Posts on Brent Hollers

A Real Take on the Practical Implications of AI in Tech

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

AI Is a Powerful Tool. It’s Not a Replacement for Knowing What You’re Doing.

By Dr. Brent Hollers

There’s a conversation happening in nearly every tech team, IT department, and engineering org right now. It usually goes one of two ways: either AI is going to replace us all, or AI is completely overhyped and we should stop worrying about it. The truth, as usual, lives somewhere in the middle — and it’s a lot more interesting than either extreme.

How I Built a $7/Month DNS Caching Resolver for a K-12 School Using AWS and Terraform

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

By Dr. Brent Hollers | Director of Information Technology, St. Mary’s Academy

Every year, PSAT morning arrives like a controlled fire drill. Hundreds of Chromebooks come online simultaneously, every student navigating to the same handful of testing URLs. The network holds. The internet connection holds. But something subtle bogs down the experience in those first critical minutes: DNS.

Most IT professionals don’t think about DNS until something breaks. I didn’t either — until I started looking at where time was actually being lost during high-concurrency events at our school. Every single device was firing DNS queries at external resolvers (Cloudflare, Google) independently, with no local caching. The same hostname, resolved a thousand times, with zero shared benefit. It was like every student in the building individually calling 411 to ask for the same phone number.

IaC Part 4: Lessons Learned: Cost, Challenges, and What's Next

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lessons Learned: Cost, Challenges, and What’s Next

Part 4 of 4: Building Production-Grade Infrastructure

Reality vs. Expectations

In Parts 1-3, we built a production-grade absence tracking system with Terraform, monitoring, and CI/CD. The code worked. The architecture was sound. The deployment succeeded.

Then we turned it on.

This final article covers what actually happened in production: real costs, unexpected problems, decisions we’d change, and lessons that only come from running systems at scale.

IaC Part 3: Automating Everything: CI/CD, Monitoring, and Workflows

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Automating Everything: CI/CD, Monitoring, and Workflows

Part 3 of 4: Building Production-Grade Infrastructure

From Infrastructure to Operations

In Part 1, we identified the business problem and designed our architecture. In Part 2, we built secure, modular infrastructure with Terraform.

But infrastructure alone isn’t production-ready.

A system is only as good as our ability to:

Know when it breaks (monitoring)
Deploy changes safely (CI/CD)
Automate business logic (workflows)

This article covers making infrastructure operational:

IaC Part 2: Building Secure, Modular Infrastructure with Terraform

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Building Secure, Modular Infrastructure with Terraform

Part 2 of 4: Building Production-Grade Infrastructure

From Design to Implementation

In Part 1, we explored why we chose Infrastructure as Code and what architecture we designed. We made critical decisions about cloud providers, networking, security, and workflow automation.

Now comes the how: implementing these decisions in Terraform with production-ready patterns.

By the end of this article, you’ll understand:

Modular Terraform design philosophy
VPC networking with public/private subnet isolation
Security group least-privilege implementation
HTTPS with Application Load Balancer and ACM
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Target audience: This is hands-on. We’re writing real Terraform code, explaining every decision, and showing patterns you can use immediately.

IaC Part 1: From Manual Chaos to Infrastructure as Code: Designing a School Absence System

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From Manual Chaos to Infrastructure as Code: Designing a School Absence System

Part 1 of 4: Building Production-Grade Infrastructure

The 7:45 AM Problem

It’s 7:45 AM on a Tuesday morning. The school secretary’s phone rings. It’s Mrs. Johnson calling in sick—again. The secretary scribbles a note on a sticky pad, crosses off Mrs. Johnson’s name on the coverage spreadsheet, and starts making calls to find a substitute for periods 3, 5, and 7.

AWS Gotchas: ALBs vs NLBs and VPC Enpoints, What to know for the exam

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:56:02 +0530

The AWS Architect’s “Gotcha” List: Two Concepts That Trip Everyone Up

When I sat for the Solutions Architect exam, I breezed through the questions on EC2 and RDS. But there were two specific areas where I found myself staring at the screen, second-guessing my answers.

ALB vs. NLB: “Both balance load, so why does it matter?”
VPC Endpoints: “Why are there two types, and why is one free?”

These are the “silent killers” of the exam. They seem similar on the surface, but confusing them ensures a fail on scenario-based questions. Here is the simplest way to visualize them so you never mix them up again.

What I learned when preparing for the Cloud Solutions Architect Exam

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 04:55:54 +0530

Leveling Up: My Journey to the AWS Solutions Architect Associate

If the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam is the “what” of the cloud, the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) is emphatically the “how” and the “why.”

I recently passed the Solutions Architect exam, and I want to be transparent: this is a different beast entirely. It requires a significantly higher investment of prep time and mental energy. While the foundational exam tests your vocabulary, this exam tests your intuition and your ability to architect complex systems under specific constraints.

Cloud Certification Prep: AWS Cloud Practitioner

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 07:07:07 +0100

How to Crush the AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam: A Strategic Approach

The AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) is the starting line for many cloud journeys. Before diving into the technical weeds, it is important to understand what this exam actually is. It is a foundational exam, meaning it is not designed to test your ability to debug complex code or configure intricate firewall rules. Instead, it tests your understanding of high-level principles, the “what” and “why” of the AWS ecosystem, and the core concepts that drive cloud computing.

Why SQL Matters and How to Learn It

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 04:55:59 +0530

The One Tool You Can’t Avoid: Why SQL is Your Ticket to IT Literacy

In my previous articles, I covered the cloud giants (AWS) and how to architect systems within them. But there is a fundamental layer that sits underneath almost every sophisticated application, reporting dashboard, and business decision in the world: Data.

And the language of data is SQL.

If you are entering the IT field—whether as a developer, a cloud architect, or a project manager—you cannot afford to be “data illiterate.” While Python and Java get the glory, SQL (Structured Query Language) pays the bills. It is the bridge between raw, messy information and the “Aha!” moments that drive business strategy.