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Beginners Guide to a Career in DevOps

ABSTRACTThe software development lifecycles moved from waterfall to agile models. These improvements are moving toward IT operations with evolution of Devops.DevOps primarily focuses on collaboration, communication, integration between developers and operations.AGILE EVOLUTION TO DEVOPSWaterfall model was based on a sequence starting with requirements stage, while development stage was under progress. This approach is inflexible and monolithic. In the agile process, both verification and validation execute at the same time. As developers become productive, business become more agile and respond to their customer requests more quickly and efficient.WHAT IS DEVOPSIt is a software development strategy which bridges the gap between the developers and IT Staff. It includes continuous development, continuous testing, continuous integration, continuous deployment, continuous monitoring throughout the development lifecycle.WHY DEVOPS IS IMPORTANT1.Short development cycle, faster innovation2.Reduced deployment failures, rollback and time to recover3.Improved communication4.Increased efficiencies5.Reduced costsWHAT ARE THE TECHNOLOGIES BEHIND DEVOPS?Collabration, Code Planning, Code Repository, Configuration Management, Continuous integration, Test Automation, Issue Tracking, Security, MonitoringHOW DOES DEVOPS WORKSDevOps uses a CAMS approachC=Culture, A=Automation, M=Measurement, S=SharingDEVOPS TOOLSTOP DEVOPS TESTING TOOLS IN 20191.Tricentis 2. Zephyr 3.Ranorex 4.Jenkins 5.Bamboo 6.Jmeter 7.Selenium 8.Appium 9.Soapui 10.CruiseControl 11.Vagrant 12.PagerDuty 13.Snort 14.Docker 15.Stackify Retrace 16.Puppet Enterprise 17.UpGuard 18.AppVerifyDEVOPS JOB ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIESDevOps Evangelist – The principal officer (leader) responsible for implementingDevOps Release Manager – The one releasing new features & ensuring post-release product stabilityAutomation Expert – The guy responsible for achieving automation & orchestration of toolsSoftware Developer/ Tester – The one who develops the code and tests itQuality Assurance – The one who ensures the quality of the product confirms to its requirementSecurity Engineer – The one always monitoring the product’s security & healthDEVOPS CERITIFICATIONRet hat offers five courses with examDeveloping Containerized Applications, OpenShift Enterprise Administration, Cloud Automation with Ansible, Managing Docker Containers with RHEL Atomic Host, Configuration Management with PuppetAmazon web services offers the AWS certified DevOps EngineerSKILL THAT EVERY DEVOPS ENGINEER NEEDS FOR SUCCESS1.Soft Skills2.Broad understanding of tools and technologies2.1 Source Control (like Git, Bitbucket, Svn, VSTS etc)2.2 Continuous Integration (like Jenkins, Bamboo, VSTS )2.3 Infrastructure Automation (like Puppet, Chef, Ansible)2.4 Deployment Automation & Orchestration (like Jenkins, VSTS, Octopus Deploy)2.5 Container Concepts (LXD, Docker)2.6 Orchestration (Kubernetes, Mesos, Swarm)2.7 Cloud (like AWS, Azure, GoogleCloud, Openstack)3.Security Testing4.Experience with infrastructure automation tools5.Testing6.Customer-first mindset7.Collabration8.Flexibility9.Network awareness10.Big Picture thinking on technologiesLINKS:https://www.quora.com/How-are-DevOps-and-Agile-differenthttps://www.altencalsoftlabs.com/blog/2017/07/understanding-continuous-devops-lifecycle/https://jenkins.io/download/https://www.atlassian.com/software/bamboohttp://jmeter.apache.org/download_jmeter.cgihttp://www.seleniumhq.org/download/http://appium.io/https://www.soapui.org/downloads/download-soapui-pro-trial.htmlhttp://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/download.htmlhttps://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.htmlhttps://www.pagerduty.com/https://www.snort.org/downloadshttps://store.docker.com/editions/enterprise/docker-ee-trialhttps://saltstack.com/saltstack-downloads/https://puppet.com/download-puppet-enterprisehttps://www.upguard.com/demohttps://www.nrgglobal.com/regression-testing-appverify-download

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Your 2022 Continuous DevOps Monitoring Solution Needs Pinch Of Artificial Intelligence

DevOps helped technologists save time such drastically that the projects that were barely deployed in a year or more are now seeing the daylight in just months or even weeks. It removed communication bottlenecks, eased the change management, and helped with an end-to-end automation cycle for the SDLC. However, as has been the interesting feature of humanity, any innovation that eases our life also brings with it challenges of its own. Bending over backward, the business leaders now have much more complex customer demands and employee skillset requirements to live up to. Digital Modernization requires rapid and complex processes that move along the CI/CD pipeline with all sorts of innovative QA automation, Complex APIs, Configuration Management Platforms, and Infrastructure-as-a-Code, among other dynamic technology integrations. Such complexities are making DevOps turn on its head due to a serious lack of visibility over the workloads. It is, therefore, time for the companies to put their focus to an essential part of their digital transformation journey – the Monitoring. Continuous Monitoring for the DevOps of Our Times DevOps monitoring is a proactive approach that helps us detect the defects in the CI/CD pipeline and strategize to resolve them. Moreover, a good monitoring strategy can curb potential failures even before they occur. In other words, one cannot hold the essence of DevOps frameworks with their time-to-market benefits without having a good monitoring plan. With the IT landscape getting more and more unpredictable with each day, even DevOps monitoring solutions need to evolve into something more dynamic than its traditional ways. Therefore, it is time for global enterprises and ISVs to adopt Continuous Monitoring. Ideally, Continuous Monitoring or Continuous Control Monitoring in DevOps refers to end-to-end monitoring of each phase in the DevOps pipeline. It helps DevOps teams gain insight into the CI/CD processes for their performance, compliance, security, infrastructure, among others, by offering useful metrics and frameworks. The different DevOps phases can be protected with easy threat assessments, quick incident responses, thorough root cause analysis, and continuous general feedback. In this way, Continuous Monitoring covers all three pillars of a contemporary software – Infrastructure, Application, and Network. It is capable of reducing system downtimes by rapid responses, full network transparency and proactive risk management. There’s one more technology that the technocrats handling the DevOps of our times are keen to work on – Artificial Intelligence (AI). So it wouldn’t be a surprise if the conversations about Continuous Monitoring being fuelled by AI are already brewing up. However, such dream castles need a concrete technology-rich floor. Therefore, we will now look at the possibilities for implementing Continuous DevOps Monitoring Solutions with Artificial Intelligence holding the reins. Artificial Intelligence for Continuous Monitoring As discussed above Continuous Monitoring essentially promises the health and performance efficiency of the infrastructure, application, and network. There are solutions like Azure DevOps Monitoring, AWS DevOps monitoring and more that offer surface visibility dashboards, custom monitoring metrics, hybrid cloud monitoring, among other benefits. So, how do we weave in Artificial Intelligence into such tools and technologies? It mainly comes down to collecting, analyzing, and processing the monitoring data coming in from the various customized metrics. In fact, a more liberal thought can be given even to accommodate setting up these metrics throughout the different phases of DevOps. So, here’s how Artificial Intelligence can help with Continuous Monitoring and empower the DevOps teams to navigate the complex nature of modern applications. Proactive Monitoring AI can enable the DevOps pipeline to quickly analyze the data coming in from monitoring tools and raise real-time notifications for any potential downtime issues or performance deviations. Such analysis might exhaust much more manual workforce than AI-based tools that can automatically identify and update about unhealthy system operations much more frequently and efficiently. Based on the data analysis, they can also help customize the metrics to look for more vulnerable performance points in the CI/CD pipeline for a more proactive response. Resource-Oriented Monitoring One of the biggest challenges while implementing Continuous Monitoring is the variety of infrastructure and networking resources used for the application. The uptime checks, on-premise Monitoring, component health checks are different in Hybrid cloud and Multi-cloud environments. Therefore, monitoring such IT stacks and for an end-to-end DevOps might be a bigger hassle than one can imagine. However, AI-based tools can be programmed to find unusual patterns even in such complex landscapes by tracking various system baselines. Furthermore, AI can also quickly pin-point the specific defective cog in the wheel that might be holding the machinery down. Technology Intelligence The built-in automation and proactiveness of Artificial Intelligence enables it to relax the workforce and the system admins by identifying and troubleshooting the complicated systems. Whether it is a Kubernetes cluster, or a malfunctioning API, AI can support the monitoring administrators to have an overall visibility and make informed decisions about the DevOps apparatus. Such technology intelligence would otherwise require a very unique skillset that might be too easy to hire or acquire. Therefore, enterprises and ISVs can turn to AI for empowering their DevOps monitoring solutions and teams with the required support. Conclusion DevOps is entering the phase of specializations. AIOps, DevSecOps, InfraOps and more are emerging to help the industries with their specific and customized DevOps automation needs. Therefore, it is necessary that the DevOps teams have the essential monitoring resources to ensure minimal to no failures. Continuous Monitoring aided by Artificial Intelligence can provide the robust mechanism that would help the technology experts mitigate the challenges of navigating the complex digital landscape thus, helping the global industries with their digital transformation ambitions.

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Best DevOps Services Every Engineering Team Should Consider

Nowadays, DevOps is not just a methodology, but it’s a proven approach to drive effective engineering outcomes and faster releases. As system and product cycles speed up, teams are delivering faster, automated, and reliable infrastructure. According to recent data,50% of DevOps adopters are now elite or high performers, and 30% improvement over the previous years. This data highlights increased adoption, along with a growing maturity across automation, pipelines, collaboration, and infrastructure models. For engineering teams willing to grow their teams and increase deployment frequency, choosing the right DevOps services is significant. In this blog, we will explore the best services that are transforming engineering teams to build scalable and secure delivery pipelines.7 Best DevOps Services For Evolving Engineering TeamsHere is the list of the top 8 services designed to help teams stay flexible, deployment-ready, and agile. From CI/CD and version control systems to monitoring and logging tools, these services aren’t just trends — they are the foundation of scalable and reliable software. If your DevOps team is evolving, these are the services you should consider.Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)CI/CD is a significant feature of modern DevOps practices, automating the integration and delivery of code. It enables the team to test and release applications faster than before. CI detects errors and also enhances the quality of the code. However, CD allows the code to get into a deployable state constantly for every small change. Here are several renowned CI/CD tools mentioned. Let’s discuss them one by one:GitHub ActionsA powerful CI/CD platform or tool built into GitHub, which enables developers to automate software development workflows. GitHub Actions allows users to build, test, and deploy software applications directly from GitHub. Additionally, it also supports matrix builds and native integration with GitHub repositories.JenkinsJenkins is a prominent and open-source automation server and a widely used CI/CD platform. It is used for the automation of software development, such as building, testing, and deploying, enabling streamlined CI/CD workflows. Furthermore, this CI/CD tool supports several version control tools like CVS, Subversion, AccuRev, Git, RTC, Mercurial, ClearCase, and Perforce.Circle CICircleCI is another CI/CD platform that seamlessly implements DevOps practices. This CI/CD platform provides both self-hosted and cloud solutions. It also automates the software development process to assist development teams in releasing code efficiently.Several DevOps consulting companies identify these tools as a significant component for development teams willing to implement CI/CD pipelines.Version Control SystemsVersion Control Systems(VCS) is a DevOps service tool that easily identifies and manages changes to files or even sets of files. It collaborates, maintains changes, and reverts to previous versions. With VCS, you and your development team can work on the same project simultaneously, concurrently, and without any conflict.GitHubGitHub is a Git-based developer platform that offers collaborative features like pull requests, issue tracking, and project boards. With the help of GitHub, developers can conveniently create, store, share, and manage software code. In addition, it also supports both public and private repositories.GitLabGitLab is an open-source code repository platform or tool used for both DevOps and DevSecOps projects. Users can use it both as a commercial and a community edition. It brings all the development, security, and operations capabilities into one single platform with a unified data storage.Infrastructure as Code (IaC)Infrastructure as Code (IAC) is used to create environments mainly for infrastructure automation. It is a process of managing, provisioning, and supporting IT infrastructure using code rather than manual processes and settings. IAC also easily builds, tests, and deploys software applications.TerraformTerraform is one of the prominent and open-source IaC tools that is used to define and provision infrastructure with human-readable configuration files. It also uses various providers to interact with private clouds along with several cloud platforms, including Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure.AWS CloudFormationAWS CloudFormation is a service offered by AWS that allows users to define and manage infrastructure resources in an automated way. It uses templates, which are mainly IaC, to define the desired state of AWS resources. Moreover, it creates and manages stacks, which are essentially collections of AWS resources.Configuration ManagementConfiguration Management is a process of maintaining both software and hardware systems in a desired state. It also ensures that systems perform consistently, reliably, and meet their desired purpose over time. Furthermore, it restricts troubleshooting and costly rework to save resources as well as time.PuppetPuppet is a popular configuration management tool that is best for managing the stages of the IT infrastructure. It enables administrators to define the ideal state of their infrastructure. Also, this tool assures that systems are configured to match the desired state.ChefChef is another configuration management tool that integrates with various cloud-based platforms such as Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and so on. Also, this tool seamlessly converts infrastructure to code.Cloud Infrastructure ManagementCloud Infrastructure Management conveniently allocates, delivers, and manages cloud computing resources. It allows businesses to scale their cloud resources up or down to meet their organization’s needs. Additionally, it also uses code to define and manage cloud infrastructure, which later enables automation and consistency.AWSAmazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the most prominent cloud platforms which can be accessed by individuals, companies, and governments. It offers various cloud services like compute, storage, analytics, databases, networking, and so on.Google CloudGoogle Cloud is another cloud platform offered by Google that enables both individuals and businesses to run applications, store data, and seamlessly manage workloads. It also provides environments like serverless computing, infrastructure as a service, and platform as a service.ContainerizationContainerization is an application-level virtualization, allowing software applications to run in isolated user spaces, which are called containers in both cloud and non-cloud environments. It is generally lightweight and needs very few resources as compared to virtual machines.DockerDocker is an open-source platform that allows developers to deliver software in packages, which are called containers. Moreover, it helps developers to build lightweight and portable containers across various environments.OrchestrationOrchestration tools are a well-known orchestration tool that easily coordinates and manages several automated tasks and workflows across various applications. It minimizes human error and manual intervention by seamlessly automating workflows. Also, it is ideal for growing businesses, as it can easily handle large-scale operations.KubernetesKubernetes is an open-source orchestration tool that is specially designed to automate the software deployment, scaling, and management of applications. This tool allocates resources to containers based on their needs, to ensure that all the containers have the resources they require to run.Wrapping UpEngineering teams who are willing to deliver software fast and safely should choose the right DevOps services. From streamlining CI/CD tools and managing infrastructure as code to orchestration and cloud infrastructure management, these tools play a significant role in software delivery practices. Apart from these services, there are several other services also that are mentioned in this blog, which allow teams to maintain operational resilience, enhance collaboration, and automate processes.

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Your 5 Step Guide to Agile Implementation

