Pipelines and Pizza shares practical DevOps and infrastructure insights on Terraform, Nutanix, Azure, and Ansible—covering everything from junior fundamentals to senior-level architecture strategies.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/ripgrep-why-you-should-switch/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/ripgrep-why-you-should-switch/The repo audit behind Monday's post was one tool run a dozen ways. ripgrep's real advantage isn't speed — it's that by default it searches your source code and not your dependencies, and one flag turns it into an audit engine.Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:30:00 GMTMonday I wrote about auditing this blog's own repo and finding 39 broken links plus a 'required' field that 28 of 45 posts didn't have. Nobody found those by reading 45 files. One tool found them, run a dozen different ways. The pitch for ripgrep is usually speed, and that's the least interesting thing about it — the real win is that it searches your source code instead of your dependencies by default. On this repo that's 173 files instead of 19,563. Plus the one flag that turns a search tool into an audit tool: --files-without-match.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/mise-en-place-repo-hygiene/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/mise-en-place-repo-hygiene/Repo hygiene isn't tidiness — it's a chef's mise en place for your repository: this blog's own repo shipped 39 broken links and a 'required' field 28 posts ignored, and here's the operational practice that fixes it for good.Mon, 10 Aug 2026 14:30:00 GMTI audited this blog's own repo last week and found 39 broken internal links that had been live for months, a 'required' frontmatter field that 28 of 45 posts simply didn't have, and a reviewer confidently flagging intentional behavior as a bug — because the decision was never written down. None of it was carelessness. All of it was hygiene debt, compounding silently. This post opens a new series on treating repo hygiene the way a kitchen treats mise en place: not tidiness, an operational practice. Starting with the embarrassing audit findings, because you should never trust a hygiene sermon from someone who won't show you their own kitchen.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/codeowners-in-3-minutes/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/codeowners-in-3-minutes/A CODEOWNERS file is a routing table for code review — last match wins, and it enforces nothing until one branch-protection checkbox says so. The two-minute setup and the four gotchas.Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:30:00 GMTWednesday minis — one sharp idea, three minutes, back to work. First up: the two things almost everyone gets wrong about CODEOWNERS. The file is a routing table where the LAST match wins, not the first — and without one specific branch-protection checkbox, the whole thing is just a suggestion box.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/tempo-kubernetes-distributed-tracing-nutanix/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/tempo-kubernetes-distributed-tracing-nutanix/Grafana Tempo in distributed mode on Kubernetes with Nutanix Objects as the S3 backend — why we finally deployed the T in LGTM, the three-Alloy collector design, no-auth OTLP ingest with four compensating controls, and the DNS-CNAME HA pattern that deliberately breaks with our log dual-write.Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:30:00 GMTTwo months of silence, one interstate move, and a lot of cardboard boxes later — Pipelines and Pizza is back. And we're back with unfinished business: the LGTM series covered Loki, Grafana, and Mimir in depth, but Tempo only ever got cameo appearances. This post closes the loop. Distributed tracing on Nutanix Objects, why we run a THIRD Alloy just for traces, why our OTLP ingest has no auth on purpose, and the July incident where a pod upgrade silently threw away the cross-DC trace backlog we'd built the whole HA design to protect.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/lgtm-nutanix-first-100-days-retrospective/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/lgtm-nutanix-first-100-days-retrospective/A hundred days into running the LGTM stack on Nutanix — what's actually deployed, the bugs that bit us, the surprises that didn't, and what's still on the roadmap. No fabricated war stories; every fix below is in our changelog.Fri, 29 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTClosing post in the LGTM-on-Nutanix series. We started the architecture in early February. It's now mid-May. A hundred days in is the right time to look back honestly: what's deployed, what bit us, what we'd do differently if we were starting from scratch tomorrow. Drain catch-22 on stateful sets. Canal CNI DNAT breaking NetworkPolicy rules that use service CIDRs. Loki self-tracing disabled by an upstream dskit schema URL conflict. The 5M → 8M Mimir series cap bump. All from the changelog, not from a memory I haven't earned yet.