DevOps Tutorial Guide For Beginners

DevOps Tutorial: An Ultimate Guide you need to Follow

As per application economy today, businesses have become software businesses, and DevOps has become one of the most valuable business disciplines for the enterprises. With the help of DevOps, quality, and speed of application delivery have improved to a great extent.

 DevOps represents a change in the IT culture with a complete focus on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile practices in the context of a system-oriented approach.

DevOps is all about the integration of operations and development process. Organizations that have adopted DevOps noticed 22% improvement in software quality and 17 percent improvement in application deployment frequency that results in 22 percent hike in customer satisfaction and 19 percent revenue hikes as a result of the successful DevOps implementation.

What is DevOps?

DevOps word in itself is a combination of two words one is Development and other is Operations. It is neither an application nor a tool; instead, it is just a culture to promote development and Operation process collaboratively. As a result of DevOps implementation, the speed to deliver applications and services is increased.

DevOps enables organizations to serve their customers strongly and better in the market. In other words, we can say that DevOps is the process of alignment of IT and development operations with better and improved communication.

Where did DevOps come from?

There are tons of stories about the DevOps origins, but it is not created out of the whole cloth. Its seeds were planted many years ago and recently nurtured by expert IT professionals in several disciplines. Two primary ancestors of DevOps are given below:

1. ESM (Enterprise Systems Management): People involved in the initial phases of DevOps are system administrators. These experts brought the key ESM practices to DevOps like configuration management, automated provisioning, system monitoring, and the toolchain approach, etc.
2. Agile Development: DevOps can be considered as an outgrowth of the agile. It is simply extending the Agile principles beyond boundaries of the code to the entire delivered services.

“When you are going agile without DevOps, it is like racing with a tractor instead of a car. You can do laps, but it will not move faster, and ultimately you are going to waste a lot of fuel without having any fun.”

What problems led to the creation of DevOps?

DevOps implementation has increased the rate of software delivery and the revenue for business stakeholders. Following listed reasons are the most considerable ones that led to the creation of DevOps.

• Before DevOps, operation and development teams were working in an isolated environment.
• Testing and Deployment activities mostly were performed in an isolated manner after design-build step, and they took more time than actual project completion time.
• Team members usually spend a large amount of time in deploying, testing, designing, and building the projects
• Human production errors were deployed during manual code conduction.
• Operations and coding teams generally had different timelines and did not have proper synchronization that results in further delay.

To avoid the hassles mentioned above and non-collaborative performance measures, there was an urgent need for robust IT technology like DevOps to satisfy business owners and stakeholders.

How is DevOps different from Traditional IT?

Let us compare the waterfall model with DevOps to see what changes DevOps brings to the IT. Take a few assumptions for this comparison like the application has to make live in the next two weeks, and more than 80 percent coding is complete. We assume that application has been launched recently and the process of buying servers to ship the code has just begun.

Traditional IT	DevOps
Once the order for new servers is placed, the development team starts working on testing. The development team has to continue with heavy paperwork as required by enterprises to deploy the infrastructure.	Once the order for new servers is placed, the development team and operations team start the paperwork to set up new servers that result in better visibility of infrastructure equipment.
Projections about failover, data center locations, redundancy, and storage requirements are not clear as no inputs are available from the development team even if they have the depth knowledge of the application.	Projections about failover, data center locations, redundancy, and storage requirements are 100 percent clear because of accurate inputs given from the development team.
In old software development processes, the operations team has no idea of the progress of the development team. Operation team has to prepare a monitoring plan as per their own understanding.	In DevOps, the operations team have a complete idea of the progress of development. Operations team and development team work together to develop a monitoring plan that caters to the current business, and IT needs.
Before go-live, the load testing may crash the application, and the release may get delayed. It affects the overall cost of the project and project delivery deadline.	Before go-live, the load testing makes the application a little slow. The development team quickly fixes bottlenecks, and the application is released on time.

