What skills do you need to transition from network administrator to DevOps engineer?

Being a DevOps engineer, regardless of platform or tooling, requires systems thinking. The work basically requires you to build a factory for developers to get their code to production. Being a certified network administrator, DBA, Windows or Linux engineer are all valueable backgrounds. But more important than that, is to understand the software build cycle. In my experience, the best DevOps engineers have some programming background that often extends beyond scripting.

A thorough understanding of operating systems (both Linux and Windows) and learn as much about virtualisation and containerisation. Understand the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Get a good grasp on versioning tools (e.g git). Look at Cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, etc... to understand the process of provisioning compute resources and other cloud services. See how the whole development and deployment process fit into a CI/CD context.

Linux is the heart of DevOps, and most of the applications and tools are being deployed to Linux OS. Scripting Language is always an extended hand to a System Administrator to reduce their workloads which can be automated via Scripting.

Additionally, I'd also say learn YAML since many of the pipeline frameworks use it. I found working on personal projects like automation written in YAML in Home Assistant to help me learn the in's and out's.

I agree with it, knowing scripting will automate most of the part of day to day activities. I would say familiarity with Linux system is a mandatory skill, the tools we use today, most of them are Linux hosted.

Version Control Software, which is now the most popular is Git, it is very important and should be in one of the featured list for every developer and System Administrators to make software development and versioning the files. It is very useful in resiliency of the data management.

1. **Programming and Scripting:** 2. **Version Control:** Familiarize version control systems like Git. 3. **Linux/Unix Systems:** Gain expertise in Linux/Unix 4. **Containers and Orchestration:** Docker and Kubernetes )K8’s) 5. **CI/CD Pipelines:** Understand Continuous Integration (CI) 6. **Infrastructure as Code (IaC):** tools like Terraform, Ansible, or Puppet. 7. **Cloud Services:** cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. 8. **Monitoring/Logging/Performance:** Grafana, ELK Stack, Splunk, Datadog 9. **Collaboration and Communication:** DevOps 10. **Security:** security practices in DevOps, 11. **Agile and DevOps Methodologies:** Agile principles workflow. 12. **Soft Skills:** Develop problem-solving skills

Version control is a foundational practice in modern software development. It enhances collaboration, tracks changes, ensures code integrity, and supports the development lifecycle from initial coding to deployment and maintenance.

Not only is version control vital for maintaining production services, it is also important from a security and compliance standpoint. Different compliance certifications may require some form of version control in order to be obtained.

Proficiency in version control systems like Git is essential for managing codebase changes, collaborating with team members, and tracking the history of code modifications.

Learning and understanding Docker and Containers are crucial part of becoming a DevOps Engineer. In almost every corner of The Cloud, there's a point where you'll find yourself using them. Containers also help you Test and Learn new tools easier and faster in an isolated environment, which is great.

Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are essential practices in software development for several reasons: Speed and Efficiency: CI/CD accelerates development and deployment, reducing time-to-market. Quality Assurance: Early bug detection and automated testing improve software reliability. Collaboration and DevOps: Encourages collaboration and aligns development and operations teams for smoother workflows. Risk Reduction: Incremental, smaller releases reduce the risk associated with major updates. These reasons are fundamental to the value of CI/CD in modern software development.

Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are critical practices in modern software development for several reasons: 1. Quality Assurance 2. Reduced Integration Problems 3. Faster Development 4. Consistency 5. Early Feedback 6. Risk Reduction 7. Security 8. Efficiency 9. Scalability CI and CD practices enhance the software development process by automating key steps, improving code quality, reducing risks, and accelerating the delivery of software. They are integral to achieving agility, efficiency, and high-quality software development in today's fast-paced tech landscape.

A préciser que ce que l'on nomme pipeline dans la culture est tout un ensemble d'outils qui dépassent le cadre de Docker, k8s - qui peuvent être considérés comme des simulateurs d'environnement de développement pour le premier et orchestratreur pour le deuxième - et Ansible qui est un outil de gestion d'Iac. En somme, un pipeline peut être considéré comme une cha?ne d'outils dans laquelles chacun des composants précités joue un r?le fondement. Le plus important est de savoir bien choisir ses outils en fonction des contextes, contraintes et exigences et dans un souci de préservation de l'évolutivité.

Familiarize yourself with CI/CD pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or Travis CI. CI/CD practices automate the building, testing, and deployment of applications, ensuring faster and more reliable releases.

Cloud computing and Infrastructure as Code are fundamental to DevOps because they enable automation, scalability, consistency, and efficient resource management. They empower DevOps teams to rapidly develop, test, and deploy software in dynamic and flexible environments while maintaining control and security.

Understand IaC principles using tools like Terraform, Ansible, or AWS CloudFormation. IaC allows you to manage and provision infrastructure using code, making it easier to automate and maintain.

Gain knowledge of monitoring tools like Prometheus and Grafana for collecting metrics and visualizing data. Also, understand logging solutions such as ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) for analyzing log data.

Automating different types of tests is definitely something you'll need to master to truly "go DevOps". That means not only understanding and developing the actual tests (very likely using some testing framework) but also automating the deployment and usage of the necessary infrastructure to run those tests.

Effective communication is a cornerstone in the realm of DevOps engineering. The ability to establish robust connections with stakeholders, customers, and fellow colleagues is a facet that should not be overlooked. Surprisingly, even though we have fantastic modern communication tools like Slack and Teams, we often have the tendency to underutilize the good old email. While email might seem like a "legacy" tool, it still holds significant value when it comes to sharing information about the challenges we're addressing together, and thus adding tremendous value to soft skills and continuous communication improvements.

Interesting topic. There are two traits one should possess to move from an admin to a DevOps engineer: (1) extremely techie with an unstoppable desire to hack and script and automate everything and (2) extremely lazy. The combination of those two traits results in the best type of engineer that will automate everything they see because they are too darn lazy to do anything manually. ?? I prefer someone spend a week automating something rather than 3 years running it manually every day.

Everything should be as small of a touch as possible. That means we never log onto a shell or a web page to change anything! Instead: ? invoke a CLI script ? call an API ? use a declarative tool like Terraform, Azure Bicep, GitHub Actions, etc. And then those things interact with your resources when events happen (or on a schedule) ??

Another skill set that is vital is understanding how technical achievements promote and advance business objectives. You have to be committed to understanding how the work you do impacts the bottom line for the company you work with, and how you can create more work for yourself that addresses needs that aren't obvious, yet.

Do not think that this work is all about hard skills. Effective communication is key in any role. Work on active listening, clarity in your messages, and empathetic responses to build better relationships and collaboration with colleagues and stakeholders.

I think the points covered in this article are very important, but there is one that is fundamental and is not on the list: knowing how to code! I have encountered many organisations where the SRE role is confused with DevOps - DevOps is primarily a way of bringing development and operations activities closer together, so the skills needed to be a competent SRE are definitely important in DevOps, but IMHO the ability to develop software is definitely its backbone. Everything else comes after that. To move into DevOps from a network engineering role, I'd suggest learning to code in Python and Go, as a minimum. Node.js could also be a good choice. Knowing how to use Python for scripting is not the same - learn Object Oriented Programming too.