Hello, World: DevOps Is My Mission

Hello, world.

My name is Alexander Garber and my mission is to become a software developer. On this blog I will share with you my journey into this exciting and complex profession.

Why DevOps?

This is my road map to Destination DevOps, which you can expect to be updated frequently:

1. My dream is to work in a Linux environment.
2. I have a deep interest in open source software.
3. I love making processes more efficient.
4. I love automating processes.

So DevOps seems to be the best fit.

How Will I Get There?

This is my current career road map.  In short, over the next 5-10 years:

1. Study coding and reach out to prospective employers.
2. Get an internship or a junior developer position.  Work very hard.
3. Become a successful software developer.  Work even harder.
4. Become a DevOps engineer.  Redouble my efforts.

SAMPLES OF MY RELEVANT WORK:

• HTML/PHP/MySQL tool collect data from job advertisements, running reports on DevOps tools, with many more detailed reports to follow
• Vagrantfile of a working CentOS7 box with a bootstrap script according to this spec sheet
• Vagrantfile of a working Ubuntu 16.04 EC2 instance
• Freight calculator in a Google Sheet.
• The same calculator as a PHP web page with a MySQL backend, hosted on an EC2 Ubuntu 16.04 instance  (Under construction)
• Python and BASH shell script generator, written in Python.
• Python shell script to combine audio, video, and desktop streams into a single video file.

CURRENT ENDEAVOURS WITH THE VIEW OF WORKING IN DEV-OPS

My approach, in consultation with people involved in the industry, is to familiarise myself with the tools favoured by DevOps engineers and to solve the kinds of problems, on a small scale, that these tools are intended for.  The following is a summary of the ground I have covered since 1st July 2016.

• Get Chef running on my Ubuntu 16.04 computer at home
• Make advances in Vagrant with Virtualbox and AWS
• Manage EC2 instances, Security Groups, IAM profiles, etc, in AWS.
• SSH into EC2 instances on AWS.
• Upgrade an Ubuntu Server from 14.04 to 16.04 over SSH.
• Build a LAMP stack on an Ubuntu Server EC2 instance.
• Automate routine activities on the computer by means of Python and BASH scripts.
• Build a LAMP stack on a NAS drive, install MediaWiki, and configure a fully functional locally hosted wiki, with a collection of useful plugins, on which I document all the business processes and procedures.
• Compile source code, including recompiling the Linux kernel.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND IN LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

• Contributed source code in Python to the OpenShot project.
• Member of Linux Users Victoria and attended many meetings.
• Have run workshops for OpenShot Video Editor.

WORK HISTORY AS AN I.T. PROFESSIONAL

• Started a computer repair and IT service business, Clockwork PC in 2011.
• Built up a client base of 62 clients, and am still sought after for my services.
• Utilise my computing knowledge to automate as much of my daily work as possible.

UPCOMING AREAS OF STUDY

The following is a list of areas that my research suggests would be most useful to learn or improve in.  Is there anything you would add to it, or subtract from it?

• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails
• Chef
• Puppet
• Docker
• Openstack
• Juju
• MySQL
• PHP