Terraform

The DNS Configuration Tax Every cloud architect has been here: you’re launching a new site, and you hit the DNS configuration phase. The checklist: Request SSL certificate in AWS ACM Copy the validation CNAME (name: _abc123..., value: _xyz789...) Log into Cloudflare (or Route 53, or whoever) Add the CNAME record Wait 5-10 minutes Refresh AWS console repeatedly Certificate finally validates Create CloudFront distribution Copy CloudFront domain name (d1234abcd.cloudfront.net) Log back into Cloudflare Add CNAME for root domain Add CNAME for www subdomain Test DNS: dig graycloudarch.com Oh crap, forgot to set it to “DNS only” (gray cloud) Fix it, test again Time: 20-30 minutes if everything goes right Typo risk: High (those validation records are 60+ characters) Fun factor: Zero ...

How I Built a Multi-Account AWS Platform for an Enterprise Media Company Project Duration: Q4 2025 - Q1 2026 Infrastructure Scale: 6 AWS accounts, 2 production EKS clusters, 50+ engineers Role: Staff Cloud Architect & Platform Lead The Challenge An enterprise media company was facing a classic scaling problem: multiple platform teams (advertising, data analytics, content hosting) were duplicating infrastructure across siloed AWS accounts. Each team built their own VPCs, security baselines, and CI/CD pipelines—resulting in: ...