DevOps as a concept is on the rise and accepted openly by many software development companies. A system admin can turn into a DevOps engineer but his/her skills need to be compliant with the needs of this industry.
What is the Difference Between DevOps Engineer and System Admin?
The traditional job of a system administrator is maintaining and configuring servers and computers. They normally don’t play a part in the whole process of software development. There is a lot that separates developers from system admins. The role of system admin has been around for a while now. Their responsibilities and tasks are clearly defined.
DevOps is different though. DevOps engineers make a pipeline of development, system admin and QA to improve coordination. The role of DevOps engineer can overlap with others throughout the life cycle of a product. There are no clear responsibilities of a DevOps engineer. It is a complex role that is hard to keep with success.
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Transforming System Admin to DevOps Engineer
Businesses are adopting DevOps methodology increasingly. There are many job opportunities offered for professional DevOps engineers. If you are to switch from system admin to DevOps engineer then there are some skills that you need to have. And they are as follows.
Continuous Integration (CI)
CI is a software development practice that DevOps engineers must know. CI lets you make changes to a single repository continuously. It could be where all the tests and automated builds are made. Traditional system admins are not required to use CI but if you want to get into DevOps then you should start learning it.
Cloud Computing
Most of the DevOps projects are based on cloud computing. If you want to maneuver your carrier path from system admin to DevOps engineer then you should know how to configure servers and services related to Google cloud, Amazon Web Service and many more. You should also know about services such as SAAS, PAAS and IAAS.
Management
You must also be familiar with configuration management tools such as Ansible, Chef, Puppet or Salt. These tools help DevOps engineers to automatically configure even thousands of servers. You should know how to automate various processes. That is the main strength of a DevOps engineer.
Experience with Orchestration and Containers
Containers are lightweight and easy to launch unlike virtual machines that were used in pre-DevOps times. They help you deploy apps without the approval of the host operating system. One such software that allows working with containers is Docker.
Both the developer and DevOps engineer can use it at the same time. They can write the code and configure files simultaneously. Orchestration tools can be used to manage containers. One example of such tool is Kubernetes. You should be aware of these tools and software programs to be a successful DevOps engineer.
Conclusion
There are a few key skills that a system admin must possess if he/she want to successfully switch to DevOps. Most system admins already know about scripting, monitoring and OS admin. But he/she should also familiarize themselves with techniques such as continuous integration, cloud computing, configuration management and hands-on experience with containers and orchestration.