Product or software development cycles typically require individuals or organizations to go through various steps that consume a lot of time. However, the introduction of DevOps has helped in reducing the total time consumed by these cycles and the major reason for this is Automation. DevOps rehearses function admirably with nimble and constant advancements that help to develop and deliver products quickly. With the utilization of DevOps, there is consistent improvement in system deployment, innovativeness, and information. Developers would thus be able to accomplish more targets by utilizing these practices.
DevOps (Development + Operations) team is the combination of the development team responsible for making products and the operations team responsible for maintaining the same. Therefore, they are capable of delivering developed applications or software to the end-users in a timely manner. Right after the development team has developed a product, it goes to the operations team and since they have all the prior information, they require little time to approve and deliver it to the end client.
What is a DevOps Engineer?
Before figuring out how to turn into a DevOps engineer, it is critical to acquire all the essential information associated with this role. A DevOps engineer is an IT proficient who has detailed information about the lifecycle of a product or software. They need to comprehend every process right from development to maintenance to updates, along with knowing the loopholes of previous versions, and the advantages of current versions.
A DevOps engineer additionally should be aware of how to utilize different automation tools for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. There are different stages in the CI/CD pipeline that propagate from the very first stage, i.e. planning, which incorporates the creation of programs for the application. Right after this, the building stage comes where all the developed algorithms get executed for building the end product.
Now the product gets tested within the testing stage where all bugs are found and fixed. After the approval, it further gets forwarded into the deployment stage, where it gets delivered to the end clients. After the successful delivery, the product is observed constantly, which is also overlooked by DevOps engineers.
The observing stage is the thing that DevOps engineers should focus on more. It’s crucial to analyze the released product consistently to get new bugs and fix them and push the revised version back to the customers. This is done to guarantee consumer loyalty once the product is sent.
What Does a DevOps Engineer Do?
Generally, DevOps engineers should have both development and operations skills. However, their responsibilities differ from one organization to another, but some of the most common tasks handled by them are:
1. CI/CD pipelines
The objective of a DevOps engineer is to plan and execute the quickest and most secure approach to write code and ensure minimal bugs. A key goal is to computerize the deployment cycle to make arrangements as effortless as possible, both for engineers and end clients.
2. Cloud maintenance
Cloud computing is based on shared assets and more significant administrations that can help set up complex processing arrangements rapidly and proficiently. Cloud infrastructures in big organizations commonly incorporate a virtual private cloud (VPC), load balancer, security tools, etc., and one must be well-versed with their functioning and maintenance.
3. Managing configurations
Without making use of configuration management tools, DevOps engineers will not be able to take care of enterprise-scale infrastructures on the cloud. They make use of such tools to characterize the product and features required for workers and convey software automatically with the help of configuration files (this is referred to as Infrastructure as Code or IaC).
4. Monitoring
DevOps engineers intend to limit mistakes and bugs for clients, accomplish high unwavering quality for creation products, and figure out whatever could be messing up the project quickly. Testing is vital for accomplishing this and is particularly significant in persistent conveyance/ceaseless arrangement conditions.
Important Skills to Become a DevOps Engineer
1. Programming skills
The competition in the DevOps position is high and if you want to stay ahead, you have to go the extra mile. Learning a couple of coding languages like Python, Java, Ruby or any other language can help you secure a position in a good company. You will want to troubleshoot pieces of code as per the requirements, resolve and send errors so the product life cycle doesn’t end up having issues, and in this manner, a lot of time and assets will be saved.
Since the greater part of the cycles such as server triggering, application development, setup, approval, and so forth are automated, the DevOps engineer has an enormous duty of running things easily and filling the downfalls. Programming knowledge can be applied to combine applications that will help mechanize different cycles.
2. Network and storage
Since DevOps experts have to manage various servers, information, processes, lifecycles, and updates, they are more likely to oversee network issues. This implies they should know the basics of network and storage management. Fundamental network information ought to be sufficient, anyway as you work with continuous systems, you will get comfortable with different conventions, APIs, and various other options to understand the dynamics as well.
This also implies that an engineer having knowledge about maintaining a server can become a DevOps engineer without much of a stretch. Most importantly, attempt to learn scripting information along with learning about the different arrangements and deployment tools. Get yourself outfitted with Linux, OpenStack, and another open cloud like Azure, AWS.
3. Infrastructure management
Nowadays, a massive number of organizations employ DevOps teams to make secure and adaptable infrastructures for the frequent deployment of the products or software. This ought to occur without upsetting any of the current undertakings. In simple words, the processes done physically, need to be automated with the help of DevOps. The interaction may break or influence some usefulness. Therefore, a DevOps engineer should know about programming and containerization to guarantee the smooth incorporation of new technologies with existing systems.
4. Knowledge about automation tools
Some of the widely-used DevOps tools available in the automation market are Kubernetes, Jenkins, etc. They are used because automation is a definitive objective of the DevOps cycle in every process from creating code to building, testing, and deploying apps. Analyzing and testing processes becomes quicker and also gives consistent outcomes. The DevOps pipeline comprises continuous integration, continuous testing, and persistent arrangement.
