what to study, what are its functions and knowledge

Studies to be DevOps

If you want to be DevOps Engineer, you will have to orient your studies towards computer science and technology. There are different university degrees that can be valid to acquire the knowledge necessary to exercise this profession. Moreover, it is a job that requires constant training and learning.

you can study Computer Engineering (management, systems or software), telecommunications engineering and other similar ones in which you teach subjects related to programming and software development. In general, anything related to the computer field will open doors for you in this type of work.

Regarding certificates, some very popular ones are Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE), which shows that you have an advanced knowledge of Linux and is very useful to stand out as a developer; AWS DevOps Engineer-Professional Certification, an Amazon certification to demonstrate knowledge of a wide variety of topics and know how to respond to possible incidents; also different Microsoft certificates, such as Azure Fundamentals, Azure Administrator Associate or DevOps Engineer Expert.

But beyond the college degrees and certifications you get, to be a good DevOps engineer, having a continuing education. This means training you to learn new programming languages, deepen your knowledge of networking, general computing, technology, and more.

His homeworks

You might be wondering what exactly a DevOps engineer has. We will show which are the main ones, although it depends on each specific position and the needs that exist. However, some problems are generic and are usually always present.

Gather all the necessary resources

One of the functions of a DevOps engineer is collect all resources necessary to carry out a project. This will be as needed, as there may be notable differences between developing an application, for example, and a platform which may be more complex.

It is important that you make a list of all the resources that need to be provisioned, as well as the infrastructure that is required for this. All this must bring it together so that it is available to the rest of the workers.

Software development follow-up

He is also responsible for carrying constant monitoring of software development. The different stages of development are supervised and managed. It is a task that is linked to others that are part of development. Check that the objectives are achieved and that each stage of development is carried out correctly.

This is an important task in order to avoid production breakdowns that could affect any of the development stages of an application or any type of software the team is working on.

Design and manage tests

The next step, the next task that you also perform, is to design and manage the various tests to test the software. It is necessary to carry out a protocol in order not to neglect anything and to be able to correct in time any possible problem that may appear during development.

This test phase can also include different stages. This is something that will be done throughout the production of a computer program, for example. This way they can resolve any errors that may occur.

Analyze the results at each phase

It is also the role of the DevOps engineer to analyze the results after having made these testing at every step. This is very important to see if the expected objective has been achieved or, on the contrary, some factors could not be achieved correctly.

In case you need to make changes and modify something, now is the time. Once the results of each phase have been analyzed, they can see if it is appropriate to introduce improvements, remove something that is not working, etc.

Maintain communication with other sections

On the other hand, the DevOps engineer will be in charge of maintaining a Constant communication with other sections of the company. They can communicate potential production problems or improvements to be made. It partly acts as a connection point between the different sections.

They can also serve as a link with customers. Its function is to collect the requests that they formulate and to transfer them to the appropriate person within the chain of software development and thus to execute them.

Provide security and software updates

Another function is to be in charge of delivery app updates. Here we have to mention updates and improvements to the software itself (e.g. new functions, changes made to make it faster, etc.) and security. The latter is very important to correct any problems that may appear.

These updates can be periodic or ad hoc. It is important to keep the software always in good condition and to adapt to any changes that may appear or to customer requests.

Profile and knowledge

Mainly, something fundamental in the profile is to have good technical skills. It is important to follow all aspects of development well and to have a broad understanding of the tools used, which means having the ability to adapt to change and learn continuously.

It must be a person with analytical skills be able to understand complex situations that may arise, as well as know how to solve problems that may arise. It is also important to identify these errors and find a way to resolve them as soon as possible, hence the management of time be another key point in the profile of this type of job.

A DevOps engineer should have experience and knowledge in Operating systems Linux (in different distributions), virtual machines and with Windows Server. In addition, it is essential to know how to work with containers, with tools such as Docker, Kubernetes or Swarm, among others.

It is also important to know code repositories and know how to use them correctly. For example GitHub, Git and others. This will be very useful to be able to coordinate code between different developers within the same software project they are developing.

On the other hand, having knowledge in the cloud is highly valued. Know how to use platforms like Amazon’s AWS, Google Cloud or Azure DevOps. A DevOps engineer must be able to use this type of tools in the cloud and integrate them into his daily life.