: GitHub Copilot agent mode meets MCP servers]() - Date: 2025-07-22 - Tags: Agentic AI, GitHub Copilot, Model Context Protocol - Markdown: Explore how I use agentic tools like GitHub Copilot agent mode and the Playwright MCP server to accelerate troubleshooting and debugging of UI issues, while revisiting the importance of clear requirements. ### [From chaos to clarity: Using GitHub Copilot agents to improve developer workflows]() - Date: 2025-07-15 - Tags: Agentic AI, GitHub Copilot, GitHub, Context Engineering - Markdown: Explore how you can set Copilot coding agent up for success with custom instruction and Copilot setup steps. ### [From idea to PR: A guide to GitHub Copilot’s agentic workflows]() - Date: 2025-07-01 - Tags: GitHub, GitHub Copilot, AI, Agentic AI, Model Context Protocol - Markdown: A practical guide to GitHub Copilot’s agentic coding agent, chat modes, and remote MCP server so you turn issues into tested PRs with clear steps (and no hype). ### [How we built the GitHub Skyline CLI extension using GitHub]() - Date: 2025-01-15 - Tags: GitHub, GitHub CLI - Markdown: GitHub uses GitHub to build GitHub, and our CLI extensions are no exception. Read on to find out how we built the GitHub Skyline CLI extension using GitHub! ### [How AI can unleash the creativity of developers with the right attitude to productivity]() - Date: 2024-12-03 - Tags: AI, Developer Experience - Markdown: AI tools are transforming software development by freeing developers from repetitive tasks, fostering creativity, and enabling meaningful contributions across organisations. Chris Reddington from GitHub explains how... ### [5 tips and tricks when using GitHub Copilot Workspace]() - Date: 2024-10-09 - Tags: GitHub, GitHub Copilot, AI, Agentic AI - Markdown: GitHub Next launched the technical preview for GitHub Copilot Workspace in April 2024. Since then, we’ve been listening to the community, learning, and have some tips to share on how to get the most out of it! ### [AI-Powered Software Development Will Enhance Developers’ Skills]() - Date: 2024-07-08 - Tags: AI, Developer Experience - Markdown: AI coding tools are not just for the production of code, they accelerate existing processes, help developers learn and drive innovation ### [AI-powered software development hinges on effective change management]() - Date: 2024-05-30 - Tags: AI, Developer Experience - Markdown: AI-powered software is not just about integrating new tools ### [Why AI will push enterprises to eliminate the silos that slow innovation]() - Date: 2024-02-12 - Tags: AI, Community, Developer Experience - Markdown: Generative AI offers a way to transform developer productivity, by expediting a cultural shift in the way enterprises organise themselves ### [Moving from a product to a service mindset]() - Date: 2023-07-13 - Tags: DevOps, Enterprise, Community - Markdown: Thanks to DevOps, cloud computing and other industry trends, many organizations are shifting from a product mindset to a service mindset. Here’s how you can implement a service-led strategy. ### [Applying GitOps principles to your operations]() - Date: 2023-06-02 - Tags: DevOps, Enterprise - Markdown: Could we use our Git repository as the source of truth for operational tasks, and somehow reconcile changes with our real-world view? ### [How companies are boosting productivity with generative AI]() - Date: 2023-05-09 - Tags: AI - Markdown: Explore how generative AI coding tools are changing the way developers and companies build software. ### [Building a culture of innovation in your business with GitHub]() - Date: 2023-05-05 - Tags: GitHub, Enterprise, Community, Career - Markdown: Consider the typical software development practices in an organization. Projects are commonly closed, and causes friction across engineering teams. But open source communities work asynchronously, openly, remotely and at global-scale. What if our internal teams could reuse those same practices? ### [Building organization-wide governance and re-use for CI/CD and automation with GitHub Actions]() - Date: 2023-04-05 - Tags: GitHub, Enterprise, DevOps, GitHub Actions - Markdown: Many of us are aware of the benefits that a strong focus on automation can bring, particularly in our development workflow and DevOps lifecycle. But silos across businesses can lead to duplication of effort, and potential to lose out on best practices. In this post, we’ll explore how CI/CD can be shared across your entire organization alongside policies, for a well-governed experience with GitHub Actions. ### [How GitHub accelerates development for embedded systems]() - Date: 2023-03-09 - Tags: GitHub, Enterprise, DevSecOps - Markdown: In a world where software and hardware is ubiquitous, GitHub can help enable secure development for mission-critical embedded systems. ### [How to build a consistent workflow for development and operations teams]() - Date: 2023-02-28 - Tags: DevOps, GitHub, Infrastructure as Code, Enterprise - Markdown: Explore how using GitHub and HashiCorp together enables enterprises to develop and ship to their customers faster and more secure with consistent workflows and actions. ### [3 ways to meet compliance needs without slowing down agility]() - Date: 2023-02-24 - Tags: DevSecOps, Identity & Authentication, GitHub Actions - Markdown: Learn how to enable developer productivity and collaboration while staying secure and compliant. Stay compliant without slowing down your business. From security to CI/CD, automate every step of your software workflow—so your developers can stay focused on what matters most: building. ### [Passwordless deployments to the cloud]() - Date: 2023-01-13 - Tags: DevSecOps, Identity & Authentication, GitHub Actions - Markdown: Discovering passwords in our codebase is probably one of our worst fears. But what if you didn’t need passwords at all, and could deploy to your cloud provider another way? In this post, we explore how you can use OpenID Connect to trust your cloud provider, enabling you to deploy easily, securely and safely, while minimizing the operational overhead associated with secrets (for example, key rotations). ### [3 strategies for consolidating your toolkit and boosting productivity]() - Date: 2022-10-26 - Tags: Enterprise, GitHub, Community, Developer Experience - Markdown: Explore how GitHub Enterprise can help you transform your software engineering organization and practices. ### [Transform your software engineering practices with GitHub Enterprise]() - Date: 2022-10-04 - Tags: GitHub, Enterprise, Developer Experience - Markdown: Go beyond knowing GitHub as the home of open source and explore how GitHub Enterprise can help you transform your software engineering organization and practices. ### [GitHub Projects is now GA! Automation Updates](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-projects-ga-automation-updates/) - Date: 2022-07-31 - Tags: GitHub, DevOps, GitHub Projects, Automation, GitHub Actions - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-projects-ga-automation-updates/index.md In a couple of previous blog posts, I provided a writeup on the GitHub Projects Beta. I wrote two posts on automation within GitHub Projects (Adding Issues to GitHub Projects with GitHub Actions for a user profile and Adding Issues to GitHub Projects with GitHub Actions for an Organization profile). I'm pleased to say that the capabilities went Generally Available last week! As a result of the GA announcement and resulting changes, I need to post updates to my older samples. ### [GitHub for All - Overview](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-for-all-overview/) - Date: 2022-07-31 - Tags: DevOps, DevSecOps, GitHub - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-for-all-overview/index.md GitHub is one of my passion areas. You may have realised that already, with the amount of content that I've written about it. That's only going to continue, because I've recently been hired there as an Enterprise Advocate. I've been supporting customers in their DevOps journey for the past 9 years or so. Interestingly, there are some reoccurring themes that I've found that are common. One of those themes is that DevOps is an App Development concept. In fact, it's something that can be applied across domains (e.g. Infrastructure, Data, etc.) This is the start of a new blog series that will address those common themes, particularly in the context of GitHub. ### [Using GitHub Actions to summarise your Go tests](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/githubactions-testsummary-go/) - Date: 2022-05-16 - Tags: GitHub, GitHub Actions, DevOps, CI/CD, Go, Testing - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/githubactions-testsummary-go/index.md GitHub recently posted about a new GitHub Action that can be used to summarise your test results. The action is called test-summary/action, available at github.com/test-summary/action. There are several examples on how to use the action at github.com/test-summary/examples. However, there were no examples on how to use this with Go. I contributed a pull request which showed how to achieve this. In this post, I will show how to use the action with Go. ### [Interfaces in Go](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/go-interfaces/) - Date: 2022-05-16 - Tags: Go, Developer Experience, Visual Studio Code - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/go-interfaces/index.md In this post, I'll be talking about how to use interfaces in Go. This is a continuation of my learning using the Go language. I'll use interfaces to create an application that interacts with several types of bank accounts. ### [Go Pointers - Using the & and * operators](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/go-pointers/) - Date: 2022-05-01 - Tags: Go, Developer Experience, Visual Studio Code - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/go-pointers/index.md I'll be transparent. The purpose of this post is to help with my own understanding of the Go & and * operators. It's going to be a very short post, and I'm going to try to explain the concepts in a way that I can understand. I've used these operators in C previously, but whenever I'm using them - I always end up having to remember the syntax / which operator is which / what they do. For whatever reason, it doesn't always come intuitively to me. ### [Set up your Go development environment with Visual Studio Code and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/go-dev-environment-vscode-wsl/) - Date: 2022-04-26 - Tags: Go, Visual Studio Code, Command Line - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/go-dev-environment-vscode-wsl/index.md Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a new set of pet projects. I've wanted to learn Go for a while, so I thought this could be a great opportunity to get hands on and try it out. It's fair to say that my development environment was 'functional', but I wanted to revisit it to make sure that I could get the best out of it. In this blog post, I'm going to walkthrough the process of setting up Go on my machine, and then the experience of using Visual Studio Code and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with Ubuntu. ### [Enqueue and Dequeue messages locally with dapr, Azure Service Bus and Azure Storage Queues](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/dapr-local-example/) - Date: 2022-04-26 - Tags: Containers, Kubernetes, Microservices, Open Source, Integration, Messaging, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/dapr-local-example/index.md In a previous blog post, I provided an overview of the Distributed Application Runtime (dapr) and explained how it is a useful framework when building microservices. In this blog post, I will show you how to use dapr to enqueue and dequeue messages locally with Azure Service Bus and Azure Storage Queues. ### [Using GitHub Actions, Azure Functions, Azure API Management and Google Analytics to display top posts on a Hugo Static Site](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/top-posts-google-analytics-hugo-azure-functions-apim/) - Date: 2022-03-13 - Tags: Hugo, Static Sites, GitHub, GitHub Actions, Azure, Serverless, Content Creation, Python, APIs, DevOps, Automation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/top-posts-google-analytics-hugo-azure-functions-apim/index.md In this post, I show how I use GitHub Actions to call an Azure Function (through Azure API Management) that interacts with Google Analytics as part of the process to build my Hugo Static Site. The end result is that top posts are pulled into the Static Site Generation build process, rather than calling the Google Analytics API through JavaScript at runtime. ### [Using GitHub Actions and OpenID Connect to deploy Static Web Apps to Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/using-oidc-github-actions-azure-swa/) - Date: 2022-02-22 - Tags: GitHub, GitHub Actions, DevOps, DevSecOps, Azure, Static Sites, Hugo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/using-oidc-github-actions-azure-swa/index.md Back in November, GitHub announced its OpenID Connect capability for cloud deployments was generally available. This has been on my list to try out, and I finally managed to get around to it! With scenarios like this, I prefer to do something real and hands-on, rather than mocked, or a proof of concept. I decided to refactor my GitHub Action workflows for cloudwithchris.com, removing the need for secrets stored in GitHub. In this post, I outline my journey through this. ### [Automate adding GitHub Issues to GitHub Projects (Beta) in a repository owned by a user](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/automate-adding-gh-issues-projects-beta-users/) - Date: 2022-02-10 - Tags: GitHub, DevOps, GitHub Projects, Automation, GitHub Actions - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/automate-adding-gh-issues-projects-beta-users/index.md I recently wrote a blog post about using GitHub Actions to automatically add a GitHub Issue to a GitHub project (Beta) when the issue is opened. I received a question from my colleague and maintainer of the promitor and KEDA Open Source (OSS) Projects, Tom Kerkhove on doing the same with a user-owned GitHub repository, rather than organisation-owned. ### [Using RegEx and VSCode's Find/Replace capability to add captions to markdown images](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/using-regex-markdown-caption-images/) - Date: 2022-02-05 - Tags: Visual Studio Code, Automation, Accessibility, Developer Experience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/using-regex-markdown-caption-images/index.md If there's an easy way to achieve something, then I'm all for it! You may have noticed that I've been putting a lot of effort into refactoring my site and open sourcing the original Cloud With Chris theme. I've now released that as the Hugo Creator theme for Hugo. As part of the refactoring process into a reusable theme, I had to make several breaking changes. This meant that I'd need to update the contents of my site. I want to share a quick tip that I discovered to add captions to my images in markdown. ### [Automate adding GitHub Issues to GitHub Projects (Beta) in a GitHub organisation](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/automate-adding-gh-issues-projects-beta/) - Date: 2022-02-05 - Tags: GitHub, DevOps, GitHub Projects, Automation, GitHub Actions - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/automate-adding-gh-issues-projects-beta/index.md I've been following the GitHub Projects beta for a while now, and have been fortunate to be accepted as an early adopter. I'm a big fan of the direction, and the flexibility. One of the limitations I've noticed is that there's currently no built-in way to automatically add an issue to a project board. It's on the backlog, but not yet available. Fortunately, GitHub Actions has us sorted. I'll walk you through a sample I put together to do exactly that. ### [Introduction to The Distributed Application Runtime (Dapr)](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-dapr/) - Date: 2022-01-13 - Tags: Containers, Kubernetes, Microservices, Open Source - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-dapr/index.md In this post, we're going to explore the Open Source project known as Dapr (The Distributed Application Runtime). This post is primarily aimed at those who already have an understanding of Containers, Kubernetes and Microservices. However, if you're not familiar with these topics - I'll do my best to set the right context and background without making the blog too lengthy! ### [Gaining insight into user behaviour with Microsoft Clarity](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/insights-with-microsoft-clarity/) - Date: 2022-01-09 - Tags: Observability - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/insights-with-microsoft-clarity/index.md I love learning. Especially when it's about brand new things that I wasn't aware of! For this post, I need to give a big shout out to my friend and colleague Sam Rowe for the tip. It wasn't a product/service that I was aware of, but felt like something that could be useful for me on Cloud With Chris. In this post, I'll dig into what it is and how it may be able to help you. ### [Cloud With Chris 2021 Recap](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/2021-recap/) - Date: 2022-01-01 - Tags: Content Creation, Community - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/2021-recap/index.md It's hard to believe that 2021 is done, and we're now in 2022. In one sense, it feels like a 'blink and you miss it' year. In another way, it feels as though it's been one of the longest years to have passed us by. It's fair to say that 2021 has had its challenges, not least in the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. You may have caught my recent blog post on my mental health challenges. Practicing mindfulness and gratitude are excellent approaches for me to keep my overall mental health in balance. So, this post is just as much for me as anyone else. I want to highlight the achievements from the last year or so. I won't be setting any resolutions for 2021, but want to build upon what I've learned in 2021. ### [I'm back. Let's talk.](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/im-back-lets-talk/) - Date: 2021-12-19 - Tags: Mental Health - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/im-back-lets-talk/index.md You will have noticed that there haven't been any updates on Cloud With Chris for some time. I've also been quiet on social media. For any of my colleagues, you may have seen that I've had time away from work by my out of office messages. In this blog post, I want to open up about my recent challenges and have an honest discussion. Whether you've experienced mental health challenges before, are currently going through tough times, or haven't experienced any and don't quite understand - I hope that me sharing this helps. We're going to be talking about mental health. ### [Using Azure DevOps and Azure Virtual Machine Scale Set Agents to deploy your private workloads](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azuredevops-selfhosted-agents-on-azure/) - Date: 2021-10-08 - Tags: Azure DevOps, CI/CD, Azure, DevOps - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azuredevops-selfhosted-agents-on-azure/index.md A little while ago, I wrote a blog post on Using the GitHub self-hosted runner and Azure Virtual Machines to login with a System Assigned Managed Identity, which seems to get a good amount of views week on week. Reflecting on some questions that have popped up this week (and regularly received over my time in the DevOps space), I thought that it makes sense to write a post on how to use Azure DevOps self-hosted agents to deploy to private resources. So, that's what we'll be covering in this post! ### [What is the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework?](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/what-is-azure-caf/) - Date: 2021-09-20 - Tags: Azure, Enterprise - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/what-is-azure-caf/index.md Migrating to the Cloud is more than just deciding which technology you want to adopt, or building out the appropriate architectures for your implementation. There is a significant amount of planning needed before you take your initial steps. For example, the initial migration process, establishing a foundation for your ongoing governance, and the wider management of expectations from your business, as well as establishing team structure and responsibilities. This is where the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework comes in. ### [Shift Left and Increase your Code Quality with Azure DevOps Branch Policies](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/use-branch-policies-azure-devops/) - Date: 2021-09-09 - Tags: DevOps, Azure DevOps, DevSecOps - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/use-branch-policies-azure-devops/index.md This post is similar to another I recently wrote on using Branch Protection Rules in GitHub. Instead of focusing on GitHub, we'll be looking at how you can use Branch Policies in Azure DevOps (specifically, Azure Repos). If you're using Azure Repos, but not using Branch Policies - I'd encourage you to start using them! I hope this post helps you learn how! ### [Fix for .bashrc not executing on startup in Ubuntu on Windows Subsystem for Linux](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/fix-bashrc-not-executing-wsl/) - Date: 2021-09-06 - Tags: Command Line - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/fix-bashrc-not-executing-wsl/index.md In case you haven't heard, I'm planning to do some livestreams in the near future which are focused on live development / building in the cloud. I'm working on a few ideas, but if you have any suggestions - please throw them my way! To prepare for this, I've recently spent some time making sure my local development environment is in order. Windows Terminal and Windows Subsystem for Linux are a couple of the key tools in my local development environment. Windows Subsystem for Linux is the focus for this post. ### [Shift Left and Increase your Code Quality with GitHub Branch Protection Rules](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/use-github-branch-protection-rules/) - Date: 2021-08-30 - Tags: DevOps, GitHub, DevSecOps - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/use-github-branch-protection-rules/index.md If you're using GitHub as your source control provider, then I'd encourage you to using Branch Protection Rules if you're not already doing so! In this blog post, we'll cover what Branch Protection Rules are and how they can increase your code quality. ### [Why you should care about Azure Front Door Standard and Premium](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-front-door-standard-premium/) - Date: 2021-08-26 - Tags: Architecture, Azure, Resilience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-front-door-standard-premium/index.md Azure Front Door - It's an Azure Service that has been generally available for quite some time. It went Generally Available (GA) in April of 2019 after being in Public Preview since September 2018. It's had several updates since, including a slew of Web Application Firewall enhancements, Rules Engine support and much more. But did you know Microsoft released the Azure Front Door Standard and Premium SKUs in preview in Feburary of 2021? So, what are they? How do they compare to the aforementioned Azure Front Door offering? And when would you want to think about using Azure Front Door compared with Azure CDN? We'll be covering all of those points in this post. ### [How to use the Azure Well-Architected Framework in your projects](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-well-architected-framework/) - Date: 2021-08-18 - Tags: Architecture, Azure, Resilience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-well-architected-framework/index.md You'll have probably spotted by now that cloud architecture is a passion area of mine, and a regular topic that features on Cloud With Chris. We've talked a lot about Cloud Design Patterns and requirements-driven engineering in the past, as well as the various pillars of software quality. But one area that hasn't been explored too much is the Azure Well-Architected Framework. So in this blog post, we'll explore that, and identify how it can be used in your own projects. ### [How to use Managed Identity and APIM to call Azure Services from an APIM policy directly](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/api-management-and-additional-policies/) - Date: 2021-08-17 - Tags: APIs, Integration - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/api-management-and-additional-policies/index.md Back in June, I wrote a blog post on API Management and how you can use API Management policies to enforce access restriction policies. I was going to write a follow up post on how to use API Management policies in additional scenarios, but it's one of those scenarios where great minds think alike! ### [Why you should be using Azure Security Center](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-security-center-overview/) - Date: 2021-08-16 - Tags: DevSecOps, Security, Azure, Observability, Governance - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-security-center-overview/index.md Whether you're brand new to Azure or have been using it for some time, you have likely either heard of - or come across - Azure Security Center. It's a service which can prove extremely valuable in baselining, measuring and improving your security posture. But, did you know there is additional functionality beyond the free tier? You may have previously known this as the standard tier, or now know this as Azure Defender, where you can opt in for those Azure Services that you particularly want to protect. ### [Why you should get involved in the Tech Community](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/get-involved-tech-community/) - Date: 2021-08-11 - Tags: Community - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/get-involved-tech-community/index.md I recently gave a talk on my journey into the Azure Technical Community. While my day job is working for Microsoft, I get a lot of energy through blogging, podcasting and vlogging - ultimately, helping others grow, inspiring and encouraging them along their own technical journey. In this blog, I write about why I got involved with the technical community, some of my reflections on the journey and what I continue to look forward to. ### [How I use Azure Integration Services on Cloud With Chris](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/how-i-use-azure-integration-services/) - Date: 2021-08-02 - Tags: Messaging, Architecture, Integration - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/how-i-use-azure-integration-services/index.md I've written blog posts previously around Azure Service Bus vs Azure Storage Queues, as well as an introduction to Azure Logic Apps and how I used it at the time. Back then, my use-case was fairly rudimentary and focused on a specific scenario. In this blog post, I explain the changes that I have made and how I've used common cloud design / integration patterns to implement a more robust solution. ### [Choosing between Azure Static Web Apps and Static sites on Azure Storage](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/static-web-apps-vs-storage-account-static-sites/) - Date: 2021-07-28 - Tags: Static Sites, Hugo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/static-web-apps-vs-storage-account-static-sites/index.md If you've seen any of my community talks, then you'll be aware that Static sites and the Static Content Hosting Pattern is a passion area of mine. In Azure, there are a couple of great services that stand out when building towards this approach. These are Azure Static Web Apps and the Static sites functionality in Azure Blob Storage. But, which one is right for your scenario? Read on to find out more. ### [Making cloudwithchris.com more accessible](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/making-cloud-with-chris-more-accessible/) - Date: 2021-07-16 - Tags: Accessibility, Community - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/making-cloud-with-chris-more-accessible/index.md I've recently been on a journey. I've recently come across a number of accessibility issues on cloudwithchris.com. I've been working on making the site more accessible, and I've also been working on making it more inclusive. In this blog post, I'm going to outline some of my findings, the tools that I used to identify those, and how I've worked to fix them. This is an ongoing project, so I'll provide further posts as it makes sense. ### [Azure Storage Queues vs Azure Service Bus Queues - Which should I use when?](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/storage-queues-vs-service-bus/) - Date: 2021-07-13 - Tags: Messaging, Architecture, Integration - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/storage-queues-vs-service-bus/index.md I've recently been involved in a few integration focused discussions, where there is a requirement to bring together multiple separate systems. If you've been following the Architecting for the Cloud, one pattern at a time series, then you'll have heard Peter Piper repeat a common phrase - 'High Cohesion, Low Coupling'. ### [Introducing the Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF)](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/intro-to-cncf/) - Date: 2021-07-05 - Tags: Containers, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Open Source - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/intro-to-cncf/index.md Inspired by the recent episode with Annie Talvasto, I wanted to put together a blog post that will introduce an ongoing series on Cloud With Chris. Before we introduce that series though, it's important that we first introduce the Cloud Native Compute Foundation (more commonly known as CNCF). ### [Using API Management Policies to enforce access restriction policies](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/api-management-and-policies/) - Date: 2021-06-28 - Tags: APIs, Integration - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/api-management-and-policies/index.md We recently introduced you to API Management, how it maps to architectural principals and why you may consider using it as a producer or consumer of APIs. In this post, we'll be continuing on the story - focusing mostly on the API Management policies functionality. ### [Introduction to Azure API Management](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-api-management/) - Date: 2021-06-22 - Tags: APIs, Integration - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-api-management/index.md We now live in a world where multiple systems connect or integrate with each other. This is not new, and has been a technology trend for some time. But - in a world of distributed compute (on the increase, thanks to cloud), and the rise of microservices, we find that we have more and more services that we need to integrate with each other. Integration is typically handled through a couple of routes, including Enterprise Messaging (such as message brokers), as well as APIs (Application Programming Interface). There are many areas that we should consider when building our APIs, and that's what we'll give some thought to in this blog post. ### [Introduction to Project Bicep - The evolution of ARM Templates](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-bicep/) - Date: 2021-06-18 - Tags: Infrastructure as Code, DevOps, DevSecOps - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-bicep/index.md You may have heard about ARM Templates. You may have heard about Project Bicep. What are they, how do they differ? Why would I use one over the other? That's exactly what we'll be exploring throughout this blog post! ### [Using the GitHub self-hosted runner and Azure Virtual Machines to login with a System Assigned Managed Identity](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-selfhosted-runner-on-azure/) - Date: 2021-06-14 - Tags: GitHub, GitHub Actions, Azure, Identity & Authentication - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-selfhosted-runner-on-azure/index.md I recently started thinking about the typical setup process for a GitHub Action Workflow which will deploy into Azure. Typically, the process is to use the Azure/login GitHub Action, and then use the azure/cli or another Azure GitHub Action to deploy into GitHub. This is a nice approach. However, from my initial research - I wasn't able to see a way use the Azure/login GitHub Action to deploy into Azure using a System Assigned Managed Identity. This got me wondering, is this possible? ### [Using Azure Arc for Apps - Part 6 - Setting up Event Grid on Kubernetes with Azure Arc](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-6/) - Date: 2021-06-10 - Tags: Containers, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-6/index.md In part 1 of this Using Azure Arc for Apps series, we explored Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters. In this post, we'll be exploring Event Grid for Kubernetes. At time of writing, this approach is in public preview, so we may see certain limitations / features that are not yet available. ### [Using Azure Arc for Apps - Part 5 - Deploying an Azure API Management gateway to an Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-5/) - Date: 2021-06-04 - Tags: Containers, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-5/index.md Setting up an Azure API Management Gateway on Azure Arc In part 1 of this Using Azure Arc for Apps series, we explored Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters. In this post, we’ll be exploring API Management on Azure Arc. At time of writing, this approach is in public preview, so … ### [Using Azure Arc for Apps - Part 4 - Deploying Logic Apps into your App Services Kubernetes Environment](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-4/) - Date: 2021-06-04 - Tags: Containers, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-4/index.md App Service Kubernetes Environment In part 1 of this Using Azure Arc for Apps series, we explored Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters. In part 2, we deployed an App Service Kubernetes Environment into our Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster. In part 3, we deployed a Function App … ### [Using Azure Arc for Apps - Part 3 - Deploying Azure Functions into an App Service Kubernetes Environment](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-3/) - Date: 2021-06-02 - Tags: Containers, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-3/index.md In part 1 of this Using Azure Arc for Apps series, we explored Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters. In part 2, we deployed an App Service Kubernetes Environment into our Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster. As you'll likely be aware, both Azure Functions (this blog post) and Azure Logic Apps (the next blog post) can run on Azure App Service. The same is true of an App Service Kubernetes Environment, we can run App Services, Logic Apps and Azure Functions. ### [Using Azure Arc for Apps - Part 2 - Deploying App Services to Kubernetes](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-2/) - Date: 2021-06-01 - Tags: Containers, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-2/index.md In part 1 of this Using Azure Arc for Apps series, we explored Azure Arc and Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters. In this post, we'll be exploring App Services on Azure Arc. More specifically, these application services run on an Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster, which is a pre-requisite for us to progress. At time of writing, this approach is in public preview, so we may see certain limitations / features that are not yet available. ### [Using