log4net.Elasticsearch
While working on Postmark Wildbit, I grew a pretty decent skill set for using and administering Elasticsearch, an excellent searching and index server. I wrote a plugin for log4net called log4net.Elasticsearch. You can install it directly from Nuget to your .NET project and use it to pipe your logs directly to Elasticsearch. It makes for an incredibly powerful and searchable log database. You can find out more at the Github repository and wiki.
Pluralsight Courses
I am currently working on a new course for Pluralsight called “Centralized Logging with the Elastic Stack” which will release in January, 2017 is out! It will teach the user how to setup Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, and the Beats utilities to centralize all logging, monitoring, and alerting across a heterogeneous network environment.
If you’d like to learn how to use Ansible with Windows-based environments, I recently released a course which teaches how to do that from scratch. It covers roles, security, and a good introduction to Ansible itself so prior experience isn’t required.
I created beginner a course for the online learning network Pluralsight which is a thorough introduction to Elasticsearch. It assumes no knowledge of NoSQL or Elasticsearch and walks the viewer through from the start.
I also wrote a followup course about administering an Elasticsearch cluster. This course doesn’t require any preview Elasticsearch experience but having some server administration under your belt is helpful. I take you through building a proper Elasticsearch cluster from start to finish.
Barcamp Philadelphia
In 2008 I co-founded Barcamp Philly with a wonderful friend of mine, Roz Duffy. We grew barcamp into a fully fledged and funded “unconference” which still still takes place every year in Philadelphia, PA. We’ve since passed the reigns on to some incredibly worth caretakers who continue to evolve barcamp into a highly relevant and fun annual community event.