DEV Community: Gourav Shah

Complete Docker Tutorial - FREE Video Training

Gourav Shah — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:48:22 +0000

Recently, as part of my effort to bring high quality learning experience, the same I provide to my Corporate Clientele including Cisco, Visa, Adobe, Intuit, Citrix, Walmart Labs, Mercedes Benz, Dreamworks, Expedia, Qualcomm, Schneider, Citrix, Adobe, Accenture, PWC, RBS, ANZ, Rakuten, IBM, Dell, EMC, Ericsson to name a few; I conducted open to all Virtual, Instructor Led, Live Training (VILT) sessions on docker. It was a deep dive into most of the essential docker topics including,

Whats under the Hood with Docker (e.g. namespaces, cgroups, copy on write (CoW), OverlayFS.
Story of Docker, Workflow and Open Container Eco System
How to Run, Operate and Troubleshoot Containers with Docker
How to build and publish Docker Images
The Art of Writing Dockerfiles
Docker Networking and Volumes Management
Docker Compose

I am making it available to the wider audience with this article. You could access all the video lectures along with the useful resources including Class Notes, Labs etc. using the following links.

Docker Masterclass #1 - Introduction to Container based Software Delivery and Docker

Download Classroom Resources ⬇️

In this session, you would learn

Why Container Based Software Delivery ?
Comparing VMs vs Docker
Whats under the hood - Namespaces, Cgroups, Union
Mount/OverlayFS, Copy on Write
The Docker Story
Docker Workflow, Components and Open Containers Eco System
Q&A

Docker Masterclass #2 - Learn to Run and Operate Containers

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In this session we would dive into how to run, operate and troubleshoot containers. Topics that we cover include,

How to launch containers with docker run
What are the common options aka -idt to run containers with
Two ways to manage application logs with docker
How to use docker exec to simulate ssh like management
Three ways to port map to expose applications outside
What are docker's lifecycle events and how to manage container lifecycle
How to control resources e.g. memory and cpu and set limits on containers.

Docker Masterclass #3 - Art of Writing Dockerfiles

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In this class, you learn the Art of Writing Dockerfiles. Here is the complete agenda,

How to get sign up to Docker Hub Registry and create your Docker ID
How to manually test build a Docker Image by launching a container with base image and modifying it
How to automate the process of building these images by writing a Dockerfile
How to construct a Dockerfile and what are the best practices while writing one
How to package a Spring Boot app built with Maven/Java

Docker Masterclass #4 - Multistage Dockerfiles, Docker Volumes and Networking

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This is the session where you look at advanced concepts including

Why and how to use Multi Stage Dockerfiles
How to Add Opt-in stage to Dockerfiles for running test cases.
Three ways to mount Docker Volumes
Three default Networking Drivers - bridge, host, null.
Q&A

Docker Masterclass #5 - Docker Compose

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What is the need for Docker Compose ?
How to write simple Docker Compose YAML Spec
Difference between v1 and v3 compose specs, and how to convert v1 spec to v3.
How Docker provides Service Discovery using network aliases and DNS and how it evolved.
What is the difference between Dockerfile and Docker Compose Spec ? How to integrate Dockerfile with Compose
How to use Docker Compose to deploy to development environments.

If you would like to take your learning to the next level, following are a few options.

If you are looking to learn just Docker and Kubernetes, enroll to my Udemy Courses using links here.
If you want to get started making a career in Devops, Enroll to 30 Days Devops Challenge course using this one time offer.
Attend my FREE webinar on 6 Steps and 3 Secrets to Devops Engineering.

How much effort do I need to put in to become a DevOps engineer?

Gourav Shah — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 06:19:25 +0000

There is no one answer to it. If I want to create a formula, it would be something on the lines of

(skills required to be a Devops Engineer - Current Skills) X average time to master devops skills

So where you should begin is by learning where do you stand right now on the Devops Engineer scale. Based on that, you would know what are your current strengths, what gaps you need to fill , what to learn next as well as how to get there. Once you know this you can easily figure out how much of efforts you should put, and more importantly, where.

The question now is how do you evaluate where do you stand ?

what gets measures, gets optimized … !

To provide an answer to this question, based on my 18+ experience as a Ops Engineer turned Devops Engineer, Consultant, Trainer, Author and a Coach, have come up with the concept of Devops Scorecards.

What are Devops Scorecards ?

Devops Scorecards offer you a simple way to measure where do you stand on the Devops Mastery scale. Also, different people may have different goals based on whats relevant to them.

e.g.

