Tim's Tech Thoughts

How Startups & SMBs Can Leverage AWS Marketplace to Accelerate Growth

2024-11-18 AWS Timothy Patterson
As a Startup or Small-to-Medium Business (SMB), you’re always looking for ways to move fast and scale smart 💡. AWS Marketplace offers a powerful resource to help you get the tools you need without spending time and money building everything from scratch. It’s a one-stop shop for finding, purchasing, and deploying software and services that meet your business needs. Cloud marketplaces are becoming a key channel for businesses to quickly discover and purchase software. Continue reading

Unlocking the Power of AWS Marketplace: A Guide for Every Persona

2024-11-14 AWS Timothy Patterson
Welcome to the start of an exciting journey 🚀, where I dive into the AWS Marketplace! Whether you’re a Startup, SMB, Enterprise, Solution Integrator, or Independent Software Vendor (ISV), the AWS Marketplace offers a treasure trove of tools and services designed to help you scale, innovate, and manage software and data procurement, provisioning, and governance in the cloud. In this series, I’ll explore how each persona can unlock the full potential of the AWS Marketplace—from discovering ready-to-deploy software solutions to simplifying procurement and streamlining management tasks. Continue reading

Encrypt and Copy Existing AWS Backup Recovery Points to a New Account for Enhanced Security

2024-08-30 AWS Timothy Patterson
Backup Best Practices in Data Protection When designing a secure backup solution on AWS, it is important to ensure that: Recovery points are stored in a separate account: This prevents an attacker from deleting both the production data and backups in the event of credential compromise. Backups are encrypted: Even if data is lost or compromised, encryption ensures that it cannot be read or misused. In this post, I will guide you through a process to implement a solution that satisfies both of these best practices. Continue reading

Remediating Unencrypted EBS Volumes: Encryption in Action

2024-08-27 AWS Timothy Patterson
Recap: Preparing for Full Encryption In the last two posts, I discussed the importance of encrypting data at rest and how to identify unencrypted EBS volumes attached to EC2 instances by using a Python script. After generating a report, I outlined the initial steps for remediation, which included gathering information about unencrypted volumes. Now, it’s time to take action in an automated fashion. In this post, I’ll guide you through the process of actually encrypting unencrypted EBS volumes using the encrypt-ec2-ebs-vols. Continue reading

Data Encryption at Rest: Preparing for EBS Volumes Remediation

2024-08-26 AWS Timothy Patterson
Taking the First Steps Toward Secure Data at Rest In the previous post , I discussed the importance of encrypting data at rest and introduced the powerful combination of AWS tools and the Prowler open-source framework. After running Prowler’s security assessment, you may have identified some unencrypted resources, particularly EBS volumes attached to EC2 instances. Remediating unencrypted EBS volumes is critical for ensuring that sensitive data is protected, but it requires a careful, planned approach. Continue reading

Data Encryption at Rest

2024-08-21 AWS Timothy Patterson
The Critical Role of Data Encryption at Rest Data encryption at rest is an essential security measure for protecting sensitive information. In today’s digital landscape, organizations face strict compliance requirements, whether for regulatory standards like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS, or for internal data protection policies. Encrypting data at rest ensures that even if storage devices are compromised, unauthorized users cannot read the data. This not only protects privacy but also ensures that businesses meet their compliance obligations and mitigate security risks. Continue reading

The Evolution of AI: From Monolithic to Task Specific Models

2024-03-05 AWS Timothy Patterson
The field of artificial intelligence (AI) has been rapidly evolving, with new advancements and breakthroughs happening at an unprecedented pace. One of the most significant trends we’ve recently observed is the shift from monolithic, all-encompassing AI models to more specialized, task-specific models. This shift mirrors the historical trend in software development, where we moved from monolithic applications to microservices-based architectures. From Monolithic to Microservices In the past, software applications were often built as monolithic structures, where a single application would handle all the functionality and features. Continue reading
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal thoughts and do not represent the views of any present or past employer in any way.