IT Insights by Julian Rouse

In the dynamic world of IT, restructuring a team is often necessary to align with evolving business goals, new technologies, or shifting project demands. I recently read an insightful article on InformationWeek titled  “How to Know When It’s Time to Restructure Your IT Team” , which delves into the signs that indicate a need for restructuring and how to navigate the transition. Based on this article, I want to share two perspectives on the topic: one from my experience joining a restructured DevOps team in the past and another from a more recent experience as a manager who facilitated a successful team member transition. Joining a Recently Restructured DevOps Team Several years ago, I joined a DevOps team that had undergone significant restructuring. My role at the time involved replacing a colleague who was well-versed in network administration and database management. My background in system administration, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and security aligned better with the new di...

When it comes to deploying a multi-tier application infrastructure in Azure, selecting the right deployment strategy can make all the difference in the efficiency and maintainability of the project. In this blog, I’ll walk you through the different ARM template options, using a real-world project I’m currently working on for a client. We'll explore the pros and cons of single, linked, and nested templates, and how I utilized these strategies to create a robust deployment pipeline. We’ll also dive into the decision-making process behind choosing incremental versus complete deployments, and why keeping resource groups clean is crucial for cost management. Single Template vs. Linked Templates vs. Nested Templates ARM templates offer several options for structuring your deployment: Single Template Deployment : This approach involves defining all resources in one large template. While simple to implement for smaller projects, it can become unwieldy and difficult to manage as the complex...