From Python Hesitation to Real DevOps Projects (Part 1)

As a DevOps engineer, I’ve always been confident with CI/CD, infrastructure, and automation. But Python? That was a different story.

Like many, I once found Python intimidating especially during college. Indentation errors, dynamic typing, and too much "magic" made me stick with Java. Even as I entered the DevOps world, I didn’t feel comfortable writing Python confidently.

Eventually, I decided that watching tutorials wasn't enough I needed to build things. So I picked up some mini-projects and started coding for real. for a code checkout https://github.com/Harivelu0/python-for-devops/tree/main/week1-basic

✅ Project 1: Automated Log Parser from /var/log/

🔍 Objective:

Read system logs like syslog, auth.log, etc., and extract meaningful insights:

• Login attempts
• Errors and warnings
• Timestamps and log levels

💡 Features:

• Accepts plain .log or zipped .zip files
• Uses basic Python file handling and regex
• Summarizes logs into a CSV or clean output

🚀 Run It:

python3 -m log_parser --input /var/log/syslog

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📊 Project 2: CPU & Memory Usage Monitor (Using psutil)

🔍 Objective:

Track system performance in real time with CPU and memory metrics.

💡 Features:

• Uses the psutil library
• Displays CPU/memory usage in intervals
• Can alert or log if usage crosses thresholds

🚀 Run It:

bash
python3 -m system_monitor


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🔜 Coming Up Next (Part 2)

In the next post, I’ll share how I extended these into:

• A Flask web interface
• LLM-powered log explanations using Gemini
• CI/CD pipeline log analysis agent

Stay tuned and if you're learning Python as a DevOps engineer, let’s connect!

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