Software development using agile methodology has been widely advocated as the best. It is synonymous with a faster and leaner process that lets teams achieve results sooner and at a higher frequency. This trend however seems to have stuck only with smaller organizations and startups. Enterprises are still skeptical about adopting and doing justice to the manifesto guidelines. At most, they let smaller software development teams to adopt Agile methods and that’s where it stops. Experts reveal that enterprises are convinced that working with Agile is only beneficial for smaller teams because of their horizontal hierarchy and constant dialog with clients. These are practically unheard of with larger enterprises. And also there are doubts about the scalability of Scrum. While this is true to some extent, it is not completely true. Enterprises can, by all means merge the benefits of agile development with other enterprise functions and scale the approach for the organization’s advantage. Misconceptions about new technology is always a given. With Agile too, misconceptions and apprehensions are widespread in the industry leading to underutilization of a disruptive methodology like Agile. 1. Challenges in adopting Agile Love for documentation: Many professionals have the wrong notion that software development is effective only when it is based on producing comprehensive and detailed requirement and design documents. In contrast to this school of thought, Agile methods focus on code development over creating heavy duty documentation. There is a need to educate people about the agile approach to documentation and adopting the ‘document as needed’ method. Limited skills: After years of developing software using limited methods results in people who are experts in certain technology while lacking in other methods. For instance, project managers without an understanding of the underlying technologies used by their teams, programmers with no analysis and design modelling skills cannot be effective in delivering high quality software. To solve this problem professionals should train to become generalizing specialists so that they have specialized skills in one or more areas as well as basic understanding of the technical and business aspects of software development. Closed mindedness: Some software professionals do not believe in investing time and energy to learn about upcoming and promising methodologies. These people can be broadly segregated as; people who perceive agile methods as simple code-and-fix in disguise, and others who have adopted an anti-agile attitude. It is vital to actively educate these people about the advantages of agile methodologies. Such an attitude restricts the optimization of Agile technology thus rendering software development at the mercy of age old methods. A straight way of dealing with such people can be by teaching new approaches to new technology. This would allow smooth introduction of agile practices. Linear thinking: Many IT professionals have become accustomed to typical approaches which makes them unreceptive to new and evolutionary approaches. This can be attributed to the fact that the past 40 years have been dominated by software development methodologies using serial approaches. Such workers want to identify the complete requirements first, then design the system, and only after that start coding. Such people need to be given appropriate training, enough time, and targeted mentoring to learn the principles of agile development. At the same time, one should be vigilant to make sure that the serial mind-set does not hamper introduction and sustenance of agile practices in the enterprise. 2. Adopting Agile enterprise-wide To deliver the best results using Agile it is essential to understand how it impacts the enterprise. Agile affects the working of a system from its roots. It is important for a business to understand the changes that would be expected. With Agile’s recent rise in popularity, organizational integration of its methodologies is already becoming more common. The question remains: How can enterprises make the move as smooth and secure as possible? Approaches for enterprise level adoption of Agile can be broadly classified as- Top-down and Bottom-up. In the former approach, Agile is initiated by senior management and the latter involves developers and testers manning the process. Agile software development practices entail a major cultural trimming for an enterprise which calls for a coordinated change throughout the enterprise, not just at the top or bottom. For a seamless transition, one must consider strategies that involves participation from the developers, testers and leadership in an effectively collaborative discipline. 3. Best practices for a smooth Agile development process- Agile methodologies are emerging as the key to flexible, responsive software engineering. However, this approach – which emphasizes face-to-face communication and close interaction between teams – isn’t envisioned as a reality in large enterprises. This can be negated by adopting and adhering to some basic principles that work for your organization. A diligent indoctrination of Agile principles in your regular engagement and delivery models will help you get the best possible results from your teams- An iterative development approach with short sprints of 2-4 weeks Frequent builds and continuous integration Daily standup meetings and weekly or bi-weekly engineering meetings Effective use of tools for Agile project management, issue tracking, build and test automation Strong documentation and code commenting Test driven development, if applicable 4. Some Scrum Best Practices Well-defined product backlog Sprint planning meetings Effective daily scrums Optimal communication with questions & concerns raised early in the sprint Improvements with each sprint review Leadership elements internally and externally within teams 5. Choose the right Agile partner Scaling Agile is not an impossible task. With a well laid out strategy and workflow you can introduce employees to the Agile work culture. Agile software development delivers ROI once you have effectively and steadily on boarded employees on to the program. However, if this is the first time that you’re working with agile, then it is essential to work with an expert. Consider working with service providers having Agile expertise. Some things that you must expect from such service providers include: Assured high-quality delivery: Consider high quality results from experienced and specialist engineers. Integrated cohesive Interactions: A smart agile worker values continuous innovation and constant interaction with client, project leaders, and team members for contact revaluation of the process Faster results, responsive to change: Expect a responsive and highly dynamic team when you are working with a vendor Personalized delivery: Unlike startups, Agility across an enterprise requires more detailed and panned out structure. Does your vendor understand you? Are they focusing on scaling agile on a constant basis? Often large enterprises find it feasible to work closely with companies adept at Agile or DevOps work culture. Doing so gives them the much needed gradual exposure to the new culture without disturbing their own.

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Building Package Using Omnibus

