I completed the Cloud Resume Challenge after about 2 or 3 weeks of configuration.

It was a very interesting and enlightening experience to learn about all sorts of different technology.

Resume: https://cfresume.com/
GitHub: https://github.com/cfraser17/cfraser-crs

Overall, this was a enlightening experience. I learned a lot from various sources, scavenger hunted for information, and applied those solutions to get my results. This is only the first step in the journey however, as there is so much more to learn.

Frontend

The deployment of the frontend came rather naturally. I did use someone else's HTML and CSS and edited slightly. I think the end result looks nice but it could be refined.

Deploying the frontend was more straightforward. AWS has good doc, and I used some Udemy courses I had to fill in the steps. I initially set everything up through the GUI but then did a restart through AWS SAM.

Backend

The backend confused the hell out of me. Python, Javascript, API's, Lambda? To be frank, the book Forrest sells did give me a good path to take, but the code was very open ended. Thankfully, I had a good mentor to walk me through and the people on the CRS Discord also gave hints on what functions and methods to use.

CI/CD and IAC

It was at this point I had restarted my project to learn the more IaC portion of this. I used Lou's Open Up The Cloud guide for most of this.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEk97Q5Nj5oesA1WNk7DzaUpZUnCsQFVQ

It was very useful and enlightening. It was cool to be able to upload all my files via commands with AWS-Vault and GIT. Note to self though, I will find a way to get this to work with a Linux VM. I had to go through so many hoops just to get these commands to work with Windows.

Next steps

The main reason I took this challenge and what sold me on it was this excerpt from the website.

There were times I was ready to pull my head out as to why something didn't work as it should, or why I couldn't figure out how to get this code to work. DynamoDB still confuses me and there's a 450 page guide on it. There were times I spent 4 hours or so with no work to show and it was demotivating and frustrating.

However, I was stimulated. When you get into a flow, sometimes it feels like you can't stop. When I was setting up the CI/CD, I had spent 4 hours trying to get Cypress to work on GitHub Actions. One complaint I do have is that some doc on tech can be a little hard to read and follow. It wasn't until I found a random dev.to blog of someone setting up in a step by step manner that got me going. Kudos to @dwwhalen

I do have much more to learn. My next step to study and take the RHCSA, then I may continue with my AWS certs. I'm going to continue to try to grow in this path but if another opportunity does show up, I may jump ship. At least I have the knowledge now that this is something I do find stimulating.