Server-Side Playgrounds Reimagined: Build, Boot, and Network Your Own Virtual Labs

After a long break from posting on this blog, I'm happy to share the continuation of the iximiuz Labs story. This time, I'm going to cover the recent overhaul of the playground engine, which I like to call Playgrounds 2.0:

  • Quick recap: iximiuz Labs playgrounds - what are they, really?
  • How VMs are constructed by mixing the rootfs and the kernel
  • How to run custom playgrounds with simple YAML manifests
  • How to bake and use custom VM rootfs images
  • How to create multi-network playgrounds
  • Why you should start creating Linux playgrounds today
iximiuz Labs Playgrounds 2.0 architecture.

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Building a Firecracker-Powered Course Platform To Learn Docker and Kubernetes

This is a long overdue post on iximiuz Labs' internal kitchen. It'll cover why I decided to build my own learning-by-doing platform for DevOps, SRE, and Platform engineers, how I designed it, what technology stack chose, and how various components of the platform were implemented. It'll also touch on some of the trade-offs that I had to make along the way and highlight the most interesting parts of the platform's architecture. In the end, I'll, of course, share my thoughts on what's next on the roadmap. Sounds interesting? Then brace for a long read!

How I built my own learning-by-doing platform

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DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineering

I compiled this thread on Twitter, and all of a sudden, it got quite some attention. So here, I'll try to elaborate on the topic a bit more. Maybe it would be helpful for someone trying to make a career decision or just improve general understanding of the most hyped titles in the industry.

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