Notes from the estates we run
Practical guides, cost analysis and honest advice from the engineers doing the work. No jargon, no fluff, and we say when a thing is not worth buying.
AWS Landing Zone Cost for Kenya: $493 Before a Workload
AWS landing zone cost, repriced for Cape Town from AWS's own sample: $493 a month empty, what Control Tower bills and the accounts to build first.
Multi-Attach Error After a Kubernetes Node Dies, Timed
Multi-Attach error or Waiting for detach after a Kubernetes node dies, timed with Longhorn and local-path on k3s 1.37, and the step that clears each one.
fail2ban vs PerSourcePenalties: Do You Still Need fail2ban?
PerSourcePenalties is on by default in Ubuntu 26.04. We timed it against fail2ban: the guesser it never refused, and the colleague it locked out.
Odoo 17 End of Support: What an Upgrade Costs in Kenya
Odoo 17's standard support ended with Odoo 20. What staying costs (a 25% yearly user fee from March 2027 at the earliest) and how many OCA modules moved.
Scan to Email After Microsoft 365 Disables SMTP Basic Auth
Microsoft 365 turns SMTP AUTH basic auth off by default at the end of December. Find the copiers and apps that break, the errors and the routes still open.
How Many Wi-Fi Access Points Does an Office Need?
How many access points do you need? 40 spec sheets print 200 to 1,020 clients each, and Meraki plans 25 per radio. Count devices, floor and calls instead.
SACCO Management System in Kenya: What SASRA Returns Need
What a SACCO management system in Kenya has to compute for SASRA: up to eight returns by the 15th, Wednesday liquidity and two loan classification clocks.
Kubernetes External IP Pending: LoadBalancer on Bare Metal
Kubernetes LoadBalancer EXTERNAL-IP stuck at pending on k3s, kubeadm or bare metal: the cause, the two MetalLB objects that fix it, and failover timed.
Proxmox ZFS Replication and HA: What a Node Failure Loses
Proxmox ZFS replication with HA, tested on PVE 9.2: a node failure lost 40 seconds of writes, then replication deleted the returning node's newer copy.
AWS Cape Town Pricing for Kenya: 19% More Than Ireland
AWS Cape Town pricing against Ireland and Frankfurt, counted per instance type: 19% more on compute, 71% more on data out, and what it buys from Nairobi.
Terraform Import Existing Infrastructure Without an Outage
Terraform import of existing infrastructure, run on OpenTofu 1.13.2: generated config that fails its plan, rules the first apply replaces, the safe order.
OpenStack Controller Nodes: Why Two Is Not HA, Tested
How many controller nodes OpenStack needs, tested: two-node Galera and RabbitMQ stopped serving when one node failed. Three cost one write a 6 s wait.
VPN Connected but Some Sites Won't Load: The MTU Black Hole
VPN connected but some sites and SSH hang? We built the MTU black hole in a WireGuard lab, then timed MSS clamping and tcp_mtu_probing against it.
Unattended Upgrades on Ubuntu: Installed Is Not Patched
We read a year of Ubuntu 24.04 security notices against unattended-upgrades' defaults: 203 hit a stock server, and 20 were kernels it does not reboot for.
WireGuard vs IPsec Site-to-Site VPN: What Breaks the Tunnel
WireGuard vs IPsec for a site-to-site VPN: WireGuard and IKEv2 both followed an ISP failover in 3.3 s in our lab. A head office reboot split them.
ERPNext CRM to Frappe CRM: What the Migration Leaves Behind
Moving from ERPNext CRM to Frappe CRM with rtCamp's migrator: what it copies, which statuses land with no match, and what its cleanup button deletes.
PostgreSQL Slow Queries: What pg_stat_statements Misses
Find slow PostgreSQL queries with pg_stat_statements, then check what it hides: the lock holder and the round trips, plus a work_mem fix that backfired.
Firewall Throughput With Inspection On: 25 Models Compared
Firewall throughput with inspection on was 7% to 71% of the headline across 25 FortiGate, Sophos, Palo Alto and WatchGuard models. How to size from it.
k3s vs RKE2 vs kubeadm: We Cut the Power on All Three
k3s vs RKE2 vs kubeadm on identical 4 GB VMs: memory in use, seconds back after a hard power cut, and the pods RKE2's CIS profile refuses.
OpenStack Skip-Level Upgrade: What Epoxy to Gazpacho Changes
An OpenStack skip-level upgrade from Epoxy to Gazpacho skips Flamingo, not its changes: 18 nova options go unwarned and nova-api moves to threading.
