Cluster B · DevOps-as-a-Service on AWS
AWS DevOps, done without the hire
Build-grade reference guides for the AWS infrastructure work that actually matters: Terraform & IaC, EKS and containers, CI/CD pipelines, landing zones, observability, and reliability: what good looks like, and what it costs.
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- AWS DevOps: the complete 2026 guideAWS DevOps end to end: the 8 surfaces from IaC and CI/CD to observability and cost, native vs third-party tools, and build vs hire vs partner.
- DevOps as a Service: the 2026 guideDevOps as a Service explained: what a provider owns, how it compares to hiring or an agency, rough 2026 prices, month one, and how to pick a provider.
- DevOps consulting on AWS: scope, pricing and vettingWhat an AWS DevOps consultant delivers, 2026 price ranges, consulting vs managed vs hire, how to vet a consultant, red flags, and when AWS funding applies.
- AWS DevOps services: the 2026 menuThe ten AWS DevOps services teams buy, from IaC and CI/CD to EKS, SOC 2 prep and on-call: what each includes, typical timelines and how to scope one.
Terraform & IaC
- Terraform consulting on AWS: the 2026 guideAWS Terraform consulting in 2026: module design, remote state, CI/CD plan and apply gates, leaving ClickOps, how to vet a consultant, and price ranges.
- Hire a Terraform consultant: the 2026 hiring playbookHire a Terraform consultant in 2026: what great looks like, vetting questions, freelancer vs agency vs matched partner, real rates, and a faster path.
- Infrastructure as code on AWS: the 2026 referenceInfrastructure as code on AWS: Terraform/OpenTofu vs CDK vs CloudFormation vs Pulumi, state, modules, CI/CD and multi-account, plus a partner to build it.
- Terraform vs Pulumi: the honest 2026 comparisonTerraform/OpenTofu vs Pulumi: HCL vs real code, state, ecosystem, testing, hiring pool, licensing (BSL vs Apache-2.0), CI/CD, and a verdict by team.
- Terraform vs CloudFormation vs Pulumi: the 2026 comparisonTerraform/OpenTofu vs CloudFormation/CDK vs Pulumi on AWS: scope, state, language, modules, rollback, multi-account and licensing, with a decision table.
Hire / fractional
- Fractional DevOps: the full 2026 guideFractional DevOps for startups: what the role does, when it beats a full-time hire or DaaS, retainer models, the savings math and bus-factor risks.
- Outsourced DevOps on AWS: models, control & costOutsourcing DevOps on AWS: what to outsource vs keep in-house, the three models, how to keep control of your IaC, security, and what it really costs.
- Hire a DevOps engineer for AWS: levels, salaries + the faster routeHire an AWS DevOps engineer in 2026: skills by level, salary ranges, how to vet, and full-time vs fractional vs outsourced, plus a faster partner route.
- DevOps consulting services pricing: the real 2026 rangesDevOps consulting pricing in 2026: hourly, fixed, retainer and outcome-based models, rough ranges by engagement type, cost drivers and extras.
Kubernetes & containers
- Kubernetes (EKS) consulting on AWS: the honest guideKubernetes (EKS) consulting on AWS: what it covers, when EKS beats ECS with Fargate, the mistakes consultants fix, how to vet a partner, and what it costs.
- Amazon EKS setup: a production-ready cluster, step by stepAmazon EKS setup step by step: eksctl, Terraform or Auto Mode, node groups vs Fargate vs Karpenter, VPC and CNI, Pod Identity, ingress, cost, checklist.
- ECS vs EKS: the AWS container comparisonECS vs EKS compared: operational overhead, learning curve, ecosystem, portability, scaling and cost (EKS is $0.10 per cluster-hour), and when each wins.
- Amazon ECS setup: the production guide and buildAmazon ECS setup: Fargate vs EC2, task definitions and services, ALB, autoscaling, awsvpc, secrets, blue-green deploys and a production checklist.
CI/CD & platform
- CI/CD on AWS: the reference pipeline and buildCI/CD on AWS: GitHub Actions vs CodePipeline vs GitLab CI, a build-test-scan-ECR-deploy reference pipeline, blue-green and canary, OIDC, IaC and rollback.
- Internal developer platforms on AWS: build, buy or partnerWhat an internal developer platform is, its building blocks, Backstage vs commercial, when it is worth it, a reference AWS architecture and a rollout plan.
- Platform engineering on AWS: the discipline, the team, and how to startPlatform engineering on AWS: what it is, how it differs from DevOps and SRE, the platform-team mandate, when to start a team, and measuring it with DORA.
- GitOps on AWS: Argo CD vs Flux + implementationGitOps on AWS: Git as source of truth, pull-based reconciliation, Argo CD vs Flux on EKS, app-of-apps, secrets, Argo Rollouts, multi-cluster and drift.
Reliability & operations
- Disaster recovery on AWS: the four strategiesThe four AWS disaster recovery strategies (backup and restore, pilot light, warm standby, active/active), RTO and RPO, key services, and how to test DR.
- AWS landing zone: the secure multi-account baselineAWS landing zone: the secure multi-account baseline (OUs, SCPs, central logging, IAM Identity Center, networking). Control Tower vs LZA vs Terraform.
- Load balancing on AWS: ALB vs NLB vs GWLBWhen to use ALB vs NLB vs GWLB, target groups and health checks, TLS, autoscaling, WAF and CloudFront, LCU pricing, and the misconfigs behind 503s.
- Blue-green deployment on AWS: the full pattern and buildBlue/green deployment on AWS: blue/green vs canary vs rolling, building each on ECS, EKS and Lambda, automatic rollback on alarms, database gotchas.
- AWS observability setup: metrics, logs, traces and SLOs that workAWS observability: the three pillars (metrics, logs, traces), CloudWatch and X-Ray vs Datadog or Grafana, OpenTelemetry, SLO alerting and log cost control.
- Site reliability engineering on AWS: SLOs, on-call, and resilienceSite reliability engineering on AWS: SLIs, SLOs and error budgets, humane on-call, reliability patterns and FIS game days, and when to buy fractional SRE.
- AWS Well-Architected Review: the six pillars, the workshop, who paysAn AWS Well-Architected Review (WAFR) checks one workload against six pillars and flags high-risk issues: the tool, the workshop, who pays, how to prepare.