Saleh Elnagar

This YouTube session covers Docker best practices for real‑world/production systems. It goes beyond “how to run a container” and focuses on patterns that make containers smaller, safer, and easier to operate: Dockerfile structure, image layering and caching, multi‑stage builds, base image choices, running as non‑root, handling configuration/secrets safely, and practical runtime considerations like health checks, logging, and resource limits. The impact is a shareable, beginner‑friendly but production‑minded reference that helps teams avoid common container mistakes, improve consistency across environments, and ship more reliable services.

In this article, I share a practical blueprint for building a production-ready Azure VM Terraform module beyond “it deploys,” but something teams can safely reuse. I walk through module structure and input validation, consistent naming/tagging, secure-by-default networking (no public IP by default), and embedding security controls like Key Vault, Trusted Launch, and encryption. I also cover operations and governance (monitoring/AMA + DCR, diagnostics, backup, updates) and the CI/CD guardrails needed to keep the module reliable over time (fmt/validate, linting, security scanning, and policy gates). The impact is a reusable reference + checklist that helps teams standardize VM deployments, reduce drift, and ship secure infrastructure faster

This article explains why an Azure Virtual WAN (vWAN) “enterprise fabric” is no longer just a networking deliverable: the DevOps engineer becomes the decision backbone that turns design intent (IP schemas, routing intent, segmentation, resiliency) into codified Infrastructure as Code, enforceable governance, and validated operations. It outlines how DevOps supports design sessions (pre‑work with IaC/policy/pipelines, live translation of requirements into parameters and quality gates, and post‑session validation with deployment rings and testing/observability). It also provides practical IaC patterns and checklists so teams can build repeatable, testable Azure‑only network fabrics with less drift and faster approvals.

azure-terraform-conventions is an open-source repo that codifies Azure resource naming conventions in Terraform. It provides reusable modules, examples, and guidance that teams can clone or adapt to their own standards. The goal is to make it easy to apply consistent, readable, and policy-friendly names across subscriptions and environments, instead of everyone reinventing their own pattern. This helps improve governance, makes environments easier to navigate, and reduces friction when collaborating across teams and projects.

I wrote a hands-on article showing how to use HashiCorp Packer (HCL) to build a custom VM image and publish it to Azure Compute Gallery. The post walks through a complete, repeatable workflow: setting up Packer + Azure CLI, structuring Packer config/variables cleanly, authenticating with Azure CLI, creating the gallery and image definition, then running packer init / packer build to produce and publish a versioned image that can be reused for VMs or VM Scale Sets. The impact is helping teams adopt consistent “golden images”, reduce configuration drift, and speed up deployments with an approach that fits naturally into DevOps automation.