7 Signs that Show You Need DevOps

Developers and Operations engineers are two different organizational teams, and if these teams are found to be on the wrong track that it signifies that you need DevOps. We have consolidated here seven signs that can help you in getting the answer whether you need DevOps or not:

• The development team is not able to detect software defects at the early age of its development
• Agile methods are used to speed up the software development process, but as soon as the application goes to production department all methods become ineffective
• Testing and development team members are not able to access resources timely and so the development process delays
• You are not able to identify the exact problems of development, testing, and production department
• Simple human errors are often creating hurdles during the development and deployment process.
• Once the app is in production, developers think that their job is over.
• At the time of the problem, both development and operation teams start blaming each other.

What are the Features of DevOps Implementation?

“DevOps is not a goal but a never-ending process of continual improvement.”

The DevOps offer continuous integration and continuous delivery. It makes the product delivery cycle quicker, and enterprises become able to launch the software timely without compromising its quality.

Following are the factors that will improve as a result of DevOps implementation:

• Predictability: DevOps decreases the failure rate of new product releases.
• Maintainability: The process improves the overall recovery rate at the time of the release event.
• Improved Quality: DevOps improves the quality of product development by incorporating infrastructure issues.
• Lower Risk: Security aspects are incorporated in SDLC, and the number of defects gets decreased across the product
• Cost Efficient: Cost efficiency is improved due to DevOps that is always an aspiration of every business organization.
• Stability: DevOps implementation offers a stable and secure operational state.
• Streamlined Delivery Process: As DevOps provides streamlined software delivery, so marketing effort is reduced up to 50%. It happens due to the mobile application and digital platform.

“DevOps is truly not just the unicorns of big IT hubs like Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. but it can be adopted by almost any organization today instead of their sizes.”

DevOps Lifecycle Phases and Measures

DevOps is basically an integration of development and operation process. One cannot implement DevOps without understanding its lifecycle. Following steps are included in the DevOps lifecycle:

Read: What is Vagrant? Vagrant Tutorial Guide for Beginners

i). Development

This is the first stage of DevOps lifecycle in which development of application takes place constantly. The entire development process is broken down into small steps or development cycles. As a result of this, the speed of software development and delivery is increased.

ii). Testing

Selenium like testing tools is used to speed up the overall testing process by quick identification of errors and fixing the bugs.

iii). Integration

New functionalities are integrated with the prevailing code, and testing of new code takes place. Continuous integration and testing help in the continuous development process.

iv). Deployment

Continuous deployment is the part of DevOps lifecycle. When it is performed in the right way, then it can affect the overall functioning of a high traffic website.

v). Monitoring

Inappropriate system behavior is managed by monitoring. Through proper monitoring, the bugs are found and fixed in a hassle-free way.

These are the building blocks for any DevOps application. As per DevOps culture, a group of Engineers is responsible for each stage of DevOps application development, including developer, system admin, testing, and others.

Workflow in DevOps

Workflows show a visual overview of sequences in which inputs are provided. It tells you about actions and outputs are generated based on operational processes. It has the ability to arrange and search for jobs that are frequently requested by users. It gives you the ability to mirror the ideal processes in configuration jobs.

DevOps Workflow:

• Parallel job execution
• Sequential Job execution
• Brach-level filtering

How DevOps Improved the Development and Operation Process?

DevOps solves development challenges in the following ways:

• Code deployment time is reduced because of the faster testing process and speedy feedback mechanism.
• Developers do not feel work pressure and can build new code in less time.

As far as operation process execution is concerned, then implementation of DevOps improves the operational processes in the following ways:

• Configuration management helps the organization to execute and organize the configuration plans, and they become able to manage their infrastructure in an effective
• Containers and virtualization concepts provide a simulated environment to increase software reliability and maintain uptime of the production environment.
• Effective and improved server monitoring is offered. As a result of this, proper feedback can be provided, and effective administration is assured.

DevOps Certifications

DevOps Certifications are necessary for IT professionals who want to advance their career in DevOps domain. Here is the list of top 5 DevOps certifications that are frequently opted by learners. With these DevOps certifications, you can boost up your resume and gather the relevant skills that will help you in establishing as an expert DevOps engineer.

