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Unit 13 Worksheet

Instructions

Fill out the worksheet as you progress through the lab and discussions. Hold your worksheets until the end to turn them in as a final submission packet.

Downloads

The worksheet has been provided below. The document(s) can be transposed to the desired format so long as the content is preserved. For example, the .txt could be transposed to a .md file.

Unit 13 Recording

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Link: Coming soon

Discussion Post #1

Scenario

Your management has been discussing ways to reduce errors in your current “wild wild west” environment. Read about configuration management here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Configuration_management

  1. What overlap of terms and concepts do you see from this week’s meeting?
  2. What are some of the standards and guidelines organizations involved with configuration management?
    • a. Do you recognize them from other IT activities?

Discussion Post #2

Review the SRE guide to treating configurations as code. Read as much as you like, but focus down on the “Practical Advice” section: https://google.github.io/building-secure-and-reliable-systems/raw/ch14.html#treat_configuration_as_code

  1. What are the best practices that you can use in your configuration management adherence?
    • a. What are the security threats and how can you mitigate them?
    • b. Why might it be good to know this as you design a CMDB or CI/CD pipeline?

Info

Submit your input by following the link. The discussion posts are done in Discord Forums.
Link to Discussion Posts

Definitions

  • CMDB
  • Configuration Management Best Practices
  • Change management
    • Engineering Change Boards (ECBs)
    • Change Advisory Boards (CABs)
    • Change Windows
  • Downtime Windows

Digging Deeper

  1. Read about how AWS, and other cloud vendors detect and remediate drift in systems: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/remediating-configuration-drift.html

Reflection Questions

  1. What questions do you still have about this week?
  2. How are you going to use what you’ve learned in your current role?