PostgreSQL Point-in-Time Recovery: What 35 Days Costs
PostgreSQL point-in-time recovery cost, measured: a 755 MB database at 100 transactions a second wrote WAL at 80 GB a day. What RDS, Azure and S3 bill.
ingress-nginx Is Retired: Alternatives and What Breaks
ingress-nginx is retired. We served ingress2gateway output on Envoy Gateway: a 15 s default timeout, an open admin route, and which alternative to pick.
Ubuntu vs Rocky Linux vs AlmaLinux: Check the CPU First
Rocky Linux 10 needs an x86-64-v3 CPU and Ubuntu does not. We tested Ubuntu, Rocky and AlmaLinux on nine emulated CPU models, Proxmox defaults included.
DNS Failover and TTL: What 39 Kenyan Bank Sites Set
DNS failover waits on the TTL unless a proxy fronts the site. We read the DNS of 39 Kenyan bank sites: 18 point straight at a server, 5 at 4 hours or more.
Remove a Secret From Git History Without It Coming Back
Remove a secret from git history after rotating it. In our test TruffleHog found no M-Pesa key, gitleaks missed 6 of 12 copies, a merge undid the rewrite.
MongoDB Backup Encryption: Dumps and Logs Stay Readable
MongoDB backup encryption, tested: under LUKS and under Percona's encryption at rest, every mongodump we took held all 5,000 ID numbers in plain text.
Ceph Squid End of Life on Proxmox: The Upgrade Order
Ceph Squid end of life on Proxmox: Tentacle needs PVE 9, and 19.2.6 raises HEALTH_ERR until cephx keys move. The upgrade order, read from the repos.
ISP Failover Test: What Drops When the Link Switches
ISP failover test on a dual-WAN router: our health check moved new connections in 3 s, a VPN behind static NAT stayed down 186 s. What to test in Kenya.
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE on Proxmox: Two Fixes, One Worked
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE after moving a Windows VM to Proxmox VirtIO SCSI: in our lab it still crashed after pnputil, and a 1 GiB dummy disk fixed it.
AWS Direct Connect in Kenya or a VPN: Cost and SLA
AWS Direct Connect in Kenya runs from one Nairobi location. What a port, a VPN and egress cost a month, what a 95% SLA means, and when a VPN is enough.
PostgreSQL 14 End of Life: Upgrading to 18 on Ubuntu
PostgreSQL 14 end of life is 12 November 2026. We upgraded an Ubuntu 22.04 server to 18: two refusals, a 433-second default and lost extended statistics.
Proxmox Backup Server Review: We Tested Dedup, Sync and GC
Proxmox Backup Server review, 4.2 lab: cross-VM dedup saved disk but not upload, a deleted backup freed nothing for a day, one bad chunk failed 3 backups.
Email Migration in Kenya: Where Mail Gets Lost at Cutover
Email migration loses mail at cutover and quietly in the copy. We tested imapsync delta passes: what a final sync skips and what a mirror pass deletes.
What SQL Server Disaster Recovery on AWS Costs in Kenya
SQL Server disaster recovery on AWS from Kenya: the license AWS bills per vCPU-hour, when the standby copy is free, and three DR shapes priced a month.
Kubernetes Certificate Expired: Why Renewing Is Not Enough
Kubernetes certificate expired? Our kubeadm cluster kept serving until a reboot, then stayed down after kubeadm certs renew until two pods restarted.
Self-Hosted vs GitHub-Hosted Runners in Kenya
Self-hosted vs GitHub-hosted runners: minutes rarely decide it. Reach does, then Kenyan power, and GitHub says not to allowlist its 7,038 IP ranges.
MongoDB Atlas Migration in Kenya: Moving Off With mongosync
MongoDB Atlas migration to a replica set in Kenya: the four checks that decide if mongosync can move you, and what our lab cutover blocked, kept and left.
Terraform to OpenTofu Migration: What Breaks and Why
Terraform to OpenTofu migration, tested on Terraform 1.16.6 and OpenTofu 1.13.1: the lock file, ignored version pins, encrypted state, and who should stay.
Kubernetes Node Failure: How Long Before Pods Move
Kubernetes node failure, timed: NotReady at 48.5 seconds, one pod running again at 5m50s, and a StatefulSet that stayed down until we tainted the node.
Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace in Kenya: Same Price Now
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace now both list USD 7, 14 and 22 per user. What decides it in Kenya: storage, desktop Office and what your clients run.