Read: Top 7 DevOps Tools: Manage & Optimize The Organizational Task

A). Docker Certified Associate

It is designed for Docker practitioners with little or no experience in docker. This certification aims to provide valid credentials to Docker Practitioners. It is perfect for people having six months of working experience in Docker for DevOps.

This certification consists of 55 multiple choice questions that candidates should complete within 90 minutes. It costs about $195 to take the test. You can take the test from your home or a MAC computer.

B). Kubernetes Certified Professionals

It is one of the popular DevOps tools, thus highly demanded by industries. It is divided into two major categories: The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) programs.

Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

• It tests the skills, knowledge, and proficiency that a Kubernetes administrator should possess.
• This certification exam consists of a performance-based set of problems that a candidate has to solve within 3 hours.
• It costs about $300 to take the test.

Certified Kubernetes Application developer

• It is built for professionals who know how to design, build, expose, and configure native cloud apps for Kubernetes.
• The exam consists of multiple-choice questions that have to complete within 2 hours.
• It costs about $300 to take the test.

C). AWS Certified DevOps Engineer

It is a profession-level exam that recognizes the technical skills of a person to provision, manage, and operate the distributed applications on the AWS platform. The exam consists of 60 multiple choice questions that have to be completed within 180 minutes. The exam can be given in Japanese or English language, and you have to $300 in total to take the test.

D). Microsoft Azure Certified DevOps Engineer

It is a certification exam that validates the skills for Azure DevOps professionals. DevOps engineers are aspired to get this certification, and it is intended for developers who are best to design and implement DevOps best practices using Azure technologies.

The exam consists of 60 multiple choice questions that have to be completed within 180 minutes. And the candidate has to pay $165 to take this test.

E). Puppet Certified Professionals

It is one of the popular DevOps tools and highly demanded by industries. The exam consists of 60 multiple choice questions that have to be completed within 90 minutes. And the candidate has to pay $200 to take this test.

To give this exam, the candidate should have a sound knowledge of the Puppet tool and a few months of working experience too. You can prepare for this exam online by taking DevOps certification training online. Enroll for the demo class at JanBask Training now.

Top 7 DevOps Job Roles High in Demand

Let us discuss different job roles and skills demanded by each role how DevOps professionals’ fits into the grand scheme of things. Here, we shall also discuss various career opportunities associated with each DevOps role.

DevOps Jobs Roles	Skills and Technologies
Release Manager	Planning and software lifecycle management
DevOps Lead	Jenkins, Git, Nagios, Zabbix, bit bucket, SVN, Chef, puppet, Ansible
DevOps Automation Expert	Git, SVN, bitbucket, Jenkins
DevOps Testing Professional	Unit testing, build testing, Selenium, MySQL
DevOps Architect	C, C++, Java, Ruby
DevOps Engineer	Linux, AWS, Azure
Security Professional	IDS, Risk analysis, Penetration testing

Here is a quick salary structure earned by DevOps professionals for different roles:

DevOps Engineer	$164,800
DevOps Architect	$158,000
DevOps Release Manager	$94,225
DevOps Testers	$91,207
DevOps Security specialists	$140,000
DevOps Automation Experts	$153,000
DevOps Lead	$190,000

 1). DevOps Release Manager

He is an industry-recognized certified professional and plays an important role in DevOps ecosystem. Some of the useful certifications associated with the role can be given as:

• AWS DevOps certification,
• JanBask DevOps training and certification,
• PMP agile certified practitioner, etc.

He is an experienced professional with 3-4 years of experience in the IT domain. He has a strong knowledge of end-to-end software development and deployment lifecycle. He is a good communicator generally interacts with IT professionals and management professionals involved in a project. A release manager has to work on multiple projects and deadlines together.

2). DevOps Lead

To excel in this job profile, a person should have the right set of skills and certifications. A number of certifications that can fulfill your dream of becoming a successful DevOps Lead are given below.

• JanBask AWS training and certification,
• Microsoft Azure Certification,
• AWS certification by Amazon, etc

He sits on the top of the DevOps cycle and executes all DevOps processes responsibly. He has extensive knowledge of different automation tools that can be used by other team members too.

