The Comprehensive Guide to Learning DevOps

Our understanding of how to distribute responsibilities among teams involved in developing digital products evolves over time. Whether you're a programmer or a systems administrator, you can benefit from applying DevOps practices (Development Operations) to enhance the final product, refine your workflow, and boost productivity.

In this comprehensive guide, you will learn the fundamental principles of DevOps practices, a roadmap for learning this fascinating field, and how to master it.

What is DevOps?

The term DevOps is a combination of the words "Development" and "Operations." It refers to practices aimed at supporting the development and operation of digital products of all kinds. These practices help accelerate development processes, improve product quality, simplify deployment and delivery to users, and monitor the product's actual performance and operation.

Previously, these tasks and responsibilities were divided between two separate teams — as we will discuss in the following section. This division affected the efficiency of these teams' work and created problems, which we will explore in the upcoming paragraphs.

DevOps is a set of practices aimed at increasing speed, efficiency, and productivity in application development and programming. Previously, these practices were divided between two teams:

1. Development Team: Responsible for writing and maintaining the source code of the application. Their role ends with delivering the updated version of the program.
2. Operations Team: Responsible for receiving the updated version from the development team, deploying it, and configuring it in the production environment. This includes connecting the application to external services, preparing the environment, running the program, monitoring its performance during production, ensuring high availability, and reporting issues to the development team for further updates.

The Goal of DevOps

Missing Embed URL

The primary goal of DevOps is to foster collaboration between these two teams to improve the overall quality, performance, and efficiency of the final product. Instead of the traditional segregation of responsibilities, DevOps encourages both teams to share information and responsibilities. This helps streamline the application design, deployment, and monitoring processes, leading to a better final product.

Why Should I Learn DevOps?

Once the development team completes a new version of a product, their role ends. The operations team then takes over to prepare and deploy it to users. However, what if the operations team discovers an issue during deployment? They would need to notify the development team to make the necessary adjustments.

This back-and-forth communication and issue resolution process can be time-consuming. DevOps practices aim to address this challenge by promoting collaboration and automation, reducing delays, and improving product quality. By adopting these practices, teams can:

• Deliver products faster.
• Enhance quality and performance.
• Increase productivity by automating repetitive tasks such as testing, deployment, and error detection.

Learning DevOps: The Basics

Whether you are part of the development or operations team, understanding DevOps fundamentals is essential for effective collaboration and problem-solving. Key topics include:

1. Infrastructure:
   Infrastructure refers to the physical and virtual components supporting application development, deployment, and operation. It includes servers, networking devices, data storage, and software dependencies.
2. Networking Basics:
   Understanding computer networking basics is crucial for developers and operations teams alike. This includes knowing about local (LAN) and wide (WAN) networks, devices like switches and routers, and communication protocols such as IP.
3. Servers:
   Servers provide services to other devices or programs and must handle high traffic loads. Developers and operations professionals often deal with configuring servers, including installing operating systems, networking, and service-specific configurations.
4. Linux Operating System:
   Linux is an open-source operating system widely used in servers. Learning Linux and command-line basics is essential for both development and operations roles.
5. Command Line Basics:
   The command line allows advanced interactions with operating systems and software, particularly in server management where graphical interfaces are often unavailable.

Advanced DevOps Learning

After mastering the basics, you can move on to more specialized DevOps topics, including:

1. Virtual Servers and Containers:
   These technologies enable efficient resource allocation and isolation. Key concepts include:
   • Virtual Machines (VMs): Simulate multiple operating systems on a single physical machine.
   • Virtual Private Servers (VPS): Isolated virtual environments on shared physical hardware.
   • Containers: Lightweight, isolated environments for running applications, which are faster and more resource-efficient than VMs.
2. Docker:
   Docker is a platform for creating, deploying, and managing containerized applications efficiently. It is widely used in DevOps practices for development, testing, and deployment.

This overview provides a starting point for learning DevOps. You can explore further topics such as security practices (DevSecOps), automation tools, and cloud services to build a comprehensive skill set.