Omnibus is a tool for creating full-stack installers for multiple platforms. In general, it simplifies the installation of any software by including all of the dependencies for that piece of software. It was written by the people at Chef, who use it to package Chef. Omnibus consists of two pieces- omnibus and omnibus software. omnibus – the framework, created by Chef Software, by which we create full-stack, cross-platform installers for software. The project is on GitHub at chef/omnibus. omnibus-software – Chef Software’s open source collection of software definitions that are used to build the Chef Client, the Chef Server, and other Chef Software products. The software definitions can be found on GitHub at chef/omnibus-software. Omnibus provides both, a DSL for defining Omnibus projects for your software, as well as a command-line tool for generating installer artifacts from that definition. Omnibus has minimal prerequisites. It requires Ruby 2.0.0+ and Bundler. Getting Started To get started install omnibus > gem install omnibus You can now create an omnibus project inside your current directory using project generator feature > omnibus new demo This will generate a complete project skeleton in the directory as following: create omnibus-demo/Gemfile create omnibus-demo/.gitignore create omnibus-demo/README.md create omnibus-demo/omnibus.rb create omnibus-demo/config/projects/demo.rb create omnibus-demo/config/software/demo-zlib.rb create omnibus-demo/.kitchen.local.yml create omnibus-demo/.kitchen.yml create omnibus-demo/Berksfile create omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/preinst chmod omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/preinst create omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/prerm chmod omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/prerm create omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/postinst chmod omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/postinst create omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/postrm chmod omnibus-demo/package-scripts/demo/postrm It creates the omnibus-demo directory inside your current directory and this directory has all omnibus package build related files. It is easy to build an empty project without doing any change run > bundle install --binstubs bundle install installs all Omnibus dependencies bundle install installs all Omnibus dependencies The above command will create the installer inside pkg directory. Omnibus determines the platform for which to build an installer based on the platform it is currently running on. That is, you can only generate a .deb file on a Debian-based system. To alleviate this caveat, the generated project includes a Test Kitchen setup suitable for generating a series of Omnibus projects. Back to the Omnibus DSL. Though bin/omnibus build demo will build the package for you, it will not do anything exciting. For that, you need to use the Omnibus DSL to define the specifics of your application. 1) Config If present, Omnibus will use a top-level configuration file name omnibus.rb at the root of your repository. This file is loaded at runtime and includes number of configurations. For e.g.- omnibus.rb # Build locally (instead of /var) # ------------------------------- base_dir './local' # Disable git caching # ------------------------------ use_git_caching false # Enable S3 asset caching # ------------------------------ use_s3_caching true s3_access_key ENV['S3_ACCESS_KEY'] s3_secret_key ENV['S3_SECRET_KEY'] s3_bucket ENV['S3_BUCKET'] Please see config doc for more information. You can use different configuration file by using –config option using command line $ bin/omnibus --config /path/to/config.rb 2) Project DSL When you create an omnibus project, it creates a project DSL file inside config/project with the name which you used for creating project for above example it will create config/project/demo.rb. It provides means to define the dependencies of the project and metadata of the project. We will look at some contents of project DSL file name "demo" maintainer "YOUR NAME" homepage "http://yoursite.com" install_dir "/opt/demo" build_version "0.1.0" # Creates required build directories dependency "preparation" # demo dependencies/components dependency "harvester" ‘install_dir’ option is the location where package will be installed. There are more DSL methods available which you can use in this file. Please see the Project Doc for more information. 3) Software DSL Software DSL defines individual software components that go into making your overall package. The Software DSL provides a way to define where to retrieve the software sources, how to build them, and what dependencies they have. Now let’s edit a config/software/demo.rb name "demo" default_version "1.0.0" dependency "ruby" dependency "rubygems" build do #vendor the gems required by the app bundle “install –path vendor/bundle” end In the above example, consider that we are building a package for Ruby on Rails application, hence we need to include ruby and rubygems dependency. The definition for ruby and rubygems dependency comes from the omnibus-software. Chef has introduced omnibus-software, it is a collection of software definitions used by chef while building their products. To use omnibus-software definitions you need to include the repo path in Gemfile. You can also write your own software definitions. Inside build block you can define how to build your installer. Omnibus provide Build DSL which you can use inside build block to define your build essentials. You can run ruby script and copy and delete files using Build DSL inside build block. Apart from all these DSL file omnibus also created ‘package-script’ directory which consist of pre install and post install script files. You can write a script which you want to run before and after the installation of package and also before and after the removal of the package inside these files. You can use the following references for more examples https://github.com/chef/omnibus https://www.chef.io/blog/2014/06/30/omnibus-a-look-forward/

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Make Your Docker Setup a Success with these 4 Key Components

Building a web application to deploy on an infrastructure, which needs to be on HA mode, while being consistent across all zones is a key challenge. Thanks to the efforts of enthusiasts and technologists, we now have the answer to this challenge in the form of Docker Swarm. A Docker Container architecture will allow the deployment of web applications on the required infrastructure.As a part of this write-up, I will run you through Docker Setup while emphasizing on the challenges and key concern on deploying the web applications on such infrastructure; such that it is highly available, load balanced and deployable quickly, every time changes or releases take place. This may not sound easy, but we gave it a shot, and we were not disappointed.Background:The Docker family is hardly restrained by environments. When we started analyzing all container and cluster technologies, the main consideration was easy to use and simple to implement. With the latest version of Docker swarm, that became possible. Though swarm seemed to lack potential in the initial phase, it matured over time and dispels any doubts that may have been expressed in the past.Docker swarm:Docker swarm is a great cluster technology from Docker. Unlike its competitors like Kubernetes, Mesos and CoreOS Fleet, Swarm is relatively easier to work with. Swarm holds the clusters of all similar functions and communicates between them.So after much POC and analysis, we decided to go ahead with Docker, we got our web application up and running, and introduced it to the Docker family. We realized that the web application might take some time to adjust in the container deployment so we considered revisiting the design and testing the compatibility; but thanks to dev community, the required precautions were already taken care of while development.The web application is a typical 3-tier application – client, server, and database.Key Challenges of Web Application DeploymentSlow deploymentHAoad balancerNow let’s Docker-Implementation Steps:Create a package using Continuous Integration.Once the web application is built and packaged, modify the Docker file and append the latest version of the web app built using Jenkins. This was automated E2E.Create the image using Docker file and deploy it to container. Start the container and verify whether the application is up and running.The UI cluster exclusively held the UI container, and the DB cluster was holding all DB containers. Docker swarm made the clustering very easy and communication between each container occurred without any hurdle.Docker Setup:Components:Docker containers, Docker swarm, UCP, load balancer (nginx)In total there are 10 containers deployed which communicate with DB nodes and fetch the data as per requirement. The containers we deployed were slightly short of 50 for this setup. Docker UCP is an amazing UI for managing E2E containers orchestration. UCP is not only responsible for on-premise container management, but also a solution for VPC (virtual private cloud). It manages all containers regardless of infrastructure and application running on any instance.UCP comes in two flavors: open source as well as enterprise solution.Port mappings:The application is configured to listen in on port 8080, which gets redirected from the load balancer. The URL remains same and common, but eventually, it gets mapped to the available container at that time and the UI is visible to the end user.Key Docker Setup concerns:One concern we faced with swarm is that the existing containers cannot be registered to newly created Docker swarm setup.We had to create the Docker swarm setup first and create the images / containers in the respective cluster.UI nodes will be deployed in UI cluster and DB nodes are deployed in DB cluster.Docker UCP and nginx load balancer are deployed on single host which are exposed to the external network.mysqlDB is deployed on DB cluster.Following is the high level workflow and design:

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Making DevOps Sensible with Assembly Lines