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/grafana-dashboards-that-actually-get-used/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/grafana-dashboards-that-actually-get-used/The dashboard set we maintain — 118 dashboards across 18 domain-organized folders, NetApp Harvest + Pure FlashArray + Nutanix multi-vendor storage section, ConfigMap-sidecar GitOps pattern, and the rules that keep the set from sprawling.Tue, 26 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTPart 9 of the LGTM-on-Nutanix series — dashboards. We run 118 of them across 18 domain-organized folders (NetApp has 42 on its own — Harvest gives you a lot). Every dashboard is a ConfigMap in Git, picked up by Grafana's sidecar pattern. This post covers the actual folder structure, the multi-vendor storage approach that gets NetApp + Pure + Nutanix into one view, and the lightweight rules we use to keep dashboards from sprawling.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/grafana-kubernetes-cloudnativepg-clone-upgrade/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/grafana-kubernetes-cloudnativepg-clone-upgrade/Running Grafana on Kubernetes backed by CloudNativePG instead of SQLite, plus the real Grafana 12.4.2 → 13.0.1 upgrade we ran last month, including the irreversible-moment that makes the pre-upgrade Postgres backup load-bearing.Fri, 22 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTPart 8 of the LGTM-on-Nutanix series — Grafana on Kubernetes with CloudNativePG as the backing database, and the real Grafana 12.4.2 → 13.0.1 upgrade we ran last month. The upgrade has an irreversible moment (the unified-storage migration runs on first 13.0 boot — after that, a downgraded 12.x only sees stale pre-migration data). That moment is what makes the pre-upgrade backup the rollback strategy.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/mimir-kubernetes-scalable-metrics-nutanix/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/mimir-kubernetes-scalable-metrics-nutanix/Deploying Grafana Mimir on Kubernetes in a deliberately lean microservices topology with Nutanix Objects as the S3 backend — the real config running ~620K active series at 365-day retention, including why three of our Mimir components run as singletons on purpose.Tue, 19 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTPart 7 of the LGTM-on-Nutanix series — Mimir. Real numbers: ~620K active series, 365-day retention, three ingester replicas, three queriers, and three components running as singletons on purpose. This post covers why we picked Mimir over Thanos for a net-new platform, the four memcached caches that make queries fast, and the ADR-028 reasoning behind keeping the compactor at one replica even when reviewers flagged it as a SPOF.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/loki-production-labels-logql-tenancy/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/loki-production-labels-logql-tenancy/The production side of Loki — the label set we run, the 14-rule per-stream retention table, the LogQL alerts we actually rely on (audit, syslog, firewall), and the ingestion-rate gotcha that bit us early.Fri, 15 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTPart 6 of the LGTM-on-Nutanix series — deploying Loki was the easy half. Running it is where the choices matter. This post covers the real label set, the 14-rule per-stream retention table we run (kube-audit 90d, switch syslog 365d, calico noise 30d, plus eleven more), the LogQL alerts that protect The Conveyor (cluster-admin binding, firewall deny spike, interface flap), and the ingestion-rate gotcha I tripped over.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/loki-kubernetes-deployment/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/loki-kubernetes-deployment/Deploying Grafana Loki in SimpleScalable mode on Kubernetes with Nutanix Objects as the S3 backend — the real values we run, schema configuration, and why we picked SimpleScalable over Distributed.Tue, 12 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTPart 5 of the LGTM-on-Nutanix series: deploying Loki. Three write replicas, three read replicas, two backend replicas, all writing to Nutanix Objects via the S3 API. SimpleScalable mode — not Distributed — because we didn't need the operational complexity. Real values from production, including the pod anti-affinity rule we added after a drain catch-22 nearly took down our queries.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/alloy-production-logs-metrics-nutanix/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/alloy-production-logs-metrics-nutanix/The real Alloy DaemonSet configuration running across fleet — pod logs, kube-audit, node metrics, kubelet, cAdvisor, etcd, apiserver, CoreDNS, CNPG, and synthetic probes — plus the production lessons that shaped it.Fri, 08 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTLast post I covered why we picked Alloy and how the three deployments fit together. This post is the actual DaemonSet config we run on the cluster — the one collecting pod logs and metrics for The Conveyor right now. It has bug fixes baked in for things you can only learn by running it: kube-audit entries that blow past Loki's 256KB limit, every DaemonSet pod trying to scrape every node, Alloy hardcoding its own service.name in traces. The real lessons are in the comments.