From Ops to Dev for a change: What language / framework to learn?

I got into DevOps from the ops side, doing mainly Ansible / Terraform / AWS / Gitlab CI with scripting, internal tooling and APIs in Python (and Bash if necessary). My company has recently offered me to extend my position to at least assist on the application dev side. This is of course beneficial for professional development in general.

However, I'm unsure which direction to go in as we have both backend and frontend positions available. We mainly do custom webapps for other companies' internal processes, usually with a PHP backend using Laravel (+Nova) and Next or Nuxt frontend. Node backends are used very rarely.

The more straightforward route would be to go into backend development - I've used PHP for some smaller things and it seems easy enough to learn, as does Laravel, whereas I have zero experience or contact with frontend development. I would likely get fairly proficient fairly quickly, and our best devs (also the ones that I have the best rapport with) are all more focused on backend which would help me learn.

However, it seems to me that Javascript (+ Typescript) would be more useful to learn than PHP.

- For one thing, it's more commonly used for glue code (e.g. Cloudfront functions only being available in JS), is far more commonly an option for tooling (e.g. Pulumi) and seems to have very influential syntax / concepts.
- Secondly, it'd allow me to use Node.js as a Python backend alternative - not sure how that compares to PHP locally (Germany) but it's at least not objectively terrible.
- And thirdly, it would allow me to write actually user-friendly frontends for our own internal tooling myself instead of having to book developer time and handling too much in the backend.

The only frontend dev that I had closer contact with unfortunately just left, though, and many of the others are juniors and don't seem to have such great practices. So the learning curve would be much steeper and more reliant on outside resources. I also have no inherent interest on whether something is five pixels to the left or right on iOS vs Android.

I don't think going fullstack in addition to the ops side is a realistic option.

Which option would you choose?

https://redd.it/1406g2b
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In what order would you learn these?

1. Docker
2. Kubernetes
3. Terraform
4. Ansible
5. Gitlab CI

I have Python, Git, Linux, Networking, and AWS SAA under my belt and have read the recommended books (phoenix project, devops handbook, google sre). Have done some complex projects as well. Looking to expand my skills and increase my employability in the industry.

 

Edit: I looked up the skills on LinkedIn, and the order in which I have them listed corresponds to the number of jobs that require those skills, ranging from the most mentioned (1) to the least (5).

https://redd.it/1405q97
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Using properly VPN

Hi guys,

So far the only tool we are using from the company laptops is TEAMS and outlook email client for windows.
We are mostly remote but there is always an annoying manager who wants to asks where are we etc..
Traveling a lot outsiders of the country so...
I was wondering how is the proper way to set up a VPN so in the teams or outlook email they can't know if I am outside of the country...
Should I disable I guess the automatic login on TEAMS when the Windows start up? And make sure that first VPN connection is established with country's ip?
What about outlook email client?

https://redd.it/140hvsl
@r_devops

GitLab Pages preview

When I write Apache APISIX-related blog posts, I want my colleagues to review them first. However, it’s my blog, and since I mix personal and business posts, I want to keep them from the repository. I need a preview, accessible only to a few, something like Vercel’s preview. I’m using GitLab Pages, and there’s no such out-of-the-box feature.

I tried two methods: GitHub gists and PDFs. Both have issues.

Gists don’t display as nicely as the final page. I tried to improve the situation by using DocGist. It’s an improvement, even if not the panacea.

Moreover, gists don’t display images since I write my posts in Asciidoc. I’ve to set images in comments, and it breaks the flow. I’ve tried to attach the images to the gist, but they don’t appear in the flow of the post in any case. The pro over comments is that they are ordered; the con is that I need to change the Asciidoc.

I used gists because I’m used to GitHub reviews. But since it’s my blog, I neither need nor want the same kind of reviews as in a regular Merge Request. I need people to point me to when something needs to be clarified, or I missed a logical jump, not that I made a typo (I use Grammarly for this). For this reason, a PDF export of a post is enough to review.

However, PDFs have issues on their own: a web "page" is potentially endless, while a regular PDF page cuts the former into standard pages. Splits can happen across diagrams. Besides, PDFs make distribution much harder.

In this post, I’ll describe how I configured GitLab Pages to get the preview I want.


Read more

https://redd.it/140hrum
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Pypi repository mirroring

At my project, the tool we are working on is air-gapped meaning we must bring all packages that we need with us -

For example, to be able to use apt update we use a tool named aptly for mirroring Ubuntu repository and mirror only the packages we want (based on name, version, architecture and more)

How can this be done for Python packages?

I'm aware of pip download but its not "powerful" enough, you can use it and give it a requirements file, you can even specify you want all downloads to be source code or to be wheels, but its not possible to mix and match. If package X has only releases of type source code (doesn't have wheels) and i specified I want to download wheels, the download will fail.

https://redd.it/140q9hl
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How do you glue Terraform resources together?

I know that an EC2 instance should get a security group but how do you keep track of what resources require other resources. Doing things through ClickOps generates a lot more than just one resource so how do you do it without just making your stack from just other people's modules?

https://redd.it/140rrav
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HowTo to map a release process into CI/CD

My company has between DEV and PROD an integration Stage and Six QA stages. Currently we deploy these releases manually in all stages except DEV. I created a pipeline for the non-DEV stages. Now I can deploy manually by pushing a button instead of calling some scripts. Same work but more context switches, yay. I still need to do the configuration manually and I still wait for approval from different people.

I am sure other companies also have QA and staging. How do other companies do automate their delivery process?

https://redd.it/140sapn
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Start a new grad DevSecOps role in September - how to prepare / not look like a fool?

Hey everyone,

I start a new grad DevSecops role with a defense contractor in September. I had someone I know tell me that they wouldn’t train me in this role, and that I should be ready to go right away and contribute. I was under the impression that because this is a new grad role, that I would most likely be trained and get up to date with everything. I have been starting to question if I’m ready now as I’m not confident enough in my technical skills, and don’t want to come in and look like a complete fool. Any advice?

https://redd.it/140ygn8
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Devops

I'm from non-it and have a career gap , so already learned LINUX, Networking and AWS ans now I'm planning to learn devops. I went through few institutes but they are just covering the basics . I'm looking for someone who is already has experience in devops and could take classes so that i can get real time learning. Please suggest me if you know anybody who can teach devops.

https://redd.it/1410w1h
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API monitoring vs. observability in microservices

There's a big difference... and API observability can troubleshoot issues that monitoring can't really. Thoughts?

https://gethelios.dev/blog/api-monitoring-vs-observability-in-microservices-troubleshooting-guide/

https://redd.it/1417dkk
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Learning through an AWS SAA course. Should I skip the Cloudformation section and learn Terraform instead?

I am currently learning through Cantrill's course to gain a solid understanding of AWS. However, I'm not completely sure whether I should get certified immediately or first aim to secure a job in order to gain practical experience using AWS at a production level before attempting the exam.

So I was wondering if it's a better idea to skip the cloudformation section and learn terraform instead, seeing as it's used in the industry more and is cloud-agnostic?

My two options (I'm in a time-constricted situation):

1. Learn AWS SAA, but replace Cloudformation content with Terraform. Then try to get on-the-job experience using AWS before taking exam. Won't have any cloudformation knowledge till I decide to take the exam and thus study for it.

2. Learn AWS SAA and learn Cloudformation. Get certified first, then attempt to find a job. I won't have learned Terraform.


Which option do you think is better?

https://redd.it/1417hzk
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Azure/AWS spot machines

Hey, i want to know if someone here has managed to use spot vm in prod, is it even possible if you want to have 99% uptime?

https://redd.it/141a3pv
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Building a Serverless Playground in Kubernetes using Knative & KinD

Hey fellow developers! I've just written a comprehensive blog post on how you can set up your own serverless playground in Kubernetes using Knative.

By following this blog, we will be going hands-on, building a serverless app from scratch in a local Kubernetes environment. The blog covers everything - from understanding serverless architectures, to the nitty-gritty of Knative and Kubernetes. It's a great resource whether you're just starting with serverless, or looking to deepen your understanding. Can't wait to hear your thoughts and answer your questions.

Check it out! https://karanjagtiani.medium.com/building-a-serverless-playground-in-kubernetes-using-knative-kind-88ddcbb4cca3

https://redd.it/141axig
@r_devops

Mimir Github actions metrics

What is currently the best way to collect metrics from GitHub about actions, such as duration, workflow status, error rate, etc? I found a few actions in marketplace, but they seem to be outdated. We are using Mimir with Grafan for metrics collection and dashboards

https://redd.it/141cwyj
@r_devops

Good monorepo tooling

Hey all

Wanted to ask the community here about any recommendations on goodmonorepo tooling. Have multiple different applications and helm charts running on k8s for context and was hoping to streamline our existing process. Not sure if theres something decent out there already or we just build our own

https://redd.it/141cgw7
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The role of e2e testing and who manages it

I just joined this subreddit. I'm a fairly recent convert to DevOps. I had a nagging question... when it comes from the DevOps perspective, who manages end to end tests that span multiple departments? Each team has input and cares about the tests passing, but who manages the entire process to make sure they take place and coordinates with other teams.

If people have a great list of blogs or textbooks on this topic, I'd greatly appreciate it.

https://redd.it/141du5y
@r_devops

New CEO wants to understand DevOps impact on company bottom line. Help.

I work for a large apparel company (don’t want to name drop because I don’t want this to come back to me). We just got a new president/CEO who came up from the media side of things.


He spoke with the engineering heads and was asking for answers to questions the last guy never asked. Specifically, how to put $ numbers towards DevOps work.


Our previous head was usually just happy if nothing collapsed.


Has anyone gone through this? I'm worried he doesn't think the DevOps team is worth the money and wants to make cut.

https://redd.it/141i6xq
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Out of Memory crashes in Jenkins pipeline

I run Jenkins inside of Kubernetes. The pipeline stages therefore run inside of a pod. I set the memory limit to 5 GB on the CI pod. When I poll kubectl top for the CI pod I never saw the pods memory usage exceed 1.2 GB. I also ran /use/bin/time -v on the crashing process to take a look at peak memory usage, which never even exceeds 1 GB. Still I’m experiencing out of memory crashes in the pipeline. What could be the cause of that? How can I debug that further?

https://redd.it/141hr0j
@r_devops

Gitlab Server Behind F5 Authentication

Hi! I have a Gitlab server that sits behind my F5. I want to be able to pull and push repos via HTTPS.
Right now from my local machine i would first have to hit the f5 and present my smart token/card to authenticate. From there traffic goes the a Virtual server > Gitlab.


Is there anyway for me to configure gitlab to prompt me to use my smart card in this process.
As of right now i am getting redirected once i hit the f5 and logged out due to the fact that im not using the cac via the CLI. Any other thoughts or suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.

https://redd.it/141l5dm
@r_devops

Short lived web-app

Hi,

I'm currently using github actions and whenever someone opens up a PR I want to deploy the web-app to AWS and for the deployment to be available for like ~1 hour. Currently we deploy the webapp in a docker container to ECS. Does anyone have ideas on how this could be accomplished?

https://redd.it/141his0
@r_devops

Which Kubernetes Certification is the Easiest One In The Land?

Looking for something to do while i'm off for a week next month? Which certfication will be the easist to earn

1. Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
2. Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
3. Red Hat OpenShift Developer
4. Red Hat OpenShift Administrator

https://redd.it/141t60v
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