DevOps heralded an era of cutting edge practices in software development and delivery via Continuous Integration (CI) Pipelines. CI made DevOps an epitome of software development and automation, entailing the finest agile methodologies. But, the need for quicker development, testing, and deployment is a never-ending process. This need is pushing back the CI and creating a space for a sharper automation practice, which runs beyond the usual bits and pieces automation. This concept is known as DevOps Assembly Lines.Borrowing inspiration from Automobile IndustryThe concept of assembly lines was first started at Ford Plant in the early 20th century – the idea improved continuously and today is powered via automation. Initially, the parts of the automobiles were manufactured and assembled manually. This was followed by automation in manufacturing, while the assembly was manual. So, there were gaps to be addressed for efficiency, workflow optimization, and speed. The gaps were addressed by automating the assembly of parts. Something similar is happening in the SDLC via DevOps Assembly Lines.Organizations that implement advanced practices of DevOps follow a standardized and methodological process throughout the teams. As a result, these organization experiences fast-flowing CI pipelines, rapid delivery, and top quality.A silo approach that blurs transparencyFollowing the DevOps scheme empowers employees to deliver their tasks efficiently and contribute to the desired output of their team. Many such teams within a software development process are leveraging automation principles. The only concern is that this teamwork is in silos hindering overall visibility into other teams’ productivity, performance, and quality. Therefore, the end product falls shorts of desired expectations – often leaving teams perplexed and demotivated. This difference in DevOps maturity within different teams in a software development environment calls for a uniform Assembly Line.Assembly Lines – triggering de-silo of fragmented teamsCI pipelines consist of a host of automated activities that are relevant to individual stages in the software lifecycle. Which means there are a number of CI pipelines operating simultaneously; but, it is fragmented within SDLC. Assembly Lines is an automated conflation of such CI pipelines towards accelerating a software product’s development and deployment time. DevOps Assembly Line automates activities like continuous integration in the production environment, configuration management and server patching for infrastructure managers, reusable automation scripts in the testing environment, and code as monitoring scripts for security purposes.Bridging the gap between workflows, tools and platformsDevOps Assembly Lines creates a perfect bridge, finely binding standalone workflows, and automated tools and platforms. This way, it establishes a smoothly integrated chain of deployment pipeline optimized for the efficient delivery of software products. The good part is it creates an island of connected and automated tools and platforms; these platforms belong to different vendors and are that gel together easily. Assembly Lines eliminates the gap between manual and automated tasks. It brings QAs, developers, operations teams, SecOps, release management teams, etc. on a single plane to enable a streamlined and uni-directional strategy for product delivery.Managed platform as a service approach for managementDevOps Assembly Lines exhibits an interconnected web of multiple CI pipelines, which entail numerous automated workflows. This makes the management of Assembly Lines a bit tricky. Therefore, Organizations can leverage a managed services portal that streamlines all the activities across the DevOps Assembly Lines.Installing a DevOps platform will centralize the activities of Assembly Lines and streamline a host of workflows. It will offer a unified experience to multiple DevOps teams and also help operate a low cost and fast-paced Assembly Lines. A DevOps platform would also entail different tools from multiple vendors that could work in tandem.The whole idea behind installing Assembly Lines is to establish a collaborative auto-mode within diverse activities of SDLC. A centralized, on-demand platform could help get started with pre-integrated tools, that could manage automated deployment.A team of operators, either in-house or via a support partner, could handle this platform. This way, there will be smooth functioning across groups, and on-demand requests for any issues that could be addressed immediately. The platform will invariably help DevOps architects to concentrate on productive parts – while maintenance is taken care of behind the scenes. Further, it would allow teams to look beyond their core activities (a key goal of Assembly Lines) and absorb the status of overall team productivity. The transparency will give them an idea of existing hindrances, performances, productivity, and expected quality. In accordance, they could take corrective measures.Future AheadCI pipelines are helpful for rapid product development and deployment. But, considering the graph of rising expectation in quality and feature enablement and considering the time-to-market requirement, the CI pipelines do not fit the bill. Further, the issue of configuration management is too complicated for CI pipelines to handle. Therefore, the next logical step is to embrace DevOps Assembly Lines. And the importance of a centralized management platform to drive consistency, scalability, and transparency via Assembly Lines should not be undermined.

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Chef Knife Plugin for Windows Azure (IAAS)

