Cloud & DevOps Roadmap

Core Concepts:

• Linux file system structure and navigation
• File permissions and ownership (chmod, chown)
• Process management and system monitoring
• Package management (apt, yum)
• Bash scripting for automation
• User and group management

Essential Commands:

• ls, cd, pwd, mkdir, rm - File navigation
• cat, grep, awk, sed - Text processing
• ps, top, kill - Process management
• chmod, chown - Permissions
• apt, yum - Package management

Core Concepts:

• OSI Model and TCP/IP protocol suite
• IP addressing and subnetting (CIDR notation)
• DNS resolution and record types (A, CNAME, MX)
• HTTP/HTTPS protocols and status codes
• Load balancing algorithms and strategies
• Firewalls, security groups, and network ACLs

Essential Skills:

• Configure VPCs and subnets in cloud environments
• Set up security groups and firewall rules
• Troubleshoot DNS issues with dig and nslookup
• Understand ports and common services (22, 80, 443)
• Configure load balancers for high availability

Python Fundamentals:

• Variables, data types, and operators
• Control flow (if/else, loops)
• Functions and modules
• File operations and JSON/YAML parsing
• Error handling and debugging
• Working with APIs using requests library

DevOps Applications:

• Automation scripts for server management
• Log parsing and analysis
• AWS boto3 SDK for cloud automation
• Azure SDK for Python
• Configuration management scripts

Git Fundamentals:

• Repository initialization and cloning
• Staging and committing changes
• Branching and merging strategies
• Remote repositories (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)
• Pull requests and code reviews
• Resolving merge conflicts

Advanced Workflows:

• Git Flow and trunk-based development
• Rebasing and cherry-picking
• Git hooks for automation
• Submodules and monorepos

Cloud Service Models:

• IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): EC2, Virtual Machines
• PaaS (Platform as a Service): App Service, Elastic Beanstalk
• SaaS (Software as a Service): Office 365, Salesforce

Deployment Models:

• Public Cloud: AWS, Azure, GCP
• Private Cloud: On-premises infrastructure
• Hybrid Cloud: Combination of public and private
• Multi-Cloud: Using multiple cloud providers

Key Concepts:

• Scalability and elasticity
• High availability and fault tolerance
• Regions and availability zones
• Shared responsibility model
• Cloud pricing models (pay-as-you-go)

Core AWS Services:

• EC2: Virtual servers, instance types, AMIs, security groups
• S3: Object storage, buckets, versioning, lifecycle policies
• IAM: Users, groups, roles, policies, MFA
• VPC: Virtual networks, subnets, route tables, NAT gateways
• Lambda: Serverless functions, triggers, event-driven architecture
• RDS: Managed databases, backups, read replicas

AWS CLI Essentials:

• Configure AWS CLI with credentials
• Manage EC2 instances from command line
• Upload/download files to S3
• Query and manage AWS resources

Core Azure Services:

• Virtual Machines: Compute instances, VM scale sets
• Storage Accounts: Blob, File, Queue, Table storage
• Azure AD: Identity and access management
• Virtual Networks: VNets, subnets, NSGs, load balancers
• Azure Functions: Serverless computing
• Azure SQL: Managed database services

Azure DevOps:

• Azure Repos for Git repositories
• Azure Pipelines for CI/CD
• Azure Boards for project management
• Azure Artifacts for package management

Docker Fundamentals:

• Containers vs Virtual Machines
• Docker architecture: daemon, client, registry
• Images and layers
• Container lifecycle management
• Docker networking (bridge, host, overlay)
• Volume management and data persistence

Dockerfile Best Practices:

• Multi-stage builds for optimization
• Layer caching strategies
• Security scanning and vulnerability management
• Environment variables and secrets

Docker Compose:

• Define multi-container applications
• Service dependencies and networking
• Volume and network configuration
• Environment-specific configurations

Kubernetes Architecture:

• Control plane components (API server, scheduler, controller)
• Worker nodes and kubelet
• etcd for cluster state storage
• Container runtime (containerd, CRI-O)

Core Resources:

• Pods: Smallest deployable units
• Deployments: Manage replica sets and rolling updates
• Services: Expose applications (ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer)
• ConfigMaps & Secrets: Configuration management
• Ingress: HTTP routing and load balancing
• Persistent Volumes: Storage management

kubectl Commands:

• kubectl get pods - List pods
• kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml - Deploy resources
• kubectl logs pod-name - View logs
• kubectl exec -it pod-name -- /bin/bash - Shell access
• kubectl scale deployment/app --replicas=3 - Scale

Terraform Basics:

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles
• Terraform workflow: init, plan, apply, destroy
• HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) syntax
• Providers (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Resources and data sources
• State management and remote backends

Advanced Concepts:

• Variables and outputs
• Modules for reusable infrastructure
• Workspaces for multiple environments
• Terraform Cloud for team collaboration
• Import existing infrastructure

CI/CD Fundamentals:

• Continuous Integration principles
• Continuous Deployment vs Continuous Delivery
• Pipeline stages: build, test, deploy
• Automated testing strategies
• Artifact management
• Deployment strategies (blue-green, canary, rolling)

Tools & Platforms:

• Jenkins: Jenkinsfile, declarative pipelines, plugins
• GitHub Actions: Workflows, actions, runners
• GitLab CI: .gitlab-ci.yml, stages, jobs
• AWS CodePipeline: Native AWS CI/CD
• Azure DevOps: Azure Pipelines YAML

Ansible Fundamentals:

• Agentless architecture
• Inventory files and host groups
• Playbooks and YAML syntax
• Modules for common tasks
• Variables and facts
• Handlers and notifications

Advanced Features:

• Roles for code organization
• Ansible Vault for secrets
• Dynamic inventory
• Ansible Galaxy for community roles
• Integration with CI/CD pipelines

Observability Pillars:

• Metrics: Time-series data (CPU, memory, requests)
• Logs: Application and system logs
• Traces: Distributed tracing for microservices

Monitoring Tools:

• Prometheus: Metrics collection and alerting
• Grafana: Visualization and dashboards
• ELK Stack: Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana for logs
• CloudWatch: AWS native monitoring
• Azure Monitor: Azure observability
• Datadog: Full-stack monitoring platform

Security Fundamentals:

• Shift-left security approach
• Security in CI/CD pipelines
• Container security best practices
• Secrets management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)
• Compliance and governance
• Security scanning and vulnerability management

Security Tools:

• Trivy: Container vulnerability scanning
• Snyk: Dependency scanning
• SonarQube: Code quality and security
• HashiCorp Vault: Secrets management
• OPA: Policy as code

Migration Strategies (6 Rs):

• Rehost: Lift and shift to cloud
• Replatform: Lift, tinker, and shift
• Refactor: Re-architect for cloud-native
• Repurchase: Move to SaaS
• Retire: Decommission unused apps
• Retain: Keep on-premises

Migration Process:

• Assessment and discovery
• Planning and design
• Migration execution
• Validation and optimization
• Cutover and go-live

Migration Tools:

• AWS Migration Hub and Application Migration Service
• Azure Migrate
• CloudEndure Migration
• Database migration services