The Linux Foundation is the largest open-source non-profit organization. It offers support to open source initiatives and projects. Its main focus in on the shared technology.
As you know, open-source projects have seen wide adoption in recent years and certification has become one important aspect to show your skill sets. Linux Foundation is doing a great job in terms of training and certification programs on open source technologies. You can check out all Linux Foundation offerings from here.
Linux Foundation Coupon
Linux foundation runs several offers during each year for developers and sysadmins. The following are the latest offers from the Linux foundation exclusive for tech enthusiasts.
Currently, Linux Foundation is running an exclusive 15% off sitewide sale. Use the link and coupon given below.
Exclusive Offer: Get 15% + $100 discount on All Linux Foundation training courses and certifications Course Bundles using coupon DCUBEOFFER
Linux Foundation has released a new Cloud Engineer Bootcamp program, which spans 6 months. This Bootcamp will prepare any beginner with the required skills in the latest cloud computing technologies.
This Bootcamp offers end to end training on the container fundamentals, logging, monitoring, deployment, service mesh, and much more. The associated training course will cover tools like Prometheus, fluent, helm, etc.
With advanced cloud engineer Bootcamp, you can save $1300 from the list price of $2300. You can save an additional 15% with the site-wide promo code.
30% Off NODEJS/OPENJS training and certification [JSNAD]
Use coupon NODEJS30 to get a 30% discount on all Linux foundation nodeJS certification exams and training programs. This offer is valid until December 2020
The following are the NodejS programs that are eligible for this discount.
Node.js Application Development (LFW211) + JSNAD Exam Bundle
OpenJS Node.js Application Developer (JSNAD)
OpenJS Node.js Services Developer (JSNSD)
[60% Savings] Developer Course Bundle Offer
The developer bundle offers free DevOps courses with each chosen course. You will get the bundle for $179 which is of worth $498
Linux Foundation Course Offerings
Linux Foundation offers training in the following key domains.
Linux
Embedded Linux
Open Source Development
Kubernetes
NodeJs
Cloud Foundry
Docker
Hadoop
Hyperledger
ONAP
Openstack
OPNFV
[65% OFF] Linux Foundation Cyber Monday Offer
Linux Foundation offers the best discount during Black Friday. You can get both courses and certifications for a much cheaper price as compared to other offers.
You can take up the Linux Foundation certification exam from anywhere in the world. The following are the key certification programs offered by the Linux Foundation. You can use our exclusive Linux Foundation Coupons to get discounts on all the certification registration.
Does Linux Foundation offer Coupons for certification and training?
Yes. You can always get 15% off on all training and certification programs using coupon code DCUBEOFFER. Also, you can make use of occasional promotional offers from Linux foundation to get up to 65% discount on course bundles
How long Linux foundation Discount is valid?
15% discount is valid through out the year. Exclusive promotions are valid for a period of seven days to one month.
How to redeem the discount code?
In the checkout page, you have the option to apply coupon. Once you apply the coupon, you can see the discounted price instantly.
Is there a discount on the Cloud engineer Bootcamp program?
Yes. Linux Foundation has a basic and advanced cloud engineer Bootcamp program. You can save $1300 from the list price.
What is the validity of the certification Voucher codes?
Every certification exam purchased with the voucher code has the validity of one year. Every exam has a free retake within one year time.
As for the current IT market, the DevOps domain is one of the best options for IT folks in salary and career growth. One common question I get quite often is, “How to become a DevOps engineer?”
In this blog, I will try to answer this with my own experiences in practicing DevOps in different organizations.
Many people argue (including me) that there is nothing like a “DevOps Engineer” or a “DevOps Team” because it is not a thing. However, everyone in the industry now got used to the term “DevOps engineer,” As long as you understand the DevOps philosophy, these titles don’t matter much.
Having said that, there are few misconceptions about what DevOps really means. One such misconception is “Automation is DevOps.” Developing skills related to automation is not enough to become a DevOps Engineer.
Wikipedia says,
DevOps (a clipped compound of development and operations) is a culture, movement or practice that emphasizes the collaboration and communication of both software developers and other information-technology (IT) professionals while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes.
From the above definition, it is clear that DevOps is not about any tools or technologies. It is a philosophy for making different IT teams work together to deliver better and fast results through continuous feedback.
Here is an interesting trend graph showing DevOps popularity in last 5 years.
Organizations trying to achieve DevOps requires people with collaborative skills, willing to change and adopt new technologies, a good understanding of systems, automation tools, CI tools, Version control systems, networking, experience in using project management tools, etc. that are required for getting an app into production without much delay.
Also, the design or the pipeline designed by the team should deliver small updates or releases without much manual intervention. This could happen only if there is a cultural shift in the way teams work.
How To Become a DevOps Engineer
You must understand the fact that DevOps is not specific to developers or system engineers. It’s for anyone passionate about evolving practices, technologies, and willing to work in a collaborative environment where everything is automated to make everyone’s life so easy.
This article will explain how you should prepare yourself for tools and technologies to adapt and work in DevOps culture.
Note: In this article, I have covered many verticals. A beginner can’t be a master of everything. However, having a fair amount of knowledge in these areas will help you pursue a career in DevOps.
Understanding DevOps Culture
The first and foremost thing is to understand the DevOps culture. It is all about bringing people together to work towards a common goal efficiently.
IT leaders and decision-makers should make sure the entire team is mentored on DevOps practice’s cultural aspects before getting into DevOps toolsets because it avoids lots of confusion in the team. This normally doesn’t happen in organizations, and they end up having a “DevOps Team” for operations, which is again a siloed team.
People will stop pointing fingers at various issues once they understand that when there is a delay or issue in project delivery, everyone involved in the project is equally responsible.
Once you practice DevOps culture, you will stop saying that “CI/CD and automation is DevOps.”
We are in an era where we cannot live without Linux/Unix systems. You should get a better understanding and working knowledge of various Linux distributions highly used by organizations (RHEL, Centos, Ubuntu, CoreOS, etc.).
The basic building block of any organization is its Infrastructure. It could be on the cloud or on-premise Data Center. An overall understanding of Infrastructure components is a must for a person who wants to practice or work in a DevOps environment. It would help if you mainly had a basic understanding of the following.
Networking
Subnets
Public network
Private network
CIDR Notations
Static/Dynamic IP’s
Firewall
Proxy
NAT
Public & Private DNS
Troubleshooting
VPN
High Availability
Clusters
Fail Over Mechanisms
Disaster Recovery
Security
PKI Infrastructure
SSL certificates
Storage
SAN
Backups
NFS
Single Sign On
Active Directory/LDAP
Load Balancers
L5 Load Balancers
L7 Load Balancers
Load balancing algorithms
Reverse Proxy
VPN
Site to Site VPN
Client to site VPN
There could be more things, but I have highlighted the key components in an IT Infrastructure.
Get Certified On Cloud
When I say “Get Certified,” please do not use the exam dumps to pass the certification. It adds very less value to you. It may be good for the organization to show the clients that they have certified cloud engineers.
Most of the public cloud market share is currently owned by AWS. Here is the report from Businesswire.
Pick any one public cloud, preferably AWS, and learn about all its core infrastructure services. Do hands-on on all the core services and understand how it works.
Watch AWS re-invent videos and understand how other organizations are using AWS services for hosting their applications. Trust me, you will learn a lot from these videos, and no online training will provide that much information on how to run production workloads on AWS.
If you are planning to get certified GCP, watch their Google Next videos.
Use the certification to gauge yourself on the respective platform.
Automation has become an important aspect of every organization. We no more create servers manually. We automate it.
As per a report from Redhat, many organizations are investing in their automation initiatives. Check out this data.
From provisioning servers, application configuration, deployment, everything should be automated. You can learn any of the following devops toolsets that fit your needs.
Container adoption is increasing day by day. The organization you work for might not be using containers now. However, it is best to have hands-on knowledge of container technology like Docker. It will gain you some competitive edge among your peers.
Once you understand docker, you can try out its clustering and orchestration tools like Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, etc.
These platforms are best suited for microservices-based architecture.
Here is an interesting Kubernetes usage trend by Datadog.
Here is the five year increasing search trends for Kubernetes.
A service mesh is an advanced topic when it comes to distributed systems. If you are a beginner to container toolsets, you can learn this after gaining a good knowledge of microservices-based architecture.
Logging and monitoring are very important aspects of an infrastructure.
Most of the apps deployed in the infrastructure will produce logs. Based on architecture and design, logs will be pushed and stored in a logging infrastructure.
Every company will have a logging infrastructure. Commonly used stacks are Splunk and ELK. Also, there are few SaaS companies like Loggly, which provides logging infrastructure.
Developers, operations teams, and security teams use logging systems to monitor, troubleshoot, and audit applications and infrastructure.
In every organization, mission-critical applications will be monitored 24/7. There will be monitoring dashboards. Generally, dashboards are created from logging sources or metrics generated by the application.
Also, there will be alerting systems. Based on the rules configured in the monitoring systems, alerts will be triggered.
For example, an alert could be triggered as a slack notification, Jira ticket, email alert, ServiceNow incident ticket, or xMatters phone call. Alerting workflows differ from organization to organization.
As a DevOps engineer, you should be able to query logs and troubleshoot issues in non-prod and prod environments. Understand regular expressions is very important to query logs in any logging tool.
DevSecOps is another area dealing with integrating security practices in each stage of DevOps.
Wikipedia says,
DevSecOps is an augmentation of DevOps to allow for security practices to be integrated into the DevOps approach. The traditional centralized security team model must adopt a federated model allowing each delivery team the ability to factor in the correct security controls into their DevOps practices.
In cloud environments, crypto mining is a common attack. This mostly happens when the cloud access secrets are maintained poorly so that hackers get access to it.
When it comes to DevOps, secret management for applications and infrastructure components should follow standard security practices.
In today’s world, we treat everything as code. Even though there are enough tools to automate everything, you might need custom functionality that a tool may not offer. In such cases, coding/scripting comes in handy to achieve those functionalities.
For example, Jenkins pipeline as code requires an understanding of groovy, Ansible custom module requires an understanding of python, Writing Kubernetes operator requires Golang experience.
You can learn the following commonly used scripting languages.
Bash/Shell
Python
Golang
Golang is really getting popular in the DevOps domain. Lots of DevOps tooling are done using Golang nowadays. In fact, tools like Kubernetes, terraform are written in go.
JFrog surveyed Golang adoption during GopherCon, and 18% of the respondents said they use Golang for DevOps related work.
It is essential to version control everything you do (except passwords and secrets :P). Git is the best version control tool. There are plenty of tutorials available on git, and it will not take much time to learn important git operations.
You can start with Github or Bitbucket as your remote code repository.
Once you understand Git, learn about GitOps.
So what is this GitOps anyway? here is what gitops.tech explains GitOps
GitOps is a way of implementing Continuous Deployment for cloud native applications. It focuses on a developer-centric experience when operating infrastructure, by using tools developers are already familiar with, including Git and Continuous Deployment tools.
The next important thing is to document every important thing you do. Every repository must have a README file, which should explain your code in a better way. Good documentation will help not only you but also someone who tries to use your code.
Understand End To End Application Delivery Lifecycle
When it comes to application delivery lifecycle, there are three important concepts you need to be aware of.
Continuous Integration
Continuous Delivery
Continuous Deployment
Read this release process management article to understand how a typical application development, build, testing, deployment, approval process, and validation work.
Learn to use CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Travis CI, GoCD, etc
Here is a good pictorial representation on CI/CD process by bmc.
SRE is another evolving topic in the DevOps community.
SRE is a set of practices and philosophies that emerged from Google.
Here is what google says about DevOps and SRE
DevOps and SRE are not two competing methods for software development and operations, but rather close friends designed to break down organizational barriers to deliver better software faster.
I recommend these official documents from Google to understand more about SRE.
Nothing will gain knowledge, like reading. Read at least one DevOps tech blog related to engineering. Follow all the engineering blogs like Netflix, Twitter, Google, etc. Learn how they are using the right toolsets, deployment strategies, and their latest open source projects.