Azure Arc for Apps - Part 1 - Setting up an Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes Cluster](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-1/) - Date: 2021-06-01 - Tags: Containers, Cloud Native, Kubernetes, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-arc-for-apps-part-1/index.md At Microsoft //Build 2021, Microsoft announced a series of updates relating to Cloud Native Applications anywhere. In summary, those updates refer to running Azure Services (such as App Services, Logic Apps, Azure Functions, Event Grid and API Management) in any Kubernetes cluster which is managed by Azure Arc. That means you could have Azure App Services running in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or in your on-premises Kubernetes deployment. This is a significant update, so I've decided that I'll be writing a series of blog posts on the topic - as one post would not do the topic justice! ### [Securing App Service with Easy Auth behind a Public Application Gateway](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/secure-app-service-with-easy-auth-and-app-gateway-public/) - Date: 2021-05-31 - Tags: Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/secure-app-service-with-easy-auth-and-app-gateway-public/index.md Setting some context I recently encountered a scenario that I wanted to spend some time writing up. Imagine that you have a requirement to deploy a new web application to Microsoft Azure. However, there are some additional requirements - The application must require Azure Active Directory … ### [My Microsoft //Build 2021 Highlights](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/build-2021-summary/) - Date: 2021-05-28 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/build-2021-summary/index.md If you follow the news around Microsoft, you've probably found it very hard to miss the fact that the Microsoft //Build conference happened this week. Microsoft //Build is their annual developer-focused conference, where they typically announce new features, updates and share their strategy as they evolve technologies. In this update, I'll provide a summary of the announcements that particularly stood out to me and give you some context around why. Whether that's announcements that excite me, features that I think are crucial to be adopted, etc. It's worth noting that I'll be focusing primarily on the Microsoft Azure Updates here, as that's my typical area of expertise! ### [Making a GitHub Action with Docker and .NET Core](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-action-docker-dotnet-core/) - Date: 2021-05-24 - Tags: GitHub, Content Creation, DevOps - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/github-action-docker-dotnet-core/index.md As I'm using GitHub Actions to deploy my site to Azure, it made sense for me to build a GitHub action that I can use within my GitHub Actions workflow to cross-post content. That's exactly what I'll be talking about in this blog post! ### [Azure Static Web Apps are Generally Available](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/static-webapps-general-availability/) - Date: 2021-05-19 - Tags: Azure, Static Sites - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/static-webapps-general-availability/index.md Great news! Azure Static Web Apps are now Generally Available! Just to provide some reassurance, Static Web Apps are a concept that I'm fairly passionate about. You may have seen this blog post on why I think JAMStack and the cloud are a great combination. You may have seen one of my many talks on how I use Hugo, Azure Storage, Azure CDN and GitHub to easily deploy a very cheap and scalable site into Azure. But hold on, if Azure Storage is an option already - Why am I so excited about the prospect of Azure Static Web Apps? Azure Static Web Apps offer so much more than just the hosting aspect! ### [Thank you! Cloud with Chris has reached 500 YouTube Subscribers](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/thank-you-500-youtube-subscribers/) - Date: 2021-05-17 - Tags: Content Creation, Community - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/thank-you-500-youtube-subscribers/index.md I'm sat writing this blog post about 4 months after writing my 2021 kick off blog post. My aim for 2021 was to focus on one goal - contributing back into the technical community. ### [Building an Event-Driven workflow with Event Grid](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/event-driven-workflow-with-event-grid/) - Date: 2021-05-12 - Tags: Serverless, Integration, Azure, Event-Driven Architecture - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/event-driven-workflow-with-event-grid/index.md You may have heard of Event-Driven Architectures before, but haven't had the chance to get hands-on and build one as yet. That's exactly what we'll be working through in this blog post! ### [Azure Pipelines Tips](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/pipelines-as-code/) - Date: 2021-05-10 - Tags: DevOps, Azure DevOps, CI/CD - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/pipelines-as-code/index.md Recently on Twitter, I was asked by @thegraycat on whether I knew of any resources to manage pipelines in version control. I sent across several top of mind thoughts over Twitter, but it got me thinking that there may be others with the same question and it could make a good blog post. So here we are, as I talk through some of my considerations for pipelines as code. ### [Crossposting Content: A New Project](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/crossposting-content/) - Date: 2021-05-05 - Tags: Open Source, Content Creation, .NET - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/crossposting-content/index.md Following on from my recent post where I discussed using schema.org for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), I wanted to stick with a similar theme, but a slightly different angle or topic. This time, we'll be covering the topic of crossposting content. ### [Using schema.org for SEO optimisation](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/using-schema-org-for-seo/) - Date: 2021-05-03 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/using-schema-org-for-seo/index.md One of my recent tasks for Cloud with Chris was to investigate some additional areas for SEO optimisation. If you're unaware, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization; a set of practices to improve your ranking in search engines such as Google, Bing and others when they crawl and index your site. I was already in a good position, but there were some things that were frustrating me, we'll explore those in this blog post. ### [Introducing Logic Apps Preview](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introducing-logic-apps-preview/) - Date: 2021-04-28 - Tags: Integration, Microservices, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introducing-logic-apps-preview/index.md Following hot off the heels of my recent blog post introducing Logic Apps and how I use the technology on cloudwithchris.com, I thought it made sense for the second post to continue the Logic Apps theme. This time, we'll be focusing on Logic Apps preview (sometimes referred to as Logic Apps v2) - the evolution of Logic Apps. Typically when you deploy Logic Apps, you deploy it as a multi-tenanted service. There are some benefits to that, including the serverless capability, so being able to pay per execution rather than an overall infrastructure cost. But what if cost is less of a requirement for you? What if you care more about portability, greater performance, and ultimately control over your environment? If those are more along the lines of your requirements, then you may want to investigate the Logic Apps previewhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-overview-preview. The Logic Apps preview builds upon the Azure Functions extensibility model. Yes, you read that right - Azure Logic Apps is effectively building on top of Azure Functions. Why should you care? Anywhere that Azure Functions can run, then Logic Apps can run. ### [Introduction to Logic Apps](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-logic-apps/) - Date: 2021-04-26 - Tags: Content Creation, Integration, Messaging, Governance, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-logic-apps/index.md Many years ago, I wrote a blog post which introduced Logic Apps at a very high level when they were initially released. Ahead of a blog post that I want to write on Logic Apps v2, I thought that it may be worth writing a more thorough recap of Logic Apps as a platform. Logic Apps is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering, which allows you to easily build visual workflow integrations. Whether that's plumbing several microservices together, entirely different solutions within an enterprise, or some of the repetitive backend administrative tasks for a podcast or blog site, Logic Apps may be worth exploring. ### [Azure role-based access control (RBAC) at the data plane level](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-rbac-data-plane/) - Date: 2021-04-21 - Tags: Azure, Identity & Authentication, Security, Kubernetes, Governance - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-rbac-data-plane/index.md Principal of least privilege is a commonly used phrase within the Technology Industry. The idea is that we'll assign permissions of what the user needs to get the job done, rather than anything broader or more privileged. This helps reduce the blast radius in the event of a compromised account. This stretches to Azure resources at the management plane, but in some cases can also stretch to the data plane of those resources. We'll be exploring these further in this blog post. ### [Getting started with Azure using Microsoft Learn](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/get-started-azure-microsoft-learn/) - Date: 2021-04-19 - Tags: Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/get-started-azure-microsoft-learn/index.md Often, I'm asked the question how do I get started with Azure? Are there any resources, tutorials, guides that you can recommend? I know about topic X, but how do I learn more? I've been working with, and continuously learning Azure over the past 7 years or so. When I started, the main resources were Microsoft Docs and community sites. Both great resorces, but there was a gap for a truly educational resource, rather than technical reference material. Enter Microsoft Learn. ### [Optimise your site - Addressing recommendations from securityheaders.com](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/optimise-site-security-headers-com/) - Date: 2021-04-14 - Tags: Security, Content Creation, Azure, Static Sites - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/optimise-site-security-headers-com/index.md In my blog post earlier this week, I mentioned that I recently spoke at the Northern Azure User Group. The other speaker for the evening was Scott Hanselman, who talked about his journey moving a 17 year old .NET App into Azure. This was his blog. Along the way, he called out some of the tools that he used along the way. One was a tool called securityheaders.com. As any engaged listener does, I took note of the tools that he used, and added them to my cloudwithchris.com backlog during the talk. When I later investigated the initial rating of the site, I received a score of an F - which appears to be the lowest possible score that you can receive! Given that I only allow HTTPS traffic to my site, I was surprised by this - so I begun looking into the recommendations further. ### [Tips on getting started with blogging and content creation](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/get-started-blogging/) - Date: 2021-04-12 - Tags: Content Creation, Community - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/get-started-blogging/index.md In case you missed it, Shannon Kuehn, Jamie Maguire, John Lunn and I joined Sarah Lean for a panel livestream on her channel talking about our experiences getting started with blogging, and our experiences with blogging platforms. In this post, I want to focus on the first aspect - how you can get started with blogging, and some of the common themes / recommendations I've heard, not just from this session, but from other active community contributors. ### [Windows Terminal - What is it, and how can it make you productive with Azure?](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/windows-terminal-productive-azure/) - Date: 2021-04-08 - Tags: DevOps, Developer Experience, Command Line, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/windows-terminal-productive-azure/index.md For some time now, I've been using Windows Terminal as my local terminal for interacting with my command-line tools for quite some time now. Whenever I'm demonstrating Kubernetes concepts or working with the Azure CLI, I'll likely have had the Windows Terminal open at some point. I always get questioned about which terminal that is, and how people can get access to it. I recently put together a Cloud Drop on How Windows Terminal can make YOU productive with Azure, so I figured it's time to also write up a blog post on the same! Whether you're a Developer, DevOps Engineer, Infrastructure Operations or Data Scientist, you've probably had to interact with a command-line terminal / shell at some point, so I hope this will be useful for you! ### [Why use Git, How it Works and what's going on behind the scenes?](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/git-getting-started-to-advanced/) - Date: 2021-04-01 - Tags: DevOps, Git - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/git-getting-started-to-advanced/index.md I've recently released a few Cloud Drops episodes on Git related content. The Git Behind the Scenes video was incredibly well received. I'm also aware from my day-to-day discussions that there's a mix of experiences with Git, so also made a Git 101 Video. In this Cloud World that we live in, version control is an important concept beyond the 'traditional' developers. Infrastructure Engineers can now version control their Infrastructure as Code, or maintenance scripts. Data Scientists can version control their experiments and tests. And of course, developers can version control the code for their software. I also consider version control as a gateway or first step into the world of DevOps. Typically when you think about build and release pipelines, you are triggering based upon some version control event (e.g. a commit to a particular branch, a merge of a pull request, etc.). Over the past few years, I've seen a trend where organisations are looking to automate quickly, rather than relying on the traditional hands-on-keyboard approach which can be error-prone and time consuming. Whether we're talking in this context about Infrastructure as Code, Application Code, database schemas as code, data science experiments or any other representation as code, it doesn't matter. Typically the roads lead back to the same place, to version control. So in this blog post, I'll be covering the fundamentals of Git and how to get started. For anyone that is particularly inclined, there will also be some information on what's happening behind the scenes when you work through these fundamental concepts. ### [Using Git LFS to version Podcast Audio files and trigger releases to production with GitHub Actions](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/git-lfs-for-podcast-audio/) - Date: 2021-03-24 - Tags: DevOps, Git, GitHub, GitHub Actions, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/git-lfs-for-podcast-audio/index.md For some time, I've been using GitHub actions to update the content of my site (i.e. pages, descriptions, metadata, etc.). Through Hugo, these content updates automatically update the RSS feeds. This then makes the episodes appear in podcast services such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. However, throughout that time I have been manually uploading the podcast files to my storage account. It wasn't a significant overhead, but I kept thinking that there must be a better way to do this. And, there is - I've implemented it! This blog post will walk you through why I've made these changes, how I made them and what the result is. ### [Using GPG Keys to sign Git Commits - Part 4](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-4/) - Date: 2021-03-17 - Tags: DevOps, Git, Security, Identity & Authentication - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-4/index.md Part 4 - The final part (at least for now, until I find somewhere else that we can expand on with this)! This part will focus on porting the keys that we have recently generated onto our YubiKey device. I own a YubiKey NEO, so i'll be using that. ### [Using GPG Keys to sign Git Commits - Part 3](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-3/) - Date: 2021-03-10 - Tags: DevOps, Git, Security, Identity & Authentication - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-3/index.md Okay, part 3! At this point, I'm assuming that you have already familiarised yourself with [part 1](./blog/gpg-git-part-1) and [part 2](./blog/gpg-git-part-2) of the series. As a quick recap, part 1 focused on why we would consider using GPG Keys in general. Part 2 focused on how to generate GPG keys along with some recommended practices on splitting out our master (Certification) key, from our specific purpose-driven keys. This post (part 3) focuses on using those keys as part of our usual development workflow using Git. We'll be assuming that GitHub is our end target, as GitHub supports [commit signature verification using GPG Keys](https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/managing-commit-signature-verification). ### [Using GPG Keys to sign Git Commits - Part 2](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-2/) - Date: 2021-03-03 - Tags: DevOps, Git, Security, Command Line - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-2/index.md Hopefully by now you've had a chance to read [part 1](gpg-git-part-1) of this series, which explains why you may be interested in using GPG keys to sign your commits. Congratulations on getting to the second part! In part two, we're going to focus on how I worked through setting up GPG in my Windows environment, and generating a set of keys for use. There were some challenges/hurdles along the way, and we'll talk through those too! ### [Using GPG Keys to sign Git Commits - Part 1](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-1/) - Date: 2021-02-24 - Tags: DevOps, Git, Security - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/gpg-git-part-1/index.md For a while now, I've been using GPG Keys to sign my Git Commits to prove that my commits on GitHub are genuine and from me. Over the last few weeks, I've been inspired by a couple of colleagues (Kudos to Adrian and Julie if you're reading this) to dig out my YubiKey and use these for my key signing activities. While there are several blog posts on the topic already, I encountered a number of roadblocks along the way. The intent of this blog post is to be the first of a series, where we'll explore what GPG is, why it may be valuable to you and how you can get going using them. We'll then take this forwards an additional step, and show how you can use YubiKeys as a second factor of verification and the benefits of this approach. By no means am I the world's expert in cryptography, and some of these topics, but I wanted to document my own understanding for posterity, as I'll inevitably need to repeat/review the process in the future. I hope that this may be useful to you. ### [The Past Four Years](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/the-past-four-years/) - Date: 2021-02-19 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/the-past-four-years/index.md For the past four years, I've been part of a team at Microsoft called FastTrack for Azure. FastTrack for Azure is part of Azure Engineering's Customer Experience Team, focused on successfully on boarding customers on a project-by-project basis as they bring production workloads online. There is never a perfect time to say goodbye, but for me - now is the time. From Monday, I'll be taking on a new role within Microsoft as a Senior Cloud Solution Architect within Microsoft UK's Customer Success Unit, focusing on the Manufacturing & Resources Industries. Career changes can be big moments of change, and a good opportunity to reflect. ### [Contributing towards Azure GitHub Actions](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-github-actions-workflow-samples/) - Date: 2021-02-10 - Tags: GitHub, GitHub Actions, Azure - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-github-actions-workflow-samples/index.md I've talked in the past about my Open Source journey, and some of the contributions that I have made in the community. In my current role, I've been leading on the global strategy for my team's DevOps practice, defining the areas of focus and initiatives that may be beneficial for the team. In this post, I'm going to talk through one of these initiatives, and how you can contribute towards the Azure GitHub Actions experience! ### [Cloud with Chris Setup - Part 2 - Lights, Camera, Action!](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/my-setup-part-2/) - Date: 2021-02-03 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/my-setup-part-2/index.md A few people have recently been asking about my setup, so I figured it may be a good time to start writing about it! This is the second part of the series, where I'll focus on the Lights, Recording Equipment and my overall setup. If you're interested in the PC setup, then take a look at my previous blog post! ### [Cloud with Chris Setup - Part 1 - My PC](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/my-setup-part-1-pc/) - Date: 2021-01-27 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/my-setup-part-1-pc/index.md A few people have recently been asking about my setup, so I figured it may be a good time to start writing about it! I'll break this into a few posts to keep it digestible. The first part will be focused on the main powerhouse behind it all - My PC! ### [JAMStack and the Cloud - A winning combination](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/jamstack-cloud-winning-combination/) - Date: 2021-01-20 - Tags: Static Sites, Hugo, Cloud Design Patterns, Azure, Serverless - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/jamstack-cloud-winning-combination/index.md When I mention the term JAMStack, I'm not pretending that I'm Paddington bear with a stack of Jam sandwiches! If you hadn't heard, JAMStack is a term that describes applications based on JavaScript, APIs and Markup. That means, we're referring to files that are content in nature. Think about files like HTML, CSS, Images, etc. Ok, now with that context - why has it risen in popularity? Surely this is something that could have been done for many years, so why now? My hypothesis... Cloud. ### [Contributing to Open Source](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/contributing-to-open-source/) - Date: 2021-01-12 - Tags: Open Source, Community - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/contributing-to-open-source/index.md Contributing to Open Source Software. It sounds so formal, doesn't it? I thought that for quite a long time, and it put a bit of a mental barrier in place for me to begin my journey. I am a classic over thinker, but that's perhaps another blog in its own right! Contributing to Open Source isn't as scary as it may first initially seem. Let's start with a few thoughts. ### [Contributing to a Hugo Theme - The Castanet and Hugo Community Themes](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/contributing-to-a-hugo-theme/) - Date: 2021-01-06 - Tags: Hugo, Open Source - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/contributing-to-a-hugo-theme/index.md During the 2020 Festive Break, I had a lot of time on my hands. I took 4 weeks of my Annual Leave, which meant I had the majority of December to personal time. Personal time / time off is great, but I also wanted to push myself and catch up on some pieces that were on my personal learning or achievement list for some time. I started refreshing my knowledge around Rails (having developed in it some years ago, it's progressed quite a bit!), NodeJS, GoLang and Rust. All interesting to learn, and I'm sure I'll be continuing on my journey with these throughout 2021. But that's not the point in this blog post. One of the activities that I kicked off was contributing into the Hugo Community. Read on to find out more. ### [Cloud With Chris - Moving Forwards](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/cloud-with-chris-moving-forwards/) - Date: 2021-01-02 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/cloud-with-chris-moving-forwards/index.md You may have noticed there are some posts preceding this one. I've had a few attempts at putting my blog together, but then dwindle out on my cadence... Well, given the recent success with my Cloud with Chris podcast, I'm beginning to consolidate... Starting with my blog! Here's an update on what you have to look forward to! ### [Azure Mythbusters: I can choose any Azure Compute Service to solve any problem!]() - Date: 2020-02-04 - Tags: Azure, Architecture - Markdown: A lot of people will take a round peg and try and push it into a square hole – or in this case, take their code and try and cram it into whatever service they happen to like at the time. There are specialised services on Azure, as well as some generic ones, but we’re going to talk about some of the more specialised compute services and what things you need to consider when using them. ### [Azure Mythbusters: Cloud is new, so there are no clear architecture patterns!]() - Date: 2020-01-28 - Tags: Azure, Architecture - Markdown: There are a lot of established cloud design patterns. These don’t all apply specifically to Azure, either – some of them apply intrinsically to cloud services, and some to general services and architectures. If you’ve been to the Azure Architecture Center before, and you’ve seen what used to be the patterns and practices guidance, I’d advise you to take another look. We’re adding new ones all the time as we see them, all of which are common patterns that Azure customers are using to isolate and work around things they see in applications to make them work better. ### [Deploying a multi-region Serverless API Layer (Part 1)](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/deploying-multi-region-serverless-api-part1/) - Date: 2019-07-13 - Tags: Azure, Architecture, Resilience, DevOps, Infrastructure as Code, Microservices, Serverless - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/deploying-multi-region-serverless-api-part1/index.md In my spare time, I work on a pet project called Theatreers. The aim of this is a microservice based platform focused on Theatre / Musical Theatre (bringing a few of my passion areas together). I've recently re-architected the project to align to a multi-region serverless technology stack. ### [Using Azure DevOps REST APIs to automatically create Team Iterations](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-devops-team-iterations-script/) - Date: 2019-06-16 - Tags: Azure DevOps, DevOps, Automation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-devops-team-iterations-script/index.md Consider this scenario. You are managing a software project using Azure DevOps, and you have multiple teams working towards a common cadence. Perhaps that cadence is managed by a central team. To gain the most value from your sprint planning, you would need to associate the iterations from the project level with each individual team. This is a scenario that I have for my fictitious Theatreers project, but also a scenario I encountered recently with a colleague. I have been helping them setup an Azure DevOps project to track the development of IP and collateral, so that they can more accurately forecast what they expect to land and show the value being delivered by the team. ### [Azure Scaffold - Governance Recommendations](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-scaffold-governance-recommendations/) - Date: 2017-02-25 - Tags: Azure, Governance - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/azure-scaffold-governance-recommendations/index.md Cloud Governance seems to have come up a few times over the past few weeks, so I wanted to post a short, sharp blog about it! ### [Are you thinking of scalability in your cloud application?](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/are-you-thinking-of-scalability-in-your-cloud-application/) - Date: 2016-09-29 - Tags: Azure, Architecture, Resilience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/are-you-thinking-of-scalability-in-your-cloud-application/index.md Scalability is one of the common areas where I have seen common misconceptions, when customers begin building on the platform. ### [Integration Platform as a Service: Logic Apps](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/integration-platform-as-a-service-logic-apps/) - Date: 2016-09-12 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/integration-platform-as-a-service-logic-apps/index.md In case you had not already heard, Logic Apps have now reached general availability on Azure (or read an MSDN article by Jeff Hollan on the topic). ### [DigiCert Certificate Management through Azure Key Vault](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/digicert-certificate-management-through-azure-keyvault/) - Date: 2016-09-12 - Tags: Content Creation, Infrastructure as Code, Security - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/digicert-certificate-management-through-azure-keyvault/index.md When designing a solution, you want to be sure that your communications are secure and that your users can trust your application. Typically, SSL certificates can be useful for this purpose.That is well and good from a design and development perspective, but there may some management headaches when operating and governing the solution. How do you keep track of the certificates? How do you guarantee that they are kept secure? How do you ensure that certificates renew on time? ### [An Introduction to Azure Functions](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-azure-functions/) - Date: 2016-09-12 - Tags: Content Creation, Serverless, Event-Driven Architecture - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/introduction-to-azure-functions/index.md If you have been keeping up to date with the latest and greatest in Azure Services (yes, I know there are quite a few!), you may have heard of a new service called Azure Functions. Azure Functions is an event-driven Platform as a Service capability, helping you to execute code upon the occurrence of a particular event. It is currently in preview, though already has a lot of potential. ### [A few useful Azure Resources](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/a-few-useful-azure-resources/) - Date: 2016-09-03 - Tags: Azure, Architecture - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/a-few-useful-azure-resources/index.md Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a number of projects relating to Azure. The usual theme has crept up, around recommended practices, and where to go for documentation. There are a couple of great resources to be aware of! ### [Approaching Resilience in Azure Solutions](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/approaching-resilience-in-azure-solutions/) - Date: 2016-08-26 - Tags: Azure, Architecture, Resilience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/approaching-resilience-in-azure-solutions/index.md I mentioned in Building Solutions in the Cloud that I would be writing a series of blog posts on the areas of risk that I have seen since I have been providing guidance around Azure. In this post, I will provide some thoughts on how you can consider resilience within the context of your own solution or application. ### [Building Solutions in the Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/building-solutions-in-the-cloud/) - Date: 2016-08-04 - Tags: Azure, Architecture, Resilience - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/building-solutions-in-the-cloud/index.md By now, we should be aware of the benefits that the cloud can bring to any individual or organisaton. There are plenty of case studies, talking about the scalable, flexible and economic benefits. Companies see the cloud as a differentiator, and utilise it to disrupt and innovate in their respective markets. Gartner predicts that in 2016 the total public cloud market is due to increase by 16%. But, Chris - You're starting a blog about technology. Why are you talking to me about customer case studies and market fact? Why? Context. ### [System.out.println('Hello World');](https://chrisreddington.com/blog/hello-world/) - Date: 2016-07-04 - Tags: Content Creation - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/blog/hello-world/index.md Surely, a Hello World post is a right of passage for technical bloggers? ## All Talks ### [VS Code, Live — Straight from Microsoft Build! 