DevOps Mastery: From Beginner to Pro Course Outline

Course Duration: Self-paced (Estimated 4-6 Months) Prerequisites: Basic computer literacy, willingness to learn.

Module 1: Foundations of DevOps (Beginner)

1. Introduction to DevOps Culture

• What is DevOps? History, philosophy, and the "Wall of Confusion" between Dev and Ops.
• The CALMS Framework: Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement, Sharing.
• Agile & Scrum Basics: Understanding SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) and how DevOps fits in.

2. Linux & Scripting Fundamentals

• Linux Basics: File system hierarchy, permissions (chmod, chown), and essential commands (ls, grep, sed, awk, curl).
• Shell Scripting (Bash): Variables, loops, conditionals, and automating simple tasks.
• Networking Basics: DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, IP addressing, SSH, Ports, and Firewalls.
• Git & Version Control:
  • Initialize, Commit, Push, Pull.
  • Branching strategies (GitFlow, Trunk-Based Development).
  • Pull Requests and Code Reviews.

3. Web Server Administration

• Apache & Nginx: Installation, configuration, and reverse proxies.
• Load Balancing: Concepts and basic implementation.
• SSL/TLS: Understanding certificates and securing web servers (Let's Encrypt).

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Module 2: Containerization & Virtualization (Intermediate)

4. Virtualization Concepts

• Virtual Machines vs. Containers: Architecture differences (Hypervisor vs. Container Engine).
• Vagrant: Managing virtual development environments.

5. Docker Mastery

• Docker Basics: Images, Containers, Registries (Docker Hub).
• Dockerfiles: Writing optimized multi-stage builds.
• Docker Compose: Orchestrating multi-container applications.
• Docker Networking & Storage: Volumes, bind mounts, and bridge networks.

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Module 3: Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)

6. CI/CD Principles

• The Pipeline: Build -> Test -> Deploy.
• Continuous Integration vs. Delivery vs. Deployment.

7. Jenkins (Classic & Pipeline)

• Installation & Configuration: Master-Slave architecture.
• Jenkinsfile: Writing declarative pipelines as code.
• Plugins: Integrating Git, Docker, and notification tools.

8. Modern CI Tools (GitHub Actions / GitLab CI)

• GitHub Actions: Workflows, jobs, runners, and secrets management.
• GitLab CI: .gitlab-ci.yml, runners, and Auto DevOps features.
• Artifact Management: Storing build artifacts (Nexus or Artifactory).

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Module 4: Cloud Computing (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Focus typically on AWS as the market leader, but concepts apply generally.

9. AWS Fundamentals

• IAM: Users, Groups, Roles, and Policies.
• Compute: EC2 instances, Security Groups, Key Pairs.
• Storage: S3 buckets, EBS volumes.
• Networking: VPC, Subnets, Internet Gateways, Route Tables.
• Databases: RDS (Relational) and DynamoDB (NoSQL).

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Module 5: Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

10. Terraform

• Introduction to IaC: Declarative vs. Imperative.
• HCL Syntax: Providers, Resources, Variables, and Outputs.
• State Management: Local state vs. Remote state (S3 + DynamoDB locking).
• Modules: Reusable infrastructure code.

11. Configuration Management (Ansible)

• Architecture: Agentless, Inventory files.
• Playbooks: Writing YAML automation tasks.
• Roles: Organizing playbooks for scalability.
• Ansible Tower/AWX: Basic overview of GUI management.

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Module 6: Container Orchestration (Advanced)

12. Kubernetes (K8s) Fundamentals

• Architecture: Control Plane (API Server, Scheduler, etcd) vs. Worker Nodes.
• Core Objects: Pods, Deployments, Services (ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer).
• Minikube & Kind: Running local clusters.

13. Kubernetes Administration

• ConfigMaps & Secrets: Managing environment variables securely.
• Ingress Controllers: Nginx Ingress, managing external access.
• Persistent Volumes: PV and PVC.
• Helm Charts: The package manager for Kubernetes.

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Module 7: Monitoring, Logging & Observability

14. Monitoring Infrastructure

• Prometheus: Architecture, exporters, and PromQL queries.
• Grafana: Creating dashboards and visualization.

15. Logging Aggregation (ELK/EFK Stack)

• Elasticsearch, Logstash/Fluentd, Kibana: Centralizing logs.
• Loki: Lightweight logging for Kubernetes.

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Module 8: Projects & Capstone (Professional)

16. Real-World Scenarios

• Project 1: Deploy a MERN/MEAN stack app using Docker Compose.
• Project 2: Build a CI/CD pipeline in Jenkins/GitHub Actions to deploy to AWS EC2.
• Project 3: Provision complete AWS infrastructure using Terraform.
• Capstone Project: End-to-End Microservices Deployment on Kubernetes
  • Infrastructure via Terraform.
  • Configuration via Ansible.
  • CI/CD via Jenkins/GitHub Actions.
  • Deployment to EKS/GKE (Kubernetes).
  • Monitoring with Prometheus/Grafana.

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Recommended Learning Path Resources

• Books: "The Phoenix Project", "Google SRE Book".
• Sites: Roadmap.sh, KodeKloud, A Cloud Guru.
• Certifications to Aim For:
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate.
  • Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA).
  • HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate.