As someone just stepping into the tech world, the term DevOps was super confusing to me at first. Is it a tool? A job? A mindset? Or just another tech buzzword?

To get started, I watched two amazing YouTube videos (linked at the bottom), and they really helped clear things up.

So I decided to write this blog—not as an expert—but as a newbie trying to make sense of DevOps, hoping it helps other beginners like me too.

🧠 What Even Is DevOps?

At its core, DevOps is a culture and a set of practices that bring development (Dev) and operations (Ops) teams together. It’s all about collaboration, automation, and delivering software faster with fewer errors.

Before DevOps:

Developers wrote code and passed it to operations.
Operations deployed it and maintained servers.
If something broke… the blame game started.

With DevOps:

Developers and operations work together.
Everything is automated—from writing code to deploying and monitoring it.
The result? Faster releases, happier teams, and more reliable software.

👨‍💻 What Does a DevOps Engineer Do?

Although DevOps started as a culture, companies now hire DevOps engineers. Their main responsibilities include:

Building CI/CD pipelines.
Automating testing and deployment.
Managing cloud infrastructure.
Monitoring applications in production.
Supporting developers with tools and automation.

Basically, a DevOps engineer makes sure that the process from code to deployment is smooth, fast, and reliable.

🔁 CI/CD: The Backbone of DevOps

One of the key things I learned is how important CI/CD is in DevOps.

CI (Continuous Integration): Every time code is pushed, it’s automatically tested and integrated.
CD (Continuous Delivery/Deployment): That tested code is then automatically packaged and deployed.

This reduces human error, speeds up delivery, and makes the development lifecycle efficient.

🧰 Tools in the DevOps World (Beginner-Friendly Overview)

There are a LOT of tools in DevOps, and it can feel overwhelming at first. But here’s how I broke it down, based on the videos I watched:

Area	Tools	Why It’s Used
Version Control	Git, GitHub	Tracks code and enables collaboration
Build Tools	Maven, Gradle, npm	Compiles and packages source code
Containers	Docker	Packages apps with dependencies for easy deployment
Container Orchestration	Kubernetes	Manages and scales containers
CI/CD Tools	Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI	Automates testing, builds, and deployment
Artifact Repositories	Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory	Stores built packages or Docker images
Infrastructure as Code	Terraform, Ansible	Automates infrastructure creation and configuration
Cloud Platforms	AWS, Azure, GCP	Hosts apps and infrastructure
Monitoring	Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios	Tracks system performance and health
Scripting	Bash, Python	Automates repetitive tasks

🏗️ What’s the Role Difference?

It was helpful for me to understand how DevOps engineers differ from developers and system admins:

Developers write and test application code.
System admins manage servers and hardware.
DevOps engineers automate the process of getting that code from dev → test → deploy, and ensure it all runs smoothly.

So, DevOps engineers are like the bridge between development and operations.

🌩️ Why DevOps Loves the Cloud

Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP make it easy to deploy apps without needing to buy physical servers.

That’s why DevOps relies heavily on the cloud—it allows for:

Easy scaling.
Lower costs.
Lots of automation features.

And tools like Docker and Kubernetes help manage how apps run across different cloud systems.

🧱 Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

This was a new concept for me. With IaC, we write code to create and manage infrastructure.

For example:

Terraform can create servers, databases, and networks.
Ansible can install packages and configure those servers.

So instead of clicking buttons on a cloud dashboard, you just run a script. That’s pretty powerful.

🤔 DevOps vs SRE – What's the Difference?

This confused me at first, but here’s the difference I learned:

DevOps is focused on automating and improving the software delivery process.
SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) is more focused on system reliability and uptime.

They use similar tools, but their goals are a bit different.

🧭 Where I’m Starting (and You Can Too)

If you’re new to DevOps, here’s a good path to start with:

Learn Git and how to use GitHub.
Understand basic CI/CD with GitHub Actions or Jenkins.
Learn Docker and then Kubernetes.
Get familiar with Terraform for IaC.
Start learning a scripting language (I’m going with Python).
Explore AWS or any other cloud platform.

There’s a lot to learn, but it’s okay to start small.

🎥 Resources That Helped Me

Here are the two YouTube videos that helped me understand all of this:

Both videos are beginner-friendly and give a great overview of the DevOps landscape.

🧡 Final Thoughts

DevOps might seem overwhelming at first (and honestly, it still does a little bit), but once I broke it down into smaller pieces, it started making sense.

I hope this blog gives you a head start in your learning journey like it did for me. I’ll be sharing more posts as I learn hands-on, so stay tuned!

DevOps Diary – Part 1: What Is DevOps?

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