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/grafana-alloy-kubernetes-deployment/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/grafana-alloy-kubernetes-deployment/How we deploy Grafana Alloy on Kubernetes using three separate topologies — a DaemonSet for pod logs and node metrics, a Deployment with a MetalLB VIP for syslog and SNMP, and a Deployment for OTLP traces. Plus why Telegraf earned a permanent seat at the table.Tue, 05 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTBefore this project our observability was basic SolarWinds. It told us when a server was down, never why. No log collection. No analytics. No correlation between a network blip and an app failure. Now we run three Alloy deployments across two data centers ingesting Kubernetes pod logs, Cisco switch syslog, NetFlow-grade telemetry, Windows EventLog — the works. Here is how we deployed it, why we split it three ways, and why Telegraf still gets a slice of the pie.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/nutanix-objects-s3-backend-loki-mimir/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/nutanix-objects-s3-backend-loki-mimir/How we configured Nutanix Objects as the S3-compatible storage backend for Grafana Loki, Mimir, and Tempo — bucket architecture across two data centers, F5 GSLB for cross-DC HA, credential management with External Secrets Operator, and a dual-retention strategy that survives compactor mistakes.Fri, 01 May 2026 14:30:00 GMTEvery component in our LGTM observability stack writes to object storage. Loki chunks, Mimir blocks, Tempo traces, Postgres backups — all of it lands on Nutanix Objects. Here's how we architected the storage layer across two data centers with per-DC buckets, F5 GSLB for HA, and a dual-retention strategy that keeps auditors happy. The setup was honestly smoother than expected.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/lgtm-stack-on-nutanix-architecture-overview/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/observability/lgtm-stack-on-nutanix-architecture-overview/Architecture overview of a self-hosted LGTM observability stack (Loki, Grafana, Tempo, Mimir) running on Nutanix — why we built it with zero software budget on recycled hardware, what each component does, and the honest trade-offs five months in.Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:30:00 GMTWe failed a DR exercise. Not because our systems were down — because we couldn't prove they were up. Dozens of vendor portals, no central logging, no way to know which jobs were actually succeeding. That was the moment I started building our own observability stack. Five months later, we're running LGTM on Nutanix with recycled hardware and zero software budget. Here's the architecture overview and the honest trade-offs we hit along the way.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/dependabot-and-supply-chain-security/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/dependabot-and-supply-chain-security/Your dependencies have dependencies — here's how to keep them secure.Fri, 17 Apr 2026 14:30:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-for-terraform-and-ansible/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-for-terraform-and-ansible/Plan in the PR, apply on merge — GitHub Actions patterns for IaC.Fri, 10 Apr 2026 14:30:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-reusable-workflows/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-reusable-workflows/Stop copying YAML — reusable workflows keep your pipelines clean.Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:30:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-stash-cherry-pick-and-bisect/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-stash-cherry-pick-and-bisect/Three Git commands that will save your day — stash, cherry-pick, and bisect.Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:30:00 GMTYou're halfway through refactoring a Terraform module when Slack lights up — production is broken. You need to drop everything and push a fix right now. What happens to the work on your screen? Three Git commands handle exactly this: stash, cherry-pick, and bisect.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-tags-and-release-management/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-tags-and-release-management/Stop guessing what's in production — tags and releases bring order to chaos.Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:30:00 GMT'What version is running in production right now?' Three engineers on the incident call gave three different answers. One pointed at a commit hash, one said a branch name, and the third said 'whatever we deployed last Thursday.' That's the problem Git tags solve.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/pr-templates-and-issue-templates/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/pr-templates-and-issue-templates/Make every PR and issue consistent — templates your team will actually use.Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:00:00 GMTA teammate's PR description: 'fixed stuff.' A bug report from the week before: 'it's broken.' These aren't bad engineers — they're busy engineers with no structure to follow. The fix is dead simple: templates. Here's how to set them up so every PR and issue is actually useful.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/branch-protection-rules-pr-workflows/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/branch-protection-rules-pr-workflows/Your code deserves a bouncer — here's how branch protection keeps bad merges out.Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:30:00 GMTA teammate force-pushed to main on a Friday afternoon. Three people's work vanished from history and we spent the weekend piecing things back together. Monday morning I set up branch protection rules. It took fifteen minutes. The weekend it would have saved us? Priceless.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/version-control-for-infrastructure-code/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/version-control-for-infrastructure-code/Apply Git workflows and branching strategies to your IaC projects.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:30:00 GMTSomeone on the team overwrote my subnet changes with an older config on a Friday. We didn't find out until Monday when a production service went down. No history, no audit trail, no rollback. That's when I stopped treating infrastructure files like documents and started treating them like code.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-codeowners-who-owns-what/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-codeowners-who-owns-what/Stop guessing who should review — let CODEOWNERS handle it.Fri, 27 Feb 2026 14:30:00 GMTA teammate's PR touched Terraform modules, Ansible roles, and a CI pipeline. It sat for two days because nobody knew whose review it needed. The fix? A CODEOWNERS file — 20 minutes of setup, and we never had that problem again.https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-job-scheduling-the-migration/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-job-scheduling-the-migration/Real workflow examples for PowerShell, Ansible, and Packer — plus the incremental migration approach that kept everything running.Wed, 25 Feb 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-job-scheduling-the-solution/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-job-scheduling-the-solution/Docker-based self-hosted runners, vendor containers, and cron schedules in YAML. Here's the architecture that replaced hundreds of scattered jobs.Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:30:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-job-scheduling-the-problem/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-actions-job-scheduling-the-problem/Scattered cron jobs, no visibility, and a prayer that things just work. Here's the job scheduling mess we inherited and why it had to change.Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/nutanix/nutanix-rest-api-fundamentals/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/nutanix/nutanix-rest-api-fundamentals/Everything in Nutanix is an API call. Learn the fundamentals of Prism Central and Prism Element REST APIs with practical curl examples.Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-large-repos-lfs-sparse-checkout/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-large-repos-lfs-sparse-checkout/Tame large repositories with Git LFS, partial clones, and sparse checkouts for monorepos.Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-submodules-managing-shared-code/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-submodules-managing-shared-code/Use Git submodules to share infrastructure code across repositories and avoid common pitfalls.Tue, 27 Jan 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-forks-explained/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/github-forks-explained/What's a fork, when should you use one, and how is it different from a clone? A quick guide.Sun, 25 Jan 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-hooks-automate-code-quality/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-hooks-automate-code-quality/Stop reviewing formatting issues. Use Git hooks to enforce code standards automatically.Sat, 24 Jan 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/nutanix/nutanix-ahv-vs-esxi-making-the-choice/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/nutanix/nutanix-ahv-vs-esxi-making-the-choice/A practical comparison of Nutanix AHV and VMware ESXi — architecture differences, feature parity, migration considerations, and how to decide which hypervisor fits your environment.Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/monthly-recap-q1-foundations/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/monthly-recap-q1-foundations/Looking back at our first quarter — Git fundamentals, Ansible automation, Terraform basics, and Azure connectivity. What we learned and where we're headed next.Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/terraform/connecting-terraform-to-azure/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/terraform/connecting-terraform-to-azure/A step-by-step guide for configuring Terraform to deploy infrastructure to Azure using the AzureRM provider, including authentication methods and deployment workflows.Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/azure/azure-for-devops-engineers-getting-started/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/azure/azure-for-devops-engineers-getting-started/A practical introduction to Microsoft Azure for DevOps engineers — understanding the account hierarchy, core services, networking, identity, and automation with Terraform.Wed, 03 Dec 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/terraform/terraform-variables-and-outputs-explained/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/terraform/terraform-variables-and-outputs-explained/A deep dive into Terraform variables, locals, and outputs — the building blocks that make your infrastructure code reusable and maintainable.Wed, 26 Nov 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/terraform/terraform-basics-providers-resources-state/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/terraform/terraform-basics-providers-resources-state/Master the foundational concepts of Terraform — providers, resources, variables, outputs, and state — to build reproducible infrastructure from day one.Wed, 12 Nov 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/nutanix/managing-nutanix-with-terraform/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/nutanix/managing-nutanix-with-terraform/A practical guide to automating Nutanix infrastructure with Terraform — provider setup, VM deployment, and real-world patterns.Mon, 20 Oct 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/infrastructure-as-code-what-why-and-how/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/infrastructure-as-code-what-why-and-how/Learn the fundamentals of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), why it matters, and how to get started with modern tools like Terraform and Ansible.Wed, 15 Oct 2025 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/ansible/ansible-for-beginners-improving-patching/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/ansible/ansible-for-beginners-improving-patching/Beginner-friendly intro to Ansible with a complete, safe workflow for monthly server patching—rolling updates, reboots, dry-runs, and simple reporting.Mon, 06 Oct 2025 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/ansible/ansible-for-beginners-automate-configs/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/ansible/ansible-for-beginners-automate-configs/A practical beginner's guide to Ansible — from first install to your first real playbook, with examples that go beyond 'install Nginx.'Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-branching-strategies-for-fast-moving-teams/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-branching-strategies-for-fast-moving-teams/Learn practical Git branching strategies for fast-paced teams. We'll compare GitFlow, Trunk-Based Development, and Feature Branching—plus share tips for review workflows and infrastructure code.Thu, 28 Aug 2025 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/favorite-tools-for-devops-success/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/favorite-tools-for-devops-success/The tools, extensions, and workflows that actually make a difference in my day-to-day DevOps work — from editor setup to IaC linting.Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/strategy/cloud-strategy-management-philosophy/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/strategy/cloud-strategy-management-philosophy/Most cloud strategies focus on provider choice and migration, but the real question is how you define and manage 'cloud' as a philosophy—enabling true flexibility, governance, and resilience across environments.Tue, 19 Aug 2025 13:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-basics-every-devops-engineer-should-know/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/git/git-basics-every-devops-engineer-should-know/A practical Git tutorial for DevOps engineers — from basic commands to workflow tips, with code examples you can try today.Mon, 18 Aug 2025 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/terraform-vs-powershell-ansible-declarative-vs-imperative/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/terraform-vs-powershell-ansible-declarative-vs-imperative/How to consider Terraform's declarative model, how it differs from process/script-driven tools like PowerShell or Ansible.Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/career/devops-career-path-junior-to-senior/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/career/devops-career-path-junior-to-senior/If I had to start my DevOps career over today, here's the roadmap I'd follow to go from junior engineer to senior-level DevOps professional.Tue, 12 Aug 2025 13:00:00 GMThttps://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/welcome-to-pipelines-and-pizza/https://pipelinesandpizza.com/posts/devops/welcome-to-pipelines-and-pizza/Kickoff post for my new technical blog — Terraform, Kubernetes, Nutanix, Azure, Ansible, and the journey from junior to senior DevOps engineer.Fri, 08 Aug 2025 15:00:00 GMT