The Linux Academy Blog
Practical guides for cloud, DevOps & data engineers
Hands-on walkthroughs on the tools we teach — CI/CD, streaming, observability, databases and cloud. Written to get you productive, then point you to a free course to go deeper.
What Happens When You Load a Web Page: Client to Server, End to End
The complete journey of one web request — URL parsing, DNS, IP routing, the TCP and TLS handshakes, the HTTP exchange, what the server does, and how the browser turns bytes into pixels. The famous interview question, answered in full.
Kubernetes Cost Optimization: A Practical Playbook
Where Kubernetes money actually leaks and how to stop it — pod and node right-sizing, node auto-provisioning (GKE NAP, EKS Auto Mode, Karpenter), ARM64, Spot-first with regular fallback, per-namespace compute classes, and the non-prod wins that cut the bill in half.
PodDisruptionBudgets on Kubernetes: The Safety Net Your StatefulSets Need
What PodDisruptionBudgets really do, why quorum-based StatefulSets like Consul, ClickHouse Keeper and MinIO can't run safely without one, and the exact PDB configs — with the traps that silently break upgrades and block autoscaling.
GKE Node Auto-Provisioning: Spot-First with Regular Fallback
Let GKE create the right node pools automatically, then cut compute cost dramatically with Spot-first, on-demand-fallback scheduling — the modern Custom Compute Classes way — plus a hands-on lab.
CDNs Explained: Google Cloud CDN & AWS CloudFront
How a CDN speeds up your site and cuts origin load, the caching concepts that matter, a practical comparison and setup of Google Cloud CDN and AWS CloudFront, and how to lift your hit ratio.
RDS & Cloud SQL: Day-to-Day Operations
Managed databases still need an operator. The routine tasks that keep AWS RDS and Google Cloud SQL healthy: backups & PITR, failover, scaling, parameter groups, monitoring, security and cost.
PostgreSQL Installation & Administration: Linux, Docker & Kubernetes
Install and operate PostgreSQL on Linux, Docker, and Kubernetes, then master roles, backups (pg_dump & PITR), replication, VACUUM, and query tuning — with a full example and troubleshooting.
MySQL Installation & Administration: Linux, Docker & Kubernetes
Install and run MySQL three ways — Linux, Docker, Kubernetes — then the day-to-day admin: users, backups & restores, replication, tuning, and the errors every DBA hits, with fixes.
Deploy & Operate ClickHouse on Kubernetes with the Altinity Operator
Run ClickHouse — the blazing-fast analytics database — on Kubernetes with the Altinity Operator: shards, replicas, Keeper, persistent storage, a worked cluster, backups, scaling and troubleshooting.
Monitoring & Alerting with the kube-prometheus-stack
Install Prometheus, Grafana and Alertmanager on Kubernetes in one Helm chart, scrape your own app with a ServiceMonitor, write a symptom-based alert, route it to Slack — with a full example and fixes.
Centralized Logging: ELK with Fluent Bit on OpenSearch
Build a modern logging pipeline: Fluent Bit collects and ships logs, OpenSearch stores and indexes them, Dashboards lets you search — with parsing, index lifecycle for cost, and troubleshooting.
Kafka, RabbitMQ & Pulsar: Choosing and Running Them HA on Kubernetes
How the three big messaging systems differ, when to pick each, and how to install them for high availability on Kubernetes with the right operators, replication, anti-affinity — plus a failure drill.
Bitbucket Pipelines, End to End
A complete tour of Bitbucket Pipelines: the bitbucket-pipelines.yml model, steps, caches, services, artifacts, gated deployments, OIDC to the cloud, plus a full example and troubleshooting.
GitHub Actions, End to End
A complete CI/CD walkthrough with GitHub Actions: workflows, jobs, matrix builds, caching, secrets, keyless cloud auth with OIDC, a full build-test-deploy pipeline, and troubleshooting.
Getting Started on Upwork as a Freelancer
A complete, no-fluff playbook for landing your first Upwork client: a profile that converts, proposals that get read, pricing, escrow, and the trust-building that wins repeat work.