Further, system arrangement, deployment processes, setups, etc. can likewise be automated that will subsequently enhance speed, reliability, and deliveries. Having a tight grip on any of the automation tools will help you move further in your DevOps career.
5. Virtualization
Virtualization simply means running a separate layer of a computer system that is different from the actual hardware. It makes a huge system gets divided into several small parts with the goal that the server can be used by more users or applications having similar or different requirements and/or goals.
It likewise keeps any program on one machine disengaged from the others. This makes virtualization very significant for DevOps. However, network virtualization requires a lot of knowledge regarding open, private, and hybrid clouds. Therefore, it’s important to have deep knowledge about virtualization and tools used for enabling virtualization.
6. Awareness
The administrator of any organization has too much going on. He is responsible for keeping an eye on building, deploying, testing, and investigating along with looking for servers on an everyday premise. A DevOps engineer should keep themselves aware of all the administrator-level knowledge for automating the main pieces or hurdles of the server and various deployment processes. They should be aware of all the administrator-level knowledge and try to simplify as much as possible and this is quite possibly the main abilities of a DevOps engineer.
7. Security
The general security of the complete infrastructure includes certain practices worked through different arrangements, procedures, and methods. Security is essential to each phase of the DevOps cycle be it advancement, testing, building, etc because a lot of arrangements are done on the cloud.
As a DevOps engineer, you should understand what advantages should be given to various accounts from the root, administrator, designer, and so forth. Additionally, you’ll be liable for:
- Creating and enforcing policies that can be understood by other members of the team
- Automating all the security processes along with managing and controlling the different type of accounts and enforcing the privileges
- Deploying the end-to-end security since the time of development for it to execute all over the process
8. Ability to use CI/CD tools
For building applications, an individual is required to have a Project Object Model (POM) file that comprises a bunch of containers, commands for execution, plugins, etc. For automating the complete process, a Continuous Integration or Continuous Development (CI/CD) tool is utilized. There are a lot of CI/CD tools, like Jenkins, TeamCity, Drone, and so on.
Jenkins is perhaps the most widely utilized automation tool available. It’s an open-source CI tool used for helping to automate constant development, testing, and arrangement of all the latest codes. The best part is that Jenkins comes with lots of different modules and can be established within no time.
9. Testing
The testing process moves hand-in-hand with the development cycle. DevOps engineers have to test every aspect associated with the application along with the functionalities such as operations, performance, security, etc. It must be done right from the basic stages such as planning, branching, coding, and merging to the advanced processes such as building, deployment, and even monitoring. DevOps engineers are provided with plenty of tools available in the market that can help them enhance their testing and integration process.
Tools Used by DevOps Engineers
Throughout their careers, DevOps engineers make use of various tools and software to increase efficiency and reduce the time consumed in getting the job done. Following are some of the most crucial and widely-used tools for DevOps engineers:
1. Process automation tools
Process automation tools such as Jenkins are used for customizing and automating the delivery pipelines of the products and software. Hence, reducing both the time and effort required to accomplish different tasks.
2. Source control
Source control tools such as Git are helpful in tracking down the progress of development by storing the version histories and previous modifications. Therefore, any previous version of the product can be pulled out in a few minutes. All the new codes are merged with the main branch that eventually helps in accomplishing the product development.
3. Code repository
For integrating the source control tools with the DevOps workflow, code repositories such as Github are used.
4. Containerization
Docker and Kubernetes are currently the de-facto platforms used for app containerization. It saves all the applications and their related files, libraries, and dependencies into various containers independent from each other.
As a DevOps engineer, managing such an application would be a regular and consistent job responsibility. Therefore, having good knowledge about containerization tools like Docker, Kubernetes is really crucial.
5. Serverless software
Having a serverless infrastructure is a huge advantage as it enables organizations to scale applications at any time without being bound for resources. The deployment process of CI/CD pipelines gets simple and for this reason, having a good grip on serverless software is important. As of now, the AWS server is considered to be the most reliable serverless software as stated by various DevOps engineers all around the globe.
6. Configuration Management
Using configuration management tools, DevOps engineers would enhance the management of configuration, management, and automatic deployment of infrastructure as code (IaC).
7. Monitoring software
For keeping a real-time eye on the infrastructure, server issues, or any other process along with finding quick solutions for them, DevOps engineers make the use of monitoring software. They keep a track of the user’s behavior, network services, etc. in the enterprise systems.
8. Project management software
As defined by its name, project management software is meant for managing various projects. They come with complete documentation about the processes for helping DevOps engineers to track down their team’s progress, keep a check on their time and schedule tasks, discuss issues, and a lot more.
Conclusion
DevOps, a combination of development and operations teams intended to manage the product lifecycle right from the ideation to the maintenance stage. DevOps engineers handle the updates by adding new functionalities to the products. By making the use of various tools and platforms, DevOps engineers aim to make the product development process more efficient and smooth. Also, they focus on maintaining the Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
A DevOps engineer has loads of responsibilities on their head such as managing servers, security, cloud, and also keeping a regular eye on various other processes. The blog contains all the important information that can help you become a DevOps engineer.