What are DevOps and the skills required for DevOps?
When one aims to achieve delivery of better software at a faster pace, one opts for DevOps. It is a methodology that brings everyone on the same page to work together. DevOps is the combination of tools and practices designed to increase the speed, efficiency, and security of the software development process and enable faster delivery of the product.
In this blog, we will dive a little deeper into what is DevOps, what is a DevOps engineer, skills and tools required for becoming a DevOps engineer.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is simply the practice of development and operations engineers working together through the entire lifecycle of a product or software from design, and development to production, test, and deployment. It involves removing barriers between the development and operations teams to conceive and build secure software and enable faster delivery of the finished product. DevOps practices accelerate the delivery of secure software through collaboration, automation, continuous feedback, and iterative improvements.
DevOps stems from the Agile methodology of software development. It expands on a cross-functional approach encouraging a more collaborative environment during the stages of the development cycle. It is more a change in the mindset like Agile where DevOps focuses on incremental development.
Core DevOps principles
There are 4 principles that guide the DevOps methodology driving the efficiency and effectiveness of app development and deployment.
- Automating the software development cycle
- Collaborating and Communicating
- Improving continuously and reducing any wastage
- Constant focus on end-users needs and satisfaction through continuous feedback
What is a DevOps engineer?
A DevOps engineer is an IT generalist who has a wide variety of skills and knowledge of both development and operations like coding, system administration, infrastructure management, and DevOps tools.
A DevOps engineer also possesses a high level of interpersonal skills to work across different teams and create a collaborative environment. Their focus is to reduce the time-to-market and enable the delivery of improved user satisfaction. DevOps engineers reduce the complexity between the actions needed to make quick changes in the app and the tasks that keep the app functionally reliable.
Skills required for becoming a demanding DevOps engineer
Communication and collaboration skills
This is the most important skill that a DevOp engineer must have given the nature of DevOps is to collaborate with different teams, align the goals of teams to business objectives, and implement cross-functionality. All of these are difficult to achieve without good and clear communication.
Knowledge of DevOps tools
DevOps depends a lot on various tools that are involved in the different phases of implementation. Some of the important DevOps tools are:
- Configuration management tools like Ansible, Chef, and Puppet
- Source code management tools like Git, GitHub, and GitLab
- Bamboo and Jenkins for continuous integration
- TestingWhiz, Selenium, and TestComplete for continuous testing
- Splunk, Nagios, and Zabbix for monitoring
- Docker, Vagrant, and Kubernetes for containerization
Automation Skills
Since this is the heart of the DevOps process, a DevOps engineer should be able to automate the entire DevOps pipeline like the CI/CD cycles, infrastructure, configuration, app performance monitoring, etc.
Security skills
Security risk and deployment speed get proportional thus a DevOps engineer has to integrate security right from the start and thus must know it in and out.
Coding and Scripting
To understand the development process a DevOps engineer must know these two. The most recommended programming languages for DevOps are Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Java, PHP, Shell, and NodeJS.
Testing skills
This crucial skill is a no-miss for a DevOps engineer. Not only the product testing, but the DevOps automation pipeline also needs to be well tested to run automated tests without a fail.
Cloud Skills
Cloud drives the DevOps methodology by providing the necessary platforms to test, deploy and release codes. You can say that DevOps and Cloud are directly proportional to each other.
Client Focused approach
Client satisfaction is the goal towards which all the DevOps efforts are directed. A DevOps engineer can function out of this approach and should always perform in line with the business objective and the satisfaction of the end user.
DevOps might seem difficult at first but the more you dive into it, the more you understand about. You need to keep an open mind and be flexible when it comes to learning, operating in diverse environments, and combining your learning with experience to get the most out of your DevOps journey. This article is aimed at providing you with the crux of what is DevOps, what is DevOps engineering, and the various DevOps tools and their principles so that you can start your own journey toward a successful career.
