Title: A Month of Muddling Through - December 2009

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December 2009 was a month of mixed feelings. On one hand, the cloud vs. colo debates were raging, and I found myself in the thick of it as we evaluated our move from a colocation center to AWS. On the other hand, personal challenges were hitting hard. But let’s start with what was going on around us.

The Cloud Debates

The cloud vs. colo debate was at an all-time high. We had just finished a full audit of our current hosting environment and found that it wasn’t cost-effective or flexible enough for our growing needs. Our team was split—some wanted to stay in the data center, while others were already sold on moving to the cloud.

The Decision

After weeks of debate, we made the decision to move to AWS. It wasn’t an easy choice, especially since it meant leaving behind a lot of legacy infrastructure and hardware. But with the promise of scalability and cost efficiency, it seemed like the right move forward.

Personal Challenges

Alongside the technical challenges, personal issues were swirling around me. My relationship was in turmoil, and I found myself questioning my priorities. One evening, while troubleshooting an AWS outage that left our service partially down, I couldn’t help but think about how much pressure this situation added to my life.

Debugging the Outage

The outage was due to a misconfigured security group rule that allowed external access to one of our internal services. It took some late nights and a lot of coffee to get it fixed, but eventually, we were back up and running.

But the aftermath left me feeling uneasy. The thought that such a simple mistake could cause downtime kept gnawing at my mind. I started questioning whether I was doing enough to ensure the reliability of our systems.

Agile/Scrum and Team Dynamics

Agile and Scrum practices were spreading like wildfire, but their implementation wasn’t always smooth sailing. Our team was still figuring out how to integrate these methodologies into our daily work flow. There were days when everyone seemed on edge because we hadn’t followed the “rules” of scrum correctly.

A Misunderstood Sprint

During one sprint planning meeting, I proposed a feature that would make our lives easier in the long run but required some significant initial effort. The team pushed back hard, insisting on simpler tasks to keep up with their velocity metrics. It was frustrating because I knew we needed to take a step back and invest in infrastructure that would save us time later.

The Agile Detour

Eventually, we took a break from strict scrum practices and focused more on the overall health of our systems. We started implementing continuous integration and automated testing, which helped catch issues earlier and allowed for more flexible sprint planning.

Learning to Prioritize

Looking back at December 2009, I realize how much I’ve grown both personally and professionally. The move to AWS was a significant milestone, but it wasn’t the only lesson of that month. Learning to balance technical challenges with personal struggles, and finding ways to integrate new methodologies without losing sight of our goals—these were the real takeaways.

As 2010 began, I felt more confident in my ability to handle whatever came next. The cloud was here to stay, and so was the need for continuous improvement and flexibility.

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That’s how I made it through December 2009. Not glamorous, but definitely a month of learning and growing.