Chef is an open-source systems management and cloud infrastructure automation framework created by Opscode. It helps in managing your IT infrastructure and applications as code. It gives you a way to automate your infrastructure and processes. Knife is a CLI to create, update, search and delete the entities or manage actions on entities in your infrastructure like node (hosts), cloud resources, metadata (roles, environments) and code for infrastructure (recipes, cookbooks), etc. A Knife plug-in is a set of one (or more) subcommands that can be added to Knife to support additional functionality that is not built-in to the base set of Knife subcommands. The knife azure is a knife plugin which helps you automate virtual machine provisioning in Windows Azure and bootstrapping it. This article talks about using Chef and knife-azure plugin to provision Windows/Linux virtual machines in Windows Azure and bootstrapping the virtual machine. Understanding Windows Azure (IaaS): To deploy a Virtual Machine in a region (or service location) in Azure, all the components shown described above have to be created; A Virtual Machine is associated with a DNS (or cloud service). Multiple Virtual Machines can be associated with a single DNS with load-balancing enabled on certain ports (eg. 80, 443 etc). A Virtual Machine has a storage account associated with it which storages OS and Data disks A X509 certificate is required for password-less SSH authentication on Linux VMs and HTTPS-based WinRM authentication for Windows VMs. A service location is a geographic region in which to create the VMs, Storage accounts etc The Storage Account The storage account holds all the disks (OS as well as data). It is recommended that you create a storage account in a region and use it for the VMs in that region. If you provide the option –azure-storage-account, knife-azure plugin creates a new storage account with that name if it doesnt already exist. It uses this storage account to create your VM. If you do not specify the option, then the plugin checks for an existing storage account in the service location you have mentioned (using option –service-location). If no storage account exists in your location, then it creates a new storage with name prefixed with the azure-dns-name and suffixed with a 10 char random string. Azure Virtual Machine This is also called as Role(specified using option –azure-vm-name). If you do not specify the VM name, the default VM name is taken from the DNS name( specified using option –azure-dns-name). The VM name should be unique within a deployment. An Azure VM is analogous to the Amazon EC2 instance. Like an instance in Amazon is created from an AMI, you can create an Azure VM from the stock images provided by Azure. You can also create your own images and save them against your subscription. Azure DNS This is also called as Hosted Service or Cloud Service. It is a container for your application deployments in Azure( specified using option –azure-dns-name). A cloud service is created for each azure deployment. You can have multiple VMs(Roles) within a deployment with certain ports configured as load-balanced. OS Disk A disk is a VHD that you can boot and mount as a running version of an operating system. After an image is provisioned, it becomes a disk. A disk is always created when you use an image to create a virtual machine. Any VHD that is attached to virtualized hardware and that is running as part of a service is a disk. An existing OS Disk can be used (specified using option –azure-os-disk-name ) to create a VM as well. Certificates For SSH login without password, an X509 Certificate needs to be uploaded to the Azure DNS/Hosted service. As an end user, simply specify your private RSA key using –identity-file option and the knife plugin takes care of generating a X509 certificate. The virtual machine which is spawned then contains the required SSH thumbprint. I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Gem Install Run the command gem install knife-azure Install from Source Code To get the latest changes in the knife azure plugin, download the source code, build and install the plugin: 1. Uninstall any existing versions $ gem uninstall knife-azure Successfully uninstalled knife-azure-1.2.0 2. Clone the git repo and build the code $ git clone https://github.com/opscode/knife-azure $ cd knife-azure $ gem build knife-azure.gemspec WARNING: description and summary are identical Successfully built RubyGem Name: knife-azure Version: 1.2.0 File: knife-azure-1.2.0.gem 3. Install the gem $ gem install knife-azure-1.2.0.gem Successfully installed knife-azure-1.2.0 1 gem installed Installing ri documentation for knife-azure-1.2.0... Building YARD (yri) index for knife-azure-1.2.0... Installing RDoc documentation for knife-azure-1.2.0... 4. Verify your installation $ gem list | grep azure knife-azure (1.2.0) To provision a VM in Windows Azure and bootstrap using knife, Firstly, create a new windows azure account: at this link and secondly, download the publish settings file fromhttps://manage.windowsazure.com/publishsettings The publish settings file contains certificates used to sign all the HTTP requests (REST APIs). Azure supports two modes to create virtual machines – quick create and advanced. Azure VM Quick Create You can create a server with minimal configuration. On the Azure Management Portal, this corresponds to the “Quick Create – Virtual Machine” workflow. The corresponding sample command for quick create for a small Windows instance is: knife azure server create --azure-publish-settings-file '/path/to/your/cert.publishsettingsfile' --azure-dns-name 'myservice' --azure-source-image 'windows-image-name' --winrm-password 'jetstream@123' --template-file 'windows-chef-client-msi.erb' --azure-service-location "West US" Azure VM Advanced Create You can set various other options in the advanced create including service location or region, storage-account, VM name etc. The corresponding command to create a Linux instance with advanced options is: knife azure server create --azure-publish-settings-file "path/to/your/publish/settings/file" --azure-vm-size Medium --azure-dns-name "HelloAzureDNS" --azure-service-location "West US" --azure-vm-name 'myvm01' --azure-source-image "b39f27a8b8c64d52b05eac6a62ebad85__Ubuntu-13_04-amd64-server-20130423-en-us-30GB" --azure-storage-account "helloazurestorage1" --ssh-user "helloazure" --identity-file "path/to/your/rsa/pvt/key" To create a VM and connect it to an existing DNS/service, you can use a command as below: knife azure server create --azure-publish-settings-file "path/to/your/publish/settings/file" --azure-connect-to-existing-dns --azure-dns-name 'myservice' --azure-vm-name 'myvm02' --azure-service-location 'West US' --azure-source-image 'source-image-name' --ssh-user 'jetstream' --ssh-password 'jetstream@123' List available Images: knife azure image list List currently available Virtual Machines: knife azure server list Delete and Clean up a Virtual Machine: knife azure server delete --azure-dns-name myvm02 'myservice' --chef-node-name 'myvm02' --purge This post is meant to explain the basics and usage for knife-azure.

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Kubernetes – Bridging the Gap between 5G and Intelligent Edge Computing