🪐](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/2025-05-19-vscode-live/) - Date: 2025-05-19 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/2025-05-19-vscode-live/index.md Join VS Code, Live! at Microsoft Build. For the first time ever, VS Code, Live! is going on stage—in person—and you’re invited! Get an inside look at what the team’s building, featuring live conversations with devs and creators. Whether you’re deep into VS Code or just curious about what’s next, this is your dev-first, code-forward pass to what’s new. ### [How GitHub Next took Copilot Workspace from concept to code](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/2024-10-31-github-universe-copilot-workspace/) - Date: 2024-10-31 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/2024-10-31-github-universe-copilot-workspace/index.md Whether you’re addressing an issue, iterating on a pull request, or bootstrapping a project, GitHub Copilot Workspace helps jumpstart your tasks by describing what you want in natural language. You remain in control as you move between tasks, specs, plans, and code. Join GitHub's Chris Reddington, senior program manager of DevRel, and Cole Bemis, research engineer on GitHub Next, for an introduction to Copilot Workspace, a Copilot-native dev environment launched in April 2024 by GitHub Next. Learn how Copilot Workspace works, how we got here, and what we've learned so far from the technical preview. ### [Hands on with Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet in GitHub Copilot](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/2024-10-31-github-universe-hands-on-anthropic-claude-35-sonnet/) - Date: 2024-10-30 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/2024-10-31-github-universe-hands-on-anthropic-claude-35-sonnet/index.md Come to this session to be the first in the world to get a deep-dive demo of the exciting Claude 3.5 Sonnet model from Anthropic built right into GitHub Copilot. Learn what this powerful new model will help you achieve and why you should use it for your development teams. ### [Beyond Code With Github the AI Revolution in Software Development](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/beyond-code-with-github-the-ai-revolution-in-software-development/) - Date: 2024-09-04 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/beyond-code-with-github-the-ai-revolution-in-software-development/index.md As AI continues to reshape the way businesses innovate, the conversation shifts beyond the mere integration of new technology. Chris emphasizes that adopting AI-powered software development is a significant cultural shift, requiring more than just technical tools. It demands a top-down approach, where leadership support and change management are critical to fostering a progressive culture within development teams. ### [GitHub Galaxy 2024 Amsterdam](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-amsterdam/) - Date: 2024-06-12 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-amsterdam/index.md Ready to explore our blueprint for AI-powered development? Join us to network with local tech leaders and learn the key to addressing tech debt, modernizing the software development lifecycle, and transforming your enterprise. ### [GitHub Galaxy 2024 Paris](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-paris/) - Date: 2024-05-29 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-paris/index.md Ready to explore our blueprint for AI-powered development? Join us to network with local tech leaders and learn the key to addressing tech debt, modernizing the software development lifecycle, and transforming your enterprise. ### [GitHub Galaxy 2024 Stockholm](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-stockholm/) - Date: 2024-05-22 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-stockholm/index.md Ready to explore our blueprint for AI-powered development? Join us to network with local tech leaders and learn the key to addressing tech debt, modernizing the software development lifecycle, and transforming your enterprise. ### [GitHub Galaxy 2024 London](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-london/) - Date: 2024-04-25 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-london/index.md Ready to explore our blueprint for AI-powered development? Join us to network with local tech leaders and learn the key to addressing tech debt, modernizing the software development lifecycle, and transforming your enterprise. ### [GitHub Galaxy 2024 Berlin](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-berlin/) - Date: 2024-04-16 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/github-galaxy-2024-berlin/index.md Ready to explore our blueprint for AI-powered development? Join us to network with local tech leaders and learn the key to addressing tech debt, modernizing the software development lifecycle, and transforming your enterprise. ### [Beyond version control: Using GitHub throughout your development lifecycle](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ddd-north-beyond-version-control/) - Date: 2024-03-02 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ddd-north-beyond-version-control/index.md GitHub is well-known for version control, and its work with the open source community. But did you know you can use GitHub throughout your development lifecycle? Join Chris Reddington from GitHub's Developer Relations team as he explores how you can use GitHub to plan, code, build, and deploy your work. Learn how the platform comes together in GitHub Issues, Projects, Codespaces, Actions, Copilot and Advanced Security! ### [London Reactor Meetup | DevOps meets AI](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/london-reactor-meetup-jan-2024/) - Date: 2024-01-16 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/london-reactor-meetup-jan-2024/index.md DevOps is inherently a cultural shift with a mass of technologies involved at many stages of the lifecycle. Over the past year we have seen a huge change in the AI sector and these developers, entrepreneurs and businesses are all starting to adopt this technology and make it a part of their everyday development. With this being the case, the DevOps lifecycle is going to pivot and change for everyone in one way or another, so let's dive into how this is happening! ### [Passwordless deployments to Microsoft Azure with GitHub Actions](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southcoast-passwordless-deployments-to-azure/) - Date: 2022-10-15 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southcoast-passwordless-deployments-to-azure/index.md Discovering passwords in our codebase is probably one of our worst fears as a developer. But, what if you didn't need passwords at all? Join Chris, as he explores how you can use OpenID Connect to trust your cloud provider, enabling you to deploy easily, securely and safely. ### [End-to-end InnerSourcing and Secure Development with GitHub](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devoxx-belgium-2022-end-to-end-innersourcing/) - Date: 2022-10-13 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devoxx-belgium-2022-end-to-end-innersourcing/index.md Many of you may be familiar with GitHub for your own Open Source (OSS) projects. But, did you know that you can run your end-to-end development within your organization using GitHub Enterprise? Join Chris for a whistle-stop tour in the day-in-the-life of a developer with GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Actions and GitHub Advanced Security, showing how you can bring Open Source best practices into your day-to-day work (also known as InnerSource)! ### [From 'It works on my machine' to 'It was written by a machine' - GitHub Codespaces & Copilot](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devoxx-belgium-2022-works-on-my-machine/) - Date: 2022-10-10 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devoxx-belgium-2022-works-on-my-machine/index.md Being a developer is hard. From knowing the building blocks of programming, through to keeping on top of the latest languages and frameworks. That’s before we even think about running systems in production But at some point, we’ve all uttered those words ‘It works on my machine’. Or, may have looked up code snippets from our favourite search engine What if there was a better way for both? In this demo-led session, Chris will introduce GitHub Codespaces and GitHub Copilot, explaining how they can improve your developer experience and make you even more productive!! ### [From 'It works on my machine' to 'It was written by a machine' - GitHub Codespaces & Copilot](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/halfstack-on-thames-dev-experience/) - Date: 2022-09-23 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/halfstack-on-thames-dev-experience/index.md Being a developer is hard. From knowing the building blocks of programming, through to keeping on top of the latest languages and frameworks. That’s before we even think about running systems in production But at some point, we’ve all uttered those words ‘It works on my machine’. Or, may have looked up code snippets from our favourite search engine What if there was a better way for both? In this demo-led session, Chris will introduce GitHub Codespaces and GitHub Copilot, explaining how they can improve your developer experience and make you even more productive!! ### [Git and GitHub for the Data Professional](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southampton-data-ug/) - Date: 2022-09-14 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southampton-data-ug/index.md GitHub is just that tool which developers use on Open Source projects, right? Not quite! You could be using Github in your day-to-day work. Have you thought about storing your SQL scripts, or machine learning workbooks in Git repositories? How about checking the quality of the content that you've version controlled? Or thinking about the security of your project? These are all things that GitHub can help with! Join Chris in this session as he provides a holistic overview for data professionals on GitHub, GitHub Enterprise and GitHub Advanced Security. ### [Using GitHub Actions to Deploy to Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/dotnet-south-west-github-actions/) - Date: 2022-09-07 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/dotnet-south-west-github-actions/index.md You've heard of GitHub. You've heard of GitHub Actions. You've heard of Azure. But how can GitHub Actions help you deploy your workloads to Azure? In this demo-filled, action-packed session, we will Introduce GitHub and GitHub Actions, Cover the fundamentals on what you need to know to build a GitHub Action Workflow, Identify resources that you can use to continue your journey in using GitHub Actions to deploy to Azure ### [End-to-end InnerSourcing and Secure Development with GitHub](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lsy-dev-conference-2022/) - Date: 2022-09-01 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lsy-dev-conference-2022/index.md You may be familiar with GitHub for your own Open Source (OSS) projects. But, did you know that you can use those same practices internally for your end-to-end development using GitHub Enterprise? Join Chris for a whistle-stop tour into GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Actions, GitHub Copilot and how you can bring DevSecOps best practices into your day-to-day work! ### [DevOps in a Cloud World](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/mert-to-the-future-github-overview/) - Date: 2022-08-11 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/mert-to-the-future-github-overview/index.md Chris joins Mert Yeter on Mert to the future show demonstrating how GitHub has some amazing capabilities beyond repositories! GitHub Projects, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Actions and more! Tune in to find out! ### [GitHub - More than just a Git repository](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southcoast-ug-github/) - Date: 2022-06-07 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southcoast-ug-github/index.md Chris is the blogger, podcaster, host and producer of his content platform CloudWithChris.com. He uses GitHub to manage, develop, build and deploy it. In this session, Chris explores how GitHub is more than just a Git repository, and how he uses it for his own work: GitHub Issues / Projects to plan the content (Blog & Podcast) backlog GitHub repositories to version control the website's source code (and recently open sourced the theme) GitHub Codespaces to make changes to the site from any device GitHub actions to build/deploy the site, and publish podcast mp3 files ### [Microsoft Build 2022](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/build-2022-uk/) - Date: 2022-05-25 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/build-2022-uk/index.md Come together with peers and experts May 24–26, 2022, for an engaging experience around the latest in innovation and tools that will help you stay informed. New for this year, experience market-specific content and connection opportunities for France, Germany, Japan, Latin America, and the UK. Join April Edwards and I, who will be hosting you! ### [Building Serverless Cloud-Native applications with Azure Container Apps](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-thames-container-apps/) - Date: 2022-05-19 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-thames-container-apps/index.md Technology is always evolving. We’ve seen physical machines turn into virtual. Virtual machines turn into containers. But often, those containers need an orchestrator like Kubernetes to reap the full benefits. What if there was a simpler option? Join Tighe and Chris as they introduce you to Azure Container Apps (Preview), Dapr and Keda - Helping you get started on your serverless cloud native journey. ### [Why even care about Developer Velocity?](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/hybrid-ug-developer-velocity/) - Date: 2022-05-04 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/hybrid-ug-developer-velocity/index.md Have you heard about the term Developer Velocity, and wondered why it even matters for you? Join Steph and Chris as they run through Microsoft's transformation from shipping boxed products to always-on online services. Developer Velocity is a critical part of that journey to ensure the teams can keep delivering value to their end users at scale. In this session, you will learn about some of the tips & tricks that Microsoft used along the way. ### [Creating a Portfolio Using Azure Static Web Apps](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/learn-ambassadors-swa/) - Date: 2022-04-20 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/learn-ambassadors-swa/index.md Join Microsoft for an introduction to WebApp creation and hear employability advice from Microsoft employees! This day will be given in 4 virtual informative and lab sessions: Session 1: Introduction to GitHub, Session 2: Introduction to Hugo, Session 3: Introduction to Azure Static Web Apps, Session 4: Career Talks / Employability Tips ### [Deploying Static sites to Azure the cheap and performant way](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-ug-sweden-static/) - Date: 2022-04-02 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-ug-sweden-static/index.md Did you know that static content can help you build performant sites that easily scale globally? Better yet, they can be incredibly cost-effective! Join Chris, as he talks through - * The JAMstack (not related to Paddington bear - I promise!) and why you should care about it * Static Site Generators such as Hugo * Azure Hosting Options - Azure Storage vs Azure Static Web Apps * Combining Static sites with Serverless APIs ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 3: Azure Arc for Application Services](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lunchbytes-s1e3/) - Date: 2022-03-23 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lunchbytes-s1e3/index.md Azure Arc extends the use of Azure Services beyond the Azure cloud. With Azure Arc you are able to deploy and monitor Azure services in your own datacentres or other cloud providers. This event will focus on Azure Application Services and how they can be deployed outside of Azure through Kubernetes with Azure Arc. ### [Deploying Static sites to Azure the cheap and performant way](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/melbourne-azure-ug-static-content/) - Date: 2022-03-22 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/melbourne-azure-ug-static-content/index.md Did you know that static content can help you build performant sites that easily scale globally? Better yet, they can be incredibly cost-effective! Join Chris, as he talks through - * The JAMstack (not related to Paddington bear - I promise!) and why you should care about it * Static Site Generators such as Hugo * Azure Hosting Options - Azure Storage vs Azure Static Web Apps * Combining Static sites with Serverless APIs ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 2: DevOps for Logic Apps](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lunchbytes-s1e2/) - Date: 2022-03-09 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lunchbytes-s1e2/index.md Quickly develop highly scalable integration solutions for your enterprise scenarios using Logic Apps. Join us as we explore the continuous integration and continuous deployment for Azure Logic Apps. ### [GitHub - More than a Git repo](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/maug-github-more-than-just-a-git-repo/) - Date: 2022-03-09 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/maug-github-more-than-just-a-git-repo/index.md Chris is the blogger, podcaster, host, and producer of his content platform CloudWithChris.com. He uses GitHub to manage, develop, build and deploy it. In this session, Chris explores how GitHub is more than just a Git repository, and how he uses it for his own work: - GitHub Issues / Projects to plan the content (Blog & Podcast) backlog - GitHub repositories to version control the website's source code (and recently open sourced the theme) - GitHub Codespaces to make changes to the site from any device - GitHub actions to build/deploy the site, and publish podcast mp3 files ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 1: DevOps & API Management](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lunchbytes-s1e1/) - Date: 2022-02-23 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lunchbytes-s1e1/index.md APIs are the glue that connect rich user experiences to our data and services. Good governance using tools such as API Management are vital. Join us as we explore how to work with the deployment options for APIs in Azure API Management and how these can be integrated in CI/CD pipelines. This first episode is particularly suitable for Architects and Developers interested in applying Infrastructure as Code skills to APIs. ### [Deploying Static Sites to Azure the cheap and performant way](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southcoast-deploying-static-sites/) - Date: 2021-10-16 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/southcoast-deploying-static-sites/index.md Did you know that Static Sites can help you build performant sites that easily scale globally? Better yet, they can be incredibly cost-effective! ### [Using Azure Arc to run your Application Services on-premises or in any cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/waug-azure-arc/) - Date: 2021-09-29 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/waug-azure-arc/index.md Azure Arc is a suite of Azure Services that simplifies management of workloads in a Hybrid and Multicloud deployment. You've likely heard about this from the Infrastructure or Virtual Machine perspective, but how can it help with your applications? We'll explore how App Services, Logic Apps, Azure Functions, Event Grid and API Management Gateways can be deployed to on-premises and other clouds using Azure Arc! ### [Requirements, Design Patterns, Cloud Architecture Oh My](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-thames-requirements/) - Date: 2021-09-28 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-thames-requirements/index.md In this session, we'll navigate through a typical real-world architecture of a solution and consider the decisions that we may wish to make at various stages. Alongside that, we'll factor in how requirements and design patterns can help influence our overall design, based on learnings from Chris' 5+ year journey taking customers to production on Azure. ### [Requirements, Design Patterns, Cloud Architecture Oh My](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/dotnet-notts-architecture/) - Date: 2021-09-27 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/dotnet-notts-architecture/index.md In this session, we'll navigate through a typical real-world architecture of a solution and consider the decisions that we may wish to make at various stages. Alongside that, we'll factor in how requirements and design patterns can help influence our overall design, based on learnings from Chris' 5+ year journey taking customers to production on Azure. ### [How GitHub can help in planning, building and deploying a Podcast/Blog site](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/mc2mc-azure-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-08-26 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/mc2mc-azure-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is a Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft. He'll explore how GitHub Actions can be used to deploy your own static sites (or other apps!) to Azure. ### [How GitHub Actions can help in building and deploying a static website and more](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-thames-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-07-20 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-thames-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is a Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft. He'll provide an overview of GitHub and explore how GitHub Actions can be used to build and deploy your own static sites (or other apps!) to Azure. ### [An introduction to Cloud, Azure and the Azure Portal](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lati-bar/) - Date: 2021-07-01 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/lati-bar/index.md In this session, Chris will discuss some of the fundamental concepts of the Cloud and Azure, and providing an introductory walkthrough of the Azure Portal. ### [Static Web Apps in Azure | DEVREAL.io](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devreal-static-webapps/) - Date: 2021-06-09 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devreal-static-webapps/index.md We often hear about Kubernetes, App Services, VMs and more. What about static sites? The Static Content Hosting pattern can be cost-effective, and when combined with a CDN can be incredibly performant! We will get hands-on, showing how these resources come together into a Cloud Architecture. ### [Live or Recorded Demos - Panel Discussion](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/techielass-live-or-recorded-demos/) - Date: 2021-06-02 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/techielass-live-or-recorded-demos/index.md Join me and a few colleagues as we talk about demos during presentations and whether they should be live demos or recorded and the arguments for and against each option. ### [AZ Community Roundtable - Ep.01 - Chris Reddington & Martin Therkelsen with host James Cook](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/az-roundtable-1/) - Date: 2021-06-01 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/az-roundtable-1/index.md On the first AZ Community Roundtable show, James Cook introduces himself for the first time as the host. After guest speakers Chris and Martin introduce themselves, James discusses Microsoft Build news on App Services adopting Cloud Native approach using Kubernetes so it can be used on other platforms. Martin talks about how infrastructure as Code is being adopted and it's place currently in organisations. Chris brings up what individuals are looking for in DevOps tools, the features we enjoy and a quick talk on the Azure DevOps vs GitHub hot topic on social media. ### [UK Community Session: Create friction-free code across all tools and frameworks](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/build-2021-uk-community/) - Date: 2021-05-26 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/build-2021-uk-community/index.md Microsoft Cloud Advocate Dean Bryen is joined by guests Carole Logan (developer and tech lead based in Glasgow) and Chris Reddington (Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect) as they take you through the end-to-end process of editing, committing and deploying code across different platforms and tools. We’ll end with a Q&A session and next steps for you to try the process out for yourself to see how agile and collaborative it is. We look forward to seeing you there! ### [How GitHub Actions can help in building and deploying a static website and more](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devops-notts-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-05-25 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devops-notts-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is a Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft. He'll provide an overview of GitHub and explore how GitHub Actions can be used to build and deploy your own static sites (or other apps!) to Azure. ### [Cloud Lunch and Learn Marathon 2021 - Using Hugo, Azure Storage and Azure CDN for a cheap & performant site on Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/cllm-azure-hugo-storage-cdn/) - Date: 2021-05-13 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/cllm-azure-hugo-storage-cdn/index.md We often hear about Kubernetes, App Services, Virtual Machines and more. But did you ever think about using Azure Storage to host your sites? The Static Content Hosting pattern is a cost-effective way to host your sites, combined with a CDN can be incredibly performant! Chris will show how he uses these patterns, along with GitHub Actions to deploy and maintain his CloudWithChris.com podcast. ### [Cloud Lunch and Learn Marathon 2021 - Requirements, Design Patterns, Cloud Architecture Oh My](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/cllm-requirements-design-patterns-oh-my/) - Date: 2021-05-13 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/cllm-requirements-design-patterns-oh-my/index.md In this session, we’ll navigate through a typical journey when designing the architecture of a cloud solution and consider the decisions that we may wish to make at various stages. Alongside that, we’ll factor in how requirements and design patterns can help influence our overall design. ### [Cloud Lunch and Learn Marathon 2021 - How GitHub Actions can help in building and deploying a static site and more](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/cllm-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-05-13 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/cllm-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is the producer and host of his podcast CloudWithChris.com. He uses GitHub to version control the site's source code, GitHub Actions to build and deploy the site to Azure and other clouds, and GitHub Issues/Boards to plan the episode backlog. In this session, we'll explore how GitHub can be used to deploy your own workloads to Azure. ### [Azure in a Nutshell | DEVREAL.io](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devreal-azure-in-a-nutshell/) - Date: 2021-05-11 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/devreal-azure-in-a-nutshell/index.md Cloud skills are getting increasingly important among developers, engineers but also among people working on the business side of IT projects. As more Azure datacenters are coming to the Nordics and more IT projects include Azure services, more IT professionals that understand Azure are needed. Being Azure-ready and having passed Azure certifications will increase your career opportunities dramatically. This DEVREAL episode will lead you on a path to taking your first Azure Certification. No matter if you are already using Azure, you will benefit from learning the full picture of Azure on a high level. This presentation will teach you all you need to know. ### [Using Hugo, Azure Storage and Azure CDN for a cheap & performant site on Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/gaug-hugo-storage-cdn/) - Date: 2021-04-28 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/gaug-hugo-storage-cdn/index.md We often hear about Kubernetes, App Services, Virtual Machines and more. But did you ever think about using Azure Storage to host your sites? The Static Content Hosting pattern is a cost-effective way to host your websites, combined with a CDN can be incredibly performant! Chris will show how he uses these patterns, along with GitHub Actions to deploy and maintain his CloudWithChris.com podcast. ### [#LeedsAzure - vMeetup #9 - How GitHub Actions can help in building and deploying a static site and more](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/leeds-azure-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-04-21 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/leeds-azure-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is a Senior FastTrack for Azure engineer at Microsoft and is the producer and host of his podcast CloudWithChris.com. He uses GitHub to version control the site's source code, GitHub Actions to build and deploy the site to Azure and other clouds, and GitHub Issues/Boards to plan the episode backlog. In this session, we'll explore how GitHub can be used to deploy your own Podcast/Blog site using Static Site Generators such as Hugo onto Azure. ### [GitHub actions and static content](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-podcast-github-actions/) - Date: 2021-04-19 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azure-podcast-github-actions/index.md Chris is a podcaster ('Hoster') in his own right with his 'Cloud with Chris' show (https://www.cloudwithchris.com/) . On this episode he talks to us about using GitHub Actions for processing of static file content (like you have on a Podcast for example). ### [#GlobalAzure 2021 - How GitHub Actions can help in building and deploying a static site and more](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/global-azure-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-04-17 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/global-azure-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is the producer and host of his podcast CloudWithChris.com. He uses GitHub to version control the site's source code, GitHub Actions to build and deploy the site to Azure and other clouds, and GitHub Issues/Boards to plan the episode backlog. In this session, we'll explore how GitHub can be used to deploy your own workloads to Azure. ### [#GlobalAzure​ 2021 - Using Hugo, Azure Storage and Azure CDN for a cheap & performant site on Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/global-azure-hugo-storage-cdn/) - Date: 2021-04-16 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/global-azure-hugo-storage-cdn/index.md We often hear about Kubernetes, App Services, Virtual Machines and more. But did you ever think about using Azure Storage to host your sites? The Static Content Hosting pattern is a cost-effective way to host your sites, combined with a CDN can be incredibly performant! Chris will show how he uses these patterns, along with GitHub Actions to deploy and maintain his CloudWithChris.com podcast. ### [How GitHub Actions can help in building and deploying a static website and more](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/naug-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-04-06 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/naug-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is a Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft. He'll explore how GitHub Actions can be used to deploy your own static sites (or other apps!) to Azure. ### [How to get started blogging and choosing your platform - Panel Discussion](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/techielass-get-started-blogging/) - Date: 2021-03-31 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/techielass-get-started-blogging/index.md Chatting to some colleagues about blogging and sharing our success stories and failures! ### [DevOps in a Cloud World](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ms-howto-live-devops/) - Date: 2021-03-25 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ms-howto-live-devops/index.md Chris joins Mert Yeter on the MSHowTo show talking all things DevOps, including CI/CD tools, Azure DevOps and GitHub, Azure Development related tooling, and the importance of monitoring as part of a DevOps approach! ### [How GitHub can help in planning, building and deploying a Podcast/Blog site](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/waug-lightning-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-03-18 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/waug-lightning-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is the producer and host of his podcast CloudWithChris.com. He uses GitHub to version control the site's source code, GitHub Actions to build and deploy the site to Azure and other clouds, and GitHub Issues/Boards to plan the episode backlog. In this session, we'll explore how GitHub can be used to deploy your own workloads to Azure ### [How GitHub Actions can help in building and deploying a static website and more](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ldna-github-deploying-static-content/) - Date: 2021-03-06 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ldna-github-deploying-static-content/index.md Chris is a Senior Azure Engineer at Microsoft. He'll explore how GitHub Actions can be used to deploy your own static sites (or other apps!) to Azure. ### [Application Observability in a Distributed World](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/squared-up-webinar-application-observability/) - Date: 2021-02-25 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/squared-up-webinar-application-observability/index.md Join Chris Reddington, Senior FastTrack for Azure Engineer at Microsoft for this Azure Management Talk webinar. Chris will provide an overview of Application Insights and how it slots into the wider Azure Monitoring ecosystem. We will explore Alerts, Metrics, Queries, Dashboards, Workbooks and more, and how Application Insights can bring clarity to a distributed cloud deployment. ### [Jonnychipz - In Conversation with Chris Reddington](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/in-conversation-with-jonny-chipz/) - Date: 2021-02-19 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/in-conversation-with-jonny-chipz/index.md Mr Chris Reddington talks to us about his life as a Microsoft Azure Fast Track Engineer and some of the pain points he helps Customer navigate. We discuss DevOps and Infrastructure as Code as well as key skills needed for this modern IT world we now live in and more! ### [Azureish After Dark with Chris Reddington from Microsoft and some Among Us](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azureish-after-dark/) - Date: 2021-02-10 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/azureish-after-dark/index.md Azureish After Dark with Chris Reddington from Microsoft and some Among Us ### [The Role of Requirements Cloud Design Patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ms-howto-live-architecture/) - Date: 2021-01-25 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/talk/ms-howto-live-architecture/index.md Chris joined Mert to talk all about Cloud Design Patterns, the Azure Architecture Center, Cloud Project Design Best Practices and Challenges in Cloud Development. ## All Videos ### [GitHub Copilot SDK demo: Creating "Flight School"](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2026-02-05-copilot-sdk-flight-school/) - Date: 2026-02-05 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct_Ymw9RexM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2026-02-05-copilot-sdk-flight-school/index.md Chris Reddington demonstrates "Flight School," a custom Next.js application built to personalize his learning journey using the GitHub Copilot SDK. See how he leverages agentic workflows to generate daily coding challenges based on his GitHub profile, evaluate solutions against test cases, and automatically export projects to new repositories. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build with GitHub Copilot SDK](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2026-01-29-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2026-01-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKzfETGGt0E - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2026-01-29-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Join us for Rubber Duck Thursdays! A lighthearted and informal stream where we live code on some projects. This week we explore how to bring the power of GitHub Copilot into your apps with the GitHub Copilot SDK, building hands-on examples and discussing patterns for integrating AI-powered coding assistance directly into developer tools and workflows. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - It's time to build!](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2026-01-08-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2026-01-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KalgAXDzG4w - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2026-01-08-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris showcases Timestamp, an open-source countdown timer app built with vanilla TypeScript featuring an extensible theme system, world map wall clock, and 2500+ unit tests with 300+ Playwright end-to-end tests. He deep-dives into structuring GitHub Copilot custom instructions vs agents vs prompt files, demonstrates manager-specialist agent patterns, and walks through GitHub Actions automation for issue forms and theme scaffolding. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build our way into 2026!](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-12-18-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-12-18 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re80VvDuNgA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-12-18-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris builds a New Year countdown app from scratch using Vite, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS, leveraging GitHub Copilot's Plan agent for iterative requirements and a custom UI Performance Specialist agent. The stream covers adding time zone support with a world map, a fireworks celebration theme using fireworks.js, and a test-driven development approach. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build down tech debt](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-12-11-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-12-11 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgFacJ6lIBc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-12-11-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris reviews the latest GitHub changelog including CodeQL updates, GPT-5.1 Codex Max preview, GitHub MCP server tool-specific configuration, and Enterprise Server 3.19 GA. He then explores the major VS Code December release featuring Agent HQ, background agents with git worktrees, sub-agents, and custom agents for organizations, while continuing to build custom agents for a game MCP server project. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build with custom agents (again!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-12-04-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-12-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9jbNK1006E - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-12-04-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris continues building custom agents for the software development life cycle. After reviewing the changelog including Copilot Spaces updates and assigning issues to Copilot via API, he explores the awesome-copilot repository for agent inspiration, brainstorms SDLC agent ideas like test writers and security reviewers, and live-builds a GitHub Actions workflow agent with a companion instructions file. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build with custom agents](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-11-27-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-11-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eRjenGV2OM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-11-27-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris dives into Copilot custom agents and custom instructions for the turn-based game MCP server project. After reviewing the changelog including enterprise bring-your-own-key support and Claude Opus 4.5, he restructures copilot-instructions.md, creates meta instruction files for writing instructions and agents, and explores plan mode for iterating on agent designs. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-11-20-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-11-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEXo7X3YXbE - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-11-20-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris catches up on several weeks of GitHub releases, including new models including GPT-5.1, GPT-5.1 Codex, and GPT-5.1 Codex Mini, MCP registry controls, and isolated sub-agents. He then returns to the turn-based game MCP server project, using Copilot's agent mode to diagnose and fix a dependency upgrade failure. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Time to build!](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-09-04-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-09-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhx2euA3G-I - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-09-04-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this live stream, we explore building a 3D tic-tac-toe visualization using Three.js and Copilot coding agent, demo MCP elicitation for gathering game preferences, and discuss the importance of context engineering when working with AI tools. We also cover GitHub changelog highlights including path-scoped custom instructions for Copilot code review and agents.md support. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's keep building!](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-08-28-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-08-28 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxMAutnbaY0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-08-28-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this live stream, we recap the MCP server elicitation feature and then dive into GitHub Actions fundamentals — building workflows from scratch, covering triggers, jobs, dependencies with needs, matrix builds for cross-platform testing, and workflow_dispatch for manual runs. We also walk through a packed GitHub changelog covering ARM64 runners, GPT-5 in GitHub Models, immutable releases, and GitHub MCP server secret scanning. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Building a turn-based-game MCP server](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-08-07-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-08-07 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8D1hDaCrKc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-08-07-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this live stream, we continue building a turn-based game MCP server, implementing MCP elicitation to gather user preferences and consolidating duplicate tool calls into cleaner abstractions. We also recap the latest GitHub changelog including npm trusted publishing with OIDC, Claude Opus 4.1, and Copilot coding agent updates. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Build for the love of code](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-07-24-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-07-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcIlavh44bM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-07-24-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this episode, we recap the latest GitHub changelog including GitHub Spark entering public preview and coding agent support for instructions.md files. We introduce the 'Build for the love of code' hackathon, prototype a rubber duck debugging app with GitHub Spark, and build an MCP server from scratch using TypeScript while exploring tools, prompts, and resources. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Copilot agent mode, coding agent and MCP servers](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-07-10-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-07-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Np16Grulo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-07-10-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this episode, we review the latest GitHub changelog including remote MCP server support for coding agent and Copilot code review on mobile. We use the Playwright MCP server with Copilot agent mode to debug and fix UI issues in the Octo Arcade project, discuss the differences between ask, edit, and agent modes in VS Code, and explore MCP server concepts like tools, prompts, and resources. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-07-03-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-07-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXAbtYbxD_w - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-07-03-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this stream, Chris catches up on several weeks of GitHub updates including the remote MCP server preview and Copilot coding agent for business users. The live coding session demonstrates adding internationalization to the Copilot Airways app using Copilot coding agent, custom VS Code chat modes for planning, and agent mode in Xcode for iOS development. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Let's build with agents](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-06-19-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-06-19 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWsj8caUPt0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-06-19-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this episode, we recap the latest GitHub changelog updates including Copilot coding agent availability for pro users and the new Playwright MCP browser capability. We update Copilot custom instructions and setup steps for a GitHub Action project, use the Playwright MCP server to build interactive UI features on a trend radar app, and leverage Copilot coding agent to identify and fix technical debt. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Copilot coding agent and Copilot agent mode](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-06-05-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-06-05 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orh3knzHfus - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-06-05-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this stream, Chris recaps announcements from Microsoft Build, reviews three weeks of GitHub changelog updates, and does a deep dive into Copilot coding agent using the Copilot Airways demo app. Topics include assigning issues to Copilot, reviewing AI-generated pull requests, MCP integration with Notion, and best practices for writing well-scoped GitHub issues. ### [Extend GitHub Copilot coding agent with custom MCP tools](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-06-01-copilot-coding-agent-mcp/) - Date: 2025-06-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZvyEOPPxlY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-06-01-copilot-coding-agent-mcp/index.md This video shows how to create a GitHub Issue directly from Copilot Chat on GitHub.com and immediately assign it to the Copilot coding agent. The core focus is Model Context Protocol (MCP): how the Notion MCP server is configured to give Copilot access to a product requirements document stored in Notion, enabling it to implement a user reviews feature for the 'Copilot Airways' travel guide with full traceability back to the source document. The video also covers how MCP servers are provisioned inside GitHub Actions and how to use Copilot's PR change summary to navigate large code reviews. ### [Assign issues to GitHub Copilot from the GitHub mobile app](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-27-copilot-coding-agent-mobile/) - Date: 2025-05-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T2XeTEeM7k - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-27-copilot-coding-agent-mobile/index.md The GitHub Copilot coding agent works from anywhere—including your phone. This video demonstrates assigning a GitHub Issue to Copilot directly from the GitHub Mobile app, targeting a GitHub Pages deployment task for the 'Copilot Airways' CI workflow. It then shows how to monitor Copilot's progress, view the session log, and review and approve the resulting pull request entirely from a mobile browser, including the 'Approve and Run' gate that protects GitHub Actions execution. ### [Copilot Agent Mode is now available in GitHub Copilot for Xcode](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-23-copilot-xcode-agentmode/) - Date: 2025-05-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P0V8o-KFJ4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-23-copilot-xcode-agentmode/index.md GitHub Copilot for Xcode now supports agent mode alongside the existing ask mode, with full Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for extending Copilot with additional tools. This video walks through toggling between ask and agent modes in the Xcode chat pane, configuring the GitHub MCP server via the Xcode MCP settings tab, and using agent mode to look up and prioritize repository issues. A hands-on demo shows Copilot diagnosing and fixing a premature form validation problem in an iOS app, verified in the simulator. ### [Assigning Copilot ad-hoc tasks through Copilot chat](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-22-copilot-coding-agent-adhoc-tasks/) - Date: 2025-05-22 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9G_gHBuxlc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-22-copilot-coding-agent-adhoc-tasks/index.md The Copilot coding agent can be triggered directly from a Copilot Chat session in Visual Studio Code, not just from GitHub Issues. This video shows how to use the GitHub chat participant in ask mode to delegate an ad-hoc refactoring task—standardizing naming conventions across the 'Copilot Airways' codebase—without interrupting your current workflow. Copilot outlines a plan for your approval, creates a pull request with documentation updates, runs linting and build checks in the background, and waits for the 'Approve and Run' gate before the final review. ### [How to get the most out of the Copilot coding agent](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-21-copilot-coding-agent-tips-tricks/) - Date: 2025-05-21 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPML5a2jZCY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-21-copilot-coding-agent-tips-tricks/index.md Getting the best results from the GitHub Copilot coding agent requires deliberate setup across four areas. This video covers writing well-scoped GitHub Issues with clear acceptance criteria and file pointers, crafting Copilot custom instructions to enforce team conventions and development flow, configuring a consistent development environment using Copilot setup steps, and extending Copilot's toolset with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers configured from repository settings. ### [The GitHub Copilot coding agent *NEW*](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-19-coding-agent-overview/) - Date: 2025-05-19 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xHZJVnKkSs - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-19-coding-agent-overview/index.md GitHub Copilot coding agent lets you assign GitHub Issues to Copilot, which works asynchronously in the background to create and iterate on pull requests. This video walks through assigning a form input validation task on the 'Copilot Airways' demo app, watching Copilot form a plan, generate code, and run linters, builds, and tests to verify quality. It also covers the human-in-the-loop review experience—adding PR comments that Copilot acknowledges and acts on—plus the 'Approve and Run' gate that protects GitHub Actions execution. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Building from requirements with Agent Mode](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-15-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-05-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOr5nJ_XVDE - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-15-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this stream, Chris builds a GitHub CLI extension (gh-demo) in Go from scratch using a spec-driven development approach with Copilot Agent Mode. Topics include bootstrapping a VS Code workspace with Copilot, test-driven development for a hydrate subcommand, and setting up GitHub Actions CI. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Agent mode and custom instructions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-08-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-05-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ_eLkwugWg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-08-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris continues exploring Copilot Agent Mode and custom instructions by building a memory sequence game for the GitHub CLI extension project in Go. The changelog segment covers GitHub CLI accessibility improvements, Copilot Code Review expanding to all languages, Copilot Autofix updates, and the introduction of Copilot premium requests. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - The one with custom instructions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-01-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-05-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DOrUBjJgUw - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-05-01-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md This episode dives deep into Copilot custom instructions — what they are, how to write them, and why they matter for guiding AI-assisted development. Chris reviews the GitHub Changelog including the credential revocation API, CodeQL improvements, and the GitHub Models playground's new prompt improvement feature, then live codes a higher/lower game for a Go-based GitHub CLI extension using Agent Mode with detailed custom instructions. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Back to building GitHub CLI Extensions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-24-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-04-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_1EYv0QsmU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-24-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md In this episode, Chris reviews the GitHub Changelog covering organization-level Copilot custom instructions, CodeQL for Actions workflow security analysis, Copilot Code Review language expansion, secret scanning alert dismissals, and GitHub Mobile updates. The coding segment tackles theme switching for the Copilot Airways web app and a Tailwind CSS upgrade using GitHub Codespaces and Copilot Agent Mode. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Building with Agent Mode and MCP](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-17-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-04-17 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc5SKYxujDY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-17-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md A model-packed week — Chris walks through new releases including GPT-4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, O3, O4 mini, and Meta Llama 4 in Copilot and GitHub Models. He demos the strategy trend radar app, tries the new Codespaces agent mode button, and builds a GitHub Actions workflow that summarizes the changelog into a newsletter using GitHub Models. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Building with Agent Mode and MCP](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-10-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-04-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLbjeaDwCMM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-10-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris explains what Model Context Protocol (MCP) is and demos the new GitHub MCP server alongside Copilot Agent Mode in VS Code. The stream covers creating repos and issues through MCP tools, then builds a strategy visualization app from a screenshot using agent mode, vision, and the Playwright and sequential thinking MCP servers. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Sshh, let's talk about secrets.](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-03-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-04-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJqHZBKCGSE - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-04-03-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md This episode dives deep into GitHub Advanced Security's new standalone Secret Protection and Code Security products. Chris demos secret scanning, push protection, custom patterns, and the free secret risk assessment report, then shows off a GitHub-themed brick breaker game powered by real contribution graph data. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Creating a brickbreaker walkthrough](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-03-27-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-03-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkVM76jhqdk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-03-27-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris live-codes a GitHub-themed brick breaker walkthrough using Copilot agent mode, demonstrating how prompt framing, context, and custom instructions shape AI-generated output. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Exploring GitHub Models](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-03-20-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-03-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qPKCg5fwrI - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-03-20-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris explores GitHub Models as an AI prototyping playground, demonstrates Copilot on the command line for learning Linux commands, and shows off a Cosmos DB-backed leaderboard for the OctoSnap game. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Building a scoring system](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-03-06-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-03-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpLRTak4oLQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-03-06-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris introduces OctoSnap, a GitHub-themed memory card game built with Next.js, and dives deep into designing a scoring model with Copilot covering difficulty multipliers, time bonuses, and penalty mechanics. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Lizard, Spock](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-27-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-02-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4oAFiEFrl0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-27-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Extending Rock Paper Scissors to include Lizard and Spock using GitHub Copilot Vision to interpret a game diagram. Also covers Claude 3.7 Sonnet in Copilot, Dependabot version updates for Go modules, GitHub Codespaces for testing, and repository branch protection settings. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Rock, Paper, Scissors](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-20-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-02-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRgADkVL4Jo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-20-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Building a Rock Paper Scissors game in Go for the gh-game GitHub CLI extension using GitHub Copilot Agent Mode. Explores the new GPT-4o code completion model, Next Edit Suggestions, and drives test coverage from 42% to 100% using Copilot inline chat and agent workflows. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Tic, Tac, Toe](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-13-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-02-13 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07DLsbbHf-I - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-13-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Building a Tic Tac Toe game in Go for the gh-game GitHub CLI extension using GitHub Copilot Agent Mode. Also covers setting up CodeQL code scanning, fixing GitHub Actions workflow permissions, and a demo of GitHub Spark for creating micro apps from natural language prompts. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Actions, Codespaces and Coin Toss](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-06-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-02-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-03aQo8Td-o - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-02-06-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Building on the gh-game CLI extension project, Chris sets up GitHub Codespaces with dev containers, creates a CI workflow using GitHub Actions, and writes Go tests. The stream covers refactoring the coin toss game to use the go-gh prompter package for interactive selection menus, with GitHub Copilot assisting across multiple AI models. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - Creating gh-game CLI extension](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-01-30-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-01-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vku103Z_jCY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-01-30-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Deep dive into GitHub Actions workflows including build, linter, and release pipelines for the GitHub Skyline CLI extension. Chris cuts a live release, then creates a brand new GitHub CLI extension (gh-game) from scratch — building a coin toss game in Go using the Cobra package with help from GitHub Copilot. ### [Rubber Duck Thursdays - GitHub Skyline](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-01-23-rubber-duck-thursdays/) - Date: 2025-01-23 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHcF_QCZJLk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2025-01-23-rubber-duck-thursdays/index.md Chris introduces the GitHub Skyline CLI extension, a Go-based tool that generates 3D STL models and ASCII art visualizations of your GitHub contribution history. The stream covers the gh skyline command, 3D printing contribution graphs, and live refactoring of the Go codebase using GitHub Copilot Edits to split a monolithic main.go into modular components. ### [Build Conway's Game of Life with GitHub Copilot Free](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-12-18-copilot-conways-game-of-life/) - Date: 2024-12-16 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGV_T6g1hcU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-12-18-copilot-conways-game-of-life/index.md Builds Conway's Game of Life end-to-end using GitHub Copilot Chat and Copilot Edits in Visual Studio Code, demonstrating a realistic iterative AI-assisted development workflow. The video covers model selection (including Claude Sonnet 3.5), prompt engineering best practices, refactoring from a single-file prototype to separate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files using Copilot Edits, and enforcing team coding standards with a Copilot instructions file. It also shows inline chat slash commands (/doc, /explain), Copilot Extensions, README generation, and deploying to GitHub Pages via a GitHub Actions workflow. ### [Govern your repositories with push rulesets](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-12-14-push-rulesets/) - Date: 2024-12-14 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3MHqfeBzek - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-12-14-push-rulesets/index.md Introduces GitHub push rulesets, a governance feature that restricts what can be pushed to a repository based on the attributes of changed files—including path, extension, and size. The video demonstrates protecting sensitive files such as GitHub Actions workflow files, configuring bypass rules for designated roles, viewing blocked-push and bypass insights, and explains that push rules are enforced across the entire fork network of a repository. ### [Manage your repositories at scale across the enterprise](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-12-04-repo-management-at-scale/) - Date: 2024-12-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXsneNY4a0Q - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-12-04-repo-management-at-scale/index.md Introduces enterprise repository policies in GitHub, a governance feature that lets administrators restrict repository operations—including visibility changes, creations, deletions, transfers, and naming—across all organizations in an enterprise account. The video also demonstrates repository properties defined at the enterprise level, giving organization admins consistent, inherited property values and requiring them at repository creation time to enforce compliance from day one. ### [Use GitHub Spark to create a podcast timer apps](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-11-04-github-spark-podcast-timer/) - Date: 2024-11-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9bx_Dn2zxg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-11-04-github-spark-podcast-timer/index.md Demonstrates GitHub Spark on mobile, building a podcast session timer app entirely through natural language prompts. The video covers iteratively adding timer controls (start, pause, reset), a reverse progress bar, a color-coded time-remaining indicator (green/amber/red), and AI-powered timer creation from a plain-language description—showcasing GitHub Spark's built-in LLM integration. It also demonstrates Spark's managed state storage and the share link for giving collaborators read or write access. ### [Use GitHub Spark to create a travel log app](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-10-29-github-spark-travel-app/) - Date: 2024-10-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB-izOTcQ6s - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-10-29-github-spark-travel-app/index.md Demonstrates GitHub Spark, an AI-native micro-app platform from GitHub Next that lets anyone build, use, and share personalized apps through natural language—without writing code or managing deployments. The video creates a city travel log app that captures reviews with GPS coordinates, plots destinations on a map, generates AI city suggestions based on existing ratings, and uses the variant generator to explore alternate UI directions from an ambiguous prompt. It also covers the built-in theme editor, state management, and revision history for iterating on app design. ### [GitHub Copilot Chat and o1-preview: Building a maze generator!](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-10-03-copilot-chat-o1-preview/) - Date: 2024-10-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxoCaobgg70 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-10-03-copilot-chat-o1-preview/index.md Demonstrates the o1-preview reasoning model integrated into GitHub Copilot Chat in Visual Studio Code, available to approved users via the chat model picker alongside GPT-4o and o1 mini. The video builds a JavaScript maze generator that supports keyboard navigation, BFS and DFS solving algorithms, and visual path rendering—using o1-preview's extended internal reasoning to satisfy complex multi-requirement prompts in fewer iterations than standard models. ### [GitHub Models](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-08-01-github-models/) - Date: 2024-08-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiBB8Lsgl7I - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-08-01-github-models/index.md Introduces GitHub Models on the GitHub Marketplace, a curated playground for exploring and comparing a range of top AI models using entitlements tied to your GitHub account. The video demos GPT-4o and phi-3 mini instruct side-by-side, shows how to tune system prompts and temperature in the interactive playground, and demonstrates calling model APIs from GitHub Codespaces and the GitHub CLI—all without requiring separate API keys or service sign-ups. ### [Private Mirrors App](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-07-26-private-mirrors-app/) - Date: 2024-07-26 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhB0epW5ro - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-07-26-private-mirrors-app/index.md Introduces GitHub's Private Mirrors App, a self-hosted or GitHub-managed tool that helps organizations contribute to open source projects while managing compliance, legal, and security risk. The app creates private mirrors mapped to public forks, enabling teams to run CI/CD checks and policy enforcement before syncing changes back to the public fork for upstream contribution. The video demonstrates forking an upstream project, configuring multiple team mirrors, and integrating with an Enterprise Managed Users organization. ### [Code from your phone with Github Copilot Workspace](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-05-03-copilot-workspace-mobile/) - Date: 2024-05-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv6TuVzcRdY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-05-03-copilot-workspace-mobile/index.md Shows GitHub Copilot Workspace running on the GitHub mobile app, allowing developers to capture ideas and iterate on code from a phone or tablet. The video covers using device dictation for task input, reviewing and editing the AI-generated specification and plan, inspecting code changes via the built-in diff view, running unit tests from the integrated terminal, and creating a pull request with an auto-generated description—all from a mobile device. ### [How to use Copilot Workspace for inspiration](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-05-01-copilot-workspace-template-repo/) - Date: 2024-05-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thyJ9LeBfMI - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-05-01-copilot-workspace-template-repo/index.md Demonstrates GitHub Copilot Workspace starting from a template repository to scaffold a to-do application, showing how AI can jumpstart creativity when starting a new project. The video walks through the full specification-to-plan workflow, iterating with a live app preview, and switching between Copilot Workspace and GitHub Codespaces to make direct code edits. It also covers the share feature for collaborating on work in progress and the automated first deployment via GitHub Actions. ### [Transform issues into plans with GitHub Copilot Workspace](https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-05-01-copilot-workspace-template-repo-copy/) - Date: 2024-04-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Xny6yehUg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/2024-05-01-copilot-workspace-template-repo-copy/index.md A walkthrough of GitHub Copilot Workspace when starting from a GitHub Issue. ### [Automate Azure infrastructure change reviews by using Bicep and GitHub](https://chrisreddington.com/video/automate-azure-infrastructure-change-reviews-by-using-bicep-and-github/) - Date: 2023-01-25 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/automate-azure-infrastructure-change-reviews-by-using-bicep-and-github/index.md Add checks to pull requests that run automatically during your code reviews. Run the Bicep linter on your code, and deploy the resources to a temporary environment to enable further automated and manual testing. ### [Test your Bicep code by using GitHub Actions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/test-your-bicep-code-by-using-github-actions/) - Date: 2022-12-14 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/test-your-bicep-code-by-using-github-actions/index.md Validate and test your Bicep code in your deployment workflow. You'll use linting, preflight validation, and the what-if operation to validate your Azure changes before you deploy, and you'll test your resources after each deployment. ### [Rapid Prototyping as a way to validate your idea](https://chrisreddington.com/video/rapid-prototyping-validate-idea/) - Date: 2022-11-17 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RZ6Mn7RXf4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/rapid-prototyping-validate-idea/index.md Rapid prototyping is more than quick coding — it is a structured discipline for learning fast and making smarter product investment decisions. In this episode, Chris is joined by Andrew Greenstein, CEO of SF AppWorks and host of "The Next Great Thing" podcast, to explore three distinct types of rapid prototyping: design sprints, iterative feature development, and platform proof-of-concepts. The conversation draws on Kent Beck's product development triathlon (explore, expand, extract), Saras Saraswathy's effectuation theory, and a West Elm innovation case study — where rapid prototyping an AI image-matching feature and a chatbot delivered measurable revenue gains. ### [Building, Deploying and Observing SDKs as a Service](https://chrisreddington.com/video/building-deploying-observing-sdks-as-service/) - Date: 2022-11-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aojOuMK_3d4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/building-deploying-observing-sdks-as-service/index.md Manually maintaining SDKs across multiple programming languages is slow, error-prone, and a constant drag on developer velocity. This episode—featuring developer advocate Steve Kuching—explores using the open-source OpenAPI Generator to automate SDK