Argo CD Setup: Auto-Sync, Self-Heal and Prune, Tested
Argo CD setup on its defaults keeps drift and orphaned resources. Our v3.5.5 lab timed auto-sync, self-heal and prune, and what GitOps still will not fix.
Bank of Tanzania Cloud Guidelines: Where Core Banking Runs
Bank of Tanzania cloud guidelines keep core banking in Tanzania, and the 2025 revision is still a draft. Where a DR site may sit, read from four BoT texts.
eTIMS Integration in Kenya: OSCU or VSCU for Your ERP
eTIMS integration runs through an OSCU or a VSCU, and KRA's own list certifies Odoo 16 both ways. What decides it is what your tills do offline.
Kubernetes 1.34 End of Life: What It Costs to Stay On It
Kubernetes 1.34 end of life is 27 October 2026, but EKS, GKE and AKS each set their own date and bill. Our kubeadm test shows why 1.37 takes three hops.
Why Outlook Rejects Your Mail: SPF, DKIM and DMARC
Outlook now rejects unauthenticated bulk mail with 550 5.7.515. What SPF, DKIM and DMARC alignment it checks, and how Kenya's 39 banks set DMARC.
Choosing a Managed IT Provider in Kenya
Choosing a managed IT provider in Kenya without a ranked list: five things to ask to see in the first meeting, and a two-minute ODPC register check.
CBK Outsourcing Approval for Cloud and Disaster Recovery
CBK outsourcing approval comes before you sign, not after. What PG/16 counts as material, the access test that decides offshore, and the January report.
What a Managed IT Contract in Kenya Must Cover
A managed IT contract in Kenya has to name who is data controller, who is processor, and two breach clocks in hours. The clauses to read before signing.
OpenShift Consultants in Kenya: What the Subscription Buys
OpenShift consultants in Kenya: what a core-pair subscription counts, why an odd-numbered release caps you at 18 months, and when Kubernetes is cheaper.
Google Cloud Consultants in Kenya: Which Google?
Google Cloud consultants in Kenya: telling an infrastructure engineer from a Workspace reseller, what GKE really costs, and who holds the billing account.
DevOps Consultants in Kenya: Ask to Read the Code
DevOps consultants in Kenya and East Africa: how to judge one before you sign, what belongs in the quote, and who owns the platform when the work ends.
Building a Private Cloud in Kenya: What Each Sector Needs
Building a private cloud in Kenya starts with which rule catches you. What banks, government, hospitals, universities and ISPs each actually need.
Hiring a Kubernetes Consultant in Kenya: What to Ask
Hiring a Kubernetes consultant in Kenya: the questions that separate an engineer who has run clusters from one who has only built them, and what it costs.
Zimbra Consultants in Kenya: Who Holds Your License Key
Zimbra consultants in Kenya: how to tell one who can actually patch your mail server from one who only resells the license, and what must be in your name.
Is Zimbra Free? What Happened to the Open Source Edition
Zimbra is still open source but no longer ships free binaries. What that means if you want to run it without a Network Edition license, and what it costs.
How Many Nodes a Proxmox HA Cluster Actually Needs
A Proxmox HA cluster needs three nodes, or two plus a QDevice. Why quorum works that way, the real failover time, and what HA does not protect you from.
VMware to Proxmox Migration in Kenya: Cost and Timeline
What a VMware to Proxmox migration costs and how long it takes: how the VMs actually move, what breaks, and when renewing vSphere is still the better call.
Zimbra Mail Server Cost in Kenya vs Microsoft 365
What a Zimbra mail server costs in Kenya against Microsoft 365 at USD 7 per user: where the crossover sits, and when the hosted suite is the honest answer.
Zimbra 9 and 10.0 Are End of Life: Upgrade Options
Zimbra 9.0 and 10.0 are past end of support and 8.8.15 lost it earlier. What CISA lists as exploited, and three upgrade paths off an unsupported server.
OpenStack vs Proxmox: Which One You Actually Need
OpenStack vs Proxmox comes down to one question: does anyone outside your platform team need to launch their own VMs? Everything else follows from that.
Private Cloud Cost in Kenya: OpenStack vs a VMware Renewal
What a private cloud costs in Kenya once OpenStack removes the license: the three places the money goes, and how that compares to a VMware renewal.
Red Hat OpenStack 17.1 Is Ending: RHOSO or Upstream
Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1 is the last classic director release. Adopting RHOSO means running OpenShift too. The other route is upstream OpenStack.
