WhaleTech

Ben Whaley

Oregon, USA

Hi, I'm Ben.

I've been working professionally in software and technology, most especially in cloud and infosec, since 2004.

Interests and skills:

tools

code

ci/cd

backend

telemetry

coffee

systems

networks

cloud

security

writing

training

Want to chat?

Writing

Co-author of The UNIX & Linux System Administration Handbook, the de facto system administration reference book. Now in its 5th edition.
A few technical blog posts, some of which became rather popular.
Articles on the Gruntwork blog.
Article in INSECURE magazine [WARNING: 11.8Mb PDF link] on the subject of enterprise software security.

Code

My GitHub profile.
alterNAT, a high availability implementation of AWS NAT instances.
alterNAT CDK, a CDK implementation of alterNAT, in Typescript.
ssmsh, an interactive shell for the EC2 Parameter Store, written in Go.
Contributed to several open source tools at Gruntwork, including Terragrunt, Terratest, cloud-nuke, and kubergrunt, among others.
Profile on StackOverflow.
Many proprietary projects in Go, Python, Bash, Javascript, Ruby, C, and other languages.
IaC work using Cloudformation, Terraform, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, etc.

Media

A collection of my slides on Speakerdeck.
Interview with me on the tutorial linux Youtube channel. Thanks to Dave for having me on.
A Cloud Economist is Born – The AlterNAT Origin Story I joined Corey Quinn for an episode of the Screaming in the Cloud podcast.
Talk at AWS re:Invent 2017 And You Thought You Knew EC2.

Projects

Helped build the Gruntwork Reference Architecture, a battle-tested, production-grade, end-to-end multi-account AWS environment provisioned using Terraform.

While at Gruntwork, implemented the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark using Terraform and Terragrunt.

Recorded two videos for Addison-Wesley/Pearson, listed on O'Reilly. Linux System Administration and Linux Web Operations.

Recognition

Recognized by Amazon Web Services as a Community Hero since 2014 for fostering developer interest in AWS through articles, books, talks, and tools. 8x re:Invent attendee.

Endorsements

In a matter of months his leadership and follow-through created change which was not possible in his absence. His passion for his work and excellent communication brought our team together and our work excelled due to his desire for accuracy and quality. -- Megan Modl, former colleague

Ben is the best information security and operations professional I have worked with. Ben understands AWS in and out. I consider myself lucky to have worked with such a focused and objective leader. Ben is very honest, a team player and follows through. Ben would be an asset to any team. --Laban Okune, former colleague

Ben is one of the most skilled systems architects I have ever worked with. He was extremely effective at troubleshooting and diagnostics, configuring monitoring and alerting, picking up and incorporating new technologies all while moving the architecture forward. -- Nate McCall, former colleague

Ben has consistently exceeded our expectations, approaching challenges with energy, intelligence and the belief that with perseverance and collaboration, there are always solutions. What makes Ben unique is his ability to consistently understand and solve challenges, with unparalleled professionalism and personal character. -- Michael Roscoe, former client

Professional Bio

Ben Whaley is a staff software engineer at Chime Financial. He was previously a principal software engineer at Gruntwork.io, and the founder of WhaleTech, a consulting company focused on cloud architecture, software delivery, and systems automation. Ben ran the network and systems for Apigee, a globally-distributed API management platform built on Amazon Web Services. He helped build and operate the AWS-hosted back end services for Anki, a robotics and artificial intelligence company.

Ben is co-author of the UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, the de facto standard text on Linux administration, and is the author of two educational videos: Linux Web Operations and Linux System Administration. Ben has held Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certifications. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.