DevOps: Your Pathway to a Successful IT Career

Hello Aspirants, I’m taking this opportunity to talk about a very important topic in today’s Information Technology era—DevOps. But wait, I just referred to this as yet another opportunity, but when was the last time I talked to aspirants like you? I need to introduce myself to answer these questions. I am Pranoday Dingare, the author of the book “CI/CD Pipeline Using Jenkins Unleashed,” which was published worldwide on July 13, 2022. I’m also an avid blogger with a keen interest in writing about various software technologies in the areas of Software Testing and DevOps. This is when I began communicating with aspirants like you early in my journey as an author, hence the reference.

So, what’s the business here? You might ask. I mentioned a very important topic in the first line of this article—what is that topic? Wait… take a deep breath. Let’s get on with it.

Did you notice the term “DevOps” above? Well, that’s what I’m going to talk about today, along with the career opportunities in this field for freshers and experienced professionals. DevOps is a hot topic and a crucial field in today’s technology era. But what is DevOps? Where did it come from? Is it related to the Software Industry at all? These might be the reactions of some of you. Don’t worry—I’ll answer every question you might have.

So, without further ado, let’s finally discuss what DevOps is. I don’t want to sound bookish, so I’ll explain this in layman’s terms. DevOps is an essential field of software engineering like the well-known areas of development and testing. This field deals particularly with the phases of software development that start once the application code is developed. Let’s understand this with an example:

Once a developer completes a feature in a software application, it goes through the following phases:

- The developer performs Unit Testing to check if the code works as expected.

- Once satisfied, the developer uploads the code to code repositories like SVN, Git, or Bitbucket so that other team members can access and contribute.

- After all the code is merged, an application build is created.

- The application is then deployed on a testing environment for End-to-End Testing.

- Once tested, the application is deployed in the production environment for end users.

Handling all the phases mentioned above is the primary responsibility of someone working in the DevOps field. It might seem easy, but in reality, it’s not. Many tasks in these phases cannot be done manually. For example, if your colleague pushes code at midnight, who will merge it, create a build, deploy it, and get it tested? These phases are automated with tools like Jenkins.

There are many tools a DevOps professional needs to manage. I’ll mention a few categories and tools from each below:

- Unit Testing Tools: TestNG, JUnit

- Source Code Repositories: Git, SVN

- Build Automation Tools: Jenkins, ArgoCD

- Build and Packaging Tools: Maven, Ant

- Artifact Repositories: Nexus, JFrog

- Containerization Tools: Docker (more on this below)

- Orchestration Tools: Kubernetes (detailed discussion below)

- Cloud Platforms: AWS, Azure, GCP (detailed discussion below)

- Infrastructure as Code Tools: Terraform

As you can see, there are many tools and technologies listed above, and this list isn’t even complete.

Let’s add some more spice by discussing Containerization, Orchestration, and Cloud Services mentioned above. Ready for this interesting ride?

Containerization:

What is Containerization? To understand it, we need to look at the traditional approach to application deployment. Say you’ve developed a Java application and want to deploy it using an application server called Tomcat. In the traditional way:

- You get a physical hardware or a Virtual Machine (VM) created using VMware or Oracle VirtualBox.

- You install Java, Tomcat, and other prerequisites, then deploy the application.

But what’s the problem with this approach? If the application works and users can access it, why change? Let’s discuss some challenges:

- Hardware Investment: Significant investment is required for physical hardware, and outdated hardware needs replacement.

- Virtualization Costs: If deploying on VMs, you need special hardware and licenses for virtualization software, leading to huge costs.

- Software Version Conflicts: Installing different software versions on the same VM can cause conflicts, making it difficult to run multiple applications.

- Application Footprints: Uninstalling an application and its prerequisites can leave behind unwanted footprints.

There’s only one solution—Containerization. Containers are packages that bundle all prerequisites and application code for deployment on a container environment like Docker. Containers are lightweight alternatives to VMs, and they leave no footprints on systems.

Orchestration:

Orchestration is crucial for deploying modern applications. Before diving into the technicalities, let’s understand the challenges of traditional deployment:

- If a machine hosting the application goes down, someone needs to monitor and fix it, leading to downtime.

- If you deploy an e-commerce application on a single server and experience high traffic during a festive season, you might clone the server to handle the load. But after the season, if traffic decreases, maintaining the same capacity wastes resources.

Orchestration tools like Kubernetes offer features like High Availability and Self-Healing, which automatically start a new application instance if the existing one fails. They also provide Scaling features, allowing you to increase or decrease application instances based on demand.

Cloud Services:

Another aspect of modern application deployment is Cloud Services. Organizations prefer cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP to reduce costs and avoid maintaining on-premise infrastructure. Cloud services operate on a “Pay as you go” model, allowing organizations to scale their usage according to demand.

The entire IT industry is moving towards modern, containerized, and orchestrated deployment approaches, making DevOps a promising career path. Freshers no longer need to limit their aspirations to development or testing roles. The industry is eagerly welcoming new talent in these challenging roles.

What’s in DevOps for Developers and Testers?

Developers and testers should upskill in DevOps tools and technologies to perform their roles more effectively. Applications you develop or test are being deployed on these modern platforms, requiring a new approach. Developers need to make their applications compliant with these platforms, and testers need to find new ways to test them.

Conclusion:

As DevOps skills become essential, job descriptions are beginning to list them as “Must Have” rather than “Nice to Have.” So, be ready for this challenge!

About the Author:

Pranoday Dingare is an author of the book “CI/CD Pipeline Using Jenkins Unleashed”. He is an avid blogger having keen interest in writing blogs on various software technologies in the area of Software Testing and DevOps

He is a software professional with over a decade experience in different areas of software development like Software Testing, Software Test Automation and DevOps. He has also been working as a software trainer for over a decade to train software aspirants on various testing and DevOps technologies. Helping people in achieving their dreams through training and sharing knowledge has always been one of his dearest dreams and passions. He possesses a keen interest in theatrical arts in the form of acting and has worked as a professional theater actor in the past.

LinkedIn Profile link: linkedin.com/in/trainerpranoday-dingare

By collaboration with, Soham Naik ?? , Founder of MIMACO - Mixed Marketing Company and a Times of India Readers Blogger, who has his interests in creating trends into the modern digital landscape, educating the youth about the benefits of digital media and digital marketing on businesses. An Award-Winning Digital Strategist, Soham has achieved higher ROI’s for the clients and always maintains the relationships as a family.

LinkedIn Profile link: linkedin.com/in/soham-naik--

Thanks Kshitija Kotawadekar for your review and valuable suggestions. It means a lot!!!