As a new engineer, understanding cloud-native collaboration and DevOps culture is important for several reasons.
First, it is essential for building and deploying cloud-native applications. These practices emphasize collaboration and communication between teams such as development, operations, and security, and aim to streamline the development and deployment process. By understanding how they work, you can build, deploy, and manage cloud-native applications more effectively.
Second, they allow for faster time-to-market. By promoting collaboration and communication between teams, development and deployment can be sped up, leading to faster time-to-market.
Third, they promote better quality of the applications. By promoting collaboration and communication between teams, more thorough testing and debugging can be done, resulting in better quality of the application.
Fourth, they allow for better scalability. By promoting collaboration and communication between teams, resources can be allocated and scaled up or down as needed, without incurring additional costs.
In summary, understanding cloud-native collaboration and DevOps culture is important because it is essential for building and deploying cloud-native applications, allows for faster time-to-market, promotes better quality of the applications, and allows for better scalability. It is a powerful tool for building and deploying applications in a cloud environment and is essential for any engineer working in the field today.
Learning Materials
Here’s a list to get you started learning about cloud-native collaboration and DevOps culture. Note that some of these links may not be free and may require a subscription or payment. I receive no affiliate payments for these links.
Beginner:
- “A Comprehensive Introduction to Cloud-Native DevOps” by microtica: https://www.microtica.com/blog/a-comprehensive-introduction-to-cloud-native-devops
- “Introduction to Cloud-Native DevOps” by dev.to Sara Miteva: https://dev.to/microtica/an-introduction-to-cloud-native-devops-15n2
Intermediate:
- “Cloud-Native Collaboration and DevOps Culture with AWS” by AWS: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/introduction-devops-aws/welcome.html
- “Cloud-Native Collaboration and DevOps Culture with Azure” by Microsoft: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/user-guide/what-is-azure-devops?view=azure-devops
- “Cloud-Native Collaboration and DevOps Culture with GCP” by Google: https://cloud.google.com/architecture/devops/devops-culture-transform
Advanced:
- “5 Best Practices for Implementing Cloud-Native DevOps” by DevOps.com: https://devops.com/5-best-practices-for-implementing-cloud-native-devops/
- “Why DevOps is Essential to Your Cloud Native Strategy” by Cloudreach: https://www.cloudreach.com/en/blog/why-devops-is-essential-to-your-cloud-native-strategy/
Videos to Watch
Cloud Native DevOps Explained
This video outlines the steps for migrating an application to a cloud-native approach, including breaking it into a pipeline, building and packaging components, running tests, and scanning for vulnerabilities. It also covers the use of DevOps and continuous delivery, as well as frameworks for test-driven development.
A Possible Learning Path
Hands-on experience: Start by setting up a simple Kubernetes cluster and experimenting with different DevOps tools such as Jenkins, Ansible, and Helm. This can be done by following tutorials and guides, and deploying these tools on a cloud platform like AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Theoretical learning: Once you have a basic understanding of DevOps, you can begin to explore the underlying concepts and technologies such as continuous integration, continuous delivery, and infrastructure as code. This can be done through online resources such as tutorials, courses, and documentation provided by Kubernetes, as well as books and blogs on the topic.
Understanding the principles and best practices: DevOps is an important aspect of a microservices architecture, so it’s important to understand the key principles and best practices of DevOps, such as collaboration, automation, and monitoring.
Joining a community: Joining a community of Kubernetes enthusiasts will help you connect with other people who are learning and working with DevOps for Kubernetes. This can be done through online forums, meetups, and social media groups.
Practice, practice, practice: As with any new technology, the best way to learn is by doing. The more you practice deploying and using DevOps tools in a Kubernetes cluster, the more comfortable and proficient you will become with the technology.
A Note from the Architect
OK, let’s talk about DevOps. So, what is it exactly? Well, DevOps is all about breaking down the barriers between development and operations teams, and promoting a culture of collaboration and communication. The goal is to speed up the software delivery process, improve quality, and increase efficiency.
Now, you might be wondering why we want to practice DevOps. Well, in the past, development and operations teams often worked in silos, which led to a lot of delays and inefficiencies. With DevOps, we’re able to bring those teams together and get everyone working towards the same goal: delivering high-quality software quickly and efficiently.
There are a few key principles of DevOps that we like to follow. One of the most important is automation. By automating as many processes as possible, we’re able to speed up the delivery process and reduce the likelihood of errors. Another key principle is continuous integration and delivery. By integrating code changes frequently and delivering them to production as soon as they’re ready, we’re able to get feedback and make improvements more quickly.
Now, when it comes to cloud native approaches like developing on Kubernetes, they fit really well within DevOps practices. By using containerization and orchestration, we’re able to automate the deployment and scaling of our applications, which helps us move faster and be more efficient.
As an individual team member, you can contribute to the DevOps culture by being open to feedback and suggestions, and by being willing to work collaboratively with other teams. Some good practices for a new engineer or developer to pick up include learning how to use automation tools, getting familiar with containerization and orchestration, and practicing continuous integration and delivery.
You might be wondering how DevOps is related to agile and SRE. Well, DevOps is closely related to agile, as both focus on delivering software quickly and efficiently. SRE, on the other hand, is all about ensuring the reliability and availability of software in production. All these practices come together to make sure the software is delivered fast, reliable and with high availability.
Finally, let me tell you, before DevOps became a common practice, IT departments faced a lot of problems. There were often delays in getting new features or updates to production, and there were also a lot of communication issues between development and operations teams. DevOps helps us to overcome all these problems.
Well, dear reader, we’ve come to the end of our series of blog posts on cloud native technologies and practices, and especially Kubernetes. Well, this won’t be my last post on Kubernetes, but at least as far as it relates to this series. I hope you’ve found the information we’ve covered to be helpful and informative.
Throughout the series, we’ve talked about a lot of different topics, including security, CICD, DevOps, and containerization. These are all critical concepts for anyone working in the cloud, and I want to emphasize that these concepts aren’t just short-lived trends, but tools and ideas that will serve you well for many years of your career.
We’ve covered a lot of ground in these posts, but there’s still so much more to learn about cloud native technologies and practices. As you continue to grow and develop your skills, I hope you’ll keep these concepts in mind and continue to explore the many different ways that they can be applied in your work.
I also want to take a moment to thank you for your time, support, and the conversations we’ve had throughout the series. Your feedback and input have been invaluable in helping to make these posts a success, and I appreciate the time you’ve taken to read and engage with the content.
As you continue your journey in cloud native technologies, keep in mind that it’s a constantly evolving landscape, and there will always be more to learn and explore. But with the concepts and tools we’ve covered in this series, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate this exciting and rapidly changing field.
Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoyed the series. Let’s continue the conversation and explore even more of this exciting field together!