Follow like-minded people on LinkedIn, Reddit, Medium, Quora etc.
It’s good to share with others about your experiences and learning. You can publish tutorials, learnings, and your experiences on your personal blog. It will help others, and it will create a personal brand for yourself. It takes less than 30 minutes to set up a WordPress blog or a Medium blog. If you want help to start your blog, drop a message to us at [email protected]
Whenever you learn something new, you can write about it. It will be a reference to you as well as others. You can share it on Linked in groups, Dzone, etc.
Conclusion
The tools and processes involved in DevOps are not limited to what is mentioned in this article. However, these are commonly used open-source tools and technologies you can start with to become a DevOps engineer.
Now I’d like to hear your thoughts:
What’s your key takeaway from this?
Or maybe you have a question about different verticals explained.
The cloud-native foundation has two Kubernetes certifications. It is one of the most preferred certifications for organizations due to the wide adoption of Kubernetes.
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Program
Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Program
Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) Program
Kubernetes Certification Coupon and Training
For DevOpsCube readers, Linux Foundation has offered a 15% Discount on all its kubernetes training and certification programs as part of National Books Day
CKA Certification Voucher code
Get 15% Off ($45 discount) on the Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam and training Courses.
Note: You will get an extra $100 if you opt for the CKA course bundle along with $45 off. You can also get $100 off with the CKA+ CKS exam bundle.
Get 15% Off ($45 discount) on the Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist exam and training Courses. You need to pass the CKA exam to appear for CKS Exam.
Note: You can purchase CKA and CKS certifications as a bundle and save $100 plus an additional $45 using the coupon code.
This track includes course tracks and CKAD certification.
CKA With Cloud Engineer Bootcamp
If you opt for cloud engineer Bootcamp, you can save $300 and get certified on both Linux & CKA, plus access to DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, and SRE courses.
With a training bundle, you will get $100 off and an additional 16% off using Kubernetes certification coupon code DCUBEOFFER ( Note: 20% & 40% Off Sitewide offer for a limited time. Check Linux Foundation Coupons.
This offer is not limited to Kubernetes certification and training. You can use it for any subscription in Linux Foundation.
Save big on CKA, CKAD, and CKS kubernetes certifications for this cyber Monday with a 65% discount. Minimum $300 savings on training and certifications. This offer expired December 8th
There are three offers in the cyber Monday offer which includes kubernetes certification bundles, course bundles, and Bootcamp programs.
About Kubernetes Certification (CKA, CKAD & CKS)
Kubernetes certification is to test your Kubernetes skills through a live practical exam. This exam does not have any objective type questions like other certifications.
[Latest Update] Linux Foundation has announced the new certification program called Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS).
CKS certification registration and the course will be made available in November 2020. You must be CKA certified to take the CKS exam. This exam is more focussed on Kubernetes security, cluster hardening, build and deploy.
Exam Overview:
It is an online-proctored exam
Full emphasis is on practice than theoretical questions.
You will have to complete 24 practical tasks in 2 hrs.
You will have a free retake and 3 years of validity for the certification.
Once you register for the exam, it will have 12 months’ validity.
You cannot cheat on the exam. However, the usage of kubernetes.io docs is permitted.
What is the validity of CKA, CKAD, and CKS exam voucher codes?
Once you purchase the exam with a voucher code, it will be valid for one year.
Is there a free coupon available for CKA, CKAD exams?
No. There are no free coupons available. However, if you attend kubecon, you might get free vouchers for the certifications. Also, you can get a 15% discount on all the certifications using the coupon, DCUBEOFFER
In this post, I have added the latest pluralsight coupons and offers to get discounts on Pluralsight subscription. I have also added some freebies offered by Pluralsight.
I started learning Ansible from Pluralsight. I had a good experience as the course content was to the point and was able to grasp all the explained concepts.
Pluralsight Best Offer [Skills]
The best discount you can get from pluralsight is a 31% discounted price on a pluralsight skill annual subscription. It includes courses, paths, and skill assessments for individuals.
From my personal experience, I was never able to complete any course in a month’s time. There could be several reasons, starting from busy work schedules to personal commitments.