PrologueIn the era of digital transformation, the 5G network is a leap forward. But frankly, the tall promises of the 5G network are cornering the edge computing technology to democratize data at a granular level. To add to the vows, 5G also demands that edge computing enhances performance and latency while slashing the cost. Kubernetes – an open-source container-orchestration is a dealmaker between 5G and edge computing.In this blog, you will read:A decade defined by the cloudThe legend of cloud-native ContainersThe rise of Container Network Functions (CNFs)Edge computing must reinvent the wheelKubernetes – powering 5G at the edgeKubeEdge – giving an edge to KubernetesA decade defined by the cloudWhat oil is to the automobile industry, the cloud is to Information Technology (IT) industry. Cloud revolutionized the tech space by making data available at your fingertips. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) planted the seed of the cloud somewhere in the early 2000s. Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure followed this. However, the real growth of cloud technology skyrocketed only after 2010-2012.Numbers underlining the future trends– Per Cisco, cloud computing will process more than 90 percent of the workloads in 2021– PerRightScale, the business run around 41 percent workloads in private cloud and 38 percent in the public cloud– Per Cisco, 75 percent of all compute instance and cloud workloads will be SaaS by the end of 2021The legend of cloud-native ContainersThe advent of cloud-native is a hallmark of evolutionary development in the cloud ecosystem. The fundamental nature of the architecture of cloud-native is the abstraction of multiple layers of the infrastructure. This means a cloud-native architect has to define those layers via code. And when coding, one gets a chance to include top functionalities to maximize the value of the business. Cloud-native also empowers coders to create scripts for infrastructure scalability.Cloud-native container tech is making a noteworthy contribution to the future growth of the cloud-native ecosystem. It is playing a more significant role in enabling capabilities of the 5G architecture in real-time. With container-focused web services, 5G network companies can achieve resource isolation and reproducibility to drive resiliency and faster deployment. Containers make the process of deployment less intricate, which powers the 5G infrastructure to scale data requirements spanning cloud networks. Organizations can leverage Containers to process data and compute it on a massive scale.A conflation of Containers and DevOps work magic for 5G. Bringing these loosely coupled services will help 5G providers to automate application deployment, receive feedback swiftly, eliminate bottlenecks, and achieve a self-paced continuous improvement mechanism. They can provision resources on-demand with unified management across a hybrid cloud.The fire of cloud-native is ignited in the telecom sector. The coming decade – 2021-2030, will witness it spread like wildfire.The rise of the Container Network Functions (CNFs)We witnessed the rise of Container Network Functions (CNFs), while network providers were using containers with VMware and virtual network functions (VNF). CNFs are functions of a network that can run on Kubernetes across multi-cloud and/or hybrid cloud infrastructure. CNFs are ultra-lightweight compared to VNFs, which traditionally operate in the VMware environment. This makes CNFs super portable and scalable. But, the underlining factor in the CNF architecture is that it is deployable over a bare metal server that brings down the cost dramatically.5G – the next wave in the telecom sector promises to offer next-gen services entailing automation, elasticity, and transparency. Looking at the requirement micro-segmented architectures, VNF (VMware environment) would not be an ideal choice for 5G providers. Logically, the adoption of CNFs is a natural step forward. Of course, doing away entirely with VMware isn’t anytime on the board. Therefore, a hybrid model of VNF and CNF sounds good.Recently, Intel, in collaboration with Red Hat, created a cloud-based onboarding service and test bed to conflate CNF (containerized environment) and VNF (VMware environment). The test bed is expected to enhance compatibility between CNF and VNF and slash the deployment time. The architecture looks like the image below.Edge computing must reinvent the wheelMultiple devices generate a massive amount of data concurrently. To enable cloud centers to process such data is a herculean task. Edge computing architecture puts infrastructure close to data devices within a distributed environment that results in faster response time and lower latency. Edge computing’s local processing of data simplifies the process and reduces the overall costs. Edge computing has been working as a catalyst for the telecommunication industry to date. However, with 5G in the picture, the boundaries are all set to push.The rising popularity of the 5G network is putting a thrust on intuitive experiences in real-time. 5G catapults the speed of the broadband by up to 10x and plummets the device density by around a million devices/sq.km. For this, 5G requires ultra-low latency, which can be created by a digital infrastructure powered by edge computing.Honestly, edge computing must start flapping its wings for the success of the 5G network. It must ensure– Better device management– Lesser resource utilization– More lightweight capabilities– Ultra-low latency– Increased security blanket and data transfer reliabilityKubernetes – powering 5G at the edge“Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery.” Kubernetes.ioKubernetes streamlines the underlying compute spanning distributed environment and imparts consistency at the edge. Kubernetes helps network providers maximize the value of Containers at the edge by automation and swift deployment with a broader security blanket. Kubernetes for edge computing will eliminate most of the labor-intensive workloads, thereby, driving better productivity and quality.Kubernetes has an unquestionable role to play in unleashing the commercial value of 5G, at least for now. The only alternative to Kubernetes is VMware, which does not make the cut due to space and cost issues. Kubernetes architecture has proved to accelerate the automation of mission-critical workloads and reduce the overall cost of 5G deployment.A Microservices architecture is required to support non-real-time components of 5G. Kubernetes can create a self-controlled closed loop, which ensures a required number of Microservices are hosted and controlled at the desired level. Further, the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler of Kubernetes can release new container instances depending on the workload at the edge.Last year, AT&T signed an eight-figure and multi-year deal with Mirantis to roll out 5G leveraging OpenStack and Kubernetes. Ryan Van Wyk, AT&T Associate VP of the Network, had quoted, “There really isn’t much of an alternative. Your alternative is VMware. We’ve done the assessments, and VMware doesn’t check boxes we need.”KubeEdge – giving an edge to KubernetesKubeEdge is an open-source project built on Kubernetes. The latest version, KubeEdge v1.3, hones the capabilities of Kubernetes to power intelligent orchestration of containerized application at the edge. KubeEdge streamlines communication between edge and cloud data center by infrastructure support for network, app. deployment, and metadata. The best part is that it allows coders to create a customized logic script to enable resource-constrained device communication at the edge.Future aheadGartner quotes, “Around 10 percent of enterprise-generated data is created and processed outside a traditional centralized data center or cloud. By 2025, this figure will reach 75 percent.”The proliferation of devices due to IoT, Big Data, and AI will generate data of mammoth amount. For the success of 5G, it is essential that edge computing handles these complex workloads and maintains data elasticity. Therefore, Kubernetes will be the functional backbone of edge computing imparting resiliency in orchestrating containerized applications.

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