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Core Competencies in DevOps

Core Competencies in DevOps

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What does the Core Competencies in DevOps course cover?

Core Competencies in DevOps is covered here in 7 modules: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Strategy and Implementation, Continuous Integration Pipeline Architecture, Continuous Delivery and Deployment Governance and 4 more. The outline lists 42 specific topics, opening with select between declarative (e.g., Terraform) and imperative (e.g., AWS CloudFormation with custom scripts) approaches based on team expertise and rollback requirements.

How do you approach Core Competencies in DevOps step by step?

The work is sequenced in 7 stages. It starts with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Strategy and Implementation, moves through Continuous Integration Pipeline Architecture and Continuous Delivery and Deployment Governance, and ends at Incident Management and Blameless Postmortems. Each stage carries its own topic list, so the sequence is followed rather than summarised.

What is in Module 1 of the Core Competencies in DevOps course?

Module 1 is Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Strategy and Implementation. It works through select between declarative (e.g., Terraform) and imperative (e.g., AWS CloudFormation with custom scripts) approaches based on team expertise and rollback requirements., implement state file management for Terraform using remote backends with strict access controls and audit logging., enforce IaC linting and validation in CI pipelines using tools like tflint.

How is the Core Competencies in DevOps course delivered?

The Core Competencies in DevOps course is fully self-paced with immediate online access after enrolment. Access does not expire and future updates are included at no cost. It can be taken on any device, and a certificate of completion is issued by The Art of Service when you finish.

How much does the Core Competencies in DevOps course cost?

The Core Competencies in DevOps course is $200 as a one time payment. There is no subscription, no per seat licence and no hidden fee. Enrolment carries a 30 day satisfied or refunded guarantee, so it can be assessed in full before you commit.

Closely related courses: Core Competencies Toolkit, Core Competencies in Big Data, Core Competencies in Sales Kit, Core Competencies in Business Strategy Alignment.

More answers: what you get with every course, refund policy, all help answers.

This curriculum spans the technical and operational practices found in mature DevOps transformations, comparable to a multi-workshop program for aligning engineering teams on standardized IaC, CI/CD, security, and platform governance across complex, regulated environments.

Module 1: Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Strategy and Implementation

  • Select between declarative (e.g., Terraform) and imperative (e.g., AWS CloudFormation with custom scripts) approaches based on team expertise and rollback requirements.
  • Implement state file management for Terraform using remote backends with strict access controls and audit logging.
  • Enforce IaC linting and validation in CI pipelines using tools like tflint and checkov before deployment.
  • Design reusable, parameterized modules for network, compute, and storage with clear versioning and dependency management.
  • Balance drift detection frequency against operational overhead by scheduling periodic scans without disrupting production workloads.
  • Coordinate cross-team changes in shared environments using IaC workspaces and change approval workflows.

Module 2: Continuous Integration Pipeline Architecture

  • Choose between monorepo and polyrepo CI strategies based on team autonomy, release cadence, and dependency coupling.
  • Configure parallel test execution and artifact caching to reduce pipeline duration without sacrificing test coverage.
  • Implement artifact versioning and immutability using semantic versioning and immutable build outputs in artifact repositories.
  • Integrate static code analysis tools (e.g., SonarQube) into pre-merge hooks with defined quality gates.
  • Manage pipeline concurrency limits to prevent resource exhaustion during peak development hours.
  • Secure pipeline secrets using centralized secret management (e.g., HashiCorp Vault) with short-lived credentials.

Module 4: Continuous Delivery and Deployment Governance

  • Define deployment approval workflows that require peer review and automated compliance checks before production promotion.
  • Implement canary deployments with traffic shifting and automated rollback triggers based on error rate thresholds.
  • Enforce deployment freeze windows during critical business periods using pipeline policy controls.
  • Track deployment metadata (e.g., commit hash, pipeline ID, deployer) in audit logs for regulatory compliance.
  • Coordinate blue-green deployments across stateful services by managing database schema changes in lockstep.
  • Limit blast radius by segmenting deployment pipelines by environment, region, and service criticality.

Module 5: Observability and Monitoring at Scale

  • Design log aggregation pipelines with structured JSON logging and field normalization across heterogeneous services.
  • Set SLOs and error budgets with corresponding alerting policies to avoid alert fatigue and prioritize remediation.
  • Configure distributed tracing with context propagation across microservices using OpenTelemetry instrumentation.
  • Balance metric retention periods against storage costs by tiering data (e.g., high resolution for 7 days, aggregated for 90).
  • Implement synthetic monitoring for critical user journeys to detect degradation before real users are impacted.
  • Integrate incident response workflows with monitoring tools using on-call scheduling and escalation policies.

Module 6: Security Integration in DevOps Workflows

  • Embed vulnerability scanning in CI/CD pipelines for container images and dependencies with policy-based blocking.
  • Enforce least privilege in cloud IAM roles by generating role definitions from IaC and validating via policy-as-code.
  • Automate secrets rotation and injection using runtime sidecars or init containers instead of environment variables.
  • Conduct regular configuration drift audits for production systems using automated compliance scanning tools.
  • Integrate software bill of materials (SBOM) generation into build pipelines for license and vulnerability tracking.
  • Implement runtime protection for containers using seccomp, AppArmor, and read-only filesystems in production.

Module 7: Platform Engineering and Internal Developer Platforms

  • Design self-service APIs for common provisioning tasks (e.g., databases, namespaces) with guardrails and quotas.
  • Standardize developer onboarding workflows using templated starter kits with preconfigured CI/CD and observability.
  • Measure platform adoption and usability through developer feedback and internal support ticket trends.
  • Balance abstraction depth by exposing escape hatches for advanced teams needing direct infrastructure access.
  • Manage platform versioning and deprecation cycles with backward compatibility and migration tooling.
  • Integrate cost visibility into developer workflows by exposing resource spend per team or service in dashboards.

Module 8: Incident Management and Blameless Postmortems

  • Define incident severity levels with clear criteria for escalation and communication protocols.
  • Conduct time-boxed incident response using structured communication channels (e.g., dedicated Slack channels).
  • Preserve system state and logs during incidents for forensic analysis without violating data retention policies.
  • Facilitate blameless postmortems by focusing on process gaps rather than individual actions.
  • Track action items from postmortems in a public tracker with ownership and deadlines.
  • Simulate high-severity incidents through game days to validate detection, response, and recovery procedures.
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