creation from an OpenAPI spec, deploying the generator as a containerised service, and observing the entire pipeline with OpenTelemetry auto-tracing and Lumigo. Learn how to apply the same build, test, and observe principles you use for services to your SDK generation pipeline. ### [Chaos Engineering for Cloud native Apps](https://chrisreddington.com/video/chaos-engineering-cloud-native-apps/) - Date: 2022-11-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZcFr3Zlkro - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/chaos-engineering-cloud-native-apps/index.md Chaos engineering is the discipline of proactively experimenting on distributed systems to build confidence in their ability to withstand production failures. Chris is joined by Ashish Balgath (Cloud Solution Architect at Thoughtworks) to explore how to introduce fault-injection experiments incrementally — from a developer's local machine all the way to production — using tools such as Chaos Monkey and fault-injection simulator tools. ### [ClickOps over GitOps](https://chrisreddington.com/video/clickops-over-gitops/) - Date: 2022-10-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejlulm5YUdg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/clickops-over-gitops/index.md The gap between raw Kubernetes and a developer-friendly platform is where the most interesting tooling is being built today. GitOps gives teams a declarative, version-controlled way to manage their clusters — but the YAML expertise and infrastructure knowledge required can be a steep barrier for developers. In this episode, Chris is joined by Laszlo Folgas, founder of Gimlet.io, to explore ClickOps over GitOps: a UI-driven deployment approach where developers click their way to production while the platform silently generates GitOps manifests and commits them to a Git repository. They cover Flux CD, how Gimlet's opinionated platform works end-to-end, and why developer experience has become the defining battleground in the cloud-native ecosystem. ### [ToolUp Days #15](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-15/) - Date: 2022-10-21 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIJfR5tTeLk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-15/index.md Chris and Matt pick up inside GitHub Codespaces, getting the Player State service running locally on the first attempt thanks to Dapr's environment-variable secret store and Codespaces secrets. They then wire up the World Events Engine with Azure Storage Queue bindings and Table Storage state before hitting a stubborn .NET minimal API routing bug — becoming the cliffhanger that sets up the next session. ### [Beyond Monitoring: The Rise of Observability Platform](https://chrisreddington.com/video/beyond-monitoring-rise-of-observability-platform/) - Date: 2022-10-18 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd1_jOfn05U - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/beyond-monitoring-rise-of-observability-platform/index.md As systems grow in complexity across distributed architectures and microservices, traditional monitoring is no longer sufficient to maintain reliability and user experience. Observability goes beyond monitoring by correlating logs, metrics, and traces to rapidly pinpoint root causes across hybrid and multi-cloud landscapes. In this episode, Chris is joined by Samir Pradka, Enterprise Architect at Artos, to explore how organisations can build an observability platform incrementally, leverage AIOps for predictive analytics, and implement self-healing infrastructure using tools like Ansible and Azure Resource Manager. ### [ToolUp Days #14](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-14/) - Date: 2022-10-07 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITN9TknuzEU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-14/index.md Chris and Matt solve a recurring ToolUp Days pain point — inconsistent developer environments — by setting up GitHub Codespaces with a custom dev container. They extend a community .NET template to include Go, configure Dapr component files for local Azure Storage access, and leverage Codespaces secrets as injected environment variables to avoid storing credentials in source code. By the end of the session they have a fully reproducible, cloud-hosted development environment that spins up in seconds. ### [ToolUp Days #13](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-13/) - Date: 2022-09-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVBvBKucF0I - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-13/index.md Chris and Matt spend this episode tracking down why the World Events Engine keeps crashing on startup in Azure Container Apps — tracing the root cause to a missing GitHub Container Registry credentials block in the Infrastructure as Code and a GitHub Actions token permissions gap. The session also covers Dapr component naming conventions, storage queue message formatting, container app log analysis, and planning a dedicated GitHub Codespaces episode. ### [Policy as [versioned] code - you're doing it wrong](https://chrisreddington.com/video/policy-as-versioned-code/) - Date: 2022-09-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGJSqSFCqg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/policy-as-versioned-code/index.md Chris Nesbitt-Smith traces how governance policies are typically born — emotionally, reactively, and as one-shot documents — then shows how applying software engineering principles transforms policy into a living, versioned artefact. The talk covers iterative policy management, Kubernetes admission control, open-source policy tooling, and the cultural shift required to make policy genuinely effective rather than just technically compliant. ### [Tools of a Software Architecture for Everyone!](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tools-of-a-software-architecture-for-everyone/) - Date: 2022-09-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igszNF1pWkc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tools-of-a-software-architecture-for-everyone/index.md Software architecture is not just the domain of dedicated architects — the tools, practices, and communication patterns it relies on apply to every engineer on every team. In this episode, Chris is joined by John Kilminster, a software architect and Azure MVP, who walks through the essential toolbox he has built up over years in the role. Covering C4 diagrams, Architecture Decision Records, Tech Radars, Docs as Code, and Spotify's Backstage developer portal, this episode delivers practical guidance for any team looking to improve how they document, communicate, and align on technical decisions. ### [ToolUp Days #12](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-12/) - Date: 2022-09-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNZ3DNkdmRc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-12/index.md Chris and Matt deploy the World Events Engine to Azure Container Apps — encountering and fixing a real-world GitHub Actions deployment bug caused by parallel runs generating duplicate container names. The episode covers Dapr storage queue bindings, service invocation between microservices, random bar-type modifier logic, and a viewer-prompted conversation about using GitHub Codespaces to standardise the development environment. ### [Microservices have communication issues, especially when they fail](https://chrisreddington.com/video/microservices-have-communication-issues/) - Date: 2022-09-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtQmL8BhDIk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/microservices-have-communication-issues/index.md Communication between microservices is one of the trickiest challenges in distributed systems — especially when things go wrong. In this episode, Chris is joined by Francesco, a software engineer building a real-world payment gateway, to explore microservices communication patterns. They dive deep into the Saga pattern for managing multi-step distributed transactions, covering orchestration-based Sagas with AWS Step Functions, compensating transactions for graceful rollbacks, and event-driven messaging via EventBridge. The conversation also covers observability in distributed systems and applying Occam's Razor to architecture decisions. ### [Automate Azure Role Based Access Control (RBAC) using Github](https://chrisreddington.com/video/automate-azure-rbac-using-github/) - Date: 2022-08-25 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li9lSbZJCzo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/automate-azure-rbac-using-github/index.md Azure RBAC is a critical security control — but managing custom role definitions manually is error-prone, hard to audit, and doesn't scale. In this episode, Chris is joined by Marcel Lupo, DevOps MVP and Solutions Architect, who demonstrates how GitHub Actions can automate the full lifecycle of custom Azure RBAC role definitions. This session goes beyond typical developer workflows to show how GitHub can serve as the governance backbone for your Azure security posture — with role definitions version-controlled, reviewed via pull requests, and deployed through automated pipelines. ### [ToolUp Days #11](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-11/) - Date: 2022-08-23 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sua_pjrfJYo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-days-11/index.md The series officially rebrands from ToolUp Tuesday to ToolUp Days, giving Chris and Matt the flexibility to keep a consistent cadence. This episode focuses on rethinking the game's data model — simplifying the player state object, introducing a BarType enum, and scaffolding both a player creation API and a bar management controller, with GitHub Copilot generating much of the boilerplate in real time. ### [Software rotting and why you need to change your approach to security](https://chrisreddington.com/video/software-rotting-change-security-approach/) - Date: 2022-08-18 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/software-rotting-change-security-approach/index.md A new phenomenon stand out in recent years: security must pervade the entire software development lifecycle. Except it isn't. Current generation of processes and tools is lacking crucial features to properly manage modern security risks. Think of the Log4J event. Were you able to identify all affected components? Were they internally developed, or you need a vendor support? How fast you were able to deliver a fix? In this talk we'll explore the challenges, what you can do with current tools, and which gaps should be addressed by communities through better practices and new tools. ### [Code is Read](https://chrisreddington.com/video/code-is-read/) - Date: 2022-08-11 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZuxZ8TENoQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/code-is-read/index.md What separates code that teams maintain with confidence from code that becomes an unmaintainable burden? Chris is joined by Daniel Schreifler — developer, consultant, and author of "10 Days to Become a Better Developer" — to explore why readability is the most foundational software quality. From cognitive load and the early-exit pattern to domain-driven naming, inner sourcing, and TDD, this conversation reframes how we should think about writing code: not for the compiler, but for the next human who needs to change it. ### [ToolUp Day #10](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-10/) - Date: 2022-07-26 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9mhRyVB3zc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-10/index.md Chris and Matt set up federated identity credentials (OIDC) for passwordless GitHub Actions authentication to Azure, deploy container apps via CI/CD, and discuss workflow trigger strategies for container image deployments. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #9](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-9/) - Date: 2022-06-28 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKF8caPtwyc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-9/index.md Chris and Matt debug deployment issues in Azure Container Apps, restructure their Bicep infrastructure as code into separate lifecycles, and configure Dapr state store components backed by Azure Storage. ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 5: See Clearly with Application Insights](https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-see-clearly-with-application-insights/) - Date: 2022-06-15 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-see-clearly-with-application-insights/index.md Observability across multiple components in distributed systems can be a challenge, particularly when things go wrong and need investigation. Application Insights can simplify the challenge, and give deep insights into a distributed system at multiple levels. ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 4: Microsoft Build 2022 Recap with Panel](https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-microsoft-build-2022-recap-with-panel/) - Date: 2022-06-03 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-microsoft-build-2022-recap-with-panel/index.md Microsoft Build is Microsoft’s annual Developer Conference. This year, it took place from 24th – 26th May 2022. Not only were there several fantastic announcements, but we were lucky to have a regional spotlight on the UK! Join our panel of Cloud Solution Architects and Technical Specialists for an interactive discussion on the announcements from last week. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #8](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-8/) - Date: 2022-05-31 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvo3bidC76Q - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-8/index.md Chris and Matt deploy their containerized microservices to Azure Container Apps for the first time, pulling images from GitHub Packages and exploring the Dapr, KEDA, and Envoy integrations that Container Apps provides. ### [Tech Roundup - May 2022](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2205/) - Date: 2022-05-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUl-PZAUE4c - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2205/index.md Your monthly digest covering a packed May 2022 — headlined by Microsoft Build! In this episode, Chris walks through Azure Container Apps going generally available (and why it's one to watch), the limited access preview of Azure OpenAI Service with GPT-3 and Codex models, Azure DNS Private Resolver for hybrid name resolution, Open Service Mesh extension for Azure Arc GA, NGINX natively integrated on Azure, AKS host process containers in preview, Azure Communication Services Email GA, hierarchical partition keys in Cosmos DB, and much more. Plus GitHub and Azure DevOps highlights from a very busy month for the developer ecosystem. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #7](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-7/) - Date: 2022-05-17 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRDKxpD9xLY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-7/index.md Chris and Matt containerize their Go microservices by writing Dockerfiles, building images, and publishing them to GitHub Packages container registry using GitHub Actions workflows with GITHUB_TOKEN authentication. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #6](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-6/) - Date: 2022-05-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALQDAnapbAY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-6/index.md Chris and Matt wire up Dapr state management for their .NET player state service, configure VS Code debugging for multi-service development, and document game use cases covering player enrollment, world event ticks, and decision lifecycle. ### [Tech Roundup - April 2022](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2204/) - Date: 2022-04-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ba3O3RF6MM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2204/index.md Your monthly digest of what shipped across Azure, GitHub, and Azure DevOps in April 2022. Notable Azure updates include Container Apps managed identity preview, Static Web Apps private endpoints going GA, Managed Grafana integrations, Microsoft Purview (renamed from Azure Purview), and Cosmos DB autoscale improvements. On GitHub: secret scanning revocation, Codespaces monorepo support, accessibility colour-blind themes, and required deployments for branch protection. Plus Azure DevOps opt-in auditing, Bicep validation in PRs, and a personal update on the Go-based microservices event platform Chris has been building on Azure Container Apps. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #5](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-5/) - Date: 2022-04-21 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r7pz-68WjQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-5/index.md Chris and Matt refactor their Go player decisions API, restructuring packages and project layout. They compare the Gin and Gorilla Mux HTTP frameworks, explore Go interfaces and dependency injection patterns, and discuss unit testing and mocking strategies in Go. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #4](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-4/) - Date: 2022-04-05 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru0CUBGKfjc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-4/index.md Chris and Matt dive into Go (Golang) for the first time on stream, building a player decisions REST API for their game project. They explore Go fundamentals including structs, pointers, packages, and the Gin HTTP framework while comparing Go patterns to C# and .NET conventions. ### [Tech Roundup - March 2022](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2203/) - Date: 2022-03-26 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2203/index.md Overwhelmed at keeping up to date with Azure? Or how about keeping a pulse on the Latest GitHub news, Azure DevOps and more? In this episode, Chris provides a summary of updates on the latest Azure DevOps News, GitHub updates and new announcements in Azure. And if that wasn't enough, he also gives a roundup of the latest on Cloud With Chris - including episodes, blog posts, open source projects and community work! Let Chris do the hard work keeping you on top of everything! Grab some snacks. Grab a drink. Come along and tune in for a relaxed and informative learning session! ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 3: Azure Arc for Application Services](https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-azure-arc-for-application-services/) - Date: 2022-03-23 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-azure-arc-for-application-services/index.md Azure Arc extends the use of Azure Services beyond the Azure cloud. With Azure Arc you are able to deploy and monitor Azure services in your own datacentres or other cloud providers. This event will focus on Azure Application Services and how they can be deployed outside of Azure through Kubernetes with Azure Arc. ### [Things to Consider Before Migrating Old .NET Applications to Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/things-to-consider-before-migrating-old-dotnet/) - Date: 2022-03-17 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYavIVA7QxM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/things-to-consider-before-migrating-old-dotnet/index.md Migrating a legacy .NET application to Azure is rarely as simple as "lift and shift." Jonah Andersson — Microsoft MVP for Azure — shares candid lessons from a real-world cloud migration that became a cautionary tale, not because of Azure, but due to unresolved technical debt, database complexity, and organisational readiness gaps. Discover the critical questions every team should answer before committing to the cloud, and what Jonah would do differently today. ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 2: DevOps for Logic Apps](https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-devops-for-logic-apps/) - Date: 2022-03-09 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-devops-for-logic-apps/index.md Quickly develop highly scalable integration solutions for your enterprise scenarios using Logic Apps. Join us as we explore the continuous integration and continuous deployment for Azure Logic Apps. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #3](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-3/) - Date: 2022-03-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeabuqkvg84 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-3/index.md Chris and Matt build the world events engine in .NET, connecting it to the Player State models via project references. They design a state machine architecture for the game engine, discuss action points as a game mechanic, and plan the player decisions API in Go for the next episode. ### [Azure Quantum & Microsoft Q#](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-quantum-microsoft-q-sharp/) - Date: 2022-03-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CGN_qyTKu8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-quantum-microsoft-q-sharp/index.md Quantum computing promises to solve problems that classical computers simply cannot — from cryptography and drug discovery to large-scale optimisation. In this session, Chris is joined by Johnny Hooybergs, .NET consultant and author of "Introducing Microsoft Quantum Computing for Developers", to demystify quantum computing for software developers. Johnny explains qubits, superposition, entanglement, and quantum gates, then demonstrates practical examples in Microsoft Q# and Python on both a local simulator and real Azure Quantum hardware, including Azure Quantum Inspired Optimization (QIO). ### [Tech Roundup - February 2022](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2202/) - Date: 2022-02-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUmETh8YB0w - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2202/index.md A live monthly roundup covering everything notable in Azure, GitHub, and Azure DevOps through February 2022. Key highlights include GitHub Actions support for OpenID Connect (OIDC) deployments to Azure Static Web Apps, GitHub Projects beta improvements (flexible iterations, insights filtering), and updates to GitHub Codespaces and the GitHub CLI. On the Azure side: Azure Monitor gains OpenTelemetry integration and improved observability tooling, Azure Payments HSM enters public preview, and Azure Arc cloud-to-edge observability is explored. Chris also shares Cloud With Chris updates including a new Hugo-powered presentations site hosted on Azure Static Web Apps, a feature flags episode, and community highlights from the UK Azure Community Day. ### [LunchBytes Series 1 Episode 1: DevOps & API Management](https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-devops-api-management/) - Date: 2022-02-23 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/lunchbytes-devops-api-management/index.md APIs are the glue that connect rich user experiences to our data and services. Good governance using tools such as API Management are vital. Join us as we explore how to work with the deployment options for APIs in Azure API Management and how these can be integrated in CI/CD pipelines. This first episode is particularly suitable for Architects and Developers interested in applying Infrastructure as Code skills to APIs. ### [ToolUp Tuesday #2](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-2/) - Date: 2022-02-22 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMw3yyk13EA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-2/index.md Chris and Matt start building the Player State API using .NET Web API, defining data models for the SpaceBar management sim game. They scaffold the project, discuss minimal APIs versus controller-based approaches, and set up a GitHub Actions CI workflow to build and validate the service on every commit. ### [Feature Flags - The Art of the IF and Deployment](https://chrisreddington.com/video/feature-flags-art-of-if-and-deployment/) - Date: 2022-02-17 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5AIx_90Bxo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/feature-flags-art-of-if-and-deployment/index.md Feature flags sound deceptively simple — they're just if statements. But mastering them requires a mature DevOps foundation and disciplined release engineering. Chris Reddington is joined by Chris Ayers (Azure Fast Track Engineer at Microsoft) for a deep dive into separating deployments from releases, choosing the right tooling, and implementing feature flags safely using Azure App Configuration, LaunchDarkly, and Optimizely in .NET applications. ### [ToolUp Tuesday - #1](https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-1/) - Date: 2022-02-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOwQhjIbJc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/toolup-tuesday-1/index.md In this debut episode of ToolUp Tuesday, Chris and Matt kick off a new series by planning a massively multiplayer management sim game from scratch. They design a microservices architecture, choosing .NET for the world events engine and Go for player decisions, and set up a GitHub repository with GitHub Projects for backlog management. ### [Community Gaming - Halo Infinite](https://chrisreddington.com/video/community-gaming-2202/) - Date: 2022-02-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-54DkRL24aA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/community-gaming-2202/index.md Join members of the cloud community as they talk through what's top of mind, the latest trends, and have a bit of fun in a game or two! This takes place on the first Wednesday of each month ### [Tech Roundup - January 2022](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2201/) - Date: 2022-01-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6EO8ZoP29w - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tech-roundup-2201/index.md Your monthly digest of everything happening across Azure, GitHub, and Azure DevOps — so you don't have to keep up with it all yourself! In this January 2022 roundup, Chris returns to the channel after a break with an honest discussion about mental health and burnout, recaps Cloud With Chris highlights from 2021, and covers a packed set of updates: AKS improvements (containerd GA, FIPS node pools, Kubernetes version aliasing), Static Web Apps Enterprise Grade Edge GA, Azure Cognitive Search semantic updates, Azure Monitor 1-minute frequency log alerts, GitHub Advanced Security, GitHub Projects, Dependabot, and much more. Plus an outlook for what's changing on the channel in 2022. ### [V041 - Weekly Technology Vlog #41](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-041/) - Date: 2021-10-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7bBziGJw4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-041/index.md In this session, Chris provides a series of updates focused around Azure, DevOps, GitHub and Cloud With Chris. ### [CGN8 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 8 - Azure for Game Developers](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-for-game-developers/) - Date: 2021-10-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_5LIFXBjqI - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-for-game-developers/index.md Chris is joined by LaBrina Loving, Developer Advocate for Gaming at Microsoft, who shares her journey from twenty years of .NET and enterprise development into the world of game development. The episode covers growing cloud adoption among game studios, the key technical differences between enterprise and game development (latency, UDP vs TCP), how enterprise development skills transfer directly to gaming, and practical tips for any developer considering the leap. ### [V040 - Weekly Technology Vlog #40](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-040/) - Date: 2021-10-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtVX9s5wvRo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-040/index.md Chris plays Sea of Thieves with Johnny and Simon while discussing Johnny's upcoming Azure Quantum and Q# book with Apress, Simon's Azure certification journey from AZ-900 to AZ-500, in-person speaking at Welsh Azure User Group, and managing content creator energy levels. ### [Tales from the Real World - Shift Left your Performance Tests](https://chrisreddington.com/video/shift-left-performance-tests/) - Date: 2021-10-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJkSBxoS3I - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/shift-left-performance-tests/index.md Performance testing has traditionally lived in high-fidelity pre-production environments — but by the time you find a performance issue that late in the cycle, the cost to fix it is already compounding. In this episode, Chris is joined by HariKrishnan, Cloud Transformation Consultant, to explore a practical shift-left approach to performance testing. Hari shares real-world experience identifying the categories of performance issues that can be reproduced locally or in CI pipelines using tools like Gatling and Docker, reducing MTTR and avoiding the environment time-sharing bottlenecks that slow teams down. ### [V038 / V039 - Weekly Technology Vlog #38 and #39](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-039/) - Date: 2021-09-26 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjySdMkmZik - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-039/index.md A double episode catching up on two weeks of Azure updates including AKS scale down modes, Cosmos DB Functions v4, and Azure Functions runtime 4.0 with .NET 6, plus GitHub CLI 2.0, Advanced Security secret scanning APIs, and a look at secretless application patterns with managed identities. ### [DevOps Trends](https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-trends/) - Date: 2021-09-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji_ksRfP8vg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-trends/index.md A decade after Patrick Debois coined "DevOps," the landscape looks radically different. In this episode, Daniela Fontani — CTO at Central Consulting and long-time open source contributor — breaks down the most important DevOps trends reshaping the industry today: DevSecOps, GitOps, NoOps, automation-first pipelines, and the growing role of platform engineering. Plus, the honest truth about which buzzwords actually matter and which you can safely ignore. ### [Tales from the Real World on DevOps](https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-tales-from-the-real-world/) - Date: 2021-09-17 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_tLu06TUqM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-tales-from-the-real-world/index.md Chris Reddington is joined by Thomas Thornton — DevOps specialist at Kainos — for a practical deep dive into real-world DevOps. They cover CI/CD pipeline design, Git branching strategies (including trunk-based development), pull request workflows, Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, Kubernetes, and GitOps. Thomas draws on experience managing 83 Azure subscriptions and 120+ GitOps-driven applications in production. ### [V037 - Weekly Technology Vlog #37 (GitHub Issues Beta Special!