Read: Top 20 Git Interview Questions and Answers 2018

He is an experienced person with more than three years of experience and knows how to implement DevOps. He can identify the right set of tools and techniques for your project. He ensures high availability of production and non-production environment.

3). DevOps Automation Expert

A right set of skills and certifications can help you in becoming a successful DevOps Automation Expert. Some sought-after skills for this profile are given below:

• JanBask AWS Training & Certification,
• JanBask Azure Training & Certification,
• AWS certification by Amazon,
• Azure certification by Microsoft, etc.

He is the person responsible for creating automated pipelines for production and non-production environment. He has 2-3 years of experience in IT and he has usually worked with UNIX/LINUX machines. He has a depth understanding of how to automate tasks using shell scripting, Python, PERL, etc. that are considered highly significant for CI/CD pipelines.

4). DevOps Testing Professional

If you want to become a DevOps testing professional, then you should have a testing background to excel in this domain. Some of the remarkable certifications for DevOps testing professionals are given as:

• Selenium Certification by JanBask,
• Test architect Masters Certification by JanBask,
• ETL Testing certification by JanBask, and more.

He is the person responsible for writing automated test cases for applications in development. He has a minimum of 2-3 years of experience in testing domain. Sound knowledge of Selenium, Java, Python, and different type of testing can help to grow in this job profile.

5). DevOps Software Engineers

To become a DevOps software engineer, you should have the right certification to fulfill your dream. Some of the top certifications needed by a DevOps engineer can be given as:

• JanBask Java Training and Certification
• JanBask Python certification training
• JanBask DevOps training & Certification, and more.

He is the person familiar with DevOps tools and techniques with 2-3 years of experience in software development. He has been working with different software versioning tools Git, SVN, etc. He is familiar with different phases of software development life cycle too. He should have a strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, C, Ruby, Java, Python, etc.

6). DevOps Architects

It is one of the most common job profiles for DevOps experts, and you should have the following set of certifications to accelerate in this job profile.

• RHCE Certification,
• Java Certification,
• DevOps Certification,
• AWS associate Certification, etc.

He is the person with depth knowledge of maintaining and monitoring IT infrastructure. He knows how to create a fault-tolerant system for production or non-production environments. IT industries are embracing at a fast pace, and hence the DevOps engineer should have the knowledge of MySQL database, AWS, Azure, Java, Linux/Unix machines, Python, PERL, etc.

7). DevOps Security Professionals

For this profile, here are some sought-after certifications highly demanded by industries. They can be given as:

• DevOps training and certification
• Linux/Unix certifications
• AWS or Cloud Certification

He is the person with 2-3 years of experience in IT infrastructure security. He is responsible for providing security for infrastructures. They are able to identify security loopholes in infrastructure and create a plan to counter security threats. He has a strong knowledge of network security systems, firewalls, IDS, cloud systems, etc.

Future Career Scope of DevOps

A lot of changes may occur in the DevOps process shortly, and some of them are like organizations are shifting their needs from years to weeks and months, and for IT professionals it has become one of the most in-demand skills.

Highlights:

• As of April 19, 2019, the average salary of a DevOps engineer is $115,666 in the USA.
• DevOps is ranked second on Glassdoor’s 50 best jobs in American rankings.
• The expected market size of DevOps is $12.85 billion as per Grand View research.
• Sixty percent of hiring managers are looking to fill DevOps engineer positions.
• There are more than 156,209 openings in the DevOps space that makes it quite clear how lucrative career option is DevOps today and shortly.

Conclusion

We can expect continuous improvement in the DevOps process. Before the DevOps implementation, teams were working in an isolated manner, whereas it has provided a collaborative environment for them now. Various tools are evolving to make the process smoother.

DevOps engineers will have more control and access to the end-user product. So, DevOps is definitely a wonderful choice for the organization in terms of product deployment, quality management, and operations handling, etc. To know more about DevOps, you may enroll for DevOps certification course at JanBask Training now.

Read: What is the Difference between Agile and DevOps