James Bernardi

About Me

Experienced Cloud and Systems Engineer with 15+ years in cloud infrastructure, site reliability, and IT management. Demonstrated success in architecting scalable cloud solutions, optimizing CI/CD pipelines, and automating operations to enhance system reliability. A proactive team leader known for aligning technical strategy with business goals, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and communicating complex technical concepts to stakeholders. Recognized for analytical problem-solving, strategic project management, and consistently delivering under tight deadlines in fast-paced environments.

Originally from the small town of Greenville, Ohio known for its loose meat sandwhiches and Historical Fort. I spent my early adult years moving to Cincinnati, OH and then to Columbus, OH. where I finshed my Bachelor of Arts degree at The Ohio State University and began my career in IT. Leaving behind the Buckeye trees for the sites of New York City, NY where I enhanced my skills and Experience. I relocated to Santa Monica, CA for better weather and pace of life only to have life's twists and turns (assisted by wildfires and a global pandemic) lead us back in the mid-atlantic to be closer to family. Currently residing in Charleston, WV with a symmetrical gigabit internet connection and amazing views. In my free time I can be found spending time with my family and enjoying time in the outdoors. Either on foot, a mountinabike, a snowboard and occasionally an electric skateboard. But, usually I am just walking the dog. My family and I are looking to relocate to a larger Metropolitan area in the Spring of 2026

Certifications

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

Sample Projects

AWS EKS Cluster Deployment with Terraform

This project demonstrates the deployment of an AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) cluster using a combination of Terraform, official Terraform modules, custom-built modules, and Terraform Workspaces. The central concept is to use a single configuration file to manage multiple environments seamlessly. By leveraging a CI/CD pipeline, builds are triggered based on environment-specific tags, ensuring a clean and consistent codebase across all environments. This approach allows for streamlined iterations, enabling easy tracking and deployment of changes across instances.

The Kubernetes cluster is fully configured with access rights, logging, and ingress routing using Traefik. This is achieved through Terraform and Helm charts where applicable. Applications are deployed to the Kubernetes cluster based on the centralized configuration file, ensuring consistency across environments.

Upon completion of the build process, the result is a fully functional, web-accessible Kubernetes cluster that is ready for application deployments. This setup highlights efficiency, scalability, and best practices in managing Kubernetes workloads on AWS.

AWS ECS Cluster Deployment with Terraform

Similar to the EKS code above; This project demonstrates the deployment of a complete infrastructure stack for Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service) Fargate using Terraform. By utilizing a combination of official Terraform modules and custom-built modules, the process includes provisioning an ECS cluster with fully configured access rights, logging, and an ingress controller powered by Traefik. The deployment approach emphasizes modularity and best practices, enabling efficient management of resources while maintaining a clean and organized codebase. This setup ensures that the ECS infrastructure is robust and ready to support containerized applications, providing a scalable and reliable platform for modern workloads.

AWS EC2 Auto Scaling Group Terraform Module

This Terraform module is designed to seamlessly deploy a new AWS EC2 Auto Scaling Group (ASG) into an existing infrastructure. It integrates with SaltStack configuration files, ensuring consistent setup for hosted websites, including SSL certificates, Launch Templates, and Load Balancer routing rules. By leveraging Terraform's capability to read and adapt to existing infrastructure, this module provides an efficient and reliable way to extend the existing cloud environment.

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