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-037/) - Date: 2021-09-12 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppVVGV93g4A - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-037/index.md Chris walks through the new GitHub Issues beta, showcasing project boards, table views, YAML-based issue forms, and converting checklists to sub-issues, alongside Azure capacity reservation, zone redundant disk storage, and DevSecOps shifting-left updates. ### [Tales from the Real World - Architecting the Transformation](https://chrisreddington.com/video/architecting-the-transformation/) - Date: 2021-09-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPPujJ7N8tM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/architecting-the-transformation/index.md Most organizations undergoing digital transformation are moving through maturity stages — from localized, monolithic setups toward agile, cloud-native, data-driven platforms. But what does it take to architect that journey? In this session, Asanka Abesinghe shares a practical framework covering the six design principles of digitally-driven organizations (decentralized, lean-agile, open standards, customer-centric, cloud-native, and data-driven), how to layer business, information, application, and technology architecture, and the evolving role of the architect as an organizational bridge between business strategy and technical execution. From the build-vs-buy decision to maturity-model road-mapping, this is an essential session for architects leading or contributing to enterprise transformation programmes. ### [Migrating to the Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/migrating-to-the-cloud/) - Date: 2021-09-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_yM0XcYQ0Y - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/migrating-to-the-cloud/index.md Cloud migration is as much a people and process challenge as it is a technical one — a fact underscored by a 2020 Cloud Security Alliance study in which 90% of respondents reported a failed migration. In this episode, Chris is joined by Suzanne Tedrick, Azure Infrastructure Specialist at Microsoft and award-winning author of 'Women of Color in Tech', to explore how the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework provides a holistic, structured path to successful migrations. From governance and stakeholder alignment to multi-cloud strategy, this conversation covers the critical foundations every organisation needs before and during their cloud journey. ### [V036 - Talking cloud and playing Among Us with the community](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-036/) - Date: 2021-09-05 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Q1HGKwXH4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-036/index.md Chris and community guests Dean, John, Matt, and Simon play Among Us while discussing Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise, AKS custom policy updates, Docker Desktop's new pricing model, and tips for multi-platform live streaming setups. ### [Tales from the Real World - Leveraging Azure as a Telco provider](https://chrisreddington.com/video/leveraging-azure-as-telco-provider/) - Date: 2021-09-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmVfw4PPE0s - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/leveraging-azure-as-telco-provider/index.md Chris Reddington is joined by Ivo, a cloud evangelist based in Belgium with hands-on experience transforming one of the country's largest telco providers. They explore how telecommunications companies are leveraging Azure to evolve from traditional connectivity providers into platform-scale service businesses — covering 5G, IoT, edge computing, AI/ML, Azure Arc, security, compliance, and the cultural challenges of cloud adoption in a regulated industry. ### [CGN7 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 7 - Game Streaming and Cloud-Powered Gaming](https://chrisreddington.com/video/game-streaming/) - Date: 2021-09-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6x-53wVsE8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/game-streaming/index.md Chris Reddington is joined by Lee Williams to explore game streaming — the technology that streams a game to your device from cloud-hosted infrastructure, rather than running it locally. The episode covers how cloud economies of scale make low-latency game delivery viable, the consumer shift toward subscription models (Xbox Game Pass, Google Stadia), what the streaming model means for game creators building games as living services, and the future of multi-device gaming experiences. ### [V035 - Weekly Technology Vlog #35](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-035/) - Date: 2021-08-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSs20nnk6qk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-035/index.md Chris covers a wave of Azure service deprecations and retirements scheduled through 2022-2024, the launch of GitHub CLI 2.0 with its new extension model, and npm's TLS 1.0/1.1 deprecation. He highlights an impactful accessibility episode with Kaizota about hearing impairment at tech conferences, discusses GitHub branch protection rules for shifting left on code quality, and shares insights on Azure Front Door Standard and Premium tiers. ### [Getting into DevRel](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tales-from-real-world-get-into-devrel/) - Date: 2021-08-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KNm612ZQXM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tales-from-real-world-get-into-devrel/index.md What is Developer Relations, and how do you build a career in it? Chris is joined by Martin Woodward — Director of Developer Relations at GitHub and the person who brought Git to Microsoft — to explore the open source contribution funnel, what drives community leaders, the community-building skills that underpin a DevRel career, and how platforms like GitHub Actions achieve explosive growth through network effects. ### [Why closed captions in your public speaking may make a difference](https://chrisreddington.com/video/closed-captions-make-a-difference/) - Date: 2021-08-25 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP2QlZZXIcY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/closed-captions-make-a-difference/index.md Hearing impairment affects an estimated 430 million people worldwide — yet accessibility in public speaking is still an afterthought for most presenters. Kai Saata, a data consultant and cochlear implant user, joins Chris to explain why closed captions matter for audiences with hearing difficulties, how cloud-powered live transcription in tools like Microsoft Teams is changing inclusive communication, and what every speaker can do today to make their content accessible to more people. ### [V034 - Sailing the Sea of Thieves while talking Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-034/) - Date: 2021-08-22 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETfUmpepr0Q - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-034/index.md Chris and community members sail the Sea of Thieves while covering Azure updates including Government Top Secret GA, ASP.NET app migration tooling, and Forrester Wave recognition for streaming analytics. GitHub updates include 2FA enforcement for git operations, Git 2.33, and Discussions GA, while the crew discusses Azure certification prep strategies, career transitions into DevOps, and the open-source Cloud Katana security assessment tool. ### [43 - A Decentralized Reference Architecture for Cloud-native Applications](https://chrisreddington.com/video/decentralised-reference-architecture-cloud-native/) - Date: 2021-08-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrJMqU_vHhA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/decentralised-reference-architecture-cloud-native/index.md Asanka Abeysinghe, Chief Technology Evangelist at WSO2, introduces the cell-based reference architecture — a vendor-neutral, decentralised framework for cloud-native applications. The session explores microservices governance challenges, how Domain-Driven Design scopes service responsibilities into well-bounded cells, and how the cell-based model aligns architecture, development, and DevOps teams into cohesive autonomous units built around business domains. ### [Discussing the Cloud with Chris Integration Platform](https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussing-cloud-with-chris-integration/) - Date: 2021-08-19 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNjG8ohgavs - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussing-cloud-with-chris-integration/index.md Chris is joined by Karl Cooke (IrishTechie.com) for a deep dive into the CloudWithChris.com integration platform — a real-world Azure integration architecture built to automate content distribution to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Reddit, and to amplify updates from the Azure, GitHub, and Azure DevOps blogs. The session walks through the full architecture: Azure Functions, Azure Service Bus topics and queues, Azure Table Storage, Azure Logic Apps, and a Vue.js management UI, plus a custom URL shortener for per-platform analytics. ### [Find vulns in your code before they find you](https://chrisreddington.com/video/find-vulns-in-your-code/) - Date: 2021-08-18 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX7q90f7Vr8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/find-vulns-in-your-code/index.md Security vulnerabilities don't wait to be discovered — and developers are often unknowingly shipping them through open source dependencies. In this episode, Chris is joined by DeveloperSteve Coochin, Developer Advocate at Snyk, to explore the real-world state of vulnerabilities in modern applications. Steve shares findings from his research into the PHP ecosystem and explains how developers can shift vulnerability detection left — catching CVEs in dependencies before they reach production, by integrating tools like Snyk directly into their CI/CD pipelines and GitHub workflows. ### [V033 - Weekly Technology Vlog #33](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-033/) - Date: 2021-08-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oXRA8atj50 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-033/index.md Chris covers Azure updates including container app modernization, DDoS protection trends for H1 2021, and virtual network resizing in preview, alongside the general availability of GitHub Codespaces with a deep dive into how GitHub's engineering team uses Codespaces to develop GitHub.com. He also discusses Bicep and Infrastructure as Code on the Azure DevOps blog, plus upcoming sessions on AKS, application security, and cell-based cloud architectures. ### [44 - AKS, AGIC and Kubenet - Tips and tricks to make it work](https://chrisreddington.com/video/aks-agic-kubenet-tips-tricks/) - Date: 2021-08-13 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Lp2iUVpv4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/aks-agic-kubenet-tips-tricks/index.md When using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), there's a chance that kubenet might be the only possible choice due to your requirements. If so, you may still want to use Application Gateway Ingress Controller (AGIC) to leverage Azure Application Gateway's Web Application Firewall (WAF) capabilities. In this session, we will make the journey together to have a working AGIC in an AKS cluster with kubenet and managed identities. ### [V032 - Talking cloud and playing Among Us with the community](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-032/) - Date: 2021-08-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYy3oBLh2Mk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-032/index.md A community Among Us stream with twelve cloud professionals discussing Kubernetes trade-offs in production, Windows 365 Cloud PC versus Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure Arc for multi-cloud app deployment, game engine choices between Unity and Unreal, and imposter syndrome in tech careers. ### [Tales from the Real World - Azure AD B2C: A real silver bullet](https://chrisreddington.com/video/adb2c-a-real-silver-bullet/) - Date: 2021-08-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PWCMEJQ5pk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/adb2c-a-real-silver-bullet/index.md When COVID-19 forced the vOpen.Tech conference to pivot from a physical event to a fully virtual one, the organising team had fewer than two weeks to build a production-ready registration and identity system — with minimal budget. In this episode, Chris is joined by Facundo La Rocca (Faku), a .NET developer and conference organiser from Buenos Aires, who shares how Azure AD B2C became the silver bullet that made it possible: delivering a scalable, secure IAM platform with almost no custom code, at no cost, in under a fortnight. ### [How to be successful with monitoring in Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/video/be-successful-with-monitoring-in-azure/) - Date: 2021-08-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kejgiZ_tGFc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/be-successful-with-monitoring-in-azure/index.md Monitoring is often an afterthought — until something breaks. In this episode, Chris is joined by Vanessa Bruwer, Senior Engineer on Microsoft's FastTrack for Azure team, to explore how organisations can build a structured observability strategy using Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Log Analytics, and distributed tracing. Vanessa shares the FastTrack methodology for taking teams from zero monitoring knowledge to self-sufficient Azure Monitor configuration, covering alerting strategy, metrics, and the differences between monitoring a VM versus a distributed microservice architecture. ### [V031 - Weekly Technology Vlog #31](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-031/) - Date: 2021-08-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVMwAMJ1uLM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-031/index.md Chris opens with a heartfelt tribute to Abel Wang before covering Azure updates including Site Recovery cross-region replication, ExpressRoute expansions, and immutable blob storage. The episode highlights GitHub's 15+ new code scanning integrations with open source security tools, a comparison of Azure Static Web Apps hosting options, and upcoming Cloud with Chris content plans. ### [Tales from the Real World – Helping veterans transition into IT and Learn Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/video/helping-veterans-transition-into-it-and-learn-azure/) - Date: 2021-07-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ6IntzSRJU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/helping-veterans-transition-into-it-and-learn-azure/index.md Chris Reddington is joined by Dr. Keith McNally, a college professor with over 15 years of teaching experience who leads Microsoft's Software and Systems Academy (MSSA) — a skill-bridge programme helping US military veterans transition into IT careers through Azure cloud training. They discuss project-based learning, how to teach people to think (not just follow procedures), the soft skills civilians take for granted, and what it really takes to bridge the gap between military service and a career in cloud. ### [V030 - Sailing the Sea of Thieves while talking Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-030/) - Date: 2021-07-25 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3mviJqA_BY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-030/index.md Chris and Simon play Sea of Thieves while covering Azure Firewall Premium features, 5G and cloud computing for IoT edge scenarios, GitHub Actions for static site deployments, and open source project best practices from a recent Cloud With Chris episode with JJ Asghar. ### [Lessons Learned from Cultivating Open Source Projects and Communities](https://chrisreddington.com/video/lessons-learned-cultivating-open-source/) - Date: 2021-07-23 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xoq_iCn7E - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/lessons-learned-cultivating-open-source/index.md Open source projects and communities are the backbone of modern software development, yet the human side of building and sustaining them is rarely discussed as openly as the technology itself. In this episode, Chris is joined by JJ Asghar, Developer Advocate at IBM, who shares hard-won lessons from over a decade cultivating open source communities — from a small Linux distribution to OpenStack, Kubernetes, Tekton, and Istio. This is not a tools talk; it is a candid conversation about the soft skills, scoping decisions, and leadership approaches that separate thriving projects from those that burn out. ### [Cloud Drops - What is Continuous Integration (CI)?](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-what-is-continuous-integration/) - Date: 2021-07-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBtm6PwfcxM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-what-is-continuous-integration/index.md Continuous Integration (CI) is a DevOps practice where engineers frequently merge small code changes into a central repository, triggering automated builds and test suites to catch regressions early. This video explains how CI applies equally to application code, Infrastructure as Code, database schemas, and data science notebooks, and shows how GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines act as automated gatekeepers through pull request workflows. ### [V029 - Sailing the Sea of Thieves while talking Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-029/) - Date: 2021-07-18 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrKOU3ORQTs - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-029/index.md Chris plays Sea of Thieves with community members James, Simon, and Dean while delivering Azure updates on Bastion Standard SKU, Application Insights authentication, and Windows 365 from Microsoft Inspire. The episode also covers GitHub blog highlights including GitHub Copilot and Issues forms, plus a discussion on making Cloud with Chris more accessible. ### [IoT Simulation, Azure IoT and real world learnings](https://chrisreddington.com/video/iot-simulation-azure-iot-and-real-world-learnings/) - Date: 2021-07-16 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbkun9zYVko - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/iot-simulation-azure-iot-and-real-world-learnings/index.md In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by Peter Gallagher — Software Consultant, Microsoft Azure MVP, Pluralsight Author, IoT expert, and Meetup organiser — to explore the Internet of Things. They cover Azure IoT Hub, Azure IoT Edge, digital twins, IoT simulators, and the lessons learned from real-world IoT deployments. Whether you are just starting your IoT journey or looking to go deeper with Azure's cloud-connected device ecosystem, this episode has something for you. ### [V028 - Weekly Technology Vlog #28](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-028/) - Date: 2021-07-11 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0A8OvRgBf8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-028/index.md Chris returns from vacation with Azure, DevOps, and GitHub updates covering resilience threat modeling, Azure Well-Architected Framework reliability, Privileged Identity Management with Azure Lighthouse, App Service Environment v3, and Azure Communication Services direct routing. ### [42 - How to choose the 'Right' Datastore for your scenario](https://chrisreddington.com/video/choosing-the-right-datastore/) - Date: 2021-07-09 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clX44yqWKLo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/choosing-the-right-datastore/index.md With so many data store options in Azure — relational SQL, NoSQL, document databases, blob storage, key-value stores, and more — how do you choose the right one for your workload? In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by Steph Martin to explore the concept of polyglot persistence and the trade-offs between data store types. From Azure SQL and Cosmos DB to blob storage and microservices data patterns, they discuss how workload requirements, access patterns, RTO/RPO targets, and application architecture should guide your data platform decisions. A practical guide for architects and developers navigating the modern data landscape on Azure. ### [CGN6 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 6 - Gaming as Entertainment - Esports and Streaming](https://chrisreddington.com/video/game-streaming-and-entertainment/) - Date: 2021-07-07 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbtvX8JUwYQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/game-streaming-and-entertainment/index.md Game streaming and esports have transformed gaming from a private pastime into a global spectator sport, with cloud infrastructure at the heart of that transformation. Chris is joined by Lee Williams to explore how platforms like Twitch and YouTube Gaming have built entire business ecosystems around low-latency live content delivery, the community dynamics that make streaming sticky, and where AR and VR technology will take esports spectatorship next. ### [Why a Diverse Team is Crucial to Startup Success](https://chrisreddington.com/video/diverse-team-crucial-to-startup-success/) - Date: 2021-07-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnMZsNidlCM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/diverse-team-crucial-to-startup-success/index.md In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by Melissa Jerkoys — technologist, co-founder of Diversify Thinking, and advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in tech. Melissa shares her 25-year journey from engineer to leader, the barriers underrepresented groups face in technology careers, and why a diverse team is not just the right thing to do — it is a critical driver of startup and enterprise success. ### [V027 - Weekly Technology Vlog #27](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-027/) - Date: 2021-07-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v27_V-LKzx8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-027/index.md In the first tech-only episode of the new alternating format, Chris demonstrates GitHub Copilot's Technical Preview using Ruby and Python — from API integrations and regex generation to Azure Functions and IoT Hub messaging — and discusses the FAQ around code ownership, training data, and personal information filtering. The episode also covers CNCF fundamentals, Azure API Management policies with JWT token validation, Traefik proxy on Kubernetes, and the general availability of Azure Arc, including Azure SQL enabled by Arc. ### [41 - DevOps on Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-on-azure/) - Date: 2021-07-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xyBUj72Uh4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-on-azure/index.md In this episode, Chris is joined by Mert Yeter — software architect, Azure MVP, and Traefik Ambassador — for a live-demo-driven tour of DevOps on Azure. Starting with Azure DevOps Starter, Mert walks through spinning up a full CI/CD pipeline for a containerized .NET application in just a few clicks, covering Azure Container Registry, Azure Container Instances, and Azure Kubernetes Service. The session then dives into Traefik: an open-source cloud-native reverse proxy and load balancer with powerful pluggable middleware, dynamic service discovery, and a rich dashboard for managing Kubernetes ingresses. Whether you are new to containers or looking to level up your AKS deployments, this episode covers the essential building blocks. ### [Top new CNCF projects to look out for](https://chrisreddington.com/video/top-new-cncf-projects/) - Date: 2021-06-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2z1NhNWdVc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/top-new-cncf-projects/index.md The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) gave us Kubernetes and Prometheus — but did you know there are over 90 more projects in the ecosystem? In this episode, Chris is joined by Annie Talvasto (CNCF/Kubernetes meetup organizer, Finland) to explore the most exciting CNCF projects across sandbox, incubating, and graduated tiers. They cover Helm for Kubernetes package management, Artifact Hub for centralised artifact discovery, Linkerd for lightweight service mesh with built-in observability and resilience, KUDO for declarative Kubernetes operator creation without deep Go expertise, and KEDA for event-driven autoscaling. Whether you're new to cloud native or a seasoned practitioner, this session will inspire you to explore — and contribute to — the wider CNCF landscape. ### [V026 - Sailing the Sea of Thieves while talking Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-026/) - Date: 2021-06-27 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaNyaEezqCg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-026/index.md Chris combines tech updates with a Sea of Thieves gaming session alongside Cloud Family community members James Cook, Mert Ata, and Dean Ellerby. Updates cover Azure FX series VMs for HPC, NFS 3.0 for Blob Storage GA, JBoss on App Service, Azure VM Image Builder GA, plus GitHub and Azure DevOps community roundups. ### [40 - Failed lawyer stumbles into tech - Agile from the trenches](https://chrisreddington.com/video/agile-from-the-trenches/) - Date: 2021-06-25 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0b3tOFeJlI - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/agile-from-the-trenches/index.md Chris is joined by long-time friend Erin Davies — an Agile Coach who accidentally stumbled into tech after applying for what she thought was a buying and merchandising role at John Lewis. Erin shares her journey from studying law and sociology at Warwick to becoming an Agile Coach, offers honest reflections on women in tech and imposter syndrome, and explains what Agile really looks like in practice when you're in the trenches. The episode also explores content creation, starting a podcast, and finding your voice in the tech community. ### [V025 - Tech Roundup #25 (Sailing the seas on Sea of Thieves)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-025/) - Date: 2021-06-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN4UaSMhoic - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-025/index.md In a first for the weekly vlog format, Chris goes live from Sea of Thieves, delivering Azure and GitHub news while sailing the seas with Simon — and timing it perfectly for the Pirates of the Caribbean crossover launching the following day. Azure updates include West US 3 region's sustainability-focused launch, 5G enterprise edge compute expansion, Bridge to Kubernetes replacing Dev Spaces, and Azure Data Factory plus Databricks integration improvements. Chris also recaps the Azure Bicep blog post, Shannon Keane's Azure VMware Solution session, and John Lund's cloud journey, with Aaron Davies (agile coach and women-in-tech advocate) lined up for Friday. ### [39 - A discussion with John Lunn](https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussion-with-john-lunn/) - Date: 2021-06-18 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YOAaO4MCEI - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussion-with-john-lunn/index.md Chris sits down with John Lunn (aka jonnychipz) — technical architect at BT Enterprise, co-organiser of the Welsh Azure User Group, and creator of johnnychips.com. John shares his journey from M365 and unified comms into Azure cloud architecture, what sparked his commitment to the #100DaysOfCloud challenge, and his practical advice on navigating certifications, managing the overwhelming breadth of the cloud ecosystem, and why getting involved in the community is one of the fastest ways to grow. Whether you're just starting out with Azure or thinking about launching a blog or YouTube channel, there's plenty to take away here. ### [Azure & VMWare - A Discussion with Shannon Kuehn](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-and-vmware/) - Date: 2021-06-16 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z2EpMyUrac - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-and-vmware/index.md Chris is joined by Shannon Kuehn, a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, for an accessible deep dive into Azure VMware Solution (AVS) — the dedicated VMware platform hosted within Azure datacentres. Shannon explains how AVS lets organisations migrate on-premises VMware environments into Azure without a forklift upgrade, using live vMotion migrations via HCX with zero downtime, and unlocks Azure-native integrations including Azure Security Center, Azure Active Directory, Application Gateway, and PaaS services. ### [V024 - Weekly Technology Vlog #24](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-024/) - Date: 2021-06-14 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHPFtMKVlHU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-024/index.md Recorded on a Monday morning after a sunny weekend, vlog #24 delivers the week's Azure, Azure DevOps, and GitHub news — covering Azure Virtual Desktop's rebrand, enterprise-scale landing zones for AKS, Azure Migrate private endpoint support, and GitHub supply chain security updates. Chris also recaps recent Cloud with Chris sessions on GitHub Actions, Azure Arc for apps, hybrid cloud, and the Geode pattern, then previews the upcoming Azure VMware Solution session with Shannon Keane and John Lund's cloud journey. ### [38 - Hands-on with The Geode Pattern (Build globally distributed applications!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/geode-pattern-hands-on/) - Date: 2021-06-11 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzyasPgevHc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/geode-pattern-hands-on/index.md Episode 11 covered the Geode pattern in theory — now it's time to get hands-on! Will Eastbury returns to walk through a real-world OData service deployed across three Azure regions (US West, Australia Southeast, and UK West), stitched together by Azure Front Door for active-active routing. Watch how Cosmos DB replicates data across all regions as a shared backplane, how health probes detect and remove unhealthy geodes from rotation, and the ASP.NET middleware pattern needed to handle URL rewriting — a critical authentication gotcha when hosting services behind a reverse proxy. ### [Hybrid Cloud Update and Life as a Cloud Advocate](https://chrisreddington.com/video/hybrid-cloud-life-as-cloud-advocate/) - Date: 2021-06-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-UUQcc91Oc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/hybrid-cloud-life-as-cloud-advocate/index.md Chris Reddington is joined by Sarah Lean (Techielass), Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, for a deep dive into Azure Arc and hybrid cloud management. They explore how Azure Arc extends Azure governance, policy, and inventory capabilities to on-premises infrastructure, Kubernetes clusters, data platforms, and app services across multi-cloud environments. The session then shifts to a candid conversation about life in Developer Relations — what cloud advocacy really entails, how to build a sustainable content creation rhythm, and how to protect your mental health in a role that blurs the line between work and passion. ### [Discussing the Cloud with Chris GitHub Actions Usage](https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussing-cloud-with-chris-github-action-usage/) - Date: 2021-06-07 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxhnlNlLqcM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussing-cloud-with-chris-github-action-usage/index.md Chris is joined by Karl Cooke (IrishTechie) for a live deep-dive into the GitHub Actions workflows powering CloudWithChris.com. They explore why GitHub was chosen over Azure DevOps, walk through a real-world CI/CD pipeline for a Hugo static site deployed to Azure Blob Storage with CDN purging, and examine how to manage secrets and approvals using GitHub Environments. The session also covers linting Markdown with GitHub Super Linter, early thinking on Playwright-based UI tests, the security considerations around third-party actions from the marketplace, and building a custom .NET GitHub Action for content cross-posting. ### [V023 - Weekly Technology Vlog #23](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-023/) - Date: 2021-06-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkT9cUiO6Ek - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-023/index.md Chris rounds up the week's Azure, Azure DevOps, and GitHub news — including the rebrand of Windows Virtual Desktop to Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure FHIR healthcare API updates, SAP on Azure, and a preview of the Azure Arc hybrid and multi-cloud digital event. On the GitHub side, supply chain security takes the spotlight with package registry credential scanning, Dependabot enhancements, and GitHub's Blacktocat fifth anniversary celebrating Black voices in tech. Cloud with Chris recaps include Carl Cook on GitHub Actions, Azure Arc for apps (Event Grid), Sarah Lean on hybrid cloud and DevRel life, and Will Esprit demonstrating the Geode pattern hands-on. ### [37 - Your Career and Your Mental Health](https://chrisreddington.com/video/your-career-and-your-mental-health/) - Date: 2021-06-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVJbpcSaly8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/your-career-and-your-mental-health/index.md Mental health and career development are more closely intertwined than people often appreciate. Chris and long-time colleague Glenn Small (Analytics Manager at AWS) share personal experiences of burnout, severe anxiety, and pandemic isolation — and draw out practical lessons for setting expectations, building healthy boundaries at work, and knowing when to ask for help. ### [CGN5 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 5 - Building a game remotely](https://chrisreddington.com/video/building-a-game-remotely/) - Date: 2021-06-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7u5zb4F_c4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/building-a-game-remotely/index.md The COVID-19 pandemic forced game studios worldwide to rethink how developers, artists, designers, and audio engineers collaborate remotely on titles with massive file sizes and unforgiving release schedules. In this episode of Cloud Gaming Notes, Chris is joined by Lee Williams to explore how the gaming industry adapted using cloud services — from cloud-hosted design environments and Azure infrastructure to source control workflows with GitHub and Azure DevOps, video collaboration tooling, and the emerging paradigm of building entire games in the cloud. They also touch on how live game streaming is creating an entirely new entertainment industry built on the same cloud foundations. ### [V022 - Weekly Technology Vlog #22](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-022/) - Date: 2021-05-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1ZEW8LDa_0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-022/index.md Weekly Vlog #22 is a dedicated Microsoft Build 2021 recap led by the landmark announcement of Azure Arc for Application Services, enabling App Service, Azure Functions, Logic Apps, Event Grid, and API Management to run on any Kubernetes cluster across Azure, AWS, GCP, or on-premises. Chris also presented at Build alongside Dean Brian and Carol Logan, demonstrating friction-free development with Blazor, GitHub Codespaces, and GitHub Actions while spotlighting UK developer communities. Additional highlights include a wave of AKS improvements, the Durable Functions Netherite storage provider preview, Azure Cosmos DB integrated cache, Azure Applied AI Services, and Security Center integration with GitHub Actions. ### [Tales from the real world with Matt Bradley](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tales-from-real-world-matthew-bradley/) - Date: 2021-05-28 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpkK_aMVXc4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tales-from-real-world-matthew-bradley/index.md Chris is joined by Matt Bradley, who helped establish the Public Cloud division at UKFast, to discuss four years of hands-on Azure experience. From migration and consultancy through DevOps automation, container orchestration, and hybrid cloud management with Azure Arc, Matt shares practical lessons, infrastructure as code trade-offs, compliance benefits, and why you must always design for failure in cloud workloads. ### [V021 - Weekly Technology Vlog #21](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-021/) - Date: 2021-05-23 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZopxDbztw2M - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-021/index.md Weekly Vlog #21 builds anticipation for Microsoft Build, previewing Chris's upcoming presentation on friction-free developer workflows using GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Actions, and Azure Static Web Apps. Azure highlights include the Key Vault SLA raised to 99.99%, a preview of native Elastic integration, and Azure reaching its 100th compliance offering. Chris also recaps a hands-on Application Insights deep dive with Isaac Levin and covers a Helm explainer from the Azure DevOps blog alongside a Kubernetes Open Hack coaching week. ### [36 - Application Insights: The Tool You Never Knew You Needed](https://chrisreddington.com/video/application-insights-the-tool-you-never-knew-you-needed/) - Date: 2021-05-21 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFV4uBsH26M - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/application-insights-the-tool-you-never-knew-you-needed/index.md Understanding how our applications function in the wild is essential for developers when issues arise. With the power of knowledge, we can enable ourselves to provide the best experience to our fellow developers, and our stakeholders. One of the solutions that supplies this power is Application Insights. Application Insights is a service provided by Microsoft allowing you to monitor your application live, detect performance anomalies, and observe this data with powerful analytics. Together we will see how easy it is to add Application Insights to our applications, whether we have access to the codebase or not. Once instrumented, we will dive deeper into the capabilities of Application Insights and show how to leverage all the rich data collected from our application. Finally, as developers the last thing we want to do is troubleshoot an issue in Production, with everyone watching and the stakes are high. Watch as we monitor a live application that is throwing exceptions and how Application Insights can be used to help us solve the problem faster. When we are done, attendees will be empowered with the knowledge to leverage Application Insights to be more productive with their work. ### [V020 - Weekly Technology Vlog #20](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-020/) - Date: 2021-05-16 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcwNB21vhj8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-020/index.md Weekly Vlog #20 celebrates hitting 500 YouTube subscribers ahead of schedule, then reviews one of Chris's most content-heavy weeks: Azure Pipelines-as-code tutorials, an event-driven architecture walkthrough using Azure Event Grid and Azure Functions, and a candid mental health live stream. The headline Azure announcement is Azure Static Web Apps reaching general availability with built-in CI/CD, serverless API integration, and free SSL. GitHub rounds out the episode with new hardware security key support for SSH operations and native video uploads to issues and pull requests. ### [Cloud Drops - Building an Event-Driven workflow with Event Grid](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-event-grid/) - Date: 2021-05-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtjXHcVCFsY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-event-grid/index.md Azure Event Grid routes blob-created events from Azure Storage to downstream handlers, enabling scalable event-driven pipelines where producers and consumers are fully decoupled. This Cloud Drop builds an end-to-end workflow using an Event Grid system topic, subject filtering, an Azure Storage Queue as the event handler, a system-managed identity with