If you are a Ops (Operations/Systems/Network/Syops/Cloud Admin) and for you being a Devops Engineer/Site Reliability Engineer may be a logic progression.
If you are a Dev (Developer/QA), learning many Devops technologies, specially related to Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, Containers, Revision Control, Release Strategies would be important. But you do not have to bother about scripting, Infrastructure as a Code, Troubleshooting , Monitoring etc. So, Devops Practitioner career path may make more sense to you.

What Devops Scorecards are available ?

DEScore ( Devops Engineer Scorecard) : Generate this if you want to make a career as a Devops Engineer/SRE.
DPScore (Devops Practitioner Scorecard) : Generate this if you want to be a Devops Practitioner. How do I generate my DEScore/DPScore ?

Get access to Devops Self Evaluation Scorecard for FREE using the links given here. The retail price of it is $47, but I am making it available for you, my Dev.to Reader, for FREE.

Here are your action items,

Pick which Scorecard you want to generate DEScore/DPScore.
Fill in the Self Evaluation Questionnaire.
Generate your Score and save.
Analyse the Score

How to Analyse your Score ?

Lets take an example of the Devops Engineer Scorecard that I generated for myself.

You see one overall score on the left with the DEScore gauge. This gives you an idea about where do you stand in terms of succeeding as a Devops Engineer. Your goal is to work towards being the green zone.
With Devops Engineer Scorecard (DEScore), you also get skill wise, weighted score including
- Systems Engineering - Linux
- Revision Control - Git
- Cloud
- Infrastructure as a Code
- CI/CD
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- Observability

This should give you a clear picture of where do you stand, what are your strengths, what gaps you need to fill in etc. Based on this you could easily figure out the path you need to take as well as how long it would take for you to get there. On an average one skill takes about 3 weeks for you to get to a intermediate level.

Get started generating you Devops Scorecard Now !

Forget Chef and Puppet ! Its Ansible all the way in 2020

Gourav Shah — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:17:32 +0000

This article was originally written as an answer to a question on quora Why is Ansible Better than Chef and Puppet.

I started by devops journey back in 2007 with Puppet. Then I picked up Chef around 2010. By late 2012, I had quit my full time job and was running a devops consulting firm, primarily working on Chef, Puppet and AWS. Around 2014 was when I came across Ansible. It was one of my consulting clients who suggested we use this simple new tool for automating their infrastructure, which was primarily on Slackware. I remember asking him why bother about Ansible, when Puppet was very popular tool available in the market for a while, but the client insisted on using Ansible, and so began my journey with it. I not only fell in love with it, but also went to author a book “Ansible Playbook Essentials” which was published in the August of 2015. All of this puts me in the best position to answer this question as I have used all three, and that too at a fairly advanced level.

I am going to divide this answer in to two parts. What makes ansible better, purely in terms of features, as well as in terms of the changing dynamics in the world of software delivery.

What makes Ansible better feature wise ?

Simplicity: To begin with, Ansible is simple. This was the first feature that struck to me when I started learning it. Coming from Puppet, and then Chef, which have a bit of a learning, curve, Ansible was absolutely a breath of fresh air. It is designed with simplicity in mind. Simple to setup, simple to use, simple to write code with (YAML).
Sophistication: Most tools which as simple, also lack features and sophistication. Not Ansible though. The creators of ansible managed to pack in sophistication while still keeping it simple(and there is a story behind it, as Michael DeHaan, creator of ansible had actually worked at Puppet Labs and seen the pain points). So when you need to do complex stuff, its possible.
Agentless : Ansible does not need an agent to be installed on every node it manages. It rather relies on the very reliable, secure, and battle hardened transport technology i.e. ssh. Agentless makes it simple to setup and use. Also no objections from your infosec teams who do not like a agent (puppet/chef) sitting on every machine and running with root privileges. It also makes ansible work on many older devices such as network/storage devices which still support ssh.
Batteries Includes : If you come from the Puppet/Chef world, if you want to connect to a new cloud, storage, networking devices, you have to rely on custom cookbooks, or plugins. Not with Ansible though. Ansible has this large set of modules which are shipped along with the software, which mostly makes it unnecessary to go looking for third party code. Pretty amazing.
Easy to Extend : And when you do not find a module to get your job done, unlike Puppet/Chef, where you need to learn Ruby to extend it, ansible makes it easy too. There have been so many instances that I have taken a existing shell script and wrapped it up as a ansible module. Even though ansible is written in python, it does not ask you to master it. It gives you inputs and expects outputs in certain format. As long as you be mindful of it, you could pretty much write code in any language.
These are some feature comparisons and what makes Ansible better. Now comes the more important part though. The chaning dynamic in the software delivery.

In the last few years, software delivery is being transformed with containers i.e. Docker and Kubernetes. And that is going to be the future trend.
This also means less reliance on Configuration Management Tools e.g. Puppet, Chef, Ansible included.
Most of the application configurations are now managed by containers layers using combination of images and dynamic configuration injection (configmaps, secrets) at the run time
So only thing that you need to bother about when it comes to Configuration Management tools is Systems, Network, Platform configurations.
Ansible is the perfect tool for the job there. Its simple, agentless, and simply makes sense.
Another change in dynamics is RedHat acquiring Ansible. RedHat is the big daddy in the open source world, and has a great influence. Its also doing all the right things (e.g. Ansible, Openshift) etc. They push Ansible big time.
So in essence its not only a fantastic piece of software, it also has a rich father now and its at the right time at the right place !

Well after answering that question, now comes my promotional piece :) …. If you would like to get answers to all of these questions and more, learn about Devops Engineering Blueprint that I have designed to help you master Devops, hop on to my webinar ==> 6 Steps and 3 Secrets to Devops Engineering.

The Story of Kubernetes Networking

Gourav Shah — Tue, 12 May 2020 13:57:13 +0000

Do you know Kubernetes does not provide networking, but rather relies on third party plugins for networking the pods ? When Kubernetes is so sophisticated, is not capable of networking pods by itself ? Why is it done this way ? How Kubernetes networking evolved ? How does the networking really work with Kubernetes ? Why it picked up CNI vs CNM as networking standard. And yeah, how I ended up contributing to the Kubernetes eco system and one of its CNI plugins rather unknowingly ? Tune in to this episode of Being Devops to get the whole story of Kubernetes Networking.

Tune in to Episode #4 of Being Devops here

What will you learn in this episode ?

When Kubernetes is so sophisticated, why does it not do the networking by itself ?
Why Kubernetes chose CoreOS' CNI standard instead of Docker's CNM for networking pods
What is the difference between CNI standard vs CNI Plugin
Which CNI plugin to choose ?

Originally published at http://blog.schoolofdevops.com on February 21, 2020.

6 Responsibilities of a Devops Engineer

Gourav Shah — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 06:25:42 +0000

Devops Engineers and Site Reliability Engineers are the one who are typically responsible for building, managing, monitoring, administering, automating and optimising infrastructures, application configurations, databases, CI/CD Pipelines. They are the ones who keep the lights on. I would put their responsibilities into following 6 buckets.

BUILD : Be it cloud based or on premise infrastructure, its the Devops Engineers who are responsible for building it. And they have to consider non functional requirements such as scalability, availability, security, disaster recovery when they do. In addition to building infrastructures, they are the ones who typically build VM and Container Images. Most of these tasks are automatable with tools such as terraform, packer etc.
INSTALL AND CONFIGURE : This involves installation and configurations of Operating Systems (which has now become easy with cloud and containers as base images are readily available), application stack including app servers, databases, middleware and anything in between. Devops engineers typically use declarative code to manage configurations with tools such as Ansible, Chef, Puppet.
CI/CD: Instant feedback is what continuous integration provides. Devops Engineers are the ones who are typically responsible for setting up and automating CI pipelines as well as defining and implementing Release/Deployment strategies. Be it container based or on cloud. Tools such as Jenkins, Spinnaker are useful to automate CI/CD pipelines.
ADMINISTER : Infrastructure is built, application stacks deployed, now what ? This is where the Devops Engineers spend most of their times. This includes application operations and debugging, a bit of database and storage administration, monitoring, optimising, security etc.
TROUBLESHOOT : This is a indispensable skill for a Devops Engineer and is useful for all tasks above. You are going to have issues, be it building infrastructures, configuration management, pipelines or just as part of running this infra. A Devops Engineer must have advanced level troubleshooting skills and must master the tools of the game.
AUTOMATE : Majority of the Devops Work can be automated. When not busy with issues or setting up things, a Devops Engineer typically spends time automating the recurring tasks.

If you ask any Devops Engineers what they do day in and day out basis, the answer would fall in one of the categories above. Would you agree ?

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