If you are someone like me who needs quarterly or annual subscriptions, here are some Pluralsight offers that you can use.
10 Days Free Account
If you a new pluralsight user, start with the 10 days free trial. If you like the courses on the platform, you can continue with the subscription or cancel anytime during the trial period.
If you want to learn specific tools or technology from Pluralsight, you can buy their one-month subscription and get another month for completely free.
If you are continuously learning, you definitely need a yearly subscription from Pluralsight. Currently, pluralsight is running a promotion to get a 31% discount on their annual plan. This is a limited time offer
Note: Occasionally there will be a 33% off on Pluralsight discount. We will update the link when the promo is available.
Pluralsight Free Skills For All Account
Get free access to assessments, expert-led courses, and other benefits. The courses are limited in this account. However, the courses get rotated every week so that you can get access to other courses for free.
Pluralsight has a weekly free course program where you will get free course updates on your email. It is a great offer from pluralsight. To get this, you need to signup for their weekly free course subscription list.
Pluralsight offers a way to gauge your skill IT totally free. SKill IQ basically takes you through the questions to assess your skillset on a particular technology. This helps you to understand your stand on a technology.
Moreover, Pluralsight has both Android and iOS application, using which you can access the courses from anywhere. All the course screencasts are in HD quality (Both audio and video). And if you wish to watch the videos offline, you can make use of their desktop player which has offline functionality.
Get the Discount Updates
Learning is a continuous requirement for me and I make use of discounts for annual subscriptions. So I keep updating this page whenever a new Pluralsight discount offer is available.
You can bookmark this page, or get updates through our email list for the latest Pluralsight offer.
Pluralsight Review
Now lets take a look at what Pluralsight has to offer for users.
Pluralsight Course Offerings
Pluralsight offers courses to IT in the following key areas.
Cloud Computing
Machine Learning / AI
Software Development [Courses on popular programming language]
IT Ops [Courses on Infrastructure, Virtualisation, and Cloud]
Data Professional [Course on data analytics, engineering, and science ]
Information & Cyber Security [Curses on IT security Certifications]
Unlike Udemy, when you subscribe to Pluralsight, you will get access to all the courses on the platform. Whereas in Udemy, you need to purchase individual courses. This option is very good if you want to learn from just one course. You can get a Udemy course as low as $3.95
In Pluralsight, you can learn from multiple courses from beginner to advanced levels with one subscription.
Pluralsight Vs Linkedin Learning
Both Pluralsight and Linkedin learning offer a single subscription model. Linked learning was previously known as Lynda.com.
Here the comparison is mostly on the course availability than quality. Both platforms offer quality courses as the authors are screen for their technology background before onboarding them to the platform for teaching.
You can try both platforms using their free trails. Linkedin offers one-month free access to all their courses.
During the free trial program, you can decide the platform which cater to your needs.
Pluralsight Flow Subscription Offer [30 days Free Trial]
Apart from pluralsight Skills, it also offers a product called Pluralsight Flow. It is aimed at improving the IT team’s efficiency by tracking the development process in depth.
It is available for managers, engineers, product leaders, and executives. The standard flow pricing starts from $499
To get free access, you have to a technology VIP. If you are a new user, you can get 10 days free account. Also, you can get a one-month free account if you signup for Microsoft visual studio essentials.
Is Pluralsight worth subscription?
It depends on what you want to learn. Pluralsight focuses on professionals who want to upskill their career or to learn new technology. Before paying for the subscription, signup for the 10 days free trial and check for yourself it is meeting your requirements.
What are the best courses on Pluralsight?
Most of the courses on Pluralsight are focussed on IT professionals. Cloud computing, DevOps, programming comes under the best course category for pluralsight.
Does Pluralsight offer free coupons?
Pluralsight does not offer any free coupons for the subscription. You will get discounts on the standard plans. The discounts could range from a free month subscription to one-year free access for technology VIPs
Pluralsight Latest Updates
Pluralsight launched Tour de Tech, a three weeks tech program to speed up IT skills. This program has stages of challenges with big prizes.