the Storage Queue Data Message Sender role, and an Azure Function queue trigger to process and remove each message. ### [Social Opinion with Jamie Maguire](https://chrisreddington.com/video/tales-from-real-world-social-opinion/) - Date: 2021-05-14 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI2Lh7P-oMg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/tales-from-real-world-social-opinion/index.md Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a production SaaS platform in your own time? In this Tales from the Real World episode, Chris is joined by Jamie Maguire — Developer, Microsoft MVP (AI), and Pluralsight Author — who shares the full story behind Social Opinion, a Twitter analytics and productivity platform built with .NET and Azure. Jamie walks through the evolution from a custom Bayesian text analytics API (built during his master's degree) to a full SaaS powered by Azure Cognitive Services, covering social listening, sentiment analysis, content scheduling, and audience insights. He also shares practical advice for anyone looking to build their own product: pick something you're genuinely passionate about, validate demand before writing code, and ship early. ### [A livestream on Mental Health - Mental Health Awareness Week](https://chrisreddington.com/video/a-livestream-on-mental-health/) - Date: 2021-05-13 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mL-O7IqXVM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/a-livestream-on-mental-health/index.md Mental health affects us all, yet stigma and misunderstanding remain barriers to open conversation. In this candid livestream recorded during Mental Health Awareness Week, Chris Reddington is joined by Andrew Nathan (Microsoft FastTrack for Azure) and Will Owen (formerly Microsoft, now Maersk) to share their personal mental health journeys — covering depression, anxiety, COVID-19 isolation, CBT therapy, medication, and the pressures of high-performance tech careers. ### [Cloud Drops - Pipelines as Code](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-pipelines-as-code/) - Date: 2021-05-11 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v66LR5pxQw - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-pipelines-as-code/index.md You may have heard about Software Code or Infrastructure as Code. Well, in this video, we'll be talking about pipelines as code. If you're familiar with tools like Azure DevOps, Circle CI, GitHub, GitLab and Jenkins, you may notice a trend where these platforms are allowing you to define your pipelines as code. Throughout this video, we'll be defining a multi-stage pipeline in Azure DevOps, and picking up some tips along the way. ### [V019 - Weekly Technology Vlog #19](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-019/) - Date: 2021-05-09 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmXlqClabkw - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-019/index.md Weekly Vlog #19 is broadcast live, opening with Azure's Fluent Design icon rebrand and covering key security and platform updates including the AKS Secret Store CSI driver add-on, Azure Security Center improvements for hybrid and multi-cloud Kubernetes, and new Azure VPN Gateway multi-authentication capabilities. GitHub Enterprise Server 3.1 launches with GitHub Actions, Packages, and Advanced Security, while the release radar spotlights Pulumi as an emerging cross-cloud infrastructure-as-code framework. Chris also recaps Cloud Gaming Notes episode four featuring Sudoku Social's Azure PlayFab backend and a new Cloud Drop on PowerShell in Azure Functions with Carol de Winter. ### [GitHub Actions and Azure - Using Environments with GitHub Actions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-multiple-environments/) - Date: 2021-05-07 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQPXo2JnHs - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-multiple-environments/index.md Once you have a working GitHub Actions workflow, the next challenge is safely deploying across dev, staging, and production with the right secrets in the right places. This episode deep-dives into GitHub Actions Environments: how to scope secrets per environment to enforce the principle of least privilege, configure required reviewers and wait timers as production gates, and assign service principals with minimal Azure RBAC permissions. A live demo deploys the cloudwithchris.com Hugo site to Azure Storage, making every concept concrete. ### [Cloud Drops - Beginners guide to PowerShell in Azure Functions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-powershell-azure-functions/) - Date: 2021-05-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Nrh_eETEY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-powershell-azure-functions/index.md Azure Functions supports PowerShell Core as a runtime stack, enabling PowerShell scripters to build serverless event-driven workflows without compiled code. This Cloud Drop demonstrates creating an HTTP trigger and an Event Grid trigger function, configuring requirements.psd1 to load the Az PowerShell module, and using a system-assigned managed identity with the Contributor RBAC role to dynamically tag Azure resource groups on creation. ### [CGN4 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 4 - Cross-platform social Sudoku with Azure PlayFab](https://chrisreddington.com/video/sudoku-social/) - Date: 2021-05-05 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfOlIrflFq0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/sudoku-social/index.md Chris is joined by Dominic, a Senior PM Manager in Microsoft Teams Engineering, who spent nearly two years building Sudoku Social as a passion project — the world's first cross-platform competitive Sudoku game for iOS and Android. Dominic walks through his decision to use Unity for its build-once deploy-to-many capability, and Azure PlayFab as the game backend-as-a-service powering leaderboards, friend systems, matchmaking, and player statistics. The conversation covers how PlayFab's APIs dramatically reduced backend development effort, how Azure DevOps supported the CI/CD pipeline for the game, and the iterative learning journey of a first-time game developer teaching himself Unity, iOS, and Android development simultaneously. ### [V018 - Weekly Technology Vlog #18](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-018/) - Date: 2021-05-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5qQOHOeOuM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-018/index.md Weekly Vlog #18 arrives on a UK Bank Holiday, covering Microsoft's acquisition of Kinvolk to accelerate cloud-native investment and the preview launch of Azure Web PubSub — a managed WebSocket service for real-time applications. Chris reviews Delivery Plans 2.0 GA in Azure DevOps and GitHub engineering posts on feature flags and mono-repo performance optimisations, then shares a detailed update on the Hugo CrossPoster open-source project now featuring unit tests, SonarCloud analysis, and Polly resilience patterns including circuit breakers and retry logic. ### [V017 - Weekly Technology Vlog #17](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-017/) - Date: 2021-04-26 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSG42tWDjq0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-017/index.md Weekly Vlog #17 covers Azure's UK Met Office supercomputer partnership, Application Gateway URL rewrite now GA, and chaos engineering taking centre stage in the Azure DevOps blog — exploring how to test resilience systematically as part of your DevOps cycle. GitHub celebrates the Mars 2020 Ingenuity helicopter's open source story and announces protections for open source maintainers against crypto-mining abuse in GitHub Actions. Chris also unveils the Hugo CrossPoster — a new .NET pet project to automate cross-posting Hugo content to Medium and Dev.to with canonical URL support — and invites .NET collaborators for a live coding session. ### [35 - A discussion on Azure Spring Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-spring-cloud/) - Date: 2021-04-23 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ftJCnDDjg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-spring-cloud/index.md Spring, Spring Boot, and Azure Spring Cloud demystified. Chris is joined by Gitte Vermeiren (Microsoft FastTrack Engineer) to explore what Spring and Spring Boot offer Java developers, how Azure Spring Cloud provides a fully managed platform for running microservice workloads without managing underlying infrastructure, and how it compares to Azure App Service and AKS. Whether you're a Java developer evaluating Azure or a .NET developer curious about the Java ecosystem, this episode bridges the gap with clear analogies and live demos. ### [Discussing the Cloud with Chris GitHub Architecture and GitHub setup](https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussing-cloud-with-chris-architecture-and-github/) - Date: 2021-04-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okaSk5QxeJk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/discussing-cloud-with-chris-architecture-and-github/index.md Karl Cooke (irishtechie.com) interviews Chris Reddington about the full architecture and GitHub workflow powering CloudWithChris.com. The session covers Azure Storage static website hosting, Azure CDN with a custom rules engine for enforcing HTTPS and security headers (CSP, HSTS, Permissions Policy), Hugo as the static site generator, multi-environment GitHub Actions pipelines (preview, staging, production), GitHub Codespaces for in-browser editing, and practical security hardening using securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory. ### [V016 - Weekly Technology Vlog #16](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-016/) - Date: 2021-04-19 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIdign_rUYE - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-016/index.md Weekly Vlog #16 covers significant IoT Edge updates — including nested device hierarchies now GA and zero-touch provisioning blueprints — plus the GA of Azure API Management support for availability zones and a new open-source API portal. GitHub highlights include a detailed guide to implementing least-privilege secrets in GitHub Actions using environments and branch protection rules, and the GitHub CLI's new support for managing Actions workflows from the terminal. Chris recaps two Global Azure talks on Hugo static sites and GitHub Actions, shares a SecurityHeaders.com deep-dive using Azure CDN rules, and previews Azure RBAC data-plane content and an upcoming Azure Spring Cloud session. ### [V015 - Weekly Technology Vlog #15](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-015/) - Date: 2021-04-12 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOCmkhZsX9E - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-015/index.md Weekly Vlog #15 covers a lighter-than-usual Azure week, spotlighting Azure Cloud Services extended support GA with a migration tool preview, Azure Orbital's ground station-as-a-service partnership updates, and a great Azure DevOps blog post on building and publishing your first GitHub Action. Cloud with Chris highlights include a Windows Terminal productivity Cloud Drop, the Bulkhead resilience pattern episode, a Microsoft Learn introductory video, and a recap of the Northern Azure User Group talk alongside Scott Hanselman — with two Global Azure sessions on Hugo static sites and GitHub Actions just around the corner. ### [34 - The Bulkhead Pattern (Isolate your components to prevent failures)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/bulkhead/) - Date: 2021-04-09 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPJSKM2AsQo - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/bulkhead/index.md The Bulkhead pattern takes its name from the watertight compartments in a ship's hull. Just as those compartments prevent a single breach from sinking the whole vessel, the Bulkhead pattern isolates components of a cloud application so that failures or resource exhaustion in one service cannot cascade to others. This episode covers partitioning strategies, connection pools, Kubernetes resource limits, and multi-tenancy considerations. ### [CGN3 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 3 - Inventory and Economy](https://chrisreddington.com/video/inventory-and-economy/) - Date: 2021-04-07 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAvvrTDPUeQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/inventory-and-economy/index.md Gaming has evolved from isolated save files to persistent, cloud-powered experiences that follow players across every device they own. In this third episode of Cloud Gaming Notes, Chris and Lee Williams explore the cloud architecture behind in-game inventory and economy systems — using Sea of Thieves as a live example. Topics include persistent state management with Azure Cosmos DB, managed gaming backends with PlayFab, Live Ops patterns, and how cloud infrastructure enables monetisation and long-term player retention at scale. ### [Cloud Drops - Using Microsoft Learn to get started with Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-microsoft-learn-azure/) - Date: 2021-04-05 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYaQtpK8P-c - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-microsoft-learn-azure/index.md Microsoft Learn is a gamified education hub on docs.microsoft.com covering Azure, GitHub, Microsoft 365, and more through modules, learning paths, and the LearnTV video platform. Browse the catalogue by role, level, or product, earn XP to level up, and use renewal assessments to recertify without retaking full exams. ### [V014 - Tech Roundup #14 Azure, DevOps & GitHub Blogs, Azure Updates & New CloudWithChris content](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-014/) - Date: 2021-04-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXLYIzlE50 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-014/index.md In this Easter Sunday livestream, Chris covers Microsoft's Forrester Wave leader recognition for Azure Functions (FaaS), a wave of AKS updates including the new run command feature and Open Service Mesh add-on, and the GitHub Advanced Security security overview beta plus GA of secret scanning for private repositories. Delivery Plans 2.0 in Azure DevOps approaches GA with card styling and dependency visualisation, while GitHub Desktop gains cherry-pick support and GitHub Mobile adds working-hours notification controls. Cloud with Chris highlights include a beginner Git 101 Cloud Drop, a community blogging panel, the External Configuration and Claim Check architecture pattern episode with Peter Piper, and a preview of the upcoming Northern Azure User Group talk alongside Scott Hanselman. ### [Cloud Drops - How Windows Terminal can make YOU productive with Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-windows-terminal-productive-azure/) - Date: 2021-04-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2LUQbd1VzU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-windows-terminal-productive-azure/index.md Windows Terminal is a modern multi-shell application available via the Microsoft Store or winget, supporting Windows Command Prompt, PowerShell, PowerShell Core, WSL distributions, and Azure Cloud Shell in a single window. This Cloud Drop demonstrates installing Windows Terminal, connecting to Azure Cloud Shell via device code login, and creating custom SSH profiles to connect directly to Azure virtual machines from both Windows OpenSSH and WSL. ### [33 - External Config and Claim Check Pattern - Easier Management and Externalising Payloads](https://chrisreddington.com/video/external-config-and-claim-check/) - Date: 2021-04-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHW5Nc9J1bg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/external-config-and-claim-check/index.md Chris and Peter cover two cloud design patterns in depth. The External Configuration Store pattern addresses one of the most critical security concerns in cloud development: keeping secrets and connection strings out of source code. They explore Azure Key Vault and Azure App Configuration as canonical implementations, discuss deployment slot behaviour, and highlight the risks of committing credentials to version control. The Claim Check pattern tackles a different challenge — what happens when your message payload exceeds the size limits of your messaging infrastructure (Azure Service Bus, Azure Queue Storage)? By externalising the payload to a data store and passing only a correlation ID on the queue, you gain scalability and flexibility at the cost of added latency. Azure Event Grid's automatic claim check generation is also demonstrated. Security is a thread running through both patterns: compromised config stores and poisoned messages both demand an operational response plan. ### [Cloud Drops - Git 101 - Why use Git, and how to get started](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-git-101/) - Date: 2021-03-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4140Gtfp4-A - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-git-101/index.md Git is a distributed version control system where every developer holds a complete copy of the repository and its history locally, enabling offline work and fast branching. This Cloud Drop covers git init, git add, git commit, git status, git log, git push, git pull, and git clone, plus VS Code's built-in Git integration and the Git Credential Manager for authenticating against GitHub and other remote hosts. ### [V013 - Weekly Technology Vlog #13 (Lots of Azure, DevOps & GitHub) Blogs, Quick-fire Azure Updates](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-013/) - Date: 2021-03-28 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiLeTkRJj5A - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-013/index.md Weekly Vlog #13 covers an action-packed Azure week: enterprise landing zones with modular designs, zonal disaster recovery via Azure Site Recovery, Security Center compliance enhancements, and Mark Russinovich's standout Ignite session on Azure innovation. The GitHub roundup highlights the GitHub Actions capture-the-flag security writeup and a multi-stage exploit chain from the GitHub Security Lab — essential reading for any DevSecOps practitioner. Cloud with Chris updates include the channel's most-viewed video to date on Git internals, a Fuse.js-powered site search, series navigation, and a packed April talk schedule featuring the Northern Azure User Group (alongside Scott Hanselman) and Global Azure Bootcamp. ### [32 - Accelerate .NET to Azure with GitHub Actions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/accelerate-dotnet-to-azure-with-github-actions/) - Date: 2021-03-26 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHoC_IpCsSs - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/accelerate-dotnet-to-azure-with-github-actions/index.md GitHub Actions makes it easy to automate your entire .NET software delivery pipeline — from build and test through to deployment on Azure. In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by Isaac Levin, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft and a lifelong .NET developer, to walk through how GitHub Actions YAML workflows streamline deploying .NET and ASP.NET Core applications to Azure App Service, Azure Functions, and Azure Static Web Apps (including Blazor WebAssembly). Isaac traces the evolution of CI/CD tooling from FTP and CruiseControl.NET through to modern GitHub Actions, demonstrates how Azure and Visual Studio integrate to auto-generate workflows, and shares practical tips for getting started quickly. ### [Cloud Drops - How does Git work behind the scenes?](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-git-behind-scenes/) - Date: 2021-03-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXTTPbTbwRg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-git-behind-scenes/index.md Git stores all version history as compressed objects — commits, trees, and blobs — inside the .git folder. This Cloud Drop walks through the .git directory structure, uses git cat-file -p to inspect commit, tree, and blob objects, and shows how refs map human-readable branch names to commit hashes, including remote-tracking refs created when pushing to GitHub. ### [Cloud Drops - Introducing and Setting up Git LFS (Large File Storage)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-git-lfs/) - Date: 2021-03-23 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WftZfn9L_I - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-git-lfs/index.md Git LFS (Large File Storage) is a Git extension that replaces large binary files in your repository with lightweight text pointers, storing the actual data on a remote server. This Cloud Drop demonstrates git lfs install, git lfs track "*.mp3", staging and committing with LFS active, and using git clone --config lfs.fetchExclude to selectively skip large files when cloning. ### [V012 - Weekly Technology Vlog #12 (Busy week, and quite a few blog posts to cover!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-012/) - Date: 2021-03-22 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US-rE8HgFCA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-012/index.md Three months and 350+ subscribers in, with content shipping every day of the past week: a GitHub Codespaces Cloud Drop, the final GPG commit-signing instalment covering YubiKey hardware key storage, a Welsh Azure User Group lightning talk on GitHub Actions, and a Terraform Cloud deep-dive on Azure state management. Azure news centres on Microsoft's commitment to bring Availability Zones to every region by end of 2021, new forecasted cost alerts for Azure Budgets, and the Start Small & Expand landing zone guidance from Sarah Lean and Thomas Maurer. GitHub updates include Dependabot gaining private registry support, CodeQL scanning for Solarigate traces, and a detailed post-mortem on the recent GitHub.com security incident. ### [31 - Deploying to Azure through Terraform Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/deploy-using-terraform-cloud/) - Date: 2021-03-19 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iewk-BkJpdU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/deploy-using-terraform-cloud/index.md You may have heard of Terraform, but are you aware of Terraform Cloud or Terraform Enterprise? In this session, Chris walks through how he uses Terraform Cloud to deploy infrastructure onto Azure — covering HCL, the Azure RM provider, remote state management, Terraform modules, and a VCS-driven CI/CD pipeline via GitHub integration. Learn how Terraform Cloud's managed state compares to a self-hosted Azure Storage Account backend, and how terraform plan and terraform apply fit into an automated deployment workflow. ### [Cloud Drops - Introduction to GitHub Codespaces](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-github-codespaces/) - Date: 2021-03-16 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tQ2nxjqP6o - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-github-codespaces/index.md Have you ever had to setup a development environment from scratch? You have to install a ton of dependencies, probably a few tools along the way as well. It's not fun, it takes a lot of time and it prevents you from being productive. This is where GitHub Codespaces comes in. ### [V011 - Weekly Technology Vlog #11](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-011/) - Date: 2021-03-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2XCu9rvlRI - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-011/index.md Vlog #11 debuts a refreshed brand and on-screen layout, then covers a busy week: the third instalment of Chris's GPG commit-signing series (linking keys to Git and GitHub), the Cache Aside cloud design pattern episode, and a preview of the upcoming YubiKey-focused Part 4. Azure news centres on the preview of Trusted Launch VMs (defending against bootkits and rootkits), Azure Defender for Storage's new malware-upload detection, and Naraya — the ML system Microsoft uses to predict and proactively mitigate infrastructure failures at scale. On the security operations side, GitHub and Azure DevOps announce automated token revocation for leaked PATs found on public GitHub repositories. ### [30 - The Cache Aside Pattern (Optimise your caching approach!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cache-aside/) - Date: 2021-03-12 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo5YIkEmujk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cache-aside/index.md The cache-aside pattern loads data on demand from a data store into a cache, placing the synchronisation logic in the application layer when the cache does not natively support read-through or write-through operations. This episode covers cache-miss handling, expiration and eviction policies for Azure Cache for Redis, consistency challenges across distributed instances, and when to pre-warm the cache at startup instead. ### [Cloud Drops - Installing, Upgrading and Auto-Upgrading the Azure CLI](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-azure-cli/) - Date: 2021-03-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCbK2DT5Lvc - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cloud-drops-azure-cli/index.md The Azure CLI provides cross-platform command-line management of Azure resources from Windows, macOS, Linux, Docker containers, and Azure Cloud Shell. This Cloud Drop demonstrates az login, az account set, az group list, az upgrade, and the az config set auto-upgrade.enable=yes command for keeping your CLI automatically up to date. ### [V010 - Weekly Technology Vlog #10 (Episode backlog until Mid-July! New Microphone, Ignite Content!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-010/) - Date: 2021-03-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG8zFHzoB4c - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-010/index.md Vlog #10 is a milestone episode: Chris celebrates his birthday and a full year of Cloud With Chris with a new Shure SM7B microphone upgrade. The bulk of the episode is a walkthrough of Microsoft Ignite announcements, covering Azure Arc-enabled Machine Learning for on-premises data sovereignty scenarios, the Azure Communication Services and Microsoft Teams interoperability story, and significant security updates including Azure Key Vault Managed HSM (preview) and Trusted Launch for VMs. GitHub Actions fans also get a bonus segment on four lesser-known platform capabilities, including semantic release note generation and bring-your-own-environment workflows. ### [29 - The Sidecar and Ambassador Patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/video/sidecar-and-ambassador/) - Date: 2021-03-05 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-pQKhIYbEU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/sidecar-and-ambassador/index.md When modernising a legacy application, rewriting everything from scratch is rarely feasible. The Sidecar and Ambassador cloud design patterns offer a pragmatic alternative — attach a companion process to offload cross-cutting concerns like retry logic, circuit breaking, and protocol translation without modifying the application itself. Chris and Peter explore both patterns in depth, covering when to use each, how they relate to service meshes, and their role in Kubernetes-based architectures. ### [CGN2 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 2 - Matchmaking Services](https://chrisreddington.com/video/matchmaking-services/) - Date: 2021-03-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2DEBT8HL6k - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/matchmaking-services/index.md Ever thought about what it takes to host a multiplayer game in the cloud? In the second episode of Cloud Gaming Notes, Chris and Lee Williams go hands-on with Halo 5 Guardians to explore the engineering behind matchmaking services. They cover the Actor model and Azure Service Fabric, skill-based matchmaking algorithms, the critical role of latency in competitive gaming, and how live ops and DevOps principles keep a game-as-a-service continuously updated without downtime. Real-world cloud architecture through the lens of AAA gaming. ### [V009 - Weekly Technology Vlog #9 (1 year of Cloud With Chris, Azure Retirements, Microsoft Ignite)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-009/) - Date: 2021-03-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tXhWaRZw6Q - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-009/index.md Week nine of the vlog coincides with the one-year anniversary of the Cloud With Chris podcast. Chris kicks off a multi-part blog series on GPG key signing for Git commits, demonstrating how trivially easy it is to spoof a contributor's identity in Git without verification — and how GitHub's GPG validation feature closes that gap. Azure news this week is lighter than usual, covering serverless and low-code scenarios with PowerApps, the new Private Azure Marketplace, and the Azure Quota REST API, plus a significant list of retirement notices from the Azure Updates page all targeting 29 February 2024. ### [28 - Intro to Landing Zones](https://chrisreddington.com/video/intro-to-landing-zones/) - Date: 2021-02-26 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLgljLsK79E - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/intro-to-landing-zones/index.md What exactly is an Azure Landing Zone, and why does every cloud architect keep talking about it? In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by Karim Fahmy — an Azure Solutions Architect with over 12 years of IT experience — to demystify Azure Landing Zones and their place within the Cloud Adoption Framework. Learn how landing zones provide the structured foundation covering networking topology, identity, governance, subscriptions, and security that your workloads need to succeed in the cloud. The episode also covers Azure Blueprints, Terraform automation, and real-world strategies for incrementally building and evolving your cloud foundation over time. ### [V008 - Weekly Technology Vlog #8 (Changing Role, Guest Appearances, LOTS of Azure News)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-008/) - Date: 2021-02-22 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5_ZFHW8bbE - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-008/index.md Chris marks two months of weekly vlogging with a big career update: leaving FastTrack for Azure to become a Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft's UK Customer Success Unit, focusing on the Manufacturing & Resources industry. The cloudwithchris.com site is also refreshed with a PodScribe-powered interactive transcript player that highlights spoken words in real time and enables crowd-sourced corrections — a meaningful accessibility improvement. Azure news is substantial this week, headlined by Azure RBAC for Key Vault data plane reaching GA (enabling secret- and certificate-level access control) and Azure Front Door Standard & Premium entering preview with private origin support via Private Link. ### [27 - The Compute Resource Consolidation Pattern (Optimise for Cost!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/compute-resource-consolidation/) - Date: 2021-02-19 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzBmJvu6gpQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/compute-resource-consolidation/index.md Are you running dedicated compute for every tenant, microservice, or application instance — and paying for it? The Compute Resource Consolidation pattern shows you how to consolidate tasks onto shared infrastructure, such as a single AKS cluster with namespace isolation or an Azure SQL elastic pool, to reduce costs and management overhead. This episode explores the key trade-offs: blast radius containment, noisy neighbour contention, scalability profiles, and multi-tenancy strategies. Part of the "Architecting for the Cloud, One Pattern at a Time" series. ### [V007 - Weekly Technology Vlog #7 (Recap, NEW SITE, NEWS!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-007/) - Date: 2021-02-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-vn4uq1fes - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-007/index.md Chris recaps his AzureIsh Live guest appearance and the messaging patterns episode with Will Eastbury covering pub-sub, priority queues, and pipes-and-filters. He showcases the Cloud with Chris v2 website prototype built in Hugo with AI-generated transcripts via Podscribe for accessibility, covers the npm dependency confusion attack vector affecting Azure Artifacts and GitHub packages, and highlights Azure's deployment to the International Space Station in partnership with HPE. ### [26 - The Pub Sub, Priority Queue and Pipes and Filter Patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/video/priority-queues-pipes-filters/) - Date: 2021-02-12 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDIob2h1F9U - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/priority-queues-pipes-filters/index.md Chris Reddington and Will Eastbury cover three closely related messaging patterns in one packed episode. They start with the Publish-Subscribe (Pub/Sub) pattern — arguably the most transformative shift in enterprise messaging — where a single producer broadcasts to multiple isolated subscribers via Azure Service Bus topics or Azure Event Grid. Real-world use cases include insurance aggregators, credit check pipelines, and bank account sign-up workflows. From there they move to the Priority Queue pattern, which ensures high-priority messages are processed before lower-priority ones even when consumers are under load. Finally, the Pipes and Filters pattern decomposes complex message processing into a chain of discrete, reusable transformation steps — reducing complexity and enabling independent scaling of each stage. The episode also connects these patterns back to earlier topics like Competing Consumers and Queue-Based Load Leveling, and flags related patterns including Choreography and Compensating Transactions. ### [25 - A conversation on Mental Health](https://chrisreddington.com/video/a-conversation-on-mental-health/) - Date: 2021-02-09 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he2x6QgbVSk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/a-conversation-on-mental-health/index.md In this candid conversation, Chris Reddington is joined by Andrew Nathan — a former Australian Special Forces soldier turned tech professional — to talk openly about mental health. Drawing on personal experiences with grief, COVID-19 lockdown isolation, and identity loss, both guests discuss the importance of speaking up, seeking help, and understanding that it is okay not to be okay. A vital listen for anyone in tech or beyond. ### [V006 - Weekly Technology Vlog #6 (Recap, Coming Up and NEWS!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-006/) - Date: 2021-02-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPomqtMIh5o - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-006/index.md Chris hosts the first live weekly vlog, recapping the Cloud Gaming Notes debut and a candid mental health conversation with Andrew Nathan. He covers Azure Security Center updates including dangling DNS protection for Azure Defender and the secure score API GA, spotlights Project Bicep as a new ARM template authoring experience with a VS Code extension, and highlights GitHub's engineering post on SLO-based deployment pipeline reliability. ### [CGN1 - Cloud Gaming Notes Episode 1 - Hosting a Game Server](https://chrisreddington.com/video/hosted-game-servers/) - Date: 2021-02-03 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdiqtCRK6jQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/hosted-game-servers/index.md Ever thought about what it takes to host a game in the Cloud? Well, this is the series for you! On the first Wednesday of every month, we explore Cloud Concepts that impact your journey to a connected multiplayer gaming experience! In this first session, we'll play some Minecraft and talk to the concept of a hosted game server. ### [V005 - Weekly Technology Vlog #5 (My Setup, Architecture Patterns, Mental Health and NEWS)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-005/) - Date: 2021-02-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faQNxOeSRPw - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-005/index.md Chris recaps the health endpoint monitoring pattern episode and a PC build blog, then previews the debut of Cloud Gaming Notes with Lee Williams on game server hosting, and a candid mental health conversation with Andrew Nathan. He reviews Azure updates including Azure Cloud Services Extended Support ARM-based deployment, Azure AD Premium 99.99% SLA, the Azure Architecture Center January digest, and GitHub engineering posts on canary deployment strategies and JavaScript performance optimisation. ### [24 - Health Endpoint Monitoring Pattern (Monitor your service and its dependencies!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/health-endpoint-monitoring-pattern/) - Date: 2021-01-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aY1ZvZproY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/health-endpoint-monitoring-pattern/index.md Stop waiting for users to tell you something is broken. The Health Endpoint Monitoring pattern gives your services a dedicated health-check endpoint that aggregates the status of all dependent components—databases, APIs, storage—into a single observable response. This episode covers the pattern in detail, including design considerations around caching, security, denial-of-service exposure, and integration with Azure Monitor and Application Insights. ### [V004 - Weekly Technology Vlog #4 (JamStack + Cloud, Upcoming Talks and Tech News)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-004/) - Date: 2021-01-25 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXqa83gxYMM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-004/index.md Chris recaps a JamStack blog post, an appearance on the MS How-To show covering cloud design patterns, and the gatekeeper and valet key patterns session on API security. He covers Azure updates including AKS automatic cluster upgrade channels and the Secret Store CSI driver for Azure Key Vault, Azure DevOps Delivery Plans 2.0 with YAML manual validation, Pulumi as an infrastructure-as-code tool supporting Python, TypeScript, and Go, and a comprehensive GitHub 2020 year-in-review. ### [23 - Gatekeeper and Valet Key Patterns - Secure your APIs and Resources](https://chrisreddington.com/video/gatekeeper-and-valet-key/) - Date: 2021-01-22 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM3hJBZu2vA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/gatekeeper-and-valet-key/index.md Continuing the 'Architecting for the Cloud, one pattern at a time' series, Chris and Peter Piper explore two closely related cloud design patterns for securing APIs and backend resources. The Gatekeeper pattern positions a dedicated host between untrusted clients and trusted backend services — handling authentication, authorization, request validation, protocol translation, and rate limiting. The Valet Key pattern complements it by issuing short-lived, scope-restricted tokens (such as Azure SAS tokens) so clients can access specific resources directly, reducing load on central services without sacrificing security. The episode covers practical implementation options on Azure including API Management, Azure Key Vault, and Azure App Configuration. ### [V003 - Weekly Technology Vlog #3 (Contributing to OSS, Azure Thames Valley and Tech News)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-003/) - Date: 2021-01-18 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i61ycvWYs8s - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-003/index.md Chris announces his involvement with relaunching the Azure Thames Valley meetup, recaps the static content hosting pattern episode and his open source blog, and previews upcoming talks at AzureIsh Live and a SquaredUp webinar on application observability with Azure Monitor and App Insights. He covers Azure Updates including public IP SKU upgrades, built-in Azure Policy for NSG flow logs, GitHub's availability in Iran, the GitHub Enterprise Server 3.0 release candidate, and Docker Desktop integration with Azure Container Instances. ### [22 - Static Content Hosting Pattern (Save cost and gain performance for static websites!)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/static-content-hosting-pattern/) - Date: 2021-01-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY7FEAoPucM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/static-content-hosting-pattern/index.md Serving static HTML, CSS, images, and JavaScript from a general-purpose web server wastes compute and money. The Static Content Hosting pattern offloads these assets to cloud storage—Azure Blob Storage, AWS S3, or GCP Storage—optionally fronted by a CDN for global performance and storage-tier scalability. This episode walks through the pattern, a real-world implementation with Hugo and Azure CDN, and the trade-offs to consider. ### [V002 - Weekly Technology Vlog #2 (Show Updates, Azure Updates, CloudFamily.info)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-002/) - Date: 2021-01-11 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyQI5SOsw3M - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-002/index.md Chris covers channel updates for Cloud with Chris, including a new video on GitHub Codespaces and a blog series on open source contributions to Hugo themes. He highlights the Azure Updates RSS feed as an essential resource for tracking Azure service changes, and spotlights community contributors JonnyChipz, Sarah Lean (TechieLass), CloudFamily.info, and Richard Hooper (PixelRobots). ### [GitHub Codespaces, Visual Studio Code and Remote Containers](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-codespaces-and-vscode-remote-containers/) - Date: 2021-01-08 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6134ad2x4Q - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-codespaces-and-vscode-remote-containers/index.md Setting up a development environment—installing the right SDK versions, extensions, and tools—wastes hours and causes 'works on my machine' problems. This episode shows how VS Code's Remote Containers extension and GitHub Codespaces solve this with containerised, reproducible dev environments defined in a devcontainer.json file. See a live demo of editing cloudwithchris.com entirely in a browser-based Codespace. ### [V001 - Weekly Technology Vlog #1 (Blog, Hugo, Azure, GitHub & Azure DevOps)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-001/) - Date: 2021-01-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNGQkuUeRCM - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/weekly-vlog-001/index.md Chris launches the weekly vlog format with a recap of December 2020, including open source contributions to the Hugo Castanet theme and the start of a new community-focused Hugo theme project. He reviews Azure updates covering Azure Synapse Analytics GA and Microsoft BGP routing security improvements, highlights GitHub's DevSecOps tooling with CodeQL and Dependabot, and explains the new Azure DevOps service tag for network security groups. ### [21 - The Queue Based Load Levelling and Competing Consumers Pattern](https://chrisreddington.com/video/queue-based-load-levelling-and-competing-consumers/) - Date: 2021-01-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI3yzIxUrGg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/queue-based-load-levelling-and-competing-consumers/index.md Do you have an application with specific scalability and continuity-of-service requirements? What happens when traffic spikes dramatically — think a major concert or FIFA World Cup ticket sale crashing a site? In this Architecting for the Cloud episode, Chris and Will Eastbury walk through three closely related patterns: Queue-Based Load Levelling, Competing Consumers, and the Asynchronous Request-Reply pattern. They explore how message queues act as shock absorbers for traffic spikes, how competing consumers enable elastic horizontal scaling, and how async request-reply lets you retrofit these patterns into existing architectures with minimal disruption. Key trade-offs covered include queue depth limits, Azure Service Bus configuration, distributed tracing with Application Insights, and when the added complexity genuinely justifies reaching for these patterns. ### [20 - The Anti-corruption layer, Gateway Aggregation and Gateway Routing patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/video/anti-corruption-layer-and-gateway-patterns/) - Date: 2020-12-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGDu4FdUk7I - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/anti-corruption-layer-and-gateway-patterns/index.md Peter Piper joins Chris Reddington for another episode in the Architecting for the Cloud, One Pattern at a Time series. Building on the Façade and Strangler patterns, they explore three related cloud design patterns: the Anti-Corruption Layer (translating between legacy and modern domain models), Gateway Aggregation (collapsing multiple backend calls into a single client response), and Gateway Routing (layer-7 routing to decouple consumers from versioned backend services). Real Azure service examples — including API Management, Application Gateway, and Azure Front Door — are used throughout. ### [19 - The Event Sourcing, Materialized View and CQRS Patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/video/event-sourcing-and-materialized-view/) - Date: 2020-12-23 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s3yjmJ0ksA - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/event-sourcing-and-materialized-view/index.md What if you stored not just the current state of your data, but every event that produced it? The Event Sourcing pattern captures the full history of changes as an append-only log — enabling audit trails, temporal queries, and history replay. Combined with Materialized Views for efficient read-side querying and CQRS for command/query separation, these three patterns form a cornerstone of modern event-driven architecture. Chris and Steph explore all three in this episode of Architecting for the Cloud. ### [11 - The Geode Pattern - What is it and how can it be useful for my app?](https://chrisreddington.com/video/geode-pattern/) - Date: 2020-12-21 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE4pif__A8c - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/geode-pattern/index.md You may know patterns like Retry, Circuit Breaker, or Deployment Stamps — but have you heard of the Geode pattern? In this Architecting for the Cloud episode, Chris and Will Eastbury (who contributed to the original Azure Architecture Center documentation for this pattern) explore how Geodes enable planet-scale, active-active applications where every node can serve any user from any region. Unlike Deployment Stamps (which are tenant-scoped), Geodes replicate data across all regions, eliminating active-passive compute wastage and delivering consistent low-latency experiences globally. The session covers key trade-offs around data sovereignty, replication costs, and the evolution toward intelligent edge deployments — and includes a walkthrough of a globally distributed real-time voting app built with Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, and SignalR. ### [18 - Tales from the Real World - Defying Gravity.. The magic behind Flight Simulator 2020](https://chrisreddington.com/video/defying-gravity/) - Date: 2020-12-18 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxiE2NIRPKU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/defying-gravity/index.md What's actually powering Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 — and what can cloud architects learn from it? Chris Reddington takes to the virtual skies over Queensland with former colleague Cam Adams, flying a Cessna 172 from Archerfield aerodrome while discussing the real Azure services behind one of the most technically ambitious games ever made. From CDN-based asset distribution and event-driven live weather to PlayFab game backends and DDoS protection — this is cloud architecture on the fly. ### [GitHub Issues and GitHub Discussions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-issues-github-discussions/) - Date: 2020-12-16 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cajj3_kcos - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-issues-github-discussions/index.md GitHub Issues provides a lightweight project backlog with labels, milestones, assignees, and kanban project boards, while GitHub Discussions (launched at GitHub Universe) enables open community conversations through categorised threads for Q&A, ideas, and show-and-tell. This episode demonstrates converting issues to discussions, automating workflows with GitHub Actions issue and project event triggers, and using project board automation rules. ### [GitHub Universe and GitHub Actions Deployments](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-universe-roundup/) - Date: 2020-12-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3K550t5bzQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-universe-roundup/index.md In this episode, we're going to be taking a slight detour away from GitHub actions and focus on some of the announcements from GitHub universe last week. We're going to explore them both from the announcements, and also take a look at some of those features that have already been released. Stay tuned! ### [17 - The Throttling, Retry and Circuit Breaker Patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/video/throttling-and-retry-pattern/) - Date: 2020-12-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HoTGgb5oFg - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/throttling-and-retry-pattern/index.md How do you protect your infrastructure from traffic spikes, safeguard multi-tenant workloads from noisy neighbours, and handle transient failures gracefully? Chris and John Downs walk through three essential cloud resilience patterns: Throttling (protecting services from excess load via rate limiting and HTTP 429), Retry (handling transient faults with exponential backoff), and Circuit Breaker (preventing cascade failures). Part of the "Architecting for the Cloud, One Pattern at a Time" series — essential viewing for any developer building on Azure. ### [GitHub Actions and Azure - Deploying ARM templates with GitHub Actions](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-deploying-infrastructure/) - Date: 2020-12-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Ab5LsAm8o - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-deploying-infrastructure/index.md Before deploying application code, you need cloud infrastructure in place. This episode demonstrates how to deploy Azure infrastructure using ARM templates (Infrastructure as Code) directly from a GitHub Actions workflow—covering ARM template structure, the azure/arm-deploy action, repository organisation, and service principal setup for automated, repeatable Azure deployments. ### [GitHub Actions and Azure - Deploying .NET Core code to Azure App Service](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-deploy-to-appservice/) - Date: 2020-12-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmvr9_BDPTE - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-deploy-to-appservice/index.md You have your .NET Core application code and your Azure App Service infrastructure is ready. Now it's time to wire them together with an automated GitHub Actions deployment pipeline. This episode walks through building a multi-job workflow that compiles, publishes, and deploys your .NET Core app to Azure App Service using publish profiles and GitHub Secrets. ### [GitHub Actions and Azure - Source Controlling our Code using Git](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-git/) - Date: 2020-11-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS2d5EykbQY - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-git/index.md This series opener demonstrates source-controlling a .NET MVC project scaffolded with dotnet new mvc inside Windows Subsystem for Linux, using VS Code's built-in Git integration to stage commits, push to a new GitHub repository, and set a remote origin. It also introduces the GitHub Actions Azure Actions catalogue — including azure/login, azure/cli, and azure/webapps-deploy — as a foundation for the CI/CD automation covered in subsequent episodes. ### [GitHub Actions and Azure - Getting started with GitHub Actions and Azure Login](https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-getting-started/) - Date: 2020-11-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HjCS4HMGCU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/github-actions-getting-started/index.md New to GitHub Actions? This episode is your starting point. Chris walks through GitHub Actions workflow fundamentals—YAML syntax, jobs, steps, GitHub-hosted runners, and secrets management—then shows how to authenticate against Azure using the Azure Login action and a service principal, before running Azure CLI commands as part of your first automated pipeline. ### [16 - The Backends for Frontends and Strangler Pattern with Peter Piper](https://chrisreddington.com/video/backends-for-frontends-and-strangler/) - Date: 2020-11-22 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdNzm42u6Y4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/backends-for-frontends-and-strangler/index.md Managing APIs across web, mobile, and multiple consumer types creates tight coupling that slows modernisation and makes versioning painful. In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by Peter Piper to explore the Backend for Frontends (BFF) pattern — creating dedicated backends tailored to each consumer — alongside the Strangler Fig pattern for incrementally migrating legacy monoliths without disrupting existing clients. The Façade pattern also features as a key decoupling mechanism for smooth API migrations. Part of the "Architecting for the Cloud, One Pattern at a Time" series. ### [15 - The Sharding and Index Table Patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/video/sharding-and-index-table/) - Date: 2020-11-13 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukzpTNRxyr4 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/sharding-and-index-table/index.md Concerned about the scalability of your data layer, or do you need data segregation for customers with regional data residency requirements? The Sharding pattern addresses exactly these challenges. If you are using a NoSQL data store without native secondary index support, the Index Table pattern provides an elegant solution for efficient querying. In this episode, Chris is joined by Steph Martin to explore both patterns in depth: shard key strategies (lookup, range, hash), cross-shard query design, the Azure SQL Database elastic client library, and how the Index Table pattern solves query efficiency challenges in stores like Cassandra and Cosmos DB. ### [14 - The Deployment Stamps Pattern](https://chrisreddington.com/video/deployment-stamps/) - Date: 2020-11-06 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaR_0mQi1O0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/deployment-stamps/index.md The Deployment Stamps pattern is a powerful cloud architecture approach for scaling, resilience, and multi-tenancy. In this episode, Chris Reddington is joined by John Downs — who contributed the pattern to the Azure Architecture Center — to explore how stamping out independent copies of your application stack across regions enables geographic distribution, data sovereignty, isolated failure domains, and deployment rings for staged rollouts. Discover when to use this pattern, how Azure itself relies on it internally, and the key considerations around request routing, cross-stamp querying, and disaster recovery planning. ### [13 - Tales from the Real World - Defying DDOS](https://chrisreddington.com/video/defying-ddos/) - Date: 2020-10-30 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSObCp1GbSQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/defying-ddos/index.md DDoS attacks have scaled to cloud-level volumes — terabits per second — that on-premises hardware simply cannot absorb. In this episode, Chris is joined by Cam Adams, an engineering manager from Brisbane, Australia, who shares first-hand experience helping customers across Asia-Pacific defend against distributed denial-of-service attacks using Azure. Whether workloads are fully in the cloud, in a hybrid state, or entirely on-premises, Cam explains how Azure can act as a scalable, cloud-powered defensive layer — and why the time to act is before an attack hits, not after. ### [12 - Modern Identity Patterns](https://chrisreddington.com/video/modern-identity-patterns/) - Date: 2020-10-16 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OSSVk0IzCk - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/modern-identity-patterns/index.md Chris is joined by Christos Matskas — former Microsoft Premier Field Engineer, developer tools evangelist, and .NET identity expert — for a deep-dive into modern identity patterns in the cloud. They cut through the confusion between Azure AD, Azure AD B2B, Azure AD B2C, and External Identities, explain why the network perimeter is no longer your security boundary, and make the case for letting battle-hardened libraries like MSAL do the heavy lifting rather than rolling your own auth. From eliminating secrets in ARM templates to Zero Trust principles, this episode lays a practical foundation for securing any cloud application. ### [Deploying Azure Functions and Static Sites with GitHub Actions | Cloud with Chris](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-github-actions/) - Date: 2020-10-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9EtWuDfH1s - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-github-actions/index.md Chris walks through GitHub Actions fundamentals and demonstrates how to use them to build and deploy a multi-tenant Azure Functions API and a static frontend — both triggered automatically on push and pull request events. Using a pet project (a Yu-Gi-Oh card inventory app) as the real-world example, the session covers CI/CD concepts, workflow triggers, GitHub Secrets, publish profiles, Dependabot, and the GitHub public roadmap for upcoming Actions features like manual deployment approvals. ### [9 - Building smart Integration Solutions with Microsoft Azure](https://chrisreddington.com/video/building-smart-integration-solutions/) - Date: 2020-08-02 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN5XqrpTZDQ - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/building-smart-integration-solutions/index.md Building cloud integration solutions means choosing the right messaging and eventing tools — and understanding the critical difference between an event and a message. In this episode, Chris is joined by Ezhilarasi Chezhiyan, Technical Lead at Serverless360 (Kovai.co), to explore Azure's serverless integration landscape: Logic Apps, Azure Functions, Service Bus, Event Grid, and Event Hubs. The discussion covers cloud design patterns including queue-based load leveling, competing consumers, dead letter queues, retry policies, and circuit breakers — plus the observability gap that tools like Serverless360 fill when Azure Monitor falls short for business-level monitoring. ### [8 - Azure Security](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-security/) - Date: 2020-06-07 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UbMBxE-gDU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-security/index.md Moving to Azure? Security has to come first. Chris is joined by cybersecurity expert Andrew Nathan to explore how organisations can build a strong security posture in the cloud — covering Azure Security Center and Secure Score, identity strategy (Azure AD vs. Azure RBAC), multi-factor authentication, threat modelling, Azure Policy and Management Groups for governance, and the evolution of security operations into red team/blue team war gaming. Whether you're starting your cloud journey or course-correcting an existing environment, this episode will help you understand where to begin and how to keep improving over time. ### [7 - Creating Cloud with Chris](https://chrisreddington.com/video/creating-cloud-with-chris/) - Date: 2020-05-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hi-5cGJmfw - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/creating-cloud-with-chris/index.md Ever wondered what goes into building a technical podcast from scratch? In this behind-the-scenes episode, the tables are turned as colleague Fletcher Kelly interviews Chris Reddington about the creation of Cloud with Chris. Topics include choosing a podcast theme, microphone selection, post-production with Audacity, using Azure Cognitive Services for automated transcription, designing for accessibility from day one, and automating the Hugo-based website with CI/CD pipelines. A candid look at the content creation journey behind a technical podcast. ### [6 - Hybrid Cloud](https://chrisreddington.com/video/hybrid-cloud/) - Date: 2020-05-10 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvfQznHkqps - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/hybrid-cloud/index.md Hybrid cloud is no longer just a transitional state between on-premises and public cloud — for many enterprises, it is the end state. Chris is joined by Thomas Maurer, Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, to explore how Azure Arc, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, and Azure IoT Edge help organisations run workloads wherever they make sense: from data centres and factory floors to the network edge and other cloud providers. ### [5 - The API Economy](https://chrisreddington.com/video/api-economy/) - Date: 2020-04-25 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE0g2VycIDU - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/api-economy/index.md APIs are the connective tissue of modern cloud architectures — but poor API design compounds into technical debt that is expensive to unwind. In this episode, Chris Reddington and Peter Piper explore the full lifecycle of API design: defining versioning contracts up front, modernising legacy APIs using the Strangler and Façade patterns, and securing APIs with JWT tokens, OAuth 2.0, and OIDC. They also cover Azure API Management patterns, circuit breakers, throttling, key rotation with Azure Key Vault, and the DevSecOps practices that keep an API estate healthy at scale. ### [4 - Hackathons](https://chrisreddington.com/video/hackathons/) - Date: 2020-04-12 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y24qiraX2m8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/hackathons/index.md Hackathons are a powerful accelerator for learning, innovation, and community building — but what does it actually take to participate in, organize, or mentor at one? In this episode, Chris is joined by Maria Vrabie, an experienced hackathon participant, organizer, and mentor with a background at Microsoft. They explore the full spectrum of hackathon formats: from university weekend events and charity hack days to corporate open hacks run with enterprise customers. Maria shares candid stories from both sides of the organizer table, practical advice for first-timers, and why hackathons are just as relevant for seasoned engineers as they are for students looking to break into tech. ### [3 - DevOps in a Cloud World](https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-in-cloud/) - Date: 2020-03-29 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfsqnds6KZ0 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/devops-in-cloud/index.md DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable the continuous delivery of value to end users — not just code or features. In this episode, Abel Wang, Principal Developer Advocate and DevOps Lead at Microsoft, joins Chris to cover the foundations of DevOps, telemetry-driven development, database DevOps, feature flags, Site Reliability Engineering, and the importance of shifting left on quality and security. ### [2 - Cost Control](https://chrisreddington.com/video/cost-control/) - Date: 2020-03-15 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkbG0fQ7r5o - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/cost-control/index.md Moving to the cloud shifts infrastructure spend from capital expenditure (CapEx) to operational expenditure (OpEx)—but only if you think about cost correctly from the start. This episode covers the cloud cost mindset: right-sizing, auto-scaling (scale out vs scale up), compute resource consolidation, governance through resource tagging and policy, pricing calculators, reserved instances, and how to build cost awareness into your architecture from day one. ### [1 - Requirements in Context](https://chrisreddington.com/video/requirements-in-context/) - Date: 2020-03-01 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW08iPBTBCI - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/requirements-in-context/index.md Every cloud project starts with requirements. In this episode, Chris explores the critical pillars of cloud architecture: resilience (SLA, RTO, RPO, MTTR, MTBF), scalability, performance, and cost. Learn why defining requirements upfront—before drawing architecture diagrams—is essential, and how the same on-premises thinking about availability translates directly into the cloud. ### [0 - Teaser](https://chrisreddington.com/video/teaser/) - Date: 2020-02-19 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/teaser/index.md This is the first recording, a brief teaser ahead of launching cloud with Chris. Stay tuned, and follow for more info! ### [I can use any Azure Compute Service to solve any problem? (Azure Mythbusters)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-use-any-compute-service/) - Date: 2020-01-31 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o5OWSbeNbs - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-use-any-compute-service/index.md Choosing the wrong Azure compute service leads to mismatched scaling behaviour, cost overruns, and avoidable management overhead. This Azure Mythbusters episode compares App Service, App Service Environment, Container Instances, AKS, Service Fabric, Azure Batch, Azure Functions, Logic Apps, Virtual Machines, and VM Scale Sets — highlighting decision factors such as stateful versus stateless workloads, latency requirements, compliance needs, and auto-scale granularity. ### [There are no clear architecture patterns for the Cloud? (Azure Mythbusters)](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-no-clear-architecture-patterns/) - Date: 2020-01-24 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9MHRdAsG8E - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-no-clear-architecture-patterns/index.md Cloud design patterns are abundant and well-documented on the Azure Architecture Center — from established patterns like cache-aside and materialized view to cloud-native ones like circuit breaker and health endpoint monitoring. This Azure Mythbusters episode tours the full pattern catalogue and deep-dives four key patterns: cache-aside, circuit breaker (open/half-open/closed states), health endpoint monitoring, and materialized view in CQRS/event sourcing scenarios. ### [Azure Myth 6: Cloud is expensive - Azure MythBuster](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-cloud-is-expensive/) - Date: 2019-09-04 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IqpT8zBN-w - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-cloud-is-expensive/index.md Cloud is not inherently more expensive than on-premises once you account for hardware depreciation, power, cooling, and network costs — but it requires designing cost into your architecture from the start. This Azure Mythbusters episode examines fixed versus variable cost envelopes, auto-scaling strategies for spiky workloads like Black Friday traffic, the IaaS/PaaS/serverless cost spectrum, and cost as an implicit sixth pillar alongside the five pillars of software quality. ### [Azure Myth 4: Azure is Magical! Management in the cloud compared with on-premises - Azure MythBuster](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-management-in-the-cloud/) - Date: 2019-08-21 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dby4BcWbeng - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-management-in-the-cloud/index.md Moving workloads to Azure does not eliminate management decisions — scalability, resilience, and high availability all require deliberate configuration. This Azure Mythbusters episode contrasts scale-out via VM Scale Sets and auto-scale rules with scale-up by increasing VM SKU size, explains availability sets and availability zones, and shows how PaaS services like Azure Functions still require you to choose the right plan and design cross-region resilience with Traffic Manager. ### [Azure Myth 3: You don’t need requirements in the Cloud… Or do you? - Azure MythBusters](https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-dont-need-requirements/) - Date: 2019-08-20 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObeO6-jsfP8 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/video/azure-mythbusters-dont-need-requirements/index.md Requirements remain essential when migrating to or building on Azure — from availability SLAs and RPO/RTO targets to compliance, data sovereignty, and cost. This Azure Mythbusters episode uses composite SLA calculations and Azure Architecture Center reference architectures to show how under- or over-specifying requirements directly shapes your design, region strategy, and overall cost. ## All Projects ### [An interactive agentic AI mental model](https://chrisreddington.com/project/agentic-ai/) - Date: 2026-04-16 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/project/agentic-ai/index.md An interactive mental model for agentic AI that explains how instructions, retrieved context, session state, memory, MCP servers, sandbox execution, tool results, and the Think-Act-Observe loop fit together. ### [Flight School](https://chrisreddington.com/project/flight-school/) - Date: 2026-01-26 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/project/flight-school/index.md AI-powered coding practice platform built with the GitHub Copilot SDK. Personalized challenges, real-time evaluation, and learning guidance based on your GitHub profile. ### [Timestamp](https://chrisreddington.com/project/timestamp/) - Date: 2026-01-08 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/project/timestamp/index.md A countdown app where every countdown is a URL. Create custom countdowns, timers, and world clocks for any occasion with multiple visual themes and instant URL sharing. ### [Trend Radar Interactive App](https://chrisreddington.com/project/trend-radar/) - Date: 2025-04-13 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/project/trend-radar/index.md An interactive trend radar visualising threats and opportunities across Political, Economic, Social, and Technological dimensions. Trends are displayed in concentric circles, with size indicating impact and color representing preparedness. ### [Game of Life Walkthrough](https://chrisreddington.com/project/game-of-life-walkthrough/) - Date: 2024-12-18 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/project/game-of-life-walkthrough/index.md This is a companion walkthrough for the hero Game of Life video that was published on the GitHub YouTube channel. ### [gh-skyline](https://chrisreddington.com/project/gh-skyline/) - Date: 2024-12-09 - Markdown: https://chrisreddington.com/project/gh-skyline/index.md gh-skyline is a GitHub CLI extension that generates an STL file of a user's GitHub Contribution history