Cloud Automation & DevOps

This 3-day intensive hands-on course equips IT professionals, system administrators, and developers with practical skills in cloud automation and DevOps workflows. Participants will gain experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), and containerization using tools such as Terraform, Ansible, Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, and AWS CLI.

Through a blend of lectures and practical exercises, participants will automate infrastructure provisioning, configure environments, deploy containerized apps, and integrate CI/CD pipelines in a real-world cloud environment. By the end of the course, attendees will be able to confidently apply DevOps principles to modern cloud architectures.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, participants will be able to :

Automate server provisioning and software configuration using Ansible.
Build, run, and manage containerized applications using Docker and Docker Compose.
Understand the fundamentals of Kubernetes and set up a local cluster.
Design and implement CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions and other DevOps tools.
Automate end-to-end infrastructure deployment, application setup, and configuration using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles.
Apply best practices in DevOps, including secrets management, monitoring, and version control.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is ideal for :

System Administrators and Cloud Engineers aiming to automate infrastructure deployment.
DevOps Engineers seeking hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tools.
Developers interested in containerization and deployment automation.
IT professionals transitioning into DevOps or Cloud Automation roles.
Technical leads and architects responsible for designing scalable deployment pipelines.

Pre-requisites

Participants should have:

Basic understanding of Linux command-line operations.
Familiarity with scripting or basic programming concepts (e.g., Bash, Python).
Foundational knowledge of cloud services (especially AWS) is beneficial but not mandatory.
Experience with version control tools like Git.

Day 1 - Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & Cloud Automation

Module 1: Introduction to Cloud Automation & IaC
- Identifying tasks suitable for automation.
- Recording and testing your first macro.
- Understanding macro security and permissions.

Module 2: Hands-On: Getting Started with Terraform
- Installing Terraform.
- Creating and provisioning AWS infrastructure (EC2, VPC).
- Writing and applying .tf scripts.

Module 3: Hands-On: Automating with AWS CLI
- Creating S3 buckets, IAM users, EC2 instances via CLI.
- Bash scripting for cloud tasks.

Module 4: Terraform State & Modules
- Managing state files.
- Using variables and modules for reusable code.
- Tools Used: Terraform, AWS CLI, Git, VS Code.

Day 2 - Configuration Management & Containerization

Module 1: Introduction to Ansible
- Ansible architecture and YAML syntax.
- Writing playbooks for server provisioning.
- Ad hoc commands and inventory files.

Module 2: Hands-On Server Configuration with Ansible
- Provisioning EC2 and configuring Apache/Nginx.
- Secure SSH automation and software updates.

Module 3: Introduction to Docker
- What is containerization?
- Docker CLI basics: images, containers, volumes, networks.
- Building and running a Dockerized app.

Module 4: Docker Compose & Basic Kubernetes Overview
- Multi-container apps with Docker Compose.
- Kubernetes fundamentals and local setup with Minikube or Kind.
- Tools Used: Ansible, Docker, Docker Compose, Minikube, AWS EC2.

Day 3 - CI/CD Pipelines & DevOps Best Practices

Module 1: CI/CD Concepts & Toolchains
- DevOps lifecycle and CI/CD stages.
- Tools overview: GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI.
- YAML pipelines and version control.

Module 2: Hands-On GitHub Actions CI/CD Pipeline
- Building a pipeline for Terraform + Docker project.
- Automating tests, builds, and deploys.
- Environment secrets and workflow triggers.

Module 3: Hands-On Full Automation Project
- Automate: Infrastructure + Configuration + App Deploy.
- Use GitHub Actions + Terraform + Ansible + Docker.

Module 4: DevOps Best Practices & Final Review
- Secrets management, logging & monitoring tools overview.
- Tools Used: GitHub Actions, Terraform, Ansible, Docker, AWS.

Upon successfully passing the examination for this course, participants will be awarded a certificate, an example of which is shown below.

Cloud Automation & DevOps – Automating Infrastructure & Deployment at Scale