Dedicated Servers in Uganda: Kampala or Nairobi
Dedicated servers for Ugandan businesses, placed in Kampala or Nairobi to keep data close, legal under the 2019 Act, and provisioned in about 24 hours.
Managed vs Unmanaged Dedicated Servers
Managed vs unmanaged dedicated servers: exactly what managed hosting covers, what unmanaged actually saves, and where the licensing bill decides for you.
Hosting a Windows-Only App in Kenya
Hosting a Windows-only app in Kenya: how we size, license, place and back up a Windows Server for Sage, MSSQL or a .NET line-of-business app.
Managed Windows Server Hosting in Kenya
Managed Windows Server hosting in Kenya on cloud we run and patch: Active Directory, RDP and MSSQL apps, licensed, backed up and handed over in 24 hours.
Remote Desktop Hosting for a Nairobi Office
Remote Desktop hosting for a Nairobi office: sizing RDS and RemoteApp, licensing it, keeping RDP off the open internet, and the bandwidth it really needs.
Windows Server Licensing Cost in Kenya
Windows Server licensing cost in Kenya: USD 1,176 per 16 cores on Standard, CALs and RDS CALs, and the VM count where Datacenter becomes cheaper.
Windows vs Linux Hosting in Kenya
Windows vs Linux hosting for a Kenyan business: what actually forces Windows, what the license adds to the bill, and when Linux is the cheaper, right call.
Dedicated Server vs VPS vs Cloud: What You Actually Need
Dedicated server vs VPS vs cloud: which one a business in Kenya and East Africa actually needs, decided by workload, isolation, cost and the law.
Dedicated Servers in Tanzania: Close to Your Users
Dedicated servers in Tanzania, provisioned in Dar or Nairobi and placed to keep your data fast and legal under the PDPA. What it costs and how to get one.
Where Your Servers Can Legally Live in East Africa
Data protection laws in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia decide where servers can sit, and a sector regulator can close a door the act leaves open.
Dedicated Server Cost in East Africa: KES, TZS, UGX, ZMW
What a dedicated server really costs in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia: real market ranges in local currency, and what actually drives the price.
Where to Host Your Servers in East Africa
Nairobi, Johannesburg or Europe? How latency, data residency and resilience decide where your servers should physically sit for East African users.
Why Your Business Email Still Runs on Free Gmail
Business email in Kenya: what invoicing from personal Gmail tells clients, why it leaves you open to invoice fraud, and how to move without losing mail.
CI/CD Pipelines in Kenya: The Real Cost Per Minute
What CI/CD pipelines cost a Kenyan dev team: USD 12 of free GitHub usage, then USD 0.006 a Linux minute. The arithmetic, and when self-hosting wins.
Production Linux Server Setup Checklist for Kenya
Our production Linux server checklist, from distro choice and SSH hardening to monitoring and backups, with the commands we run before a server goes live.
Office Network Disasters in Kenya and How to Fix Them
Seven office network disasters, from switching loops and rogue DHCP servers to failover that never fails over, and the config that stops each one.
Website Speed Optimization in Kenya: Six Fixes That Matter
Website speed optimization for Kenyan business sites: server location, images, fonts, JavaScript, caching and compression, with the config for each fix.
Cybersecurity Threats Facing Kenyan Businesses
Eight cyber threats Kenyan businesses face, from invoice fraud and ransomware to M-Pesa SIM swaps, and the defenses a small team can set up this week.
In-House IT vs Managed IT Services in Kenya
In-house IT vs managed IT in Kenya: what the law adds on top of an IT salary, the cover one hire cannot give, and when hiring is still the right call.
Moving Your Business to the Cloud in Kenya
Cloud migration for Kenyan businesses: what to move first, what the per-user line really costs, the data rules to check, and when to stay where you are.
Managed Server Infrastructure in Kenya
We manage cloud servers, containers, databases and dedicated infrastructure for Kenyan businesses, so your team builds products instead of firefighting.
AWS vs Azure vs GCP for Kenyan Businesses
AWS vs Azure vs GCP for Kenya: nearest regions, latency measured from Nairobi, which ones sell a private link in Nairobi, and the one we default to.
The 5 Biggest Cyber Threats Facing Nairobi SMEs Right Now
Ransomware, phishing and credential theft are rising sharply in Kenya. Here's what Nairobi businesses need to know, and do, to stay protected.
Why Odoo ERP Is the Best Choice for East African SMEs
Why Odoo suits most SMEs in Kenya and East Africa: its own eTIMS module, Enterprise from US$8.95 a user, the Community catch, and when ERPNext wins.