DevOps Roadmap: Your Guide to Become a DevOps Engineer

If you’re curious about learning DevOps Roadmap but don’t know where to start, you’re in the right place! I’ll guide you step-by-step on your journey to becoming a DevOps engineer. First and foremost, we will start with the basic skills required to become a DevOps engineer, then gradually explore the major milestones you need to reach to succeed in this field. Let’s break it down and get started!

Table of Content

• Relevant programming languages
• Get comfortable with different OSs and OS concepts
• Networking security and protocols
• Terminals are your new home
• Web servers
• Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery Tools
• Learn infrastructure as code
• Application monitoring/Infrastructure monitoring
• Cloud designs pattern
• Conclusion

To begin with, you’ll build on the basic knowledge you’ve gained about DevOps principles to follow the DevOps lifecycle and tools by learning some relevant programming languages. These skills will help you automate processes, manage infrastructure, and integrate various DevOps tools into your workflow.

In India, DevOps engineers are well-compensated, reflecting the growing demand for these skills. Initially, DevOps engineers typically earn between ₹4 LPA (Lakhs per Annum) and ₹8 LPA. As they gain experience, mid-level engineers can expect salaries ranging from ₹9 LPA to ₹15 LPA annually. Senior DevOps engineers who bring significant expertise and leadership to the table can command salaries from ₹16 LPA to ₹25 LPA or even higher. The specific salary can vary depending on the city, industry, and the engineer’s skill set, but overall, DevOps offers a promising and financially rewarding career path in India. In the U.S., DevOps engineers can expect to earn between $70,000 and $90,000 at the initial level. With experience and skills in areas like cloud platforms, CI/CD, and automation, salaries can rise to $130,000 to $160,000 for senior roles. Lead DevOps engineers or architects can earn $160,000 to $200,000+ annually. Continuous learning and certifications are key to advancing in this high-demand field.

Relevant programming languages

(WEEK 1)

As a DevOps engineer, learning a programming language is incredibly valuable because it equips you to automate tasks, integrate tools, and customize workflows. Here’s a closer look at two top programming languages that are particularly beneficial in the DevOps field:

Python

Python is a high-level, interpreted language known for its readability and simplicity. Many areas, including web development, data analysis, scripting, and automation.

• Python
• Go

Why Learn Python in DevOps Roadmap?

• Automation: Python is excellent for automating repetitive tasks and writing scripts to manage infrastructure, deploy applications, and monitor systems.
• Tool Integration: Many DevOps tools and frameworks, such as Ansible and SaltStack, are either built on Python or use Python scripts, making it a versatile choice for integration.
• Large Ecosystem: Python has a vast ecosystem of libraries and modules, making it easy to extend its capabilities for various DevOps tasks.
• Cross-Platform: Python works on almost any platform, ensuring that scripts and automation tools can run in diverse environments.

Go (Golang)

Go, also known as Golang, is a statically typed, compiled language developed by Google. It’s known for its efficiency, simplicity, and strong concurrency support.

Why Learn Go in DevOps Roadmap?

• Performance: Go is designed for high performance, making it ideal for building efficient tools and services that need to handle a large number of concurrent tasks.
• Cloud-Native Applications: Go is the language behind many modern cloud-native tools and platforms, such as Docker and Kubernetes, making it essential for working with these technologies.
• Simplicity: While powerful, Go’s syntax is straightforward, making it easier to learn and write maintainable code.
• Strong Standard Library: Go has a robust standard library that supports tasks like networking, file handling, and concurrency out of the box, which are critical in DevOps workflows.

Next up, you become comfortable with the programming languages and then the different operating systems with their own concepts. Knowing the different OS environments will certainly help in systems management and troubleshooting.

Get comfortable with different OSs and OS concepts

(WEEK 2-3)

DevOps engineers these days have to be ready to work with different operating systems. First, you master Linux; it is the true backbone of most server environments. Then you learn other OSs, like Windows and macOS. Having that base knowledge empowers you to manage and automate tasks across various systems.

Operating systems would be one part of the DevOps roadmap. You should be able to go deep into your understanding—into the underlying infrastructure of the OS that allows you to run an application. Basically, it turns on the basic concepts in the operating systems that you need to know, including the following: 

• Process Management
• Sockets
• Frontend Development
• Threads & Concurrency
• I/O Management
• Basics of Posix
• Virtualization
• File Systems
• Service Management
• Networking
• Memory & Storage

With such a strong background in various operating systems and related concepts, you are now better placed to acquire knowledge in networking security and protocols. Grasp these elements that will be needed for strong and secure interaction between different systems and across different networks.

Networking security and protocols

(WEEK 4)

It aids you as a DevOps engineer with security measures in networking for the integrity and security of your data in this DevOps Roadmap. They define a process and methodology that will show how you will keep your network secure and safe from attempts at unauthorized access. For instance,

• HTTP: Moved data over the web.
• HTTPS: HTTP encrypted with SSL/TLS.
• FTP: Moved files between client and server; not secure by default.
• Firewalls: Controlled network traffic using security rules.
• SSH: Safe remote access and management to servers.
• SSL/TLS: It encrypts network data.
• IPsec: protects IP communications through the encryption process along with authentication of packets.
• VPNs: It protect remote connections by users or networks.
• Port Forwarding: The network traffic of one port is forwarded to another.
• AT-TLS: The Application layer encryption takes place without modification.
• SNMP: This monitors and controls the Network Devices. OSPF Authentication: The authentication protecting the OSPF routing is done. Proxy Access: It is the channel through which the network traffic is routed and filtered for security and privacy.

Let’s dive into a strong base now in place in the security of networking and protocols, terminals should be your workspace. Your fluency in terminal commands and operations will underpin you to become proficient in working and automating tasks with ease in diverse environments.

Terminals are your new home

(WEEK 5)

This console allows the developer to automate, script, and run system tasks without a Graphical User Interface or GUI.

In that respect, you should, therefore, feel comfortable with at least: text manipulation, Bash scripting, process monitoring and system performance and networking, compiling applications from source, Vim/Nano/Emacs, and PowerShell.

Additionally, though, we’d bet that if you ever were comfortable creating a .cfg file in your FPS of choice, you will be right at home here. And you will need to be.

With terminals now being your second home in both management and automation, diving deep into web servers is next. Knowing how Web Servers work will empower you to deploy and manage applications in different contexts.

Web Servers

(WEEK 6)

It serves a request when the user wants some information. A web server hosts one or multiple sites in a single hardware resource. A web server communicates to a web browser with HTTP/HTTPS. An engineer relates being a DevOps engineer with him or her taking the responsibility of being able to monitor a server.

Some common web servers you can learn about are:

• Apache
• Nginx
• LinkedIn

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery Tools

(WEEK 7-8)

This is when the continuous integration/delivery pipeline in DevOps Roadmap for software development becomes very much needed. Continuous integration is a practice of software development in which developers integrate everything they change in the code into a single, shared repository. On the other hand, continuous delivery can be termed as automatically built changes, tested, and prepared in code that enters into production releases. This can be viewed as an extension of continuous integration.

Probably one of the most key areas any DevOps engineer may become very astute at; no big surprise since it is pretty vast and wide-ranging. For your development and success in leading projects, be well-versed with continuous integration tools like Jenkins, containerization tools like Kubernetes and Docker, along with configuration management tools.

Now that you have explored continuous integration and continuous delivery tools, look into Infrastructure as Code so that you can automate and manage your infrastructure with the same preciseness and efficiency as your deployment pipelines.

Learn Infrastructure as Code

(WEEK 9)

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a practice where infrastructure (like servers, networks, and databases) is managed and provisioned using code, rather than through manual processes. This approach allows you to automate the setup and configuration of your infrastructure, making it consistent, repeatable, and version-controlled. Tools like Terraform, Ansible, and Cloud Formation are commonly used for IaC, enabling teams to deploy and manage infrastructure efficiently and at scale.

It is expected to be one of the major realms for a DevOps engineer. Indeed, it is vast and compounded. It requires knowledge in containers such as Kubernetes and Docker, as well as configuration management tools such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef, for the most viable development and successful completion of projects managed.

Here are some DevOps tools you need to know about: 

• Docker
• Containers
• LXC
• Configuration Management 
• Ansible
• Salt
• Chef
• Puppet
• Container Orchestration
• Mesos 
• Kubernetes
• Docker Swarm
• Nomad
• Istio 
• Service Mesh
• Linkerd
• Consul Connet
• Maesh
• Kuma
• Infrastructure provisioning
• Terraform

Application Monitoring/Infrastructure Monitoring

(WEEK 10)

Application monitoring involves measurement of the availability, performance, and user experience of your applications. It will help to detect an issue fast and solve it right before the end-users are affected by aggregating data on application behavior. Tools like AppDynamics, Instana, New Relic, Jaeger, OpenTracing measure and thus analyze application metrics, which in turn aid in solving problems before they reach the end-users.

With monitoring of both kinds of application and infrastructure being done, it is now on point to venture a bit deeper into some key cloud design patterns, helping to bridge forth the best practices in securing scalable and resilient cloud architectures. With that, you will be able to manage your cloud environments effectively, optimizing them for great performance.

Cloud Designs Pattern

(WEEK 11-12)

The following patterns, one would find key to a DevOps roadmap to cloud design are through which we can then go on to create scalable, reliable, and secure applications:

• Event Sourcing: Changes are tracked as a series of events for scalability and auditability.
• Ambassador: Handling communication and handling cross-cutting concerns
• CQRS: Command Query Responsibility Segregation: Separate read and write operations for better performance and scalability.
• Gateway Aggregation: Multiple responses from services consolidated into one result.
• Compute Resource Consolidation: Consolidation of compute resources for better utilization among services.
• External Config Store: A good configuration management system is centralized for consistency.
• Anti-Corruption Layer: Keeping your system from being corrupted by external data.
• Pipes and Filters: Data is processed in stages. 
• Gateway Offloading: This eases loads on services by offloading processing tasks onto a gateway.
• Gateway Routing: The traffic should be routed to the right service.
• Sidecar: Enhanced functionality, extended alongside main services, without modifications.

These patterns will form a foundation for the construction of powerful cloud architectures, improving the resilience of your DevOps process and helping to increase efficiency.

Next comes logs management after putting in place good grasp on cloud design patterns. Properly managed logs will improve your ability to monitor, troubleshoot, and further optimize applications and infrastructure in your cloud environments.

Logs Management in DevOps Roadmap

(WEEK 13)

Logs help in listing events that take place in a system and looking into the details. In this light, log monitoring will, therefore, aid the upcoming DevOps engineer in improving services and processes, preventing vulnerabilities, and identifying bottlenecks.

Among others, you will make use of the following tools during this process:

• Splunk
• Elastic Stack
• Graylog
• Papertrail

Cloud Providers and Service Packages in DevOps Roadmap

(WEEK 14)

A DevOps engineer should also be aware of multiple cloud providers and their offerings. Of the various cloud providers available, Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, Digital Ocean, Linode, and Alibaba Cloud have varying advantages and characteristics. Note that most of these providers are metered, thus adding usage costs for domains, CPU, memory, and SSL certificates. Even when their service packs sound the same, details can vary. Know their pricing models and the features of services each vendor can offer to meet your cloud strategy.

Conclusion

A good DevOps roadmap should be based on deep knowledge of the principles, tools, and practices around it, besides hands-on experience in programming, system management, and cloud architecture. Through these competencies, you can automate, secure, and optimize development and operational workflow best practices, thus being more effective and innovative in projects.

If you want to advance your skills and career prospects as a DevOps Engineer, then you should explore the latest courses and training programs. We recommend you take up the DevOps Engineer Masters Program offered by Edureka. DevOps Engineer Masters Program will make you proficient in DevOps principles like CI/CD, Continuous Monitoring, and Continuous Delivery, using tools like Puppet, Nagios, Chef, Docker, Git & Jenkins. It includes training on Linux, Python, Docker, AWS DevOps, and Splunk. The DevOps Engineer certification training course curriculum was created after extensive research on 5000+ job descriptions across the globe to make you a certified DevOps expert.

Do you have any questions about the DevOps roadmap or need further information? Feel free to leave a comment below